As this Spring decides whether or not it’s going to Sprung, I sit inside nervously guarding my seedlings from the frost and twiddling with Monster Wasteland before we go to KublaCon at the end of May. There’s not as much to do as there was before TokenCon, but we’re going to be showing up with tweaked terminology, new icons, and (wait for it) BOX ART. What do you mean, box art should have been one of the first pieces I commissioned? Sounds like crazy talk to me, I’ve done just fine so far.

NOTE: If you ever decide to make a board/card/tabletop game and are bringing in the professional creative assets, try to commission your box art first. No particular reason, it’s just easier to talk about and post about and show people and-

Anyway, let’s talk about some of the minor stuff that’s changed and the reasoning behind it. It’s a bit of “how the sausage is made,” but maybe it’ll be fun. Or maybe it won’t, my Google Analytics will tell me soon enough.

Salvaging What You Craft?

One of the big changes that I didn’t notice (or turned a blind eye to) for years, was the terminology of actions. In Monster Wasteland, you find Raw Materials out in the wild, collect them, and use them to make Items. Simple enough, yeah? Well not really, because it turns out I was making it unnecessarily complicated.

For most of the game’s life, the terminology has been Forage to gather Raw Materials and Salvage to make Items out of them. It’s theme-y, gets you in the Wasteland mindset if you’re scrappin’ and scroungin’ all the stuff you use. Except people were tended to mix the two terms up. And I ignored it. For years. Just would correct them during the test, they’d catch on, and things would proceed more or less smoothly. Sometimes people would say “collect” instead of “Forage” or “make” instead of “Salvage,” and I figured that was fine, too. People have been “trading Wood for Sheep” in Catan for decades instead of “Lumber for Wool.” Terminology can be flexible as long as the intent behind it is clear, right?

Sure, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make something palatable, and to latch on to what isn’t easily being grokked. I was a little stubborn, sure, but after one weekend of group after group after group using “Salvage” and “Forage” interchangeably, I woke up. This needed to change. But how? I already use “Build” to refer to creating Settlements. What other word could I possibly use to describe crafting an item?

Yup, you guessed it. Forage has stayed the same, but Salvage is now Craft, and it has unsurprisingly made for clearer playthroughs when describing actions. It feels silly not having made that change sooner, but it was a good (and not harmful) lesson to get better at noticing patterns.

Monster Kills: No Longer Pointless!

Monsters were always the main focus of Monster Wasteland, but I never wanted the game to revolve around combat with them. Hence the copious amounts of items that distract, stun, or let you hide. There are weapons and upgrades, and anyone who’s played can tell you how necessary it is to have some sort of armory going by the time the mid-game hits, but for the most part groups don’t cling to them from the start (and describing how I ultimately included weapons in a way where players wouldn’t get razor-focused on them is an article unto itself).

So eventually, a group kills a Monster. Either that or they almost certainly lose. And then? Life goes on. Without fail, every game I’d get asked, “What do we get for killing a Monster?” My reply was always, “You get to live another day. Welcome to the Wasteland!” And while I liked this answer (and honestly? Still do), it wasn’t enough for some players. I’m not trying to generalize or make some broader point about the function of dopamine in our society (yet another article unto itself), but this became a source of friction when playtesting, especially recently. I had to think of some way to let the players celebrate killing a Monster.

But what? Give them Raw Materials or an Item? That’d be a whole new system to implement, balance to tweak, and mechanism for the players to remember. Monster Wasteland has enough of those, if I’m being honest with myself. Give them Followers back? Do something with Settlements? That makes no sense thematically. Give them points? No way! Monster Wasteland is supposed to be a hard game, I can’t just be giving out points like candy on Halloween.

…or can I?

Monster Wasteland takes 10 points to win. All of these points are gained from scoring Objectives. It took an incredibly long time to figure out appropriate Objective points and difficulties, as well as the appropriate victory limit. It’s a well-oiled machine and, to mix metaphors, I don’t want to put another Jenga block on the tower. Unless…

During each game where players win, almost universally, they’ll kill 2-3 Monsters. They’ll almost never kill only one (and if they do it’s because they got a speedy victory) and if they kill 4+, they’re aiming for a victory with “Weaponry” Objectives. Can you see where this is going?

It now takes 12 points to win a game of Monster Wasteland. And guess what? Killing a Monster now gives you 1 point. As with crafting items, the solution was staring me right in the face. It doesn’t fundamentally change how the game is played/won, but it still allows you to get that quick dopamine hit and feel like killing a Monster is an accomplishment rather than just an obstacle. It’s also a good motivator if Objectives are taking longer to complete than expected, and can help alleviate a sense of impending doom. Can you tell I like this change?

Nothing Minor, Only Epic

Finally, it’s the small changes that matter. This one goes out to folks on the Break My Game Discord for suggesting it when reviewing my rulebook. And as an aside, if you’re making a game right now, join Break My Game. It’s an incredible resource with great designers who all want to help each other succeed.

When you reach 10 points in Monster Wasteland, you have a choice: claim victory on the spot and end the game or move to an “Endgame” that’s situational based on the Objectives you completed. Score a lot of Weaponry Objectives? Here’s an Endgame where you’ve gotta kill a lot of stuff. Complete a lot of “Civilization” Objectives? Now you have to protect those Settlements. Finish the Endgame and claim a Major Victory! Otherwise you can end the game as-is and go with a Minor Victory.

Wait, what?

Am I rewarding you, the player who’s just slogged through 2+ hours of the Wasteland, with a MINOR Victory? Am I crazy???

Apparently, I was. But no more! Minor/Major Victories have now been reworded to Victory and Epic Victory! Does this change how the game plays? Not at all. Why am I including it in this blog? Because it’s a great example of how language matters. I want players to feel like they’ve spent their time in the Wasteland achieving something difficult and rewarding. Calling it “Minor” diminishes that, and I’m glad someone called me out on that.

Now it’s time to go back to the Monster mines.

All the best from the Wasteland,

James