Modiphius: Skyrim Brettspiel

Himmelsrand bekommt ein Brettspiel.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim The Boardgame is a 1-4 player co-op game of adventure and exploration across Skyrim. Find out more in our first update!

We know you’ve all been waiting a long time to find out more about The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim The Boardgame. and here is the first of a series of updates to build-up to the launch of the project. We’ve been keeping quiet whilst we get everything well underway but now we’re close enough that we can start telling you more about what’s to come.

The game has been in development behind the scenes at Modiphius for a couple of years and we’re pleased to confirm it completed external playtesting earlier this year. All the written content on the cards and rulebook have all been approved by Bethesda. Sculpts for miniatures and the graphic design of all the components has been ongoing and we’re in the middle of submitting to Bethesda with final submissions due by the end of this month. Once we have graphics approved by Bethesda we’ll be doing a huge reveal for you. The design team will be sharing some designer diaries talking about the process of bringing Skyrim to the tabletop over the coming weeks and we’ll start exploring the game mechanics in more detail.

Now let’s move on to the game itself.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim The Boardgame is a 1 to 4 player cooperative game of adventure and exploration across Skyrim. Players take the roles of heroes involved in epic quests, working together to defeat their enemies and exploring the vast expanse of Skyrim. You will be able to choose character miniatures like the Khajiit, Nord or High Elf, plan your strategy with weapons or spells, fight your way through forgotten mines, Draugr infested tombs or ancient Dwemer cities to find ancient treasures and increase your power.

The players must keep an eye out as the threat increases across Skyrim, as Dragons, Daedra, Trolls and more roam the lands and wreak havoc across the holds. Players will need to work together to keep the lands free, whilst balancing the demands of their most important quests.

The base game is divided into two campaigns of three chapters each. The decisions the players make from their first turn have a distinct effect on the unfolding story and encounters, making the whole campaign experience different every time you play. You can even save your progress after each game and start the next chapter with the same character, equipment and skills.

With the numerous choices of characters, gear, magic, and skills matched with the many decisions each player makes through their quests, there are literally hundreds of hours of gameplay, with some stories not even seen based on your early decisions. The face of Skyrim can change during the game, impacting the course of the players‘ experience in subsequent chapters. At any time the players can simply reset, choose another character and play style, make different choices, and experience things differently. Alternatively, pick a chapter that sounds fun and drop in to just play that adventure as a one-off.

I know some of you will have burning questions here’s a few obvious answers, please be patient as we unveil more of the game for you over the coming weeks.

Will the game be in other languages as well as English?

We’re talking to major publishing partners in many territories to localise the game. As soon as we can confirm which languages we will let you know in an update. It can take some time, especially with a game of this scope to do a translation and get it approved so bear in mind they will likely ship the game later than the English edition.

You said miniatures…?

The same team who sculpted the minis for The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms miniatures game that we launched last year, are working on the board game and you can expect some pretty cool stuff. We can confirm the miniatures will be the same 32mm scale as The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms game so you’ll be able to use the boardgame minis in that game, or use Call to Arms miniatures in the boardgame – perhaps you have a painted hero you prefer that matches your playstyle? We’ll talk more about the miniatures and what you can expect in a later update.

Will I be able to check out the rules? How will I know if I like the game?

We’re going to have a complete Tabletop Simulator demo of the game available to play using all official components at the launch of the project so you can try it for yourself. You’ll also be able to download the rules to read in pdf. We’ll be getting the game preview in front of reviewers to get their take on it as well.

When will the project be? When will the game ship?

We will only launch the project once everything is ready, and the tooling has started at the factory as this will give us more accurate dates for delivery and physical samples to show you. Global sea freight logistics are a real mess at the moment and it can be very hard to get containers out of China so we’d prefer to confirm these details when we know more.

That’s all for today, we’ll be in touch soon

Modiphius

Inzwischen gibt es ein erstes Designer Diary:

The world of Skyrim is rich in narrative choices, here’s the first of our designer diaries looking in to how we kept the spirit of free will intact.

Welcome to the first of several designer diaries which will look deeper into the design process behind the game, unveil some of the mechanics and why we chose them, and as we get closer to launch show off examples of the components, miniatures, actual gameplay and more!

Hey you. You’re finally awake. I’ve got some choices for you. Should you take a left, or a right? Should you follow the tough rebel, or the kind legionnaire? Will you slay the dragon, or befriend it? Trust the Daedric Prince, or walk away from their enticing promises? 

The world of Skyrim is rich in narrative choices. From the very first moment, you’re sucked into a world where every path you take changes the world forever, making your experience unique. A biographical journey that goes beyond what’s expected from a simple adventure game. When we started designing the board game, we set ourselves the goal of keeping that spirit of free will intact. Our ambition was to give the players a highly customisable experience, let them write their own story, according to their character’s personality and quirks. More so, we wanted to present that sort of narrative sandbox for groups of one, up to four players. In hindsight, I can say that it was a titanic, yet incredibly exciting task.

The first hurdle we faced in the process was dealing with the housekeeping side of the game. We didn’t want players to be slaves to the mechanics, spending the majority of their playtime adjusting, correcting, and shifting components to reflect every small choice. So, how can we create a system where decisions are truly important, but that doesn’t turn our players into game managers, rather than heroes?

Our solution was to focus the narrative on a simple deck-building mechanic. Every choice a player makes adds or removes cards from different decks. Quick and painless, but still hugely meaningful. Did you save the son of the Jarl? Well done. Now add this card to the Event deck. Whenever you draw it, people in the Stronghold will celebrate your success, covering you in praise and gifts. Do you really want to steal that horse? Not a problem. Just draw this card and… Oh, look, now the guards of the Hold are chasing you. You better hope that horse is fast enough to keep you out of trouble! Did you murder the wandering bard? You’re not a good person. Remove this card from the deck. The next time a player wants to interact with the poor bard, they will instead find their corpse. Who knows? Maybe they can even loot it!

These three actions — adding cards to decks, removing cards from decks, drawing cards from decks and adding cards to your character sheet — are the bricks and mortar of the game’s narrative. This way, a simple one-step action can make a player choice meaningful and impactful. Cards that are removed from the game are removed forever. Please, don’t tear your cards apart! You might want to reset the whole thing to start over, and having your components held up with tape would make for a deeply underwhelming experience.

This is it, for now. Next time we will talk about the experience we wanted to create with this game. In the meanwhile, be happy, have a sweetroll, and try not to steal other people’s horses!

– Juan

With each designer diary we’ll introduce another member of the design team, starting with today’s author Juan.

Juan Echenique is a London based actor, writer and game designer. His journey with Modiphius started helping with the development of the expansions of the second edition of Siege of the Citadel. In that project, he was particularly involved in the writing of the Sean D’Armatto story and in the level design of the Richard Borg part of the Designers’ Pack. He’s part of the design team of the Skyrim and Achtung! Cthulhu board games (more on that one another time) and has worked on Agatha Christie – Death on the Cards, Vampire 5th Edition and Dishonored the RPG, among others. Within the team, he specialises in narrative writing and creating crazy new mechanics when designing new games. His passion for semicolons often puts him in harm’s way; it’s only natural.