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Nerts variants

3 replies [Last post]
Mon, 06/16/2014 - 04:27
RyanRay
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Joined: 03/27/2014

Hi All,

Does anyone know of games that use the base mechanic from Nerts? If you're not familiar with Nerts, it's essentially a speed-based multiplayer form of Solitaire. The Ace piles from normal Solitaire become stacks in a common pool that anyone can play upon, points come from cards you played in the common area. Sounds lame, actually very fun, everyone gets their own 52-card deck to play, can get hectic and frantic very quickly. I'm thinking that this mechanic is ripe for providing a cool theme with some slight modification.

tl;dr Pseudo set-collection for points, having the idea that sets you "claim" become upgrades of some sort instead of just points.

Sets equate to parts of a robot, equipment for a knight, parts of a boat, fuel of some sort, special abilities, weapons, etc.

Any thoughts?
Thanks!
-RyanRay

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Tue, 06/17/2014 - 16:48
#1
ruy343
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Joined: 07/03/2013
Intriguing...

For the rest of the BGDF community's enlightenment, Nertz is also known as "perpetual commotion" and "Dutch Blitz". There are very minor variations between the respective games.

I think that it might be fun to put a zany worker placement game as part of the victory. It shouldn't be associated only with the placement of a 10, however, or else it would likely lead to kingmaker situations where one player waits until their friend notices that their friend has a 10, and then finally plays his 9.

However, it would be interesting to play it as 2 teams, methinks. Maybe the teams can only play on each other's cards, and playing on other teams' piles isn't allowed? Maybe incorporate the placement of a tic-tac-toe marker when a player completes a pile? Give it a test drive. Make sure that the craziness of the game doesn't cause the tic-tac-toe board to get destroyed too.

I'm toying with mechanics you could add in, not necessarily theme. Sorry.

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Wed, 06/18/2014 - 02:15
#2
RyanRay
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Joined: 03/27/2014
I've got the base mechanics

I've got the base mechanics down pretty well, just trying to figure out how the sets you collect will function.

Do they let you advance a vehicle in a race?
... attack other players?
... defend for oncoming storms?
... add on parts of a building?
... connect cities, a la Ticket to Ride?

Say that a particular stack will contain 7 cards when it's finished. Whoever contributed the most cards to that stack takes the greatest value item that corresponds to it, followed by the second player and so forth as long as the player meets a minimum threshold to acquire items from certain stacks.

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Wed, 06/18/2014 - 13:33
#3
ruy343
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Joined: 07/03/2013
I like your thinking

For the idea of the racecar, once you've completed a stack a certain amount, you can roll a dice to advance. Then, if you complete a stack that's a bit larger, you get to roll a larger dice (and the minimum could change too: from d6 to d8, the d8 could have a minimum of 2 movement). Once you use a pile, though, you have to clear it, and any larger bonuses wouldn't be available. This could also be modified with more low cards and a greater number of high cards.

Additionally, you could make connections between cities cost varying amounts of a stack.

It would certainly give the game a "race" feeling...

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