More! I demand More!

So we've got a problem. Not a giant problem – just a bit of a gap.

Most of the focus has been on the minion game - so I thought I’d look at the Overlord game. From playing ‘of Gods and Men’ this is an area I'm worried about because you could end up with an overlord chained to his desk doing nothing fun while there minions do everything.

From an earlier blog post we've got the following turn structure.

•Scouting - 10 minutes. Minions run round talking to people and finding out what is available. But no decisions are made -nothing can be deployed to anywhere.

•Decisions - 5 minutes. decisions get taken and stuff get sent to places. Once placed it cannot move so there is an element of brinkmanship

•Resolution - 10 minutes. Resolving the stuff that's been placed down.

•Explanation - 5 minutes. Minions taking stuff back and explaining what happened to there overlord.

But that’s a minion centric perspective of the turn sequence– looking at it from an overlord perspective it’s very different.

•Scouting - 10 minutes. Overlord sits at table – minions tell them stuff .

•Decisions - 5 minutes. Overlords sit at table – overlord makes decisions (spends gold etc) hands stuff to minions.

•Resolutions – 10 minutes. Overlord sits at table – resolves attacks on their base (if any).

•Explanation – 5 minutes. Overlord sits at table. Minions come back and explains what’s happened – overlord gives out favour depending on their whim.

Right now - I'm designing the game and I think being a minion is more fun….. Don’t get me wrong– the explanation phase (or mini game of aye dark overlord as I like to think of it) has the potential to be hilarious as your minions suck up to you, arse cover and generally blame each other….. It’s just the other three don’t seem brilliant……

This is a problem that got spotted a while back and two things have been suggested – the first is ‘scrying’ which allows an overlord to get up and go look at things. That’s nice but looking is the cousin for actually doing. Something to do when you want to see what’s happening, for when you want to know why your minion is over there rather than where you told them to go.  I do hope an overlord manages to sneak up behind their minion and just watch them for a while – if it ends with the minion going ‘he’s behind he isn't he?’ Then we have achieved the gold standard.

The second is a sub game played by the overlord during the resolution phase – the celestial puzzle – in which solving mastermind like puzzles provides big rewards. I'm currently thinking that awakens particularly giant and impressive creatures – the dragon, the Lich King, Coyote the trickster – that sort of thing.

The intent was that your options to guess would be powered by the actions your minions took in previous turns. In effect you need green tokens for guesses –so you send them to burn down the great forest no matter if it’s tactically sound or not. The goal was a driver which effects overlord thinking which is not clear to the minions “why has the master demanded I do that?” All part of the drive towards a dynamic of confused discord between minion and master which I think is a key goal.

That is currently a bit vague – but sounds cool.

The gap however is ‘the resolution phase’. Overlords literally have nothing to do in that – and we cannot start the celestial puzzle early because they need to head back to there table to resolve an attack at the start of the resolution phase (if one happens).

It’s also good if Overlord are being pulled in more than one direction – if there are demands then they must choose where to be.  Which in turn drives game play.  So lets create an overlord centric time table…..

5 minutes – sitting at the table while your minions run round looking at what is available.

5 minutes – listening to your minions tales of the outside world, ordering your imps to mine gold and mana, spawning foul beats to do your will, dispatching minion in charge of terrible armies to do your will.

5 minutes – sitting at the table while your minions run around miss-using your dark forces and generally failing to achieve your dark goals.

10 minutes – crushing those that dare confront you, scrying upon the actions of your pathetic minions, solving the unspeakable dark riddles of the universe to awaken the great dark forces.

5 minutes – basking in the tales of destruction your minions have delivered in your name, smiling at a chosen minion, frowning at the ones who failed you.  Maybe blasting one of them out of existence…..

Looking at that – there are actually two 5 minutes gaps.  The first bit where minions are looking for things, sure they might appear and say stuff but you've got another 5 minutes after that to actually spend  your money.  So while it might be good if you are at your table counting your gold and working out what to build but it’s not essential.  Then the second bit while things are being decided upon.

Now having overlords mess up the actions of their own minions (and themselves) has the potential for comic brilliance…..

So how about we remove control of hero’s from the minions and move that to the control of the overlord? Who by dint of being one step removed from where the rubber meets the road might well order things that get in the way of there own plans.

So that first five minute bit – that’s some sort of influence phase in which the overlords try to manipulate the hero's.  Using the same resource as the conjunction game seems reasonable since 'victory tokens' represent acts out in the wider game world - raiding, destroying, not leaving the toilet seat down etc.

To mix things up I want this to be a negative bidding - where you are bidding against somebody taking control of the hero's.  Thematically it's about spreading rumours about who 'the real threat' is.  Now I want hero's to be a sort of catch up mechanism - the player doing the worst will by default take control of the most hero's so those at the top will need to spend more resource - which in turn they will hopefully use against there closest competition not the person doing worse.  That said catch up mechanisms need to be subtle - and not sledge hammer.  So simply giving the hero's to the person at the bottom seems bad.  Lets have a simple system - the person who the least victory point tokens bid against them (any sort) takes control of the most hero's with ties being broken in favour of the lowest terror.  Obviously this sort of system needs a chance to co-ordinate and haggle so lets have this bit the time where overlords can get together and talk - before they have any idea what sort of opportunities are out there.

Haggling, deciding, and posting victory point tokens is a good 5 minutes activity.  Then back to there table they go - giving control 5 minutes to work out the winner.  Off there minions go to place resources somewhere - and back the overlords comes to assign there hero's.  Which is where I run into a blank - there's a logistics problem.  How to let the overlords have some control over hero's without just letting them walk up to the various kingdoms and do something.

For this I have no answer - but lets sleep on it and see what happens.  But overall - I'm happy with the shape and structure of this.  The overlord game just got a lot fuller.