Hi,
So, I finished submitting my 4 reviews, and thought I'd list the best mechanics from each.
6) "Our Steel, King's Law". A narrative boardgame, with the neat mechanics that enemies roll dice (one d12) but players don't. A PC chooses an action and the other players try to support them by guessing-- you add up the points for correct guesses (max: 12) and that's your PC's score for the action. So if all the other players support you, you get a 12 versus the enemy's roll of 1d12.
7) "Terra Nova". A great game of inevitable death for a 2-hour roadtrip (very verbal, very social). The primary mechanic is that you have an amount of ''Compassion' to help yourself or others. If you don't use it you get penalized. Since it's a competitive game, though, you spend Compassion to ultimately boost yourself.
8) "The Marriage of Persephone". This has a neat real-world aspect. During the 2-week gap between play sessions, you have to go out and meet 3 new people so you can incorporate them as PCs into the 2nd session.
9) "Time Traitor". You take notes in session 1 on an index card. It deliberately uses the 2-week gap between sessions to encourage the usual player forgetfulness of what happened last session-- so for the second session, your only information is what you wrote on the card.
Fun stuff,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net