I'm working on a light hearted game involving Ninjas attempting to rob a castle. The central mechanic would involve secretly playing cards to overcome obstacles. The players should work together in trying to clean a room which contains several challenges, but each player is scored separately on how well they perform.
The number of cards you can play is determined by how many ninjas you have in the room. So different players can play a different number of cards each turn, which complicates the matter further... Also there should be a resolution where a ninja succeds, fails or fails critically (dies).
I'm totally divided on whether the bidding should be simultaneous and secret or should the players take turns around the table.. Both have their pros and cons.
At the moment each player may secretly play as many challenge cards as he has ninjas. If you have more cards representing that challenge than anyone else, you've overcome it and collect the reward. Players who play equal number of same challenge cards cancel each other and their ninjas fail (go back to the dojo). At the moment I don't have a bluffing mechanic (you can't play a card unless its a challenge already present in the room) but I think it would be crucial to introduce one.
Any ideas on how to proceed with this? Maybe an existing game I should look to for inspiration?
Well, the story is that a mysterious person hired several clans of ninjas to rob a daimyo's castle, without them knowing that other clans also have the job. On the night of the break in they realize that they are not alone! Since ninjas cannot fight among themselves nor renege on the job, a race ensues which clan will reach the lord's bedroom first and prove themselves the best by overcoming as many challenges as possible.
Each player has a clan of ninjas (think meeples in carcassone) and places them on or moves them around a board depicting a castle. Each room has several challenges, represented by counters which are uncovered during the game. There are 6 types of challenges (at the moment) and you overcome them by playing cards from your hand (say the challenge is pit trap, you need to have a "rope" ninja card or something). When overcoming a challenge, all the players who have ninjas in the room may participate.. but only with as many cards as they have ninjas in the room.
Basically I'm trying to get the players to balance between the need to overcome a challenge together OR collect as many points as possible for themselves. So, it's a dilemma between being cooperative or selfish with both choices being equally valid... depending on the situation. The cards are drawn from a common pool and I'm thinking of adding a rule where the daimyo wakes up when the deck is exhausted and the game ends with all players loosing.
In this card-playing part of the game I don't want the players to be able to fight among themselves but rather to have an option to either cooperate for a safe, shared gain OR betray others and risk disaster... and more points.
Blue Moon? Ill look for its rules, maybe I'll get some inspiration from that. Thanks!