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Looking for an interesting "claim" mechanic

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Halobender
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Joined: 12/30/2009

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some help with devising a way for players to claim spots on a game board, similar to the placing of meeples in Carcassonne.

The game I'm designing is a card game where players play have an option to use their cards as pieces of a map (which everyone builds together) or from their hands as assets during the gameplay itself. The twist is that when certain conditions are met on the map, part of the map is removed, the player who causes the removal to happen gains points and then play continues on from there.

The problem I'm having is that in playtesting people feel like they do a lot of work that other people benefit from... Because a certain amount of the map is removed, the players who don't cause the removal to trigger feel like they've lost their last few turns when the cards they've played go away. It's not an awful situation for the game mechanics themselves... the game "works fine." It just doesn't FEEL good (even to me when I'm playing).

As a result, I've been toying around with various "claim" mechanics which allow people to essentially put a hold on regions of the map for a price or for free, etc., but they seem pretty clunky. Also, people don't seem to want/remember to use them.

Anyway... I'd love any suggestions people have on how to mitigate this. I know I've been pretty vague here... Just trying to be as succinct as possible with the description of the problem. I'd be glad to give any more details if anyone's interested.

Thanks much,
Dave

MarkKreitler
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Joined: 11/12/2008
Scoring?

Hey Dave,

I don't have a good feel for the mechanics at work, so I don't have any concrete suggestions for "holding" territory. That said, if players aren't able to remember to use the current systems you're trying, maybe another approach is worth trying?

Have you considered allowing everyone to score based on cards that are removed? The person who triggers the removal could get a bonus, or influence the way cards are scored. For example (not to be taken literally, just a way to start thinking about the problem), maybe players can place cards face up or face down. Only face up cards can trigger a scoring region. When the region is scored, players reveal the face down cards in the area, combine with their face up cards, apply the scoring rules, and add to their points. The player who triggered the scoring round might get to choose from a set of "bonus rules," like "red cards worth +1," before hidden cards are revealed.

Or some such. Everyone likes scoring points, so they're unlikely to forget the mechanics, and imagine how good it will feel when somebody else triggers a region but you earn more points. :)

JustActCasual
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Joined: 11/20/2012
One solution could be to give

One solution could be to give a small bonus when the players play to the map: maybe a reduced version of the card's asset effect? This way they feel they've gotten something back for their investment even if someone else takes that map section.

Another, if you want to keep the claim thought, is to give each player one or two 'claim' cards: when they play a card they may play one of their cards they may play a claim card linking it to a card next to it. If a player tries to take a card that is claimed by another they may have to pay a price, or not be able to take it at all. You could introduce some nice character asymmetry by giving different secondary effects to the claim cards of each player. An advantage of this system is that it keeps it in card form, easing integration with the existing components.

Halobender
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Joined: 12/30/2009
Coopertition

Great suggestions, both. Thank you for making them...

Mark: I've definitely been wondering if moving the intent towards some kind of sharing is better than my current approach. Another thing I like about this approach is that it opens up another path to victory, allowing one player in the game to maybe focus more on enabling other players and working the non-bonus points instead just trying to clear out sections of the map. Maybe I could even introduce some kind of additional goal/bonus cards based on this kind of approach. I also like the idea of finding some way to more differentiate between my cards (ie red or whatever)... As you might imagine some of the cards are functionally redundant so that the map aspect works. Would be nice to have another way to set them apart. This would also help with one of the other problems I was having with the game--that people don't seem to be grasping a strategy that allows them to anticipate or want to draw a certain card from the deck. In short, they don't know what they're looking for, so they don't enjoy drawing cards (they often forget to draw, too).

JustActCasual: I has also been thinking about the idea of asymmetric "characters" associated with their claims. One thing that worries me with that is that my audience for this game is casual adult players... The character aspect makes it feel a little more genre to me. What do you think? I've found it to be a little hard to understand the purpose for in games where I've encountered it--elder signs is the main example that comes to mind there. I also really like your other suggestion of smaller bonuses... I'll probably look into that first, because it would make the smallest change to the way the game works now.

Anyway, thanks much again for the suggestions. Looking forward to giving them a try ASAP.

-Dave

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