I am posting to find out if anyone has designed a mechanic like this before, and if not, what people think about it and what suggestions people have. I read several articles and couldn't find anything quite like what I'm proposing, so I thought I'd start up a new thread. Mods, if this is inappropriate, I apologize, and hope that you'll direct me to the proper thread.
I am helping a friend design a game, and as part of that, I thought of a mechanic that could be used for conflict resolution. It ended up not fitting his game very well, but I kept the idea because I think it might be possible to stand on it's own as a central mechanic. Here is how it works:
A player character card has 3 colored circles, each circle divided into 3 circles in a concentric pattern. This gives you 9 circles on the card, 3 red, 3 yellow, 3 blue (for example). Additionally, you have 3 sizes for each circle, a small, medium, and large red, a small, medium, and large yellow, and a small, medium and large blue. Colored wooden discs would be placed on the card to represent what "level" you have in a particular color.
Tests work as follows: Red beats Yellow, Yellow beats Blue, Blue beats Red. However, a small red does not beat a medium yellow, etc. A mechanic I've considered here is that a small red could damage a medium yellow, thus knocking it down to a small yellow, but I'm still ironing that out (thus my inquiry here). Once the test is complete (the opponent is eliminated), the player increases the size of the circle they used to defeat the opponent. In this case, their blue circle would increase one size. In the event that you encounter something you cannot defeat, you can take a black circle and place it on your character. On your next turn, you take no action except for removing the black circle (basically, you lose a turn for running away).
Opponents or creatures would never have more than 2 colored circles. So, for example, a Goblin might only have a small red. To beat a goblin, you just need a small blue, but that goblin may damage your yellow, removing it or shrinking it. A Dragon might have a large red and a large yellow, but it would never have blue. To beat a dragon, you would need a large blue and a large red. Because the dragon would be damaging your yellow and your blue, you would need to have some yellow as well; a large yellow if you wanted to beat it completely. After speaking with a mathematician friend of mine, I learned that this leads to 36 possible combinations of size and color circle for opponent cards.
The goal of the game would be to be the first player to get all 3 colored circles to their largest size. To start the game, each player would have the smallest size of each circle. It sounds like that would make the game much too quick, but if the damaging mechanic was used, the game could take some time. In addition, I'd want to flesh out the deck with some event type cards that would add circles or allow you to trade your circles around, etc.
Obviously, there are still quite a few rough edges here, so I wanted to see about any ideas people had regarding this mechanic. If it sounds usable, fun and/or doable. I want to keep the game as simple as possible. The idea is to have a game that you could play with someone with whom you share no common language.
Thanks in advance!
***LEGAL DISCLAIMER (boring stuff)********************************
This mechanic is my intelectual property, though I'm willing to share it via my express permission. In the event that this mechanic has already been patented/copyrighted, I will review the previously claimed rights and act in accordance with my findings.
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Q. How can you explain a game to someone you don't share a common language with?
A. This is an ideal situation, wherein the game is simple enough that you can just demonstrate how it works and the other player picks it up. I'm pretty sure this mechanic won't hit that mark, but I'm hoping for something close.
Q. How the cards come into play from the deck?
A. They would be drawn at the beginning of a players turn. However, I'd like to focus on the mechanic in question as a conflict resolution system, rather than the game play.
Q. How combat is played out and/or resolved? combining How those levels in each color are gained or lost?
A. That's what I'd like to focus on with this question. The idea is this: Each character starts with a small red, a small yellow, and a small blue. When a character encounters something, they compare their circles. We'll use an opponent with a small red circle in this example. The player compares their character's circles to the opponent's circles. The player's character has a small blue, which beats a small red, which will allow the character to defeat the opponent. Additionally, the opponent has one small red circle, which beats the character's small yellow circle. So the character will lose it's only yellow circle. That's ok, because a character is only defeated if it has no circles remaining. At the end of this comparison, the opponent has no circles, whereas the character has a small red and a small blue (having lost the yellow to the opponent). Since the character used it's blue circle to defeat the red opponent, it's blue circle increases in size by 1, so now at the end of the round, the character has a small red and a medium blue circle, but no yellow circle. The opponent has no circles, and so is defeated and the card goes to the discard pile. Here is the problem: the character can no longer fight any opponent who has a red circle of any size. If it did so, it would have to lose a yellow circle, but since it doesn't have any, I think this should defeat the character. Additionally, the character could no longer damage an opponent with a blue circle, since the character has no yellow circles to use in it's attacks. In order to get a yellow circle, you would have to fight an opponent with blue, but since you can't you're kind of stuck. So let's say the next opponent the character faces has a medium yellow circle. In the first round of combat, the character damages the opponent with his small red circle, thus knocking the opponent to a small yellow circle. The opponent also damages the character, knocking his medium blue circle to a small blue circle. In the next round, since no one was defeated, the character damages the opponents small yellow circle with his small red circle, thus removing the small yellow circle from the opponent; however, the opponent also removes the characters small blue circle through damage. What we have left at the end of this comparison is a character with a small red circle (which will go up in size to medium), and no other circles. The opponent will have no circles, so is defeated and goes to the discard pile. At the end of the round, we have a character with one medium red circle, and that is all. This character can no longer fight an opponent with a red circle, as they have no yellow circles to take damage. They can't fight a yellow opponent, because they have no blue circles to take damage. They can't fight a blue opponent because they have no yellow circles to do damage.
Ultimately, this mechanic may just not work, but I wonder if I added more colors if that would fix it, or if I started all characters at medium instead of small. If I did an RPS-5 style, would that be better? Or if I had characters start at medium in each color? Or I wonder if I can give characters the option to skip a turn and earn a small circle in any color they may be missing? Any thoughts would be great, and thanks for your responses!