Hey gang. I'm starting to brainstorm on a new project, and was hoping to get some feedback about a mechanic I've been thinking about. The mechanic involves an element of bluffing, but due to my relative ignorance of bluffing mechanics, I'm not sure if something like this has been done before, or if there are cleaner implementations out there. As a first question, can anyone recommend some good games with bluffing mechanics so that I can read up a bit on what's already out there.
On to the mechanic itself. My tentative idea for the game is that each player will have a hand of cards, each of which represents an operative in the player's organization (right now I'm working with a mafia theme, but this isn't set in stone). The play area will consist of a number of locations, each of which specifies a certain statistical requirement to do a mission at that location. For example, doing a mission in China Town might require 4 strength, 6 cunning and 3 stealth. On a player's turn, he may take one or more cards from his hand and place them face down at a location, forming a team of operatives, each of which adds to the statistical total to complete the mission. This is where the bluffing comes in, since his opponents don't know if the team he laid down is able to complete the task. Once a mission has begun, no more operatives may be added to the mission, although opponents may use abilities to eliminate team members at random, possibly reducing the stat totals to be below the mission requirements. Missions persist from turn to turn (unless a player decides to cancel his own mission, or it is busted by an opponent), and as long as you have a mission going at a location, you are able to use abilities at that location. Opposing players (and the game itself) will have methods of busting your mission, and if your team fails to have the necessary attributes when exposed, you will take some pretty steep penalties, including loss of most of your operatives. Hand sizes will be kept relatively small, so players have incentives to spread themselves overly thin in order to use the abilities of as many locations as possible, while trying to avoid getting caught if a team can't complete its mission.
My questions are as follows:
- For those of you familiar with other bluffing mechanics, how does this stack up? Are there factors I should be aware of when trying to balance the risks and rewards of bluffing? What are some common pitfalls of this type of mechanic?
- I want other players to have a reasonably easy way to call a player's bluff (likely this will be an ability available on multiple locations). However, I'm wrestling with how easy to make this, and what the costs should be for attempting to call a bluff and being wrong. Any thoughts on how this might be done?
Sorry if this isolated view of this one mechanic is a bit limited. As I said, I'm still in early brainstorming and although I have ideas for the supporting mechanics, I want to nail this aspect of the game and build the remainder of my mechanics around this core element. Thanks in advance for your input! Happy designing.
Thanks for the input, I think this helps confirm some of the directions I was thinking. I'll try to give a bit more detail here about my other mechanics to perhaps add some context to how I see this playing out, although all of this is fairly preliminary. I'm envisioning a non-traditional deck building component to the game, where players start out with a deck of basic operatives, but can later add more powerful cards by hiring them from the criminal underworld or springing them from prison. Operatives may be removed from the deck if they are killed (the card is removed from the game) or sent to jail (where they become available for acquisition by anyone with the means to bust them out). If a player runs out of operatives, he or she is eliminated.
As far as the abilities on locations, I envision two types. One is an ability which you can choose each turn, as long as you have a mission active at that location. These might include drawing cards, collecting money, spying on an opposing mission or gaining influence at the location (the player with the most influence at a location controls it, and controlling enough locations is one path to victory). The second type of ability involves completing a mission, where a player reveals and discards his team, demonstrating that he meets the requirements for the mission. These abilities are significantly more powerful, and may include hiring new operatives, freeing operatives from prison, assassinating opposing operatives and working toward alternative victory conditions (blackmailing the mayor, etc.).
What I'm wrestling with now is which of these categories calling a bluff should fall in to? Should it be cheaper and fairly repeatable, or more costly and periodic? I've also considered two different consequences for calling a bluff unsuccessfully: either one of that player's own missions would be busted, or that player could lose one card off the top of his deck (either killed or in jail). Obviously play testing will be needed to bear this out, but I'd be interested in any impressions about these options. Thanks as always.