Festival Design Entry 1

I intend to document this year's design in a number of short posts based on components on the game. This first post will be a general mechanics overview without specifics and then I will log specific rules sequences in future posts.

This year's design focuses on a festival being held by the pygmies. this festival is competitive in that the success of each clan will be reflected in audience response and that success will eventually act as the deciding factor in our traditional victory condition where the most successful clan gets to nominate the new chieftain (as the old one is constantly dying).

Our pygmies will work in pairs. Each player has a choice of pygmy roles: Recruiter or Stage Manager. The recruiters will be the "movers" in the game and their goal will be to: Recruit new acts, Quest for Artifacts, Acquire new Audiences or Rehearse an Act. Stage Managers must be in Pygmy Village to act. They have the ability to manage their Act track and bring an act to the stage ahead of another act. They also Manage Artifacts and add Audience cards to the Festival.

The central premise to the two roles is resource use. Both pygmy players can be out in the world and gather the available resources, but they do so at the expense of controlling events at the festival. Or they can remain behind at the festival and sacrifice options for gathering resources. Historically our pygmies have identical roles so this year's shift toward role differentiation will provide a new level to the teamwork we try to generate among our clan teams (these are always made up of two players)

Next time...the Preference track and Stage Managing the festival.