Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The game?

Mad Jack... the board game?

Hear me out... I was throwing around the mechanics with Officer Cwiakala a while back, and we realized that there's something decidedly fun in there, somewhere.

Players are all spaceships, setting out to explore the galaxy and get crazy rich doing so. It's a tile game, which is to say, every planet is on a separate hexagon. The players start at Earth and assemble the rest of the galaxy as they play, an old mechanic that ensures that every game looks different, and creates a board that looks like a slightly less frenetic version of the Mad Jack galaxy map. Whenever a ship passes a planet, they 'discover' it, and each planet is worth a different amount of money. Every time they land on a planet, they draw a card, representing an artifact, which is worth some amount of money as well, but they have limited room in their hold, and can only keep, say, three. When all the tiles have been played, the galaxy has been explored, and the first person to get back to Earth ends the game and receives a hefty bonus.

Of course, it's not that simple. This is Mad Jack, and we're cynical bastards in the future. If you land on a planet someone else discovered, you can roll a die to try and claim it as your own. Your artifacts may be valuable in a museum, but they're also useful; the pragmatic captain may sacrifice the goods in his hold to use them as ship upgrades, make something good happen, and yes... sabotage his enemies. A mint condition wormhole generator might be nice, or you use it to ransack your opponent's hold. These antique lasers are worth a bit... but they could also be used to beef up your weapons systems. Oh, speaking of... space battles, anyone? A simple 'roll to attack, roll to defend' mechanic, beefed up with special weapon cards. The difference between the attack roll and the defense roll is how many turns the loser loses. Already a few different strategies of play present themselves: from get all the crap you can, to steal everything from your opponents, to attack others mercilessly. And then, speaking of... there's ship types. The optional variant, are you the warship or the racer, who get two dice for their weapons or movement rolls, respectively? Or the merchant ship with a massive hold? How about the government ship that uses technology just a little bit better than everyone else's, and gets +1 to all rolls? Or be the first out of the gate, with no bonuses except that you take three turns before anyone else? Pick your ship, explore the galaxy, and, just like in life, whoever has made the most money at the end wins.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can I be your sex slave?

2/15/2006 7:08 AM  
Blogger Ed Turner said...

Puerto Rican Sex Slave: $5000

Improve the living hell out of crew morale, +3 to all rolls for the next 3 turns, until he goes of to find a space burrito.

2/15/2006 8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

me and ed in the coffee shop in lapenta
Candice- I got scared reading your short story about the devil
Ed- You got scared?
Candice- Yes.... Started to ready really fast and my little heart pounded ...
Ed- It`s a story !
Candice - iknow but by then i couldn't read it cause i got so scared... what happened?
Ed :::sigh:::
Candice :)

2/16/2006 4:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Puerto Rican Sex Slave are the best because it's cheap labor. Sexxx SEXX and they don't get shit in return.

2/23/2006 1:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We'll should try this: Pick a pubic hair from your genitals and eat it,it's really good, it's like biting your nails.

2/23/2006 1:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mmmmm...space burritos.

3/02/2006 8:24 PM  

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