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Mechanic Monday: We're All In The Same Boast With Out of Mana

Hallo hallo hallo.  I’d have liked to get this Mechanic Monday written sooner but last week’s focus was a Writer application, and along with the press of grants reports and proposals due in the month of March, and those deadlines needed the dedicated hours.  And now I’m watching GBBO (a Bread Week no less) while I work, which is hardly a RECIPE for success.  But I still think I can get this post out on time, especially as I did spend a good chunk of my drifting off last night pondering Magic! at the Gathering.  That’s right, it’s another Out of Mana!

I’d like to take a stab at flying, trample, regenerate, some classics there, the tribal concept, cipher, scrying, kicker, but the one I want to write about this week is the other keyword from the Kaldheim set: Boast.

Cascading Conditional Triggered Abilities

In GREEM, the ordinary turn order is alternating actions by each player, but that order is disrupted whenever the conditions are met for a piece’s ability.  When a piece’s ability conditions are met, that player gets to take the piece’s special action, which may in turn trigger another piece’s ability conditions.

Lots of potential here - not surprising, considering achievements are a videogame mechanic that more and more analog games are adapting or drawing inspiration from, and that’s basically what we’ve got here.  What I like about Boast is that it incentivizes attacking, a higher-risk higher-reward choice for a lot of creatures.  To mitigate that risk and maximize the payoff, you have a balance of building an easy combo, or taking wild one-off swings for a big quick score.  I’d like to see a good mix of situationally-easy-to-achieve-but-weak-effect and situationally-complex-to-set-up abilities, which would also allow players to build combos backwards.  Piece A’s ability requires 2x,2y, and z, and z requires an equal number of x and y, y requires an x, and x triggers itself.

Is this a game of removal, taking opposing pieces off the board? Control, to outmaneuver the other player and choke their combos and options? An engine builder toward a highest achievement to fulfil the conditions of? Heck, a la Infinity Shards (kind of a disappointment tbh), Onitama, or any number of civ games, it could have multiple victory conditions, some moons more shootable than others.

I also think pieces would have ranks of some type, to act as tie-breakers, to further limit condition triggers or focus the effects of their abilities.  Fun shit! I should mock this out further.  Anyway, I’ve still got my Accountability Club email to send, so I’ll leave it there for now.  Til next time!

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