The angel game - some basic notes about structure

The angel game (titles are a weakness of mine) has been coming along nicely. I’ve got the basic structure of the game figured out, even if hammering down the specifics is giving me a bit of trouble. I’m designing it to be a pretty short-form game that can be played episodically or as a one-shot – very much like Inspectres. What’s more, it’s going to be a very competitive game, with players on two teams trying to accomplish opposing goals.

There are going to be two modes of play with different lengths. Skirmish mode will be a super-short, party game type length – say forty-five minutes to an hour long where teams play through only one mission. There will be a longer mode that will consist of three connected missions with an overall goal, the goal for play length being a couple hours.

As far as the structure of play goes, the game will be pretty rigidly structured into distinct phases of play.

The first phase will be Mission Generation and Briefing. Teams will generate a mission by rolling on a table once each for Person, Action, and Location. So sample missions that might be generated could be Assassinate the UN Secretary General in the Hague, or Brainwash a Popular Cult Leader in the Pentagon.

The second phase will be Mission Prep. During Mission Prep, players from each team will take turns trying to accumulate advantages to apply to the inevitable conflict. (This phase is, as yet, the least well-defined)

The third phase is when the two teams actually go head-to-head. Play in this phase is team-versus-team play in which each team races to acquire three successes and complete the mission. This section is looking to be pretty crunchy and tactically complex, but the goal is for it to be crunchy in a Gamist fun kind of way. The tactics map that I posted in my previous post is actually going to be used in this section of the game.

I’ve already gotten some positive responses from a thread on Story-Games, so I’m feeling very encouraged and am happily plugging away at the first rough document.