I'm creating my first board game (just for fun) so I'm sorry if I'm making a trivial mistake.
Each player has a colour and in general is expected to play their own but there is a mechanism, at a cost, to draw from other decks. One type of card in game allows completing it - removing all markers - which gets VP and other benefits to owner of card. There is a mechanism to remove markers from other players cards. Some cards require that to play them other players need to already complete a certain number of such cards giving in turn bonus VP/abilities. This is suppose to force players to balance between cooperation and competition.
However I'm not sure what to do if number of players is not a factor of colours - for example there is only 5 players and 6 colours - what to do if player draw a card which require the 6th colour?
Perhaps add a note in the game set-up to remove any colors not used by players? That could eliminate the chance of someone drawing a color not in play.
My current design would work with 5/6 players (depending on which scheme). Not getting too deep into mechanics - each player has it's own deck of their own colour but is allowed to draw 1 card from other player pool instead of 2 from his own. Each card can have no or some dependency on other players.
Initially I though about having 5 colours where cards from A would depend on B and D, B on C and E, C on D and A, D on E and B and E on A and D but I had troubles fitting 2 or 4 players. Later I thought about using 6 players and making if there are 2 or 3 players they can be responsible for multiple colours (either play or just assume they are the same) but that won't work for 4 or 5. I briefly thought about all to all but that has problem with theme so I think now about let-off studios' proposition and making this as game and rules separation option.