Need some ideas for a mechanic

But if you only made that part of the deciding system lets say 1/3 of it, and for the other 2/3s set the players against one another with something like a vote to have or postpone the second event. You vote before the round + actions during the round...some cut back stabbing game play then?

like adding/removing bullets to a game of Russian roulette?

to do this, things that happen in part 1 would have to represent the adding/removing of the "bullets". In your case, the "bullets" could be "a supply plane dropping medical supplies" or whatever you have in your theme that would be a "good thing."

this can be done a couple different ways, but ill use cards as a basic:
10 cards: 9 empty, 1 bullet (with 9 bullet cards set aside)

during a round players do things to either add or remove a bullet:
adding a bullet - change one of the "empty" cards for a "bullet" card
removing a bullet - change a "bullet" card for an "empty" card

At the end of every round, a card is revealed:
a) if its a bullet - part 2
b) if its empty - play another round of part 1

Any auction mechanism that allows players to continue to bid on new items until each person passes should accomplish the dynamic you are looking for. Part two would in this case mean getting a new set of resources for the next set of auctions.

Condottierre is a game which employs this type of system, albeit with Part Two only happening once per game. As does a new game of mine to be released in the spring by Z-Man, called Lords of Scotland. Though, in Lords of Scotland, rejuvenating your resources is a more continuous function, which comes at the cost of not being able to deploy them. In this case, each player can decide for himself at any time whether he wants to get more resources. But, often one turns makes all the difference.

Although these two auction mechanics are used to simulate battle, the general idea of an auction appears in a wide range of Euro-Style games precisely because it allows players to exploit the weakness of other players without directly 'attacking' them. Resource management is a vital component of most strategic games out of Europe, and an auction allows N number of players to participate in a method of allocation of benefits without suffering from the third-party free-rider problem of direct attacks so familiar to American gamers.

There are a lot of different type of auctions... so in this case, you'd need one that allows for an unlimited number of items to be auctioned off during part 1 and a mechanic that says that you only begin part 2 when all players refuse to bid. You might also need some 'helper' mechanics that specify whether or not you can re-enter a subsequent auction once you've stopped participating in the current one.

yup! many ways to do it!

i used a 10 card thing, because it put each "bullet" at a 10% value.
i also used cards because it was easiest to see which cards you were changing.
however you choose to do it should work, as long as you keep values consistant.

not sure about the pick 3 - then get the majority. If enough people want the round 2, but the leaders want the round 1 still, they might get out-weighted by other players, rendering their plays meaningless. (eliminating randomness in the process)

using only one "bullet" heightens the importance of it too.

when they draft players in the NFL, the team that was 32'nd in the standings (out of 32, if you dont follow football) gets to draft first. The team that won the superbowl goes last.
this helps teams that were hurting more get better players than the team that won it all.

you could possibly do something in this realm by allowing the player that was hurting the most to move the token more spaces, and the leader less spaces.

i play alot of black in magic, and utilize my life total to win quite often. I will pay 19 life out of the 20 if i can get the upper hand. I'm not sure what part 1 entails, but if im the leader, i will hurt myself to hurt you more, dynamically speaking.