RangerWickett
Legend
I'm working on a bit of game design for a friend's deck-building game. Basically, there's a bad guy deck that plays hostile cards, and each player starts with a basic 'adventurer' deck. There are also stacks of nifty power cards you can get from a communal supply, and you add those to your deck, which sort of represents "leveling up."
Already my friend has spells that hurt monsters, magic items you can wear and wield, and nifty actions like 'rousing speech' and healing and such. By choosing different cards from the communal supply, you can take your basic adventurer and level up into 'wizard,' 'cleric,' 'rogue,' and so on.
I want to create some cards to model becoming a nobleman or king, with magical powers based on rulership. What I'm running into is a question of cause and effect. What is more interesting for a ruler, mechanically?
Option A. I lead, you follow. In this, the actions of the king make everyone else better. I attack a monster, and everyone else gets a bonus to their attacks. I try to defend a wall against monsters, and everyone else is more effective at defending the wall.
Option B. It's good to be the king. In this, the king always is the biggest bad-ass. Sure, the fighter hits the monster, but if the king hits the same monster, he'll do more damage and thus be more likely to get the glory for the kill. If everyone else is defending a wall, when the king shows up at the wall, that's when the monsters flee.
I feel like option A is more fun for the rest of the party, but option B is funnier, and a bit more subversive. I worry that it might irk players, though. Sure, the team wins either way, but some players get picky about one person getting all the limelight. What do you think?
Already my friend has spells that hurt monsters, magic items you can wear and wield, and nifty actions like 'rousing speech' and healing and such. By choosing different cards from the communal supply, you can take your basic adventurer and level up into 'wizard,' 'cleric,' 'rogue,' and so on.
I want to create some cards to model becoming a nobleman or king, with magical powers based on rulership. What I'm running into is a question of cause and effect. What is more interesting for a ruler, mechanically?
Option A. I lead, you follow. In this, the actions of the king make everyone else better. I attack a monster, and everyone else gets a bonus to their attacks. I try to defend a wall against monsters, and everyone else is more effective at defending the wall.
Option B. It's good to be the king. In this, the king always is the biggest bad-ass. Sure, the fighter hits the monster, but if the king hits the same monster, he'll do more damage and thus be more likely to get the glory for the kill. If everyone else is defending a wall, when the king shows up at the wall, that's when the monsters flee.
I feel like option A is more fun for the rest of the party, but option B is funnier, and a bit more subversive. I worry that it might irk players, though. Sure, the team wins either way, but some players get picky about one person getting all the limelight. What do you think?
