"Two-tiered guilds" model

I look forward to your feedback on it. It's not nearly as complex as it seems.

In fact, it was funny, at the Gathering I played it with Andera Meyer and a few other people the first time. When I said the game was 90 minutes she just laughed. After 30 minutes she said, "Ok, I see how this can be 90 minutes," and sure enough, it was exactly 90 minutes with 5 players.

It's not actually complex -- it just sounds that way in this design-basis discussion. It's not unlike me saying that there are 8 rows and 8 columns on a checkerboard and you saying, "Holy cow, 64 different places for your pieces? Sounds complex." I mean, yeah, if you look at it that way, it's complex. But when you play you never have to consider 64 things, and so it ends up much more simple that you'd think by the description.

Your model sounds nice and clean, though, and it doesn't sound like my experience will match yours at all. Which is good. :)

-- Matthew

If I remember correctly, it says rigt on the card which goods are needed to make the Whistle. So to create the whistle, you show that you can trace a path to each of the suppliers of the inputs, you pay people if that path uses their routes, then you get your income for selling the Whistle.

This doesn't really make sense to me, but maybe that's because we're not talking about the same thing... in Settlers there's a menu of stuff to buy, and it's only got a few things on it. In Magic there are thousands of 'tier 2 goods' (cards) to 'sell' (play), but only 5 different inputs. In both games you know what it takes to produce the final product, and either you have the resources (or can get them) or you don't. It's not a complexity to 'internalize' your ability to 'produce the goods'. So I don't know what you mean by that.

I suppose if in Magic, you didn't play Land cards to the table to be reused, but instead discarded them (and had to draw them to play them in the first place), then it would be more questionable if you could play your cards or not- is that what you mean? Even so, it's not like you don't know the cost.

Right, and my question to you is, in the 'two tier model' we're discussing, what do you mean by "this kind of internalization"? It sounds to me like the tier 2 products have a 'cost' (in tier 1 products), and tier 1 products have a cost (in resources)... you know the costs and either you can pay them or you can't- and you know what you have to do to get to the point where you can pay them.

- Confused in Colorado
(except I'm not in Colorado, but I wanted the alliteration)

Ok, I tihnk I see what you're saying now...

Keep in mind that not everyone is privy to the same info as you. I don't know how Elvencraft works.
Right, which is why I described it above. BUt moving on...

I see the difference now. In Elvencraft, the answer is yes- the demand card tells you what goes into making the whistle. The reason I brought up Settlers and Magic was good then (though you're not very familiar with Magic, I think it'll still work)- the difference there is:

Settlers: 4 or 5 things to produce (depending on expansion, sometimes a couple more)
Magic: MANY cards to 'produce'

In Settlers you can easily memorize the costs for everything, and they are listed on a reference card in case you need it. In Magic you can't, but you don't really have to because the cost is printed on each card.

One could argue that to be a really good tournament Magic player, one would need to memorize all the cards (or all the useful ones) such that they could look at an opponents available resources and know all their possible options, but it's not absolutely necessary.

Right. If you play a lot then the cards you see a lot ou will remember the costs of. But if you forgot every time then you could still play the game. You might not know which cards you're opponent can't play (because he hasn't got the right resources available), but you can still play the game.

Herin lies the seed of the confusion. I'm not sure in what way it's a crutch to indicate on the order what goes into a 'chair' (wood + upholstry). In fact, it allows for more thematic chrome, as "wood + upholstry" could make a 'chair' (worth A) or a 'couch' (worth B).

In your example above, if Resin is a resource, then it would be used to make some tier 1 good. probably 1 of 2 (or more?) tier 1 goods. Which good(s) it can make would probably depend on the Factory... in other words, you wouldn't have a physical representation for Resources in the game...

If Resin is a Tier 1 good, then it would be used to make 1 of X tier 2 goods. Which ones, maybe you know them all, maybe you don't... but the currently demanded ones would say so (or could).

It seems you'd prefer to have few enough Tier 2 goods in the game that you can easily remember every possible tier 2 good that uses Resin... perhaps so you'd have an idea which other tier one goods to collect (in case that contract comes up)?

I don't see this as a necessary part of a design. One could argue that remembering things like that can give a player an advantage, and therefore it should be easy to remember it so all players get that advantage... but then how easy is easy? I personally don't think designers need to build things into games to ensure that people will be good at them. As a designer I want to provide an input and an output for various things... as a player if you want to remember which inputs go with which outputs, more power to you.

So if one player wants to try and remember which inputs go with which outputs, and another doesn't, does that mean it's too complex?

I was about to mention PoF myself... A reference card (like the list on the PoF player mat or the lists of cards in the rulebook) are provided so people don't have to study the game to know what is possible. I always thought the 1-of-each-card and draw-5-choose-1 rules were pretty fiddley in PoF personally, but I bet a lot of people would argue with me if I called it a design flaw.

Who spends more time than they should..? It's written on your player mat, and there are only a few roles to look at...

presumably because you've read the rules to the game, and/or it's printed on the card/board/reference/wherever.

In the case of Elvencraft, "required inputs printed on the card, and their locations are printed on the board." In the case of this game, as in any game, of course you could memorize it... but it should never be that you have to. And if you don't have to that means it's referenced. And if it's referenced then there's a choice we'd have to make as designers:

If it's referenced on the individual demand cards then it doesn't have to be a small tree at all.

If it's referenced on a reference card then it probably ought to be a small tree so you don't have to keep looking at the chart.

I recommend printing the inputs on the demand cards so that we're not so restricted when making the demand cards (thematically, as well as mechanically) or the rest of the game.

- Seth

Unfortunately I'm too swamped to look at games now (even my own, mostly).

FWIW, though, since this thread has been revived, I'll note that I've eliminated by tier 2 items in Elvencraft. I was able to effect the same gameplay "drive" in a much simpler way that's not only easier for players to understand and track but also "fires" more often, making it more meaningful. The simple substitute was set collection of tier 1 items (which is a super-simple form of having tier 2 items, I suppose).

-- Matthew

No Elvecraft rulebook yet. I'm one of those designers who does that last instead of first. I suspect, though, that they no longer have anything in common, really.

-- Matthew