I share the 30-mile commute to work with reader John Rhoadhouse, and often we talk games. Although an avid gamer, he usually favors creating riddles, which is somewhat out of the scope of this blog. Today, however, he presented this sketch for a board game.

Theme: The players are petty villains in a city dominated by superheroes, each trying to be the last one remaining.

Goal: To be the last player remaining after all others are eliminated. Players have two ratings, Honor and Villainy. If either exceeds a certain threshold, the player is eliminated (too much Villainy and the superheroes bust you; too much Honor and the fraternity of villains disown you).

Mechanic: Every turn, a number of cards are revealed, each corresponding to a villainous scheme presented at the Auctionhouse of Villains. Schemes can increase, or in rare cases decrease, the Honor, Villainy, or credit available of a player. If you buy a scheme you can use it on any player. Every turn, the auction house extends you credit depending on your Honor, but any bid you make is increased for free by your Villainy (because you know how to cheat). The cards are wildly unbalanced in power, made fair by the fact they are bought on auction.

Hearing this description, it sounds to me like the game would be frustrating because the only way to gain power is to bring yourself closer to losing. The additional mechanic I suggested is that players be able to win without eliminating their opponents. The goals could be decided before the beginning of the game, either fixed by rules or chosen at random; or they could be bought on the Auction House like other schemes. For instance, you could categorize the evil schemes by type (Technology, Politics, Magic, Petty Crime) and then you could have goals that relate to them (win by building the Doomsday Device, which requires you to have six other Technology plans.)

I think this would add a more “constructive” appeal to the game and also solve the problem of what eliminated players should do while they wait for the next game to start. In this version, eliminated players would be more of a rarity. Whether with or without my ideas, the game is John’s and I hope he manages to put together a prototype that we can try out…

I’ll keep you posted, of course.