Gameplay in Aethermon can broadly be divided into two phases:

  1. The overworld map where players navigate between locations;
  2. And the encounters that transpire at those locations

Following on from last week’s post regarding the design of the overworld map; we’ll discuss the mechanics governing player’s navigation through the overworld map.

Aethermon is not a roll-and-move game. Roll-and-move games are chancy by nature – taking away agency from the player, and crippling the player’s ability to plan ahead.

Instead, Aethermon employs a card based movement system which, similar to roll-and-move mechanics, grant players the ability to travel a variable distance per turn.

Each Player begins the game with 6 “Energy Cards”, representing the values 1 through 6. Each turn players use one of these “Energy Cards” to travel exactly the distance specified on that card. Once a player has used all of their “Energy Cards”, they redraw 5 of the 6 cards they have already played.

(5 cards are drawn instead of 6 to address edge cases where “Energy Cards” are used as tiebreakers between players – if all 6 cards were drawn it is theoretically possible that both players would perpetually play their highest value card resulting in an infinite draw)

This system allows players to move an average of 3.5 distance per turn, just like a D6 based movement system. But addresses many of the shortcomings of roll-and-move games:

  1. Chance has heavily mitigated. No player is likely to pull massively a head based on lucky dice rolls. Over 5 cards the largest possible difference in energy card values is 5 (15 vs 20); as opposed to a theoretically possible gap of 25 (5 vs 30) when comparing 5 rolls of the dice.
  2. Players agency is restored. Reaching a desired square can now be achieved through careful planning rather than wasting turns circling around the desired location. This massively streamlines play.

This “Energy Card” system is interwoven into many of the mechanics of Aethermon, stay tuned to future posts to discover more of these mechanics every week.

Stay Curious AetherRen