Games like "Lowenherz" have a game end that is triggered randomly, and this can be appealing because it prevents end game "cashing in your chips" effects. In my GDW game "Sands of Time", and now in my new game based on the Thirty Years War, I'm trying to explore ways to have the game ending, and/or the onset of scoring rounds, occur randomly but with some predictability.
I have come up with one idea that may work, but I hope that others will chime in in this thread with solutions they've come up with to similar challenges (not necessarily to help me out, but just for the sake of discussion).
In my idea, there are sixteen cubes, four in each of four colors, green, yellow, red, and black. The colors correspond to four phases of the game, first, second, third, and fourth, respectively. The idea is that each turn, one cube will be pulled from the cup. But at first, only the four green cubes are thrown in the cup. Each turn, a cube from the next phase is thrown in to the cup as well. When you pull a cube from the next phase, a scoring round is triggered, and you now begin adding cubes from the subsequent phase.
So for example, initially there are the four green cubes in the cup. At the end of turn 1, you pull a cube (suprise, it's green!) and then add a yellow cube to the cup. You do the same thing in the next turn, and the next, until you pull a yellow cube. At this point, you evaluate scoring and then begin throwing in red cubes. And you keep going until you pull a red cube, at which point you score again and beging throwing in black cubes. When you finally draw a black cube, the game ends.
There are a few variants to this; one possibility is that a phase doesn't end until all four of its cubes are out (instead of ending the first time a cube of the next phase appears). This is nice because it gives a fixed game length (16) but slightly variable timing of the different phases.
I want to have something like this in my game because I would like to have various points in the game where the Emperor dies, and a succession begins. But I also think I'd like to tie the overall game length to the number of imperial elections; eg, when the fourth emperor is elected, the game ends. This could in principle lead to a wildly varying game length, but concepts like these could be a way to keep it reasonably consistent from game to game.
-Jeff
Thanks for the tip; I haven't had a chance to play Caylus yet, but reading a quick review of the game, it does seem like an interesting mechanic. But, it isn't exactly what I'm looking for in this thread; I am interested primarily in a game end that is triggered by a random event, such as a card flip or a die roll, but whose ending is somewhat controlled (so that the game-to-game fluctuations are limited).
-Jeff