Board Game Designers Forum

Hahrumph! That has been the word of the month or so... lots and lots of things have got in the way of me doing more work on my Foul Treachery Game. The biggest obstacle towards my Game design goals was the utter crashing of my laptop... It was very poorly indeed and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Luckily we managed to save the files, but not the program that I used to do all my design work. So it has been a bit of time until I've got all of that back together and got my head in a place where I want to think about games again.

... Well...

... not exactly true! At one point during this, shall we say turbulent, period I came up with another idea for a game. I was sitting in the Jacuzzi in the gym and watching how people picked their places in the tub, either tying to sit next to friends or away from people that they didn't like or across from people that they found attractive so that they might get a game of footsie played! I thought that there was perhaps a game in this but that the circular nature of the hot tub didn't give much scope for moving about. What I needed was a setting where people would move about in a room type environment eventually settling into groups. After a bit of floating, and thinking and absolutely no footsie whatsoever I came up with the idea of setting the game at a Roman Orgy (as one does)! I don’t know why my brain seems to be drawn towards the , how can I put this, slightly naughty end of the pool when it comes to ideas for games but I think that I just have to embrace the fact that I was brought up on a Diet of Are You Being Served and Carry On films so it is only natural for me to go to these places when in need of Ideas. Rest assured however that the game does not feature any sexual acts whatsoever and merely concerns itself with the planning and (erm) seating arraignments at the above mentioned orgy... anything that the games characters get up too once the groupings have been decided is entirely their own affair.

So... The Game... Roman Orgy Planner. In it you play the part of a slave entrusted with the task of planning an orgy for the mistress of your household. In the slightly cartoon version of Roman history in which I am setting the game, the planning and execution of a good orgy is very important and the people that you manage to entice into your orgy will either add to or decrease your mistresses prestige and standing in society depending on the whims of fashion. Everything about a person in Rome is subject to going in and out of fashion, from their standing in the hierarchy of the society down to their build and hair colour. Your mistress believes she has her finger on the pulse of fashion and as the orgy progresses she will give you more edicts about who should be allowed into her private orgy room and even who may be allowed to party with who.

The characters are drawn from all the levels of Roman Society Starting at César and Governers (with their Wives), through the Military Ranks, The Augury (Soothsayers), those who are at the orgy for their Professional Prowess (you know) and down to the slaves. The Game play takes place on board representing the main meeting room of the orgy where everyone mingles before going through into the individual orgy rooms of the player (which is where we draw a discrete veil over the proceedings). At the beginning of play the main room is filled with sets of cushions. These cushions come in blocks of three, two and a very lonely single cushion. Once a set of cushions is completely filled with characters then it may be moved into a players Orgy room all except for the single cushion. Which can never be moved into an orgy room and the character left on that cushion is left to his or her own amusement at the end of the game.

During game play players may elect to either bring a new character into the main room, move a character in the main room from one cushion to another or to move a filled set of cushions into his/her orgy room. When a player moves a filled set of cushions into his/her orgy room then they stay there and count towards the prestige points of that player at the end of the game... beware though when you do this, you mistress panics and may well issue with further pronouncements on the type of people she wants in her room at the end of the game and she may well decide that someone you have already moved into there is now a social pariah.

That’s the basics, try to get the best people into your room whilst avoiding too many penalties from your mistress. You might think it the best thing to set up César with a rampantly beautiful professional lady but if your mistress decides that she doesn’t want any blondes in her room then they might become more trouble than they are worth.

I’ve got all the files ready now and as this is a much less complicated game than Foul Treachery I am going to release it into the clutches of others as a print and play-test iteration. Can I host the files anywhere here or am I better off putting them up on BGG?