Playmats

[yudencow]

I have an idea to make playmats more profitable.

The playmat at certain slots will give a certain ability for the card on it.

The idea comes from a lecture I heard. He told me that in a game with 90% make players they attempted to add cosmic upgrades but it didn't work as well as they thought. Then he said, but if you give them a minigun.

Playmats are pretty much not required, but if they had some power, they would seem more attractive.

Is that a good idea? Or is there anything else, not competitive that will make the playmats to be more appealing?

[devilbegood]

Probably a good idea if you sell a 'deck' with a standard Play mat that couples with the deck.  And then offer other Play mats that do the same.

[yudencow]

That's the plan. Thanks for the reply.

[Trevor]

I don't like the idea of a playmat as a functional part of the game, especially if it varies. That is essentially like one giant card, and those are annoying to carry around, especially in multiples.

A better solution would be akin to this: Have a playmat with areas A, B, C, and D. And have a card that defines what A,B,C, and D are. That way you have one playmat, and a regular card that provides the same overall effect.

[yudencow]

Trevor, the question is how to make playmats a thing players would like to buy. If it will be really not invasive, and supports a tactic of yours by empowering certain cards at certain slots depending on the playmat. The difference between a folded playmat and some extra cards is minute.

[Kevashim]

I guess the only real issue would be how in the heck you balance the playmats so that it is at least relatively "fair". If you are just giving a generic strength bonus to a different "slot" on the playmat then players will quickly adopt the idea of using a token/die to identify the "slot" on an empty table space instead of using the playmat.

If you want playmats to be integral and interesting it could come down to them effectively being maps wherein each player brings a map/grid that shows their home location, these are aligned next to eachother at the start of the game and hey presto, instant battlefield. Bonuses for each location can then be a lot more varied, with terrain effects, enhancement effects for certain tiles, fortifications, etc. In this way you can have a variety of battlefields that would suit different playstyles and different deck builds. Heck you could even mandate that players bring 2 locations, a "home" and a "frontier" with battlefields arranged in the order of:

Player A Home - Player B Frontier - Player A Frontier - Player B Home

to encourage even more use and consideration of the battlefields as part of deck building and preparation.

[yudencow]

It's a good idea Kevashim, but it doesn't fit that one. What you suggest might be interesting for miniature games.

Balancing it is quite easy actually, same as balancing cards.

Each playmat, besides "blank" will have 1 to 3 unique slots of different strengths. There are 12 slots in the field. arranged in 3 rows of 4.

I thought to drop the idea to save time, but I like the fact that each player (the game support to up to 6 players even in free for all) bring his home terrain. For example a sea civilization and a mountain, enchanted forest, sacrifice temple whatever and so on.

I think it can even effect things regarding your deck, graveyard and out-of-play areas. Some will, some don't.

Players can still play without playmats, or using the playmeat "blank" to add no powers.

How about it now?