Entry: Thick as Thieves

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Alas, RL (in the form of my three-month-old daughter) appears to be conspiring against me completing this year's contest. But I'll give it my best.

Thick as Thieves is a game of double-crossing and back-stabbing inspired principally by Yojimbo and, by extension, A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing and, to a lesser extent, Reservoir Dogs.

Here's what I've got so far:

For 6+ players. One sheriff, one mercenary, 4+ crime lords.

Time Limit: The game is completely playable in one session of 2 hours.

Ingredients: Package Two

Law: One character plays the sheriff, trying to keep order in the town.

Actor: All of the characters must try to bluff, intimidate, and cajole the others. In particular, the mercenary must manipulate the other crime lords to try and bring them all down.

Steel: The game ends in a final gunfight. (Tangential, I know.)

Team: Like a classic prisoner’s dilemma, the crime lords would be better served if they would act together. Creating such a team is a difficult matter because of the disinformation of the Mercenary.

General Play: Crime Lords argue back and forth for set time, raising conflicts with each other. Each one passes a card. Resolve effects. Repeat for x rounds. Final showdown. Each crime lord takes one card and passes directly to another crime lord. Each crime lord takes one card and places it in the middle; the sheriff deals out to the crime lords as he sees fit. Mercenary gives one card from his pool to one crime lord as he sees fit. Reveal and resolve.

Playing card mechanic: Uses deck of playing cards. Crime lords pass cards to each other through the mercenary. Mercenary may see and must pass on the card to the intended crime lord. Once per game, Mercenary may pass a different card. Sheriff’s powers? If a crime lord gets x amt of y suit, he is eliminated from the game. Certain cards have special powers, e.g., prevent card from being passed to you, discard to pass directly (i.e., no mercenary), swap card blindly, etc.

Win conditions: Mercenary wins if all crime lords are eliminated. Sheriff wins if 2+ crime lords remain. Crime lord wins if they are the only crime lord remaining.

This needs a lot of work, I acknowledge. I'm afraid with my time limitations these days I won't be able to balance the mechanic properly in time for submission.

[rpoppe]

Have you seen the card game BANG?

http://www.davincigames.com/page_eng.cf ... gioco=bang!

Your idea strongly reminds me of BANG, which is definitely not a bad thing, since BANG is amazing.

--Robert

[Justin D. Jacobson]

But of course! Bang itself is an off-shoot of the more-rpgish Werewolf/Mafia. My initial idea was some kind hybrid between those games and Diplomacy. I'm just afraid I won't be able to pull it off, but we'll see.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Of course this also reminds me of one of my Ronny games: Standoff! you can find that here-

I like your variant, though. It's definately different from the way I approached the idea.

Peace,

-Troy