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Revisiting the Drawing of Cards

3 replies [Last post]
Mon, 03/28/2016 - 11:55
ruy343
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Joined: 07/03/2013

As you all know, I've been working on a Mad Scientist-themed game recently, and I promised I'd be sharing my rules online soon. However, I won't get the feedback I need from you guys until I get a few things straightened out on my end. Specifically - I don't like how my game is going about drawing cards.

Right now, the game let you draw cards like this:
-If you have a henchman (worker) placed on a deck, you may draw a card for each minion (mini-worker or progress marker) that is also there, keeping one card per henchman.

This works really well so far, but I don't like how with time, a player can draw 7-10 cards and choose from among them. Granted, that has the right flavor (a mad genius can spend time plotting to get more options), but I feel that it makes that option a little bit too powerful in comparison to other options, and that it means that players' turns take longer than I would like as they decide among their options.

I'd like to ask: what are some ways in which you've seen games handle the drawing of cards? Are there any ways that you can think of that allow a player an element of choice without making the game drag on or take up too much table space?

Thanks!

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Mon, 03/28/2016 - 12:43
#1
Fhizban
Fhizban's picture
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Joined: 01/11/2009
the idea is good actually, no

the idea is good actually, no wonder it works well.

you have a two component system, one that drives the card draws, the other limites how many to keep

you should just limit the maximum amount of cards that can be drawn this way.

maybe by limiting the number of minions a player can place in that zone

do the minions serve another purpose as well? would this other purpose also be limited?

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Mon, 03/28/2016 - 13:22
#2
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
I like your approach, and I

I like your approach, and I don't think your issues with are are necessarily warranted.

I assume you've used this approach elsewhere, too, that Henchmen are rare but are required to get anything significant done, and minions are more plentiful and only enhance what the henchman does. I'm further going to assume that the placement of henchmen is the real worker placement part of the game, and then everyone places all their minions simultaneously. (If not, consider this approach.)

I'm only going to place a lot of minions with my card-draw henchmen if I have one specific card that I really need. I'm not going to spend a long time looking through the 8 cards I drew, because I'm just going to skim them for the one I want. If I don't get it, the entertainment value of me cursing the deck gods might be enough to keep my opponents from getting bored as I decide which one I'll settle for. :-) (Also, this activity can be simultaneous with them doing stuff, probably.)

Some other ways you might have the henchmen/minion trade-off:

Resource gathering: 1 resource per minion, but you need a henchman for every N minions or they won't do any work at all.

Fighting: Only minions count for fighting power, but only if they're managed (or they will run away).

Promotion: It takes a henchman and 9 minions, and one of those minions will be promoted to henchman. (The other 8 are needed for cheering.)

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Mon, 03/28/2016 - 14:40
#3
Gabe
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Joined: 09/11/2014
I agree with Fhizban in that

I agree with Fhizban in that you can just put a cap on the number of cards that can be drawn.

Or, is it possible to put this action at the end of a turn so that a player can look through the cards while the next player is taking his turn?

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