Hacking Boarsdraft
As I feel myself closing in on the final design for Boarsdraft I’ve been thinking about what makes the game tick. What started me thinking about this was listening to Fred Hicks on the most recent episode of the Jennisodes. Fred was talking about when he was closing in on the end of his design for Don’t Rest Your Head and how a friend recommended pulling all of the flavor out of the game to see if it still produced the sort of experience that he wanted. That got me to thinking about how to do that with Boarsdraft.
Much of what Boarsdraft is about is bound into the mechanics. I did that intentionaly and I like the feeling it gives off as players interact with those mechanics. The problem for me now is how do I pull those mechanics apart to see if they will stand on their own.
I’ve decided that my best option is to hack the game to run a totally different genre. I concidered a few different genres for this and finally decided that the Matrix could potentialy be a good fit for my needs. The flavor of the Matrix is significantly different from what I’m going for in Boarsdraft but I can see where I can use most of the mechanics to tell Matrix-like stories.
I’m not sure if I will be putting the hack out for public use. More than likely I will be just useing it for a few games with my home group. I’m hoping that seeing the rules in a different light will help me better understand how they work in Boarsdraft.
Now for a challenge to you my readers. Hack my game! Take Boarsdraft and bend and mangel it into whatever shape you think might be fun. The only rule here is that you share with me what you come up with. You can share it here or just drop a link in the comments to what you have come up with. Your hack can be as close or as far from Boarsdraft as you want. Me hacking my own game will be helpful I’m sure but I know that I’m probably too close to my own game to try anything too outside the box.
At the Table 