First Drafts - De Excidio
Now that I've gotten my first test in, and confirmed that there's non-zero juice present, I'm going to start talking about the game I'm currently in design space on (as opposed to polishing space, which is where Hench is or sell space, which is where Rex Regnat currently lives). Rather than give a full design diary, largely because I'm not sure if De Ex is going to live or be consigned to "nice-idea" land, I'm going to talk about the mechanical and thematic inspirations that I'm drawing on, and what I'm taking from each.
Theme
I'm interested in the ends of stable situations and the choice between trying to prolong something that maybe isn't working but is known and developing a new thing which might not work. I've tried to explore this space previously with A Crystal Ship and Minyaplos, but neither game really came together. I initially was using this design as a sort of Minyaplos 2.0, but the world of Minyaplos was heavily based on the end of the Roman Empire, with various provincial forces starting under control of the metropole, and then coming apart into their own elements.
This game is more about what's happening in one of those outlying provinces, as the tide of control from the empire pulls back. Do the locals try to hold to the systems that came before, as unsuited as they are for the world they're facing, or do they build new systems?
Mechanics
My starting mechanical point was a system I've enjoyed a fair bit but which hasn't seen too much further work, the hybrid worker placement / deckbuilding system from Dune: Imperium. It's a fun blend of the two, with the central board and conflict system acting as a way to force much more interaction into a game genre (deckbuilding) which tends towards multi-player solitaire while the deckbuilding makes the worker placement more exciting, where players might not be able to access the spaces they want due to the fluctuations of their deck.
I also wanted to make this game a multi-victor game. This is partially thematic, as I feel like a solo-victor system is likely to lead to some very weird behavior from players near the end game. This isn't a game about who gets to rule Arrakis, this is a game about trying to hold on to power as the forces that previously gave you control are melting away. In most societies, there can be more than one source of social power, and so I wanted to make sure players could co-operate even through the end game.
With that said, it's not a co-operative game, and I do want players to struggle with each other over if there's going to be enough for them. In particular, there are a finite number of victory conditions, and each one can support at most one person, so if someone starts sniffing around your "life boat," you need to be careful.
In the current version of the game, between 1-5 victory conditions can be active (with 3 active at the start), each one checking for the "most" of something. Given that the game supports 3-5 players, and keeping 3 victory conditions active is difficult (let alone keeping 5 active at once), I suspect there'll be enough chew to make sure the game doesn't degenerate into group hug mode too often.
I'll be interested to see how future playtests go, and hopefully can talk about more as the system gets nailed down a bit more strongly.