I am currently reading a book about various method of brain storming, and one interesting Idea is that you could impersonate a character and get new ideas by determining what kind of problems will happen to him and what kind of actions the character can do.
I often complain that in many board game, you actually have no feeling of really being what the game tells you that you are (ex: Pirate captain, Scillon, wizard, etc.) But by using an approach like this, centered on the character, I think it would create games that will really give you the right feeling.
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So for example. Let say I want to make a game where I am a wizard with my small empire.
When I wake up in the morning, I will probably do some routine stuff meaning less for a game. Then what do I do?
I probably go to some kind of office where I would get reports from my underling or I might go in my casting chambers to continue casting the enchantment I started 2 days ago.
If I go to my office, yes I have treasury to manage with other administrative task, but I could for example get a special envoy that tells me that "In city X, people are starting to disappears recently, what should we do?"
Now you can ask your self, If I had all the freedom I want, what would I really do in this situation. Here is a couple of options.
Investigate: By sending a few soldiers, and hero or myself to solve the problem.
Reinforce: Send out an army to increase security in the area
Ignore: Simply do nothing
Destroy: Nuke the city with my new meteor storm spell.
In the end, this could be translated in game terms as an event cards with a list of actions players can take.
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Else that kind of brainstorming can be used to generate many ideas and possibilities. Then you group together ideas and decide which concept will go to the game.
Do you think it is a good idea?
