I am making a board game with a single movement track (e.g. Monopoly) and a card set building main mechanic. The idea is the board spaces enable meta-moves like "choose a card from the discard pile." Movement on the board is by playing one of your set building item cards for its movement value rather than keeping it for melding; some have 0, allowing you to remain on a space.
Now (possibly influenced by the turn order challenge here) I've had the idea that each space defines a different turn order with different actions/rules.
This would look like:
Original turn sequence:
1. Play a movement card
2. Encounter new space
3. Draw one item card from top of deck or discard pile
4. Meld item cards onto an open location
5. Optional - Place new location card
6. Discard to five cards
Original board space:
Draw three item cards and pick two
New sequence+space concept:
1. Choose to remain here or play a movement card
2. Draw three item cards, pick two, discard one
3. Optional - Place new location card
Another space might be:
1. Play a movement card
2. Draw two location cards
3. Draw two item cards
4. Place new location card or Replace existing one
5. Meld item cards
6. Discard down to three cards
The question is: Is this intriguing, confusing, excessive, or?
Thanks,
Corsaire
Thanks Quest and Leadpipe
Sorry, tried too hard to pull the theme out to focus on the board space concept. As I'm interested in feedback on the board mechanic, but not so much on the theme and the mechanics relating to that as those are being worked with amongst myself, my wife, and kid and don't want to spoil that process.
But, I see, I need some of that to pull together explaining the concept.
The player is playing a fantasy novel writer. He is travelling around the board to locations like "SciFi Convention," "Library," "Meet a famous writer." He has a hand of cards and a card area in front of him where he will play cards to build a story/novel. Location cards are things like "Ancient Temple" and those are the basis for like a chapter. And a chapter "meld" consists of a location, conflict, encounters/items, resolution.
The cards in your hand are encounter cards that include items, spells, creatures, unusual situations, things like that. These can be added to a location/chapter to make them "more interesting" or challenging or are used for resolving the chapter. On an encounter card is also a number from 0 to 4 which replaces the regular die roll for board movement.
The board track exists rather than action points for a couple of reasons. The biggest of which is my son is seven and wants to include moving around the board. Another is that the board has a sense of sequence, where early around you are building story and there is a late space for publishing.
Because of the pace of moving around, I wanted more than one thing to be happening on a turn, like at the convention you may draw new encounter(idea) cards and you may also be able to replace other players cards with "insidious suggestions." But it is pretty hard to actually get any writing done (play cards into chapters) while there. Whereas if I am at "Meet with Editor" I may be able to draw and play and replace encounter cards but not start new scenes/locations.
Quest,
So, the Sequence+Space section would completely replace the regular turn sequence mechanic in the game when you are on that specific space.
Leadpipe,
I think you have the same concern I was worried about with reading all those spaces and the basic barrier to learning the game. My wife was thinking maybe it would be all right if there were only 3 or 4 versions of the turn sequence. And maybe I can define a limited number of types of turn sequence and add one special action per space.
Possible turn sequences:
1. Writing
2. Researching
3. Kibitzing
Having multiple action pieces does get to what I was trying to get to but doesn't fit thematically with the "Writer's Journey."
Thanks much, appreciate the help,
Corsaire