Rock-Paper-Scissors

This is a re-working of Reiner Knizia's Vegas. Maginor adds some cards, spells, and a different "dueling" mechanic.

The theme is that players are trying to gain votes from various oracles. Maginor visits each one in turn. The player with the most influence counters at an oracle can take either the points for the oracle or the spell card there. The player with the second most influence gets whichever the first player didn't take. Spells have one-time effects that alter different aspects of the game.

Influence is gained at the oracles both by playing cards and rolling a die. This gives a mix of random chance and control over the game. If a player tries to get influence in a position occupied by another player's influence counter, they must duel. This is a RPS mechanic with a twist. If both players choose an "earthbeast" in the duel, the defender wins.

When all oracles are scored, the player with the most total votes wins.

Lagoon is a game in which 1-4 players (4 play as opposing teams of 2) each lead a circle of druids to shape the fantastical world of Lagoon by harnessing the power of its magical lands to bend destiny. The landscape bristles with three divine energies. Every player action alters the balance of power among those energies, and thus the players collectively determine Lagoon’s destiny. One divine energy shall inherit Lagoon, and the player who best served it wins!

The world is built using hexagonal tiles, and a new tile is drawn from a bag each time a druid explores a site. Site tiles are double-sided, and each side represents a different mystical site offering a unique magical power to the druids. Each site is also enchanted with one of three divine energies: Elemeen, Vowelon and Deonin. Since the two sides of a site tile are always linked to different energies, every site explored presents a choice of which energy to advance over the other two, as well as what magic will be put into the world for use by the druids. Players also strategically deploy their druids to unravel sites aligned with an energy they choose to oppose, removing such sites from the world and tipping the balance of power towards the other two energies.

The energy with the most sites in play at the end of the game becomes Lagoon's destiny, and the player who most supported that dominant energy is the winner. Support is tracked in two ways. First, whenever exploring a site and expanding an energy's reach in Lagoon, the exploring player gains a divine seed token matching the explored site's energy. These seeds can be spent in various ways over the course of the game, but any seeds of the dominant energy remaining in a player's supply at the end of the game are worth 1 point each. Secondly, whenever a player unravels a site, it is removed from play and placed in front of that player. At the end of the game, unraveled sites not matching the dominant energy are worth 2 points each.

Two political parties vie for the control of the city. Elections take place in the citadels, markets and temples around the city. These elections will name the nine representatives who will sit at the high council. Each party must carefully divide its soldiers, merchants and priests, to obtain the majority of votes during the elections. These elections follow each another in each of the areas of the city. The struggle is tense and all manner of dirty tricks are allowed. Each faction has the capacity to apply pressure on the others and has the chance of canceling their votes. Tyrus is thus a game of careful application of power, force and influence in order to affect the best outcome possible for your political party. Throughout the game you must try to carefully conserve your troops, because you never know when they will be needed. Both parties start the game with equal forces, so Bluff and misdirection are your main weapons to win the day, and become Master of the city.

Online Play

Boîte à jeux (turn-based)
Yucata (turn-based)

The two players select their lineups from imaginary players or actual players by converting their stats to the game's parameters. (This is easily done from mlb.com on the net.)

The Defensive team is the manager and catcher, selecting pitch types (Fast Ball, Off Speed, Pitch out, etc. )to get batters out.

Offensive managers and batters must then select a type of offense/ball in play strategy (Steal, Bunt, Hit and Run, Long Ball, etc.)The defensive team commits first with a "Pitch" card. The offensive team then orally calls its strategy. The results of the two choices are found by cross indexing them on a result matrix table. This is classic matrix game theory where one player is trying to minimize his opponent's results while maximizing his own.

Players can decide on the size of ballpark before the game.
There are rules for series play in order to give proper rest to pitchers. The game even has injury possibilities.

Great baseball action.

Football Strategy boils the sport down to play calling skill. The game's structure is simple: The defensive player selects one of 10 formation cards (ranging from an 8-man line "goal line stand" to a pass prevent defense with five safeties); the offensive player calls a play (a choice of 20, plus punting). Cross-indexing the choices on a matrix shows what happened. Except for "long gains", the outcome of each play against each defense is always the same. Dice are rolled only to determine the distance of long gains and the results of kickoffs and field goal attempts.

Each play consumes a prescribed number of seconds, from 15 to 45. The players mark off the time and play four quarters, following the standard football rules.

For variety, three types of offense ("pro style", "aerial game" and "ball control") are available, each with a different, though not radically different, results matrix.

Simple though it is, the game is engrossing (see the "More Information" screen), and play generally follows realistic patterns, though the handling of punts and on-side kicks (both more effective than in real life) is questionable. Also, because the design changed little after its debut in 1959, the plays and defenses don't reflect the state of the art in contemporary professional football. This is the era of Otto Graham, not Eli Manning.

For those who are so inclined, Football Strategy lends itself to mathematical analysis. Many years ago, an entrant into the tournament at Origins went to the trouble of using game theory to generate charts showing the optimal mix of plays in different situations. He reached the finals but, in a victory for human intuition over number crunching, lost the championship game by a touchdown and a field goal.