The Invisible Man

A board game for 3 to 5 players
Based on the novel by H. G. Wells

Designer: Rick Holzgrafe

This game is under development, and the rules and components are not final.

[Or click here for more of Rick's games]

The Invisible Man is on a rampage across the English countryside! He is trying to establish a Reign of Terror by instilling townsfolk with the fear of an unstoppable assassin. The players must band together to try to stop him, either by capturing him, by harrying him to the point of collapse, or by raising public vigilance against him. The players can enlist the help of various characters from the novel as they pursue their unseen enemy. In this cooperative game, the Invisible Man (a non-player character driven by the rules of the game) has a constantly-changing location that is often partially or completely unknown to the players. Can you stop the Reign of Terror and capture the Invisible Man?

Components

1 Map Board
1 Player Mat for each player
1 Player Figure for each player
1 Character Figure for the Invisible Man

1 Deck of Location Cards
1 Companion Card each for Dr. Kemp, Mr. Hall, Mr. Marvel, and Col. Adye

(lots) Terror Markers
(lots) Vigilance Markers
72 Research Notes (4 per Town, in colors matching the Town Size as shown on the map)
(lots) Evidence Cubes in Red, Yellow, and Blue
100 Pounds Sterling in £5 and £1 coins
5 each Item Tokens for Dogs, Horses, Shotguns, and Cricket Bats
5 Trophy Markers
10 Damage Tokens

1 Health Track Marker
1 Opaque Bag or Cup for Evidence Cubes

The Map Board

Shows a map of rural England, divided into half a dozen Counties, each with three Towns (one County Seat, one Village, one Hamlet). Towns are connected by roads and railways, and are large enough to hold several figurines and a couple of stacks of markers. Some of the Towns are marked as places where items can be purchased, or where Companions can be found. A compass rose identifies North, South, East, and West.

At one corner of the board there is a space where the Invisible Man is placed when his location is completely unknown. (At other times the Invisible Man is placed on a particular Town, or within a County but not on any Town.)

The board also displays a Health Track, which records the condition of the Invisible Man and which has numbers from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). The lowest numbers on the Health Track form the "Red Zone" and represent extremities of hunger, weariness, and ill health for the Invisible Man.

The Map Board
County Seats are blue, Villages green, Hamlets yellow
Railways are dashed brown, roads are dotted black,
county lines are gray.
[Click here for larger view]

Player Mats

Each player's Mat has a grid with a slot corresponding to each Town on the board, where the player can place his collected Research Notes to record where he's been. There is a Trophy Track where the player can record how many times he has raised Vigilance. The Mat also has places to put the player's money, Evidence, Purchased Items, and Companion, and two spaces to record the player's Damage.

Evidence Cubes

Evidence Cubes come in three varieties: Eyewitness Accounts (blue), Newspaper Articles (yellow), and Police Blotters (red).

Trophies

Each Trophy is a disc with "+1" on one side and "+2" on the other. The numbers denote the extra Evidence Cubes that players receive when collecting Evidence.

Research Notes

Research Notes are generic tokens that represent the results of Research that players perform in the different Towns. Players can take one whenever they take the Research action in a Town, if any are available there, and place them on their Player Mat to record where they were found.

Location Cards

Location Cards affect the location of the Invisible Man. See The Invisible Man Phase in the Rounds and Turns section below for details. They are also used for combat resolution. They are turned up from a shuffled deck.

Companion Cards

Companion Cards each describe one character from the H. G. Wells novel. See Companions below. Each one is available to any player who can meet the conditions for recruiting a particular Companion.

Setup

Each player selects a Player Figure and places it on the designated starting Town on the board.

Place the Invisible Man in the "Unknown Location" corner of the board. Place the Health Track Marker on the highest number on the Health Track.

Place Research Notes on each Town. The number placed should be one less than the number of players. For example, with four players, place three Research Notes on each Town.

Shuffle the Location Deck and place it beside the board.

Place the Damage Tokens, Terror Markers, Vigilance Markers, and Item Tokens in a pool beside the board. Put all the Evidence Tokens into the bag.

Give each player £5.

The player who is hardest to notice goes first.*

* If you have trouble deciding who is hardest to notice, select a player by acclamation. This player will be someone noticeable, and therefore ineligible to be the starting player. The selected player then points to other players one at a time, in any order, and says "Not you" until only one player is left. The remaining player may have to speak up at this point.

Concepts

The Location of the Invisible Man

The Invisible Man's location may be any one of the following:

Unknown - The Invisible Man's location is unknown, and his Character Figure is placed in the "Unknown" corner of the board (the large question mark).

County - The Invisible Man is known to be in a specific County, but not in any specific Town. His Character Figure is placed in the County on top of the County's name.

Town - The Invisible Man is in a specific Town within a Specific County: either the County Seat, the Village, or the Hamlet. His Character Figure is placed on the specified Town.

For brief periods of time while in a Town, the Invisible Man may also be known to be "Present," which allows combat between the Invisible Man and any players in the same Town.

The Activities of the Invisible Man

The Invisible Man prosecutes a Reign of Terror by terrorizing the officials and populace of the Towns. Each time he is known to be in a particular Town he has an opportunity to terrorize that Town; when he does so, he will leave behind a Terror Token and a piece of Evidence. But if players are present, the Invisible Man may attack the players instead of terrorizing; and if the Invisible Man's health is too poor, he must rest and recuperate instead of either attacking or terrorizing.

The Invisible Man takes one action at the start of each player's turn. The action he takes is dictated by the rules of the game.

The Activities of the Players

On their turns, each player takes one action: they may choose to travel, to purchase an Item or Service, to recruit a Companion, to wire for funds, to perform Research, to turn Research into Evidence, or to use their collected Evidence to raise Vigilance and combat Terror in a Town.

Terror and Vigilance

A Town may contain one or two Terror Markers, or one or two Vigilance Markers, or no markers. When the Invisible Man terrorizes a Town, he add one Terror Marker, and removes the Vigilance Marker if there is one. When a player raises Vigilance in a Town, he does the opposite: adds one Vigilance Marker, and removes one Terror Marker if there is one.

To raise Vigilance requires a payment of Evidence Cubes:

For a Hamlet: one Police Blotter (red) or one Eyewitness Account (blue)
For a Village: two Evidence Tokens of different kinds
For a County Seat: three Evidence Tokens of different kinds

Evidence Tokens are placed back into the bag when they are paid.

A Town that has two Terror Markers is permanently Terrorized; players cannot raise Vigilance here. Similarly a Town that has two Vigilance Markers is permanently Vigilant, and cannot be Terrorized. A County is permanently Vigilant if all three of its Towns are permanently Vigilant. Towns and Counties that are permanently Terrorized or Vigilant are said to have fixed allegiance or simply to be fixed.

Trophies

Trophies allow a player to collect extra Evidence Cubes whenever the player collects Evidence; see Collecting Evidence below.

Whenever a player raises Vigilance in a Town, he collects one Terror Token (from the Town, or from the pool) and places it on his Player Mat. A player who has no Trophy may exchange three Terror Tokens for a Trophy with the +1 side up. A player who has a +1 Trophy may exchange four Terror Tokens to turn his Trophy over to the +2 side.

Exchanged Terror Tokens are returned to the pool. There is no need to collect Terror Tokens after a player receives a +2 Trophy.

Rounds and Turns

Players take turns in clockwise order. In each turn, the Invisible Man takes one action, then the active player takes one action.

Each player's turn has two phases: the Invisible Man phase, and the player phase.

The Invisible Man phase comes first. During this phase the player takes one action on behalf of the Invisible Man. Then during the Player Phase, the player takes one action for himself. The actions available to the Invisible Man and to the player are as follows.

The Invisible Man Phase

During the Invisible Man Phase, the active player takes one action on behalf of the Invisible Man. The action is determined by the following rules, and can depend on whether a Town or County has a fixed allegiance.

First, see whether the Invisible Man is in poor health or not. The Invisible Man is in poor health if the Health Track Marker is in the Red Zone on the Health Track.

If the Invisible Man is in poor health:

The Invisible Man must rest and eat. Move the Health Track Marker up one step. This ends the Invisible Man Phase for this turn.

If the Invisible Man is in good health:

Draw a Location Card. The card will show three different possible movements for the Invisible Man, depending on whether the Invisible Man's current location is Unknown, or in a County, or in a Town. Resolve the card by moving the Invisible Man (or not) according to the instructions on the card. See Location Cards below.
Next check to see whether the Invisible Man is now in a Town, and if so, whether he is Present (as specified on the Location Card) and how many players are in the same Town.

If the Invisible Man is in a Town:

If the Invisible Man is Present and the town contains exactly one or two players, the Invisible Man attacks those players. (See Combat and Initiative below.)
Otherwise, the Invisible Man Terrorizes the Town (see Terror and Vigilance above).

If the Invisible Man is not in a Town, he takes no further action this turn, and the Invisible Man Phase is over.

The Player Phase

During the Player Phase, the active player may:

Collect Evidence (once per turn)
Take ONE Action

Note: If a player has two Damage Tokens, he may not perform any action that does not promote his recovery. Specifically, if a player can afford Medical Care, he must purchase it. If he cannot, he may take another action to get the money needed for Medical Care: this includes Wiring for Funds, traveling to the County Seat in the player's current County in order to Wire for Funds, or Trading with another player in the same Town to get the money needed for Medical Care.

Collecting Evidence

The active player may take at most one piece of Evidence from his current Town into his possession. If the player travels in this turn, the Evidence may come from either Town: the one he started in, or the one he finishes in. If more than one piece of Evidence is available, the player may choose which to take.

A player who has a Trophy may take an additional one or two Evidence Tokens at random from the bag whenever he takes one piece of Evidence from a Town: one extra for a +1 Trophy, or two extra for a +2 Trophy.

Actions

Travel - The player may follow any road or rail segment from his current Town to the next Town. Exception: County lines may be crossed only by rail or on horseback.

Travel by rail costs £2 for the player, plus £2 for any Companion. The purchase of the Train Tickets and the travel itself constitute a single action.

Players on horseback can follow railway lines without purchasing a Train Ticket.

Make a Purchase - The player may purchase an Item or Service, if any are available at his location. See Purchases below.

Recruit a Companion - The player may recruit a Companion, if any are available at his location. See Companions below.

Wire for Funds - If the player is in a County Seat, he may wire his bank for funds. The player receives £5.

Raise Vigilance - If the active player possesses enough of the right kinds of Evidence Cubes, he may pay them to Raise Vigilance in his current Town. See Terror and Vigilance above.

Research - The player collects one Research Note from the Town he is in, if any are available. The collected Research Note is placed on the player's mat to show which Town it came from.

Document - The player may discard a collection of Research Notes in exchange for Evidence. Three Research Notes from same-size Towns in different Counties, or three Research Notes from different Towns in one County, gives the player 3 different Evidence Cubes selected (not randomly chosen) from the Evidence Bag.

Trade - Exchange any number of Items, Companions, Evidence, Research Notes, and/or Money with other players in the same Town. The trade does not have to be even; you may simply give items to another player, or accept them from another player. The other player(s) must agree to any such transfer!

Pass - The player does nothing.

Location Cards

Each Location Card has three sections that indicate movement for the Invisible Man. Only one is used, depending on whether the Invisible Man's current location is Unknown, a County, or a Town.

If the Invisible Man's location is Unknown, the Location Card may specify that the Invisible Man remains where he is, or moves to a specific County specified by name.

If the Invisible Man's location is a County, the Location Card may specify that the Invisible Man remains where he is, moves to a neighboring County, moves to a specific Town within the current County, or moves to the Unknown Location corner of the board. Neighboring Counties are specified by their direction: North, South, East, or West. Towns are specified as either County Seat, Village, or Hamlet, and they mean the matching Town in the Invisible Man's current County.

If the Invisible Man's location is a Town, the Invisible Man may remain where he is, or move to another Town in the same County, or move to the current County (but no longer be in a specific Town). Towns are specified as either County Seat, Village, or Hamlet, the same as in the County section.

Unavailable Destinations: If a destination County has a fixed allegiance, or if a specified direction would take the Invisible Man off the board, move the Invisible Man to the next unfixed County in the clockwise direction.

If a destination Town has a fixed allegiance, and no others in that County are fixed, move the Invisible Man to the largest available Town in the County. If only one Town is unfixed, move the Invisible Man to the County. If no Towns are available, move the Invisible Man to the Unknown corner of the board.

"Present": The Town section may also specify that the Invisible Man is Present. If so, the Invisible Man may attack players in the Town. If the Invisible Man is Present but does not attack and the active player is in the same Town, the active player has the option of attacking the Invisible Man. See Combat and Initiative below.

Combat Results: In addition to the three travel sections, each Location Card specifies two combat outcomes: one for players, and one for the Invisible Man. Combat results are used only when cards are drawn during combat. See Combat and Initiative below.

Combat and Initiative

Initiative

Combat occurs under two circumstances: during the Invisible Man Phase of the turn (in which case the Invisible Man has initiative and attacks the players), and during the Player Phase (in which case the players have initiative and attack the Invisible Man).

Combat during the Invisible Man Phase is not optional, and happens (or does not happen) according to the rules for the behavior of the Invisible Man.

Combat during the Player Phase is optional, and happens by choice of the active player when he draws a Location Card that shows that the Invisible Man is present.

Eligible Combatants

Combat takes place between the Invisible Man and all eligible players. Eligible players are also called combatants.

If the players have initiative: Each player is eligible and must be a combatant if:

He is in the same Town as the Invisible Man
He has no Damage Tokens.

Players in different Towns or with Damage Tokens are not combatants and do not participate in the battle.

If the Invisible Man has initiative: The same is true, except that:

Players with one Damage Token are subject to attack from the Invisible Man, but may not fight back. (That is, the Invisible Man may draw a card to try to damage the player, but the player may not draw a card to try to damage the Invisible Man.) Any player who receives Damage as a result of the Invisible Man's attack immediately becomes ineligible to fight back.

Combat Resolution

Combat is resolved by drawing Location Cards and taking the damage shown on the drawn cards. When a player draws a card (for himself or on behalf of the Invisible Man), that player (or the Invisible Man) immediately takes the damage shown on the card. Players take damage by placing a Damage Token on their player mat; the Invisible Man takes damage by moving the Health Track Marker one step closer to the red end.

If the Invisible Man has initiative: The combatant players each draw one Location Card. Each player takes the player damage shown (if any) on their card; then, if the player is still undamaged, the Invisible Man takes any damage shown on that same card.

If the players have initiative: The combatant players each draw one Location Card. For each card, the Invisible Man takes any damage shown; then the player takes any damage shown on that same card.

When all cards have been drawn and resolved, combat is over. If the Invisible Man's Health is now in the Red Zone, he is captured (see Ending the Game). Important: After combat, regardless of the outcome, the Invisible Man is no longer considered to be Present, but remains in the Town until further notice as usual.

Purchases

A variety of Items and Services are available for purchase by the players.

(I need to rethink this stuff with regard to evidence types and Research Notes. Perhaps a companion can allow you to wild-card one piece of evidence when raising Vigilance, etc. Also, think about how and why players could lose an item or companion, and what happens to a lost companion.)

Items

The following items are available for purchase, but only at the specific locations marked on the map. The price of each item is also shown on the map. Each player may possess at most one of each kind of item at a time.

Dog - The Invisible Man will not attack the player during the Invisible Man phase, but the player may still attack the Invisible Man. Dogs have no effect on combat during the player phase. Dogs may be purchased only at the Kennel.

Horse - Player can travel (including along railways) without further expense, and over any road including those which cross County lines. Horses may be purchased only at the Stables. (Horses are powerful and may be too cheap. Consider raising the price to $7 or $10.)

Shotgun - Player draws two cards against the Invisible Man when players attack during the Player Phase (but not during the Invisible Man Phase). When the Invisible Man fights back, only the combat results on the second card are applied to the player. Shotguns may be purchased only at the Gun Shop.

Cricket Bat - Player may redraw one card against the Invisible Man when players attack during the Player Phase (but not during the Invisible Man Phase). That is, the Cricket Bat allows the player to draw a second card only if the first card did no damage. When the Invisible Man fights back, only the combat results on the first card are applied to the player. Cricket Bats may be purchased only at the Sports Shop.

Services

Train Ticket - Players must pay £2 for themselves, and an additional £2 for any Companion, whenever they travel along a railroad line, unless they have a horse. Purchasing a Train Ticket is part of the action of traveling by rail, and is not a separate action.

Medical Care - Players may pay £1 to discard 1 Damage Token.

Companions

Several characters from the novel are available as Companions that may be recruited by the players. To recruit a Companion, a player must travel to a Companion's hometown (as shown on the map), and in some cases make a payment; the player then takes possession of the Companion Card.

Each Companion gives a special ability to the player who possesses the card. These abilities (and some flavor text) are shown on the cards.

Colonel Adye is a chief of police. He can be recruited by presenting (discarding) any two Evidence Tokens. The player who accompanies Colonel Adye can Raise Vigilance in a Town with one fewer Evidence Token (even if that means zero), and automatically Raises Vigilance in Colonel Adye's hometown when he is recruited.

Dr. Kemp is a medical doctor who knew Griffin (the Invisible Man) before he became invisible, and spoke with him again afterwards. Dr. Kemp knows what's at stake and can be recruited without payment. The player who accompanies Dr. Kemp can obtain Medical Care (remove one Damage Token) without payment, but this still counts as an Action. The Damage healed may be his own or that of any other player in the same Town.

Mr. Hall is a burly barkeep whose bar was vandalized by the Invisible Man. He can be recruited by visiting his home town and paying £2. The player who accompanies Mr. Hall can draw one extra Location Card in combat against the Invisible Man. (This is the same as a shotgun. Might have to balance costs carefully, or change this ability.)

Mr. Marvel is a tramp who has traveled, under coercion, with the Invisible Man. He can be recruited by paying £1. The player who accompanies Mr. Marvel does not have to provide an Eyewitness Account (blue) Evidence Cube when Raising Vigilance.

Ending the Game

The games ends as soon as any one of the following is true:

The Invisible Man is captured
All Towns, or all but one, have fixed allegiance

The players win if the Invisible Man is captured at any time.

If the Invisible Man is still uncaptured when only one unfixed Town remains, all players and the Invisible Man (regardless of their locations) fight a final battle. This battle proceeds the same as a normal combat, with these exceptions:

The Invisible Man has initiative.
Players with one Damage can participate fully.
For each point of Damage done to the Invisible Man, remove both Terror Tokens from one fixed Town. If none are left, reduce the Invisible Man's health by one for each point of damage as usual.
For each point of Damage done to a player, remove both Vigilance Tokens from one fixed Town. If none are left, add a Damage Token to the player.
Players with two Damage Tokens are eliminated and may no longer participate.

The final battle ends either when no players remain, in which case the Invisible Man wins; or when the Invisible Man's health reaches zero, in which case the players win. Note: All players win or lose together, even those who are eliminated in the final battle!

Problems

Items and Companions should either be weakened, or not last forever. Probably both, as not all can be weakened for lack of the right fine-tuning knobs. So: how can we make players occasionally lose an item or Companion? (Or see below about using Goal Cards to make them harder to obtain in the first place.)

Items could be broken in combat. Companions could be wounded (place a Damage Marker on them!) and lost if too badly wounded. They could be healed at the expense of the same actions/resources as the characters, so would have an upkeep cost.

What should the Goal Cards be like? How many should there be? How easy to acquire? One use for Goal Cards should be to allow players to acquire a Companion, and perhaps other Items. Otherwise they're too easy to get. (If they're harder to get, we can relax a bit on weakening them.) (Goal Cards are not in the current rules. If I use them, they will be purchased by turning in Research Notes.)

Design Notes

Story Arc

At the start of the game, the IM is very healthy, and no Towns have Terror or Vigilance Markers. The players have no Evidence Cubes to raise Vigilance. The IM should therefore make good progress in terrorizing new Towns during this time. As the game progresses, more Towns will have Terror Markers or Vigilance Markers and the IM will be able to terrorize a new Town (that is, place a Terror Marker in a Town that doesn't have one) less often. Combat may reduce the IM's condition and force him to rest more often, further slowing his progress. During this period, the players should be gathering momentum and raising Vigilance in more Towns, and improving their own effectiveness with Trophies and by turning in their collected Research Notes. Late in the game, the players should be able to make good progress in raising Vigilance in the remaining Towns, and will hopefully be in good condition for the final battle.

Cooperative or Competitive?

The original design was for a cooperative game. After some thought and discussion, it seemed plain that there was not enough tension, and not enough interesting decisions, in the design. Also the basic mechanic of the game was the Reign of Terror, which at the time looked as if it would continue indefinitely, or else be forced to end in a bland tie. To solve these problems I considered making the game competitive. The game would be decided by Victory Points and allowed sharp competition among the players.

But after a day or two, I realized that a competitive game was anti-thematic. The Invisible Man needs to be the central focus, the big bad guy. If the players' primary opponents are each other, the IM becomes just another feature, no more important than the Robber in Settlers of Catan.

So I decided to try to keep the game cooperative, and find other ways to repair the defects in the original design. There were basically two problems: the end game, and the decision matrix.

The decision matrix was a matter of inventing enough different choices for the players. The choices needed to involve non-obvious trade-offs, and they needed to have a serious effect on the game. Fortunately I had already dreamed up some ways to accomplish this for the competitive game, and these mechanisms could be transplanted back into the cooperative game. They were the different kinds of Evidence (the original design had only one kind), the Research Notes, and the Goal Cards (which are not currently in the rules).

The end game was tougher. A tug of war isn't a suitable end-of-game trigger if you want any control over the length of the game. I needed something that would advance a game clock in a thematic way, and produce an end-of-game trigger in a reasonably consistent period of time. In addition, the end game should help promote a clear winner, so that few if any games would end in a draw.

The Reign of Terror, unfortunately, was originally a total tug of war. Capturing the IM makes a satisfactory end of game, but there would have to be a way to ensure that the IM became capturable; if he just kept slipping around the board, it might never happen.

I decided to end the tug of war by two means. First, I decided that once a Town received either a Terror or Vigilance Marker, it would never again be neutral. If you remove the last Terror Marker, you also put down a Vigilance Marker, and vice-versa. This helps guarantee that, after a while, all or nearly all Towns can be scored for either the players or the IM. Second, I introduced a way to "freeze" a Town's status: once a Town has two Terror or Vigilance Markers, no more markers can be added or removed. This allows both sides to "build" something permanent over the course of the game: a collection of Towns firmly on one side or the other.

I change the IM's movement algorithm so that he would avoid "frozen" Towns and concentrate on the Towns still in contention. This makes him a more credible opponent, and one that will win if the players sit on their hands: they must vigorously oppose the IM, or lose the game.

The game ends when there is at most one un-frozen Town left. At that point, the players must duke it out with the Invisible Man directly. One side or the other may have an advantage in this Final Battle if the majority of Towns are frozen on their side; with enough of a majority, the outcome may be certain. The Final Battle will lend a thematic climax to the game, without invalidating the progress made during the main portion of the game.

Last modified for the Web on February 11, 2006 by Rick Holzgrafe.