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Mechanic Monday: (Determining) Victory Condition by (Process of) Elimination

Another Monday, another post! I’m going to keep this brief again, since I need to work on a grant application for my theatre company.  That’s a much more urgent demand, but I think knocking out a bit of hybrid technical/creative writing real quick will help me get my brain in the right gear *neck tie zipping sound*.  I start rehearsals for a play (my first acting gig in a while) at the end of the month, and it feels like my plate’s just very full right now.  Lo que sea! Onward.
Today’s mechanic has been on my possibility list for a while.  It sat there because I could visualize it and how it would play out fairly easily, but it doesn’t completely inflame my imagination with potential, you know? But one thing I’ve learned about writing is that it’s worthwhile to write even when you’re not saturated with inspiration, to play the long odd that you’ll hit gold, and to de-couple your writing time from struck-by-creative-lightning time.  With that in mind, here’s today’s mechanic

Victory Condition By Elimination
In GREEM, the game begins with twenty-four potential victory conditions.  On a player’s turn, they claim a victory condition card to add to their tableau.  This removes the victory condition from contention, but provides a resource or an action to the player who claims it.  Play proceeds until all but one victory condition has been claimed; the final remaining condition establishes the circumstances for declaring the victor.  The player who meets those criteria is the winner.

Huh.  See, this right here is why I hop even into holes that don’t seem that deep; because the act of exploration is more valuable than your initial perception of it can ever guarantee.  It wasn’t until I began writing out that rules paragraph that it occurred to me that the way you qualify for victory can be based on what you take.  Likewise, I won’t know until I try and playtest this whether there are any other surprises (pleasant or otherwise) about the depth of choice in player action here.  Try everything folks.  It’s game design, if you’re not learning and having fun, literally what is the point.  See you next time!

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