Community Resource Idea...

I don't know if this exact thing exists in a game, but it sounds a little similar to the Lord of the Rings CCG where your actions add resources for your opponent to use.

The way you described it at first had me thinking "each player gets 1/n resources... that's hardly "community resources" then, is it?".I realize that you then went on to say that the 'flavors' of resources would be limited, so everyone gets the same amount but of different kinds.

What about a true community resource mechanic though, where certain resources are available and you use what you use and leave the rest for the next player...

Of course you wouldn't want player 1 simply using all the resources every turn, so there'd be more to it than that. Perhaps the game is played with Actions, and Actions are on cards and/or have costs, and you can only do 1 Action a turn... then the amount of the community resources that you use is proportional to the power of the action you take. If you take a more powerful action then you leave less resources for other players, but then you have used up that action for the game/round/whatever.

A possibility would be that each player has an identical set of Action cards, you play 1 per round and pay the cost out of the community resources, then you don't get that Action back until later, if ever. Choosing an expensive Action may preclude the later players from doing the same, but it leaves you without that option for later.

Just my thoguhts with regard to "community resources." Take them or leave them. I think the system you described has merit as well (though it may involve some math).

- Seth

I was debating a game in my head that had as a central rule something that went like this:

---Everyone was a country/company that had to share workers.
---At the beginning of a round, there was a number X that was somehow determined that indicated how much "work" that could be done total for all countries/companies.
---After some amount of discussion amongst the players on how they wanted to divide up the work, each player secretly decided how many workers they wanted to use. Obviously, the more work you had done for you, meant better output for you.
---All amount of work/workers desired is revealed. If the total of workers needed fell below X then the workers were happy, and they provided bonus output, if the total equaled X, then they provided just the usual amount of output. However, if the total exceeded X, then "bad things" happened to the people who required the most workers in that round.

So you had to balance what was the best for everyone in the game with your desire to beat the other players, with possible bad outcomes based on a selected risk/reward ratio of pushing your luck with the workers.

So you had to balance what was the best for everyone in the game with your desire to beat the other players, with possible bad outcomes based on a selected risk/reward ratio of pushing your luck with the workers.
This sounds like a really cool way to do it... let the players exceed the 'total community resources' available, then punish the people who used more then their share if it does go over. Of course, then why doesn't everyone just use X/n resources, where n = number of players?

Maybe the amount you need is discreet, like I said before about actions with specific costs. So you HAVE to either use more or less than "your share".

- Seth

- Seth

Sorry - wasn't sure there would be interest in details...

The theme - such as it is - is sharecropping. There is a variable amount of space available each turn for farming, and players can choose between seven different crops to grow, each requiring a different amount of space and providing increasing income (read - victory points) with increased space. Each card has a table, showing the seven crops available, how much space each takes (ranging from 1-7, 2-8, or 3-9 "spaces"), and the income (ranging from 1-19).

From income is deducted a penalty for using more than your fair share of space - -1 for one extra space, -3 for two, -6 for three, and so on. Players also take chips to show how greedy they've been. At the end of the game, a penalty is paid on the same scale based upon how many chips each player has. Chips may only be discarded by taking less than your fair share of space; one chip is discarded for each space deserved but not taken.

That's about it, I think...

Joe