So I have an new challenge. I am developing concepts for a card game, and one of the more interesting ideas that I have recorded is, if and when a player fails in their own goal during the game, they are not removed from play, but instead turn into a collective threat working against the remaining players. The more players that fail, the bigger the threat grows while the goal of the new enemies gets proportionately harder to keep them from succeeding based solely on numbers.I also have a side deck that each player can elect to turn a card from on their turn, the effect of which every player might be able to benefit from. But with each turn the players risk aiding another player, failing their own objective or ending the chance of success for another. The benefits would be effective enough to be an incentive to risk it, but as each one is turned, the risk of not only failure, but increasing the collective threat, rises.
The problem I have come to is how to keep the collective goal from becoming just another way to win. If a player fails, they should fail. But it sucks to lose a hand in the middle of a round and have to sit around watching the rest of the players having all the fun. After all, the best games keep the play interesting to the end, right? So the collective goal against the remaining individual players gives the failed players a continued hand in the game, and adds a dynamic layer of tension for the rest. But I do not feel there is enough incentive to do your best in the first part, rather than go for the second goal. More importantly, there is no overall sense of risk.
For now I have pulled that element from the lineup until I can develop a proper way to make it viable in play. I have also turned the side deck into a table-wide countdown clock, after a fashion. A card is turned at the beginning of each round; it still contains the beneficial cards, as well as some drawbacks, but it also has a number of key cards that fill a losing end-game condition for everyone.
This is a very difficult design concept. You may want to look at a system that would allow players who fail to return as another player. Trying to convince players to switch allegiance is difficult at the best of times unless they relish being the bad guys. You should convince Jax to play Betrayal at the House on the Hill. It has an interesting mechanism for selecting the bad guy (traitor), but only certain players really enjoy that role.
ReplyDeleteIn the context of this game, I believe that switching allegiance is not a good-guy vs. bad-guy role for the player, which in essence is part of the problem. It's similar to their original objective with a paradigm shift from "I am going to win" to "We are going to make sure you don't."
ReplyDeleteThe best model that I can think of at the moment would be zombie survival. Everyone is trying to survive while the zombies try to eat survivors. If a survivor loses, he joins the zombies and the goal of the survivors just got more interesting. Granted this analogy does actually produce a paradigm shift for the player, so it's not perfect. :/
I'm really looking forward to some discussion on Saturday to get some more in-depth perspective from someone besides myself. And I agree it is a difficult design concept, but one I think might be worth the effort if I can make it work.
Two games I would suggest, one easy to get and fast, the other a prototype of a local designer. The first is Munchkin Cthulhu. If a player becomes a cultist, they are implicitly allied with other cultists and have a coop victory. The other, Dragon's Field (tentative title), is a strategic movement game with dynamic alliances. The first should hit somewhat close to home on what you've discussed here, or at least close enough to provide some experience and maybe insight. The other should give a feel for a game that does not fix alliances, but rather, has a set of pair-common goals that can alternate between threatened and secure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the references, David.
ReplyDeleteI have Munchkin Cthulhu, of course. Dragon's Field (working) sounds interesting and I'd be interested in seeing that when it comes available.
The key to what I am trying to accomplish with this is, to use your example, keeping the "cultist" route from being seen as another way to win. If a player fails in their primary goal, then it should be felt as a loss and not an inconsequential step between two phases of play. That may very well tie into exactly what players stand to gain to begin with, which still needs to be worked out in time. The cultist benefit in Munchkin is worth keeping in mind; the more of them there are the stronger they are individually, as well as cultist specific cards.