Oh well. I'll post it here and we can talk about it. That's good enough for me. :)
I was thinking about the movies Constantine/City of Angels/Etc this morning and it got me thinking thematically about Angles and Demons trying to manipulate human behavior. I'm also fond of the Stargate series, and I love that goofy time machine with all the moving platforms they used in one of the later episodes. If these two ideas do not immediately seem to meet up, then by all means read on...
Name of the Game:
"Angels and Demons" ... or maybe "End of Days"
Goal:
(1) To maximize your personal power by guiding the reputation and morality of certain parts of society while minimizing the other parts of society that work against you.
(2) To figure out who your allies and enemies are through their actions in order to help you allies and hinder your foes, because when the End of Days come, it's you versus them, and only one side will win.
Components:
1 set of "Immortals" cards featuring equal numbers of angels and demons from myth and lore, 1 per card
1 deck of "Manipulation" cards (explained below)
1 game board divided into 6 equal zones, one each for the major control mechanisms of society:
Law, Government, Military, Media, Street, & Corporations (tentative)
Each zone has the following 3 features:
A "power meter" (0 to 100)
A "morality meter" (0 to 100)
A "docking location" where one can place a card or three
12 tokens, 2 each to track the levels of the meters in each zone
The Manipulation deck is made out of 4 different kinds of cards: "Headlines", "Icons", "Sins & Virtues", and "Powers."
* The majority of the cards are "Headlines." These cards have a bit of flavor text (the headline) followed by power and morality modifiers for one or more zones. Most have 2 zones on them, some have three, and very few have just 1.
* "Icons" depict individuals tied to particular zones. Society at large thinks of these individuals as representing the values of the whole zone (think Bill Gates and Software or Rupert Murdoch and Tabloids). Like all human beings, Icons have strengths and weaknesses that, once the Icons are placed in a position of power within their zone, can be used to manipulate the public's perception of their whole zone.
* "Sin & Virtue" cards can be played on installed Icons in order to do the manipulating. Each card fits into one of the categories belonging to either the "7 deadly sins" or the "7 holy virtues" and are in fact specific examples of each category. The Icons themselves include only the broad category names on the card. For example, Vanity as a Sin and Temperance as a Virtue. The Sin and Virtue cards cite specific examples of these as well as a pair of modifiers applied to the zone when played. There are also special S & V cards that can negate or alter the affects of other S & V cards, for example "Redemption", "Sacrifice", or "Fall from Grace."
* "Powers" cards allow players to work affects on the world directly or do things with or to other players. For example, forcing other players to show some cards or allowing you to play one at random from their pile, etc. While very powerful, these cards are also very direct, making it clear to the other players what your real agenda is. Unless you use it as a bluff, that is.
Playing the Game:
1. At the start of the game, separate the Angels and Demons in the Immortals deck. Randomly select 1 less Angel card than the number of players, and then do the same for the Demons. Return the remaining Immortals cards to the box. It is okay for players to see these cards. Now shuffle the selected A & D cards and deal one out to each player face down. The backs of these cards are identical. Place the remaining cards in a small sleeve without looking at them.
2. Put the tracking tokens on the 10's place on every power and the 50's place on every morality bar for each zone. This represents early society in a primordial state.
3. Shuffle the Manipulation deck and deal each player 7 (?) cards.
4. Now look at your personal Immortal card. It tells you which immortal you are, from which zones you draw your power, and which one you find inimical to your very being. Your goal is to maximize your personal power while and tilt the zone to the correct moral perspective. It does Belial no good to have the Government and Military zones be all powerful if they are also 100% warm and fuzzy goodness. Do not tell anybody who you are!!
5. On your turn you always perform 2 actions. First, draw the top card off the manipulation deck. Second, remove one card from your hand; there are only three ways to remove that card. Playing, Delaying, or Sequestering.
* Playing a card puts it's mechanics into effect. Cards may never be played more than once, though they may persist on the board after being played.
* Delaying a card means to pull it out of your hand and place it, face down, next to the Manipulation deck. When the M deck is played out, the delayed cards get shuffled and played next.
* Sequestering is what you do with a card that you want never to get played. You place it face down on the table in front of you. Sequestering represents you taking steps to ensure that a certain event never occurs. You may not ever sequester more than 7 cards. If you put an eighth one in, one of the others must come out -- and it must then either be played or delayed.
Headlines are your main point of attack. You have to find a way to build up the power of your zones and tilt their morality in the right direction without letting everybody know what you are trying to do. After all, you don't even know who your friends are, assuming you even have any! You also have to deal with the turbulence of the card design; the change you want almost always occurs with changes you don't want to one or more zones, but this also helps hide your true goals. At the same time, you have to decipher what the other people at the table are trying to do. The Icon and Sin and Virtue cards are key to making this work. They allow you, in certain cases, to perform a last minute plot twist that can turn good to bad, or vice versa. But playing an Icon is not without risk - each one has both a Sin and a Virtue, so which ever one you want to use, the other one is left open for your enemies. Sometimes it is better to "Sin up" your Icon before someone else gets a chance to play something much, much worse. Of course that "muddies the waters" and mitigates the value of the goodness you were trying to achieve. The opposite tactic is equally true.
A note about headlines and sequestration: If you were to play every headline in the deck, all zones would end with 50 power and 50 morality -- a total draw and a completely open, ambiguous world advantageous to none. Thus the real art of winning is in what you choose *not* to play.
6. When the last Manipulation card is drawn, the world enters Armageddon, or the beginning of the End of Days. At this point the veil is lifted and all players flip their Immortal cards. Now you know what you are up against. There is at least 1 Angel in the group and at least 1 Demon. The tactics you follow in this final battle depend on which side has the upper hand:
* Less Angels vs more Demons are going to try to bring about the Rapture and Judgment
* More Angles vs less Demons are going to try to wipe the demons out so the world will be at peace
* Less Demons vs more Angels are going to try to prolong the war until the window for Rapture has passed
* More Demons vs less Angels will try to wipe the Angles out so as to get God to abandon the world
Or ... maybe we'll all just try to kill each other at the end of the game, I don't know. Somebody shoot some ideas out there. What are good power cards? How do we do handle Armageddon? Can we accumulate cool attack powers over the course of the game in our Sequester pile? That would be a trade off between holding back cards that hurt you vs stockpiling some big guns to take out opponents at the end. How do I balance the Armageddon phase when it's 1 vs 3? or worse, 1 vs 5?
Looking forward to hearing from y'all.
--Patrick
This game idea's been bumping around my place for a while now, wanting for a good end-game mechanic. Turns out that's been a tough nut to crack.
Multi affect cards are just a good idea. For this, anyway. I was originally thinking multi-affect like "I have to take B in order to get A. Do I really want to? Am I willing to lower the Morality a little to raise the Power a lot? Can I make it up later?" But I also like the idea of "Do I use this card for purpose A or purpose B?" That's a tricky choice and could be real fun.
I wanted asymmetric, and I got it. I just don't know how to close. I have a few ideas, please let me know what you guys think about it.
First of all, the power and morality of a zone combine to give each Immortal a score that essentially measures their hit-points for the final battle.
* Power runs from 0 to 10, so I'm thinking Morality runs from 0 to 10, in both directions (evil and good).
* If the Moral direction of a zone matches your own, then add it to the Power. If it is opposite, you subtract it, minimum value 0. So if a zone is 7 power and 3 Good, then it is 10 for an Angel (assuming they can use that zone) and 4 for a Demon (again assuming this is their designated zone)
Pros: easy peasy and I kind of like the feel of it:
1) If an institution is more Good than it is Powerful, then it is of no use to a Demon at all (and vice-versa)
2) A zone that has more Power than Morality would be useful to both sides in this conflict: 80 Power and 10 Evil leads to 90 for a Demon and 70 for an Angel. It's like because the power outstrips the Morality the institution can be abused and twisted to work for either (or both) sides.
Cons: ? Not sure yet. need more time.
Each Immortal has 2 zones that it relates to. Maybe we simply add the total for each zone together to get a single hit point score.
We add a fifth type of card to the Manipulation deck: Words. Angels and Demons are inherently spirit creatures, so they don't go to war with sticks and stones. Only Words can hurt them. (hehehe) In this case, they are the Words of Power: Leftovers from the days of creation, these Words, when found, can be used to directly attack each other in the endgame.
We put these in the Manipulation deck so that they are found throughout the first phase of the game, and we store them in the Sequester stack in order to keep them until the end. This forces the players into another choice: Do I store Headlines that are bad for my zones, essentially increasing my hit points at the end of the game, or do I store Words, which allow me to cause more damage to my enemies? Ah, choices, choices.
As to the mechanic for Words, I'm thinking, crazy at it sounds, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock.
If you are not familiar with it, it works just like rock-paper-scissors, except that any item you choose has 2 things that beat it and 2 things that get beat by it. In this case the names would be something like "Reveal truth", "alter ego", "stoke fear". Something like that. I just made that up right there and am not beholden to it yet.
Here is the algorithm:
1) Each player will secretly choose a Word from their Sequester stack and holds it face down in front of them.
Since this is the Armageddon phase, you already know who are the Angels and Demons in your group, and thus which end of the stick you and your teammates are holding. In the center of the board, under the (now empty) Manipulation deck lies a ring with the five Words and arrows that show which beats what. Those arrows form a pentagram inscribed in that ring. Ooh .. spooky. :)
2) After everybody has chosen their Words, you reveal them at the same time, and then place your Angel or Demon card on the corresponding word on the ring. Multiple Demons and/or Angels can occupy the same spot.
3) Notice the arrows. If there is an arrow running from an Angel to a Demon, then that Demon gets wammied by the Word. The converse is also holds. But if there is an arrow running from Demon to Demon or Angel to Angel, nothing happens. If there is more than one Demon in a location with an arrow running to an Angel, the Angel only gets one wammy, not two. This just means the two Demons spoke the same Word at the same time, which does not increase it's impact. If the arrow runs from the Angel to the two Demons -- they both get it.
4) Pick up your Immortals card and return your Word to the Sequester Stack.
No matter which word you pick, there are only 2 Words that can hurt you, and you can get at most 2 whammies from those two spots. And you have increased odds of doing a whammy on multiple opponents when you have more opponents to fight. If there are a lot of opponents against you, this system mitigates their ability to gang up. The problem is that in this form it is also totally random. You have no idea what everybody else is going to play. At first, anyway.
Words are not used up when you play them, but you only have the ones you chose to keep during the first phase. There are 5 and you only have 7 sequester spots. Did you really keep one of each, and how low are your hit points now because those bad-for-your-zone cards got played? Ah, choices.
If you did not get all five Words, then after a few quick rounds, the other people are going to get a good idea of what you've got, and will be better able to guess the coming plays.
We could also remove some of the randomness by allowing that whammy strength depends on your individual power, and/or that certain Words work better or worse for Demons vs Angels. Thus if you are facing Demons, you know the players are more likely to use certain Words against you.
When you get whammied, you lose hit points. If you run out of hit points, you die. If all of one side dies -- the other wins. Yay!
I'm thinking we also need a "bring down Judgment" or "delay the Inevitable" type of backdoor that gives a strongly outmatched team an opportunity to complete a set of requirements before the powerful team wipes them off the board. Thus if it is 1 Angel to 5 Demons (ouch) -- the Angel is trying to "bring down Judgment" before he gets killed. If he succeeds, then he wins. The same is true for Demons. Maybe the worse the odds, the easier we make reaching the alternate ending. You choice, as a player, is when do I go for the alternate ending, and when do I go for the kill? Ah, choices.
Please post any thoughts on this subject. it's all brainstorming right now.