Johan suggested that Poker will be a popular theme in 2006, and I'm tempted to agree. Texas Hold'em has become widely popular, at least here in the states, and it's already starting to show through in the board game world with the recent release of Vegas Showdown. VS has a poker/casino theme, but the mechanics are bidding, not betting. I started thinking about how poker mechanics could be used in a board game, and here's what crossed my mind...
1. I just posted another thread about a Rounders card game. The movie Rounders is all about Texas Hold'em, so the obvious tie-in game there would be to simply play Hold'em... but I thought why not approach it a different way? Mike McDermit is the hero, and like in Beowulf, the player are cooperating to get him through a series of challenges on his way to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. I'm not sure what the actual mechanics would be, but they'd probably involve constructing some configuration of cards such that Mike wins the hand, or at least he doesn't lose much in any hand, and wins big hands to eventually win enough cash to move on to the next episode. The game would be cooperative in that everyone want's Mike to succeed, but it should be disallowed to talk about what you've got, or what should be played. With the possible exception of counting cards, this still isn't using poker mechanics in a game.
2. A different idea alltogether... In an effort to use poker mechanics in a game, I thought maybe players could try to construct the best poker hand they can by first 'producing' cards, then trading with opponents (trades should all be face up), cashing in poker hands for actions such as the ability to control the Flop, Turn, and River for example, or to raise a bet perhaps. There could be an analog to Caylus' Castle building, where players can choose to participate in a hand of poker, and those that do end up revealing the poker hand they've assembled and the highest hand gets some bonus. I don't know how to theme this so that it makes any kind of sense. I figure that like Havoc: The Hundred Years War, the poker hand mechanics will simply not reflect the theme at all. Might still make for an interesting mechanic though.
- Seth
