Rock "N" Roller

The board is a stylised map. Think London Underground map but with cities and motorways. The map can be as big or as small as required for the number of players and the length of the game. The distance between each city is marked with steps that equate to 100km or 1hr travel. For simplicity and gameplay purposes we are assuming only one venue per city.

The game starts by each player picking up a number of “city cards”, depending on how long they want the game to last. In the pack of city cards are “day off” cards. There is one day off card for every 3 city cards.

Each player starts at a “rehearsal” city, which is one of the cards they have picked up. The game starts by each player simultaneously declaring their starting city by playing their first city card. Assuming there are no clashes, that is the beginning of the game. If there is a clash, clashing players have to all chose again.

At the start of each round, each player declares the next city their band is going to play in, and what size of show it will be. There will be three sizes of show, provisionally called theatre, arena and stadium. Each card has a load-in cost and a load-out cost in time, which adds to the total time to move the show to another city.

The first show is always at the rehearsal venue, so when they declare their first venue, they have a choice to put on a larger show to make more revenue, but have to leave later, or a small show and get on the road earlier. For simplicity sake the shows always start at 6pm and end at 11pm.

A Theatre show has a 8 hour in and a 2 hour out. An arena show has a 10hr in and a 3hr out, and a stadium has a 12hr in and a 4hr out. So a theatre show can get on the road by 1am. If they are 5hrs away from their next city, they would be there by 6am, which gives then time to a stadium show.

Each band starts with a cash amount. Each show they put on costs money, each day off costs money, each show makes money. If they declare a stadium show they have to pay the costs. If they cannot get there in time to put the show in, they must do a smaller show, and make less money, or cancel and lose all the money.

Days off and cancellations can be used to travel. A Day Off would be cheaper than cancelling. but could be traded against a bigger show further away, perhaps allowing the player to get closer to a cluster of other city cards they have and do a run of large shows.

If two players both play the same city card, whoever gets there first plays. The other player can decide to cancel, and use that time to travel elsewhere, or play a Strategy card.

Each player gets a number of Strategy cards at the beginning of each game and can play them at any point in a round, usually after all the destinations in the next round have been declared, but also to get them out of a problem. Examples of strategy cards would allow “double-drives”, doubling the distance you can travel overnight, or “Pre-Rig”, which would reduce the load-in time by half.

Along the routes there are tolls. Every time you pass one, you pick up a “Jeopardy” card (need a better name). These might cost you an hour due to a drugs search, or allow you to pick up another Strategy card.

The winner is the person with the most money at the end.