Friday, January 13, 2012

What Use is a Dead Wizard?


One of the mechanics in Epic Spell Wars (due out in February) may be entirely new.

Generally I shy away from saying that about something I’ve designed. Yeah, I aim to design innovative games, but it’s often the case that people I don’t know about have enjoyed precisely the same thrill of innovation. Given the reach of the Internet, I expect that mentioning the Dead Wizard Deck from ESW as an innovation is going to be like casting Summon Previous Game Mechanic V!

Epic Spell Wars is a multiplayer game that awards ultimate victory to the first player to win two games. You win a game by being the last wizard standing after all other wizards have been knocked to 0 HP. When you are knocked out of a game, you wait around for the battle to be decided so that the next game can start. The games usually go quickly but you’re still likely to have to wait for several rounds.

In earlier designs I’ve kept all players involved in the game until it’s over for everyone, but in ESW I took a different approach. Each player who has been knocked out draws from the Dead Wizard Deck. You get a draw when you’re slain and another draw at the start of each round. Dead Wizard cards provide advantages in the next game. You might get +2 Hit Points next game, or a bonus Wild card in your starting hand, or even a draw from the Treasure deck.


The worse you lose, the stronger you are likely to be for the next game. You’ve already been hit by the stick; here, have a carrot! It’s a fun dynamic and it gives players who’ve been kicked around the usually-correct impression that they’re going to be more dangerous next time.  

I can’t remember playing a tabletop game that uses a mechanic like this. Maybe it is new (Summon PGM V)! If it isn’t new, I’m curious to hear how other games have handled it. If the approach improves a game you’re playing or designing, I’m curious to hear that too. 

9 comments:

  1. You inspire me to think of a way to implement this in the mods we're dreaming up for Fortune and Glory.

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    1. I haven't played Fortune and Glory yet. // I know you cats like it a lot.

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  2. This seems like it's essentially a "catch up to the leader" mechanism implemented in a novel way, and lots of games have those. The Gosu card game is a "first to win three rounds", and provides cards with powers that benefit those who are losing ("draw one more card if you're losing" for example), as well as several ways to shortcut long games and "instant-win" despite the number of rounds won.

    That said, I haven't ever seen your particular implementation of this kind of thing, and it does strike me as kind of neat.

    The first thing that occurred to me is that clever players will never do what is never done in pro sports... "Hey, our season is not going well, and we're never going to make the playoffs... it would be useful for us to try and get the best draft pick we can, so we'll go in the tank now."

    In multi-player games, suddenly it becomes important to judge that if you're not going to win this round, then it probably behooves you to LOSE IT REAL BAD, unless there's some compensatory mechanism, so I would be careful about that.

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    1. You're right that it is a catch-up mechanic. But it's also a bit of a reason-to-stick-around-as-if-you-were-doing-something mechanic. I can imagine that there would be better ways of providing such mechanics, so this is my first stab at it. // If you lose too badly, and look too powerful, everyone tries to pound on you in the next game!

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  3. Cool mechanic! I'm so psyched for this game.

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  4. It's similar to the Cylon Fleet mechanic from the BSG board game, though with a touch of the "Double ..." cycle from MtG's Unglued (back in 1994).

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    1. Cylon fleet mechanic? Don't know it, will look.

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  5. An old Games Workshop game uses a similar mechanic: Warlock. There you duel as wizards with a hand of seven cards over the three turns. If you get knocked out early, you get to rebuild your hand and to swap some cards for the next round, while winners have to make do with their random redraw.

    In fact the concept of your game sounds very similar to Warlock in my ears: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2146/warlock

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  6. Whoa!!! Thank you, Ralf. I don't know Warlock at all, but I'll look it over.

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