I am at initial design stages of a game and would like some input.
I always liked movies where thieves go to a museum and put copies of the things they stole. So is the game, there are 'real' pieces that have points at there backs, and 'fake' ones that are blank. The players exchanges the pieces for fake ones. At the final rounds they turn the hopefully 'real' ones and score points.
I have two ideas to the mechanics, at each turn, the player can expend some actions points, or he can use cards that do specific thinks like 'put a fake idol at the board'
Any ideas?
Actions Points or Cards
Thu, 07/10/2003 - 11:32
Thu, 07/10/2003 - 11:57
#1
Actions Points or Cards
I like the Action points mechanic (I just hate the games that it has been used in, like Tikal :))
The reason it works is that you can have differently priced actions. With a card game, all the cards have to be (roughly) the same power level since you generally play one at a time and follow it (unless you find a mechanic to solve that which isn't easy.) With an action point system, some things can cost more points than others which means that the player has to balance their choices more carefully.
The theme sounds great though.
Thu, 07/10/2003 - 12:13
#2
Actions Points or Cards
:idea: Cards with a "action points" cost ?
Thu, 07/10/2003 - 12:55
#4
Actions Points or Cards
hpox wrote:
:idea: Cards with a "action points" cost ?
That is simple and probably a very good idea. Simply add to the 'casting cost' of the cards a quantity - we'll call it Action Point Cost- and then allow each player a certain amount of action points each turn.
Of course there could be cards or rules or board positions which earn you additional action points each turn.
For a quick, lousy example, say in Magic you had your land that gives you the resources to pay the costs to play the cards. Say you were only allowed to play X Action Points worth of cards per turn, and then define X as "Number of lands in play" or something. Then powerful cards could have low resource costs but higher AP costs such that they cannot be played right away.
Then there's the obvious enchantments and artifacts that would say stuff like "At the beginning of your upkeep, add 1 Action Point to your mana pool" or "all cards cost an additional Action Point to play" or even a Dark Ritualesque "Add 3 Action Points to your mana pool"
The more I think of this, the beter it sounds. It's a good way to avoid one of the bad things about Magic which is first turn or early power cards (Type 1 Magic is dumb because of first turn wins). It would also cease infinite processes.
Now, how to use this mechanic. I nominate it for the Democratic Game Thing- cards or actions with both action point costs and resource costs.
- Seth
Fri, 07/11/2003 - 07:12
#5
Actions Points or Cards
Thanks for the ideas, I will try cards with values that you can spend at eache turn.
Fri, 07/11/2003 - 07:27
#6
Actions Points or Cards
With cards you introduce an element of luck. Even when you carefully balance the power of each card, there will still be cards that are better in certain situations than others. This is not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind.
If you assign a 'cost' to a card, it becomes easier to balance things out. Powerful effects should just cost more than less powerful effects (Magic indeed uses this mechanic).
By using cards you also limit the options a player has, which can reduce downtime and analysis paralysis, but it also restricts the freedom a player has in his actions and narrows a player's strategic scope.
The mechanics with cards would be something like this. Each player get 4 random cards, play one at each round and get a new one from the pile. Cards with more powerful actions would be rarer then the weaker ones, of course.
For the mechanics with action points there will have a paw to mark the thief position, and each action:
- moving
- hiding
- placing a fake item
would need different action points.