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Mechanic Monday: Free Agency in Fantasy GM Squared

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand We’re Back (A Dinosaur Story) with another installment of nobody’s favourite Feature on the #0 Game Design Blog on Tipper Gore’s World Wide Web, Mechaniiiiiic Mondaaaaaay!
This week, we’re going to take a look at - you guessed it - Fantasy GM Squared! It’s almost like I’m trying to focus on one design to the exclusion of others, in order to actually get it to the point where it can be worked on and playtested to a more meaningful degree than my previous designs! Wowzers.  What a concept.  But it’s a good challenge for me to stay locked in and innovate even when I’m not inspired to, as opposed to haring off to tinker on the latest new brainbug to infect my mind.  So I’ll keep on plunging my hands into the guts of this thing.
So, what’ll it be today? More of people’s favourite bit of Fantasy: Player Acquisition.  But this time, it’s the other half of the equation - Free Agency!

Free Agency
Outside of the Draft, there are two ways to acquire Heroes.  The first is by picking up undrafted Heroes, by using Waiver priority, and the second is by scouting and signing Heroes from the Underworld.  Undrafted Heroes join the Tavern, where they age every season as normal.  Any player may place a Waiver Claim on an undrafted Hero - when they do so, they place their Waiver Marker on the Hero; any other player with a lower-numbered Waiver Marker may place their own Waiver Marker on the Hero.  Once all eligible players have placed their Waiver Marker, the lowest-numbered Marker’s player takes the Hero, returning 1VP to the supply, and then takes the highest-numbered Waiver Marker.  Each other player then takes the next lowest Waiver Marker of the one they had.  Players may also recruit from the Underworld deck.  Certain Heroes have a Front Office ability that will let them draw from the Underworld deck, revealing Underworld Heroes that cannot be signed by other players.  Players may spend a Draft Coin to sign an Underworld Hero.

Soooo kind of a two in one, eh? And they’re a lot more disparate of elements than they might first appear.  The Waiver Wire is a beloved/beloathed part of the regular Fantasy season, but the Underworld Free Agency is more akin to a non-fantasy real life GM’s scouting job; trying to find undrafted talent to sign, the way the Sharks have continued to stock their cupboards with European FA’s thereby becoming less reliant on the draft.  With that example shining in my mind, perhaps the Underworld Heroes should have a VP cost.  Set? Roll of the 4-sided die? What should there cost be? I mean hell, should the cost be, you need to have someone in the FO who can draw them? Right now I’m worried that too many of my FO abilities are too conditional.  They only trigger in certain situations, which you can try to put yourself in, but still - the more complex chance is always the less attractive one.  As for the Waiver, it’ll be a fun technical writing challenge to fix the language of that rule / maybe I should just go with Blind-Bid Waiver Auctions instead? Those do exist in Auction Drafts (with, I believe, their own budget, the FAB?) but still, those are for more advanced fantasy leagues, so maybe I’ll stick with the good old-fashioned Markers.
Honestly, for a base game, I’d most likely stick with Markers, and if I WERE to include the Underworld deck, it would have to be straightforward in order to not alienate the core fantasy demographic too much.
That’s all for today! Tune in next week for more aimless ramblings.

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