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Mechanics and story

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Johnny Black
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Joined: 06/01/2016

Although Im no professional, Im currently designed a game about the WW2 ratlines out of Europe. The main issue Im facing however, is how I can use mechanics to create a story-driven playthrough, which can be different over several playthroughs. The best example I can think of is the Crossroads idea from Dead of Winter, although im interested as to how else I can do this. So my question is what are some viable mechanics which I can use to create a story within this game? Note: the game is already using drafting mechanics for game elements that you use and is a risk-reward sorta game where you try and help escapees leave europe without drawing to much attention to yourself. Any help?

Gabe
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Joined: 09/11/2014
One mechanism I'm using for a

One mechanism I'm using for a game is to have multiple versions of the same card.

The game's cards have different options on them that lead to consequences found in an adventure book.

Some cards have the same art and the same options, but they lead to different sections in the book.

Willem Verheij
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Joined: 06/08/2016
Fortune and Glory does

Fortune and Glory does something similar to that too yes. Pretty much every danger is two times in the deck, but they have different cliffhangers on the flipside of the card if you fail the test.

FrankM
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Joined: 01/27/2017
I have a similar situation

I'm juggling two game concepts at the moment, one nearly ready and the other still really rough. That rough one (the one about a black hole discussed elsewhere on this board) has a backstory that I'd like to communicate to the players through something other than a blurb in the rulebook.

The flavor text on Artifact cards seems like a logical place to put story snippets, and getting them in a shuffled order matches the theme (investigating the aftermath of a disaster). But is burying an "aha - now XYZ makes sense" bit of exposition on a card likely to come off as interesting backstory, frustrating withholding of information, or "I don't care because it doesn't affect the mechanics"?

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