[Game Design] The Chosen One

Overview:

This is a four-player tabletop game where one player acts as the god of war, and the other three players can choose between three classes: Strength-based warrior, dexterity-based rogue, and wisdom-based mage.

During the Game:

When the game begins, the player who chooses the god of war by picking up a card from a shuffled deck can choose another player as his chosen one while everyone else’s eyes are closed. So only the god of war and the chosen one know this special tie.

Each player can use one spell at a time in turn, and who goes first is decided by the god of war.

About Each Player:

Each of the three players has a set of highly specialized skills associated with their traits and all these skills form a triangular relationship (A -> B suggest A’s skills counter B’s a lot):

Warrior -> Rogue -> Mage -> Warrior

(columns from left to right: warrior, rogue, and mage. Same below.)

All of their skills have physical prerequisites and liability: some skills need them to have both limbs, some can take off other’s heads, and some might sacrifice their own legs.

Everyone has two ultimate skills and one counterattack each of which can only be used once.

And there is a bonus point if and only if the player performs while he or she uses this skill and the quality of the performance is accepted by the god of war. For example, the mage player shouts out: “Time? There is no such thing” and waves his hand thoughtfully when he uses the spell called Seventh Sense of Time.

Each player has different initial health points and unrecoverable armor points, which should be tracked by the god of war during the play. The god of war can lie to the players about their stats if desired.

Each player has a chance to restore all their body parts: two limbs, two legs, and the head.

The god of war, of course, can direct the game by using his special event cards at the end of each round:

Highlights of Some Skill Design:

During the early stage of the game, the god war might use his cards to tilt the balance between his chosen one and other challengers, the tendency of which might be obvious to notice. Because of it, these two cards give the god of war the ability to reverse the whole game if the chosen one has been targeted and under the disadvantageous situation. On the other hand, since these two cards are really powerful, the god of war can fool the other players, provoke conflicts, or make confusion by deliberately helping one of the two challengers, because he might be able to revert the situation at the end anyway.

Shadow Gamble grants the rogue with his distinctive personality. A rogue has the dignity to take the risk to maximize his attack and even if he is unfortunately beaten by luck, he is still graceful and powerful. Therefore, we give him the ability of critical hit, almost being able to kill one with below half of the full health if he is lucky enough.

On the other hand, Seventh Sense of Time might seem trivial at first glance, but if the player is smart enough, he might be able to make some promise with other players and test their honesty. Even if he misjudged that person, he still gets the chance to come back to before where he made the mistakes.

Some Extendable Variants:

For those who’ve played and understand how the game works well, here are some tips that might add some joy to your experience:

Give some wild cards to the god of war
Creative oral spells and battlecries are required to use ultimates
The first misfortunately dead player will be blessed with special ability
Mana system so players can’t abuse petrify or other disable spells
The god of war predetermines the order by which all event cards are used
Your own ideas…

Download Printable PDFs to Make Your Own Copies:

Download from the links here and print them using big format printers, after assembling them, the result would be something like this:

Card And Board Fronts:Card Front

Card Backs: Card Backs