Sunday, May 20, 2012

Player-Controlled Resource Values [In The Lab]

Um, yay?
I'm noodling a little mechanic in my head and I'm not sure how well it works in actual play yet. And of course I don't have the time to really experiment with it at the moment. I'm posting it here so you can give it a shot. Like some of my previous thought-experiments, let's use a stock market theme for the time being.

Each player begins the game with ten chips, a personal "Portfolio" board and a pair of dice. The players share a "Market" board and a general supply of chips from the bank.

Both the Portfolio and Market boards show dice results 1-6. These represent six different stocks. The Portfolio board is where you keep track of how many shares you own in those stocks. The Market board keeps track of the value of each share in that stock.

The Market board
An example of a Portfolio board, with three shares in [1], one share in [3], one share in [5], and two shares in [6].


On the first turn, roll the dice first. The two results show stocks available for manipulation this turn. You may buy, sell or pass either of the results.
  • Buy: Check the value of your chosen stock on the Market board. Pay that many chips for one share. At the end of your turn, the value of that stock rises by one increment.
  • Sell: Check the value of your chosen stock on the Market board. Get that many chips per share you wish to sell. At the end of your turn, the value of that stock lowers by one increment.
  • Pass: You do not buy or sell this stock.
If you roll a double, you may buy then sell, buy then pass, or sell then pass. You may also buy twice or sell twice. If you buy twice, the value of that stock doubles. If you sell twice, the value halves, rounded down.

At the end of your turn, roll the dice again. For the rest of the game, all the players roll their dice at the end of their turn. These will be the stocks you can manipulate on your next turn. These are public so everyone can see what you might be planning later in the game.

The game ends when one player collects at least one share in each stock. The player with the highest value portfolio wins.

I'm sure mathy folks can figure out how well this system works, but I am very fascinated by the idea of players affecting resource values throughout the game.

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