The Game of DEATH (Death Rush) - Need brainstorming help

Yes i am agree that it is a great idea. It can has fun! But for to make complete, I needs to has many ideas and input from the BGDF community. Also I do want the game to have a humorous tone even though its a game about dying.

I like the musical chairs idea, to limit the players ganging up on a player perhaps the card can be passed to the left or the Fate card that blocks the Death card could perhaps dictate that the Death gets passed to the left or right. It could be like a morbid game of Hot Potato. But now that I think of it, I'd rather have something more original than a glorified Hot Potato game. I definitely want to have a set of unique Deaths, such as drowning in a pool or getting hit by car and humorous ones like falling under a tree you just chopped. I plan on the artwork being somewhat humorous. Similar to the stick figure warning signs on heavy machinery and electric panels. I'm looking to have a certain amount of luck/suspense but I do want to have meaningful decisions for the players to make.

You have an interesting mechanic there having the players place cards on each other's pile. I can see that would give a lot of suspense when turning over one's pile. However, it doesn't seem to give the player a decision that will affect their hand, unless they are allowed to look at the cards they are given to decide which ones to give away. Also, it runs into the problem of everyone possibly ganging up on one player; everyone hands him a death card. However, its still a good idea that I will test out.

FYI: The name of this game will not be The Game of Death. Right now I'm considering Death Rush. This game is being developed for a full release through Nightstalker Games. However, I plan on entering it into a contest that has very strict guidelines and very limited components allowed. I plan on this being a card game but I'm limited to 32 cards. So for the contest, I need to create a Lite version.

Right now I'm thinking of having 17 Death cards and 15 Fate cards. The Death cards are in one pile and the Fate cards in another. The players then divide the Fate cards evenly among each other. Any odd remaining Fate Cards are set aside for the current round. A death card is drawn by a player and he has a chance to stave off the Death card with an appropriate Fate Card. (The Death and Fate Cards would be of two types; Accident or Murder) If the player cannot stave off death, he dies and is eliminated. That Death card and any remaining cards he has are removed from the game and a new round starts. If he avoids Death, the Death card is passed to the next player who then has a chance to avoid it. Each round is started off by a different player. If all the players stave off death in the round, The Death card and one of its corresponding Fate Cards are removed from the game. This should be a fairly fast paced setup so player downtime after being eliminated shouldn't be a problem. Let me know your input.

yes that set up doesn't leave much decision making but I fail to see how the winner is automatically decided right from the beginning. If you mean that some one will die virtually every round and quickly, well that is the point. I do like the idea of perhaps dice rolls and a luck pool, (Close Calls?) Again this Lite version is limited on game components allowed. A max of 32 cards, 3 dice, and 25 tokens. I'm trying not to make it too complex, I'm envisioning a lite, fast paced game.

I do like the idea of each Death having a Severity level and a die roll to defeat it. But does that mean doing away with Fate cards? all the player's are facing 32 cards of Death? Seems like there really won't be any player interaction. Each person is taking their own turn without any input from the other players. Perhaps a combination of Fate Cards and die rolls? a fate card could give a bonus to the die roll?

The way you explain it now I understand. I like the idea of spending luck to increase or decrease a die roll. Should there perhaps be a reward for causing another player to fail their roll? Perhaps a player gets their luck back if they help the die roll fail? I say that to try to push some incentive to spite the other players rather than having everyone just hold their luck counters for themselves. There is the possibility that all the players could actually survive all the way through the deck requiring a re-shuffle and prolonging the game. That would also mean much more down time for players already eliminated. I really want to bring the game to a definitive end before or by the end of the deck.

With the Fate cards I mentioned earlier, there are less of those than Death cards, so as the cards thin out, the chance of death increases. Perhaps there is a way to combine the idea of Fate Cards and dice rolls along with the luck counters.

By the way, I'd like to thank everyone so far for the great input! Let's continue this til we have a fun, albeit weird/morbid, game!

That sounds really good, i'm going to prototype it and try it out. I'd be real interested in hearing if anyone makes any protos of this idea and tries it out.