Bean Drafting: A 7 Wonders Card-Drafting Variant for Bohnanza [Monsoon Market]

2013-06-28 07.06.08

Art students in the renaissance would often be instructed to directly copy the work of classical masters. The idea was that by following their brush strokes, the student would examine their techniques beyond the surface detail. With that foundation, the student can go on to produce original work.

I thought I'd give that a shot here while tinkering with Monsoon Market. See my previous post on Monsoon Market from way back in January. To recap, players run sea ports along the independent Indian Ocean trade routes that extend from Africa to China for hundreds of years before European contact. It's an evocative theme with familiar elements in an unfamiliar setting. Just what I like.

It's always more difficult working from a blank slate, so just to get things started it can be useful to make variants for existing games. In this case, I needed a deck of cards that had variable quantities and thus variable set values. The Bohnanza deck was just the thing! So here's my amateurish first sketch based on the Antoine Bauza's 7 Wonders and Uwe Rosenberg's Bohnanza.

------

SETUP
Get a deck of Bohnanza cards, fully shuffled.

Each player needs a special card unique to themselves, representing their ship. You can use a magic card, playing card, whatever you like, as long as it's unique.

Deal each player is 14 cards face-up.

Each player decides which seven to place in their own public tableau. This represents their goods they have for trade to visiting ships.

Each player places the remaining cards in his or her hand, along with his or her ship card.


PLAY
The game is effectively a card-drafting game in the model of 7 Wonders, with a few twists. The game lasts three rounds, with seven simultaneous turns each.

First, each player passes his or her hand to the player on the left, including the ship card. As hands pass around the table, they're still technically "owned" by the originating player, as noted by the ship card.

Second, after receiving a hand, you may trade one card from your tableau for one card from the hand. It must always be a 1:1 trade. Keep your selection face-down until everyone has made his or her choice, then reveal simultaneously.


Then pass the hand to the left again. If you ever receive your own ship, you may trade with it as normal.

Continue this for seven turns. After which, the round is over. All players should reclaim their ships and any cards on them. Thus, each player has seven cards in their tableau and seven cards in hand. Merge these cards together as one group, then points may be scored as noted below.


SCORING POINTS

You may score any matching set or sets of your bean cards for victory points as shown on the card.  After scoring a set, the cards from that set into the deck.


CASHING IN
Alternatively, you can convert cards into gold coins. Simply turn over the bean card so the gold coin is visible and set it in a separate supply. In subsequent rounds, you can trade a goods card from a ship for a gold coin, or vice versa, on a 1:1 basis. Simply keep the gold coin side facing you so it's clear that a gold coin is being used, not the goods on the other side of the card. (Note: Gold coins are worth 1pt for every four coins, which is better value than some beans, but less valuable than others, so trade carefully!)


KEEPING GOODS

Any goods that you have not scored or cashed in remain in your tableau.


EACH ROUND

After scoring or cashing in, draw new cards from the deck until you have a total of fourteen cards.

In the second round, you'll pass cards to your right. In the third round, you'll pass to the left again.


VICTORY
After three rounds, the game is over. Each player tallies their point totals so far. Each player gets 1 bonus point for every four gold coins in his or her supply. The player with the most points wins!

-----

So where to from here? Obviously this needs some more tweaks to make it more than just a 7 Wonders/Bohnanza mashup. I'll need to retheme the cards, of course, and revise some basic mechanics to fit the naval trading theme.

I think giving each good a direct cash value would be useful, so you can upgrade your sea port and earn unique player abilities based on your particular tableau.

Making each ship unique would also be interesting, perhaps adjusting the exchange rates during trades? Perhaps even recruiting captains to join the ship! Lots to work with there.

I also think each port starting with some super-rare commodities would reflect the theme quite well. The Swahili coast was the network's major source of raw bulk goods. China provided finely crafted silks and other treasures. India was the centrally located hub for the whole route.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more