A game about trying to become the most popular player in a made-up land. A simplified, more cozy and quick version of politics and campaigning.
Map
You start with a randomly generated map (printed or just a set of tiles).
Voters are randomly spread around this map.
Each area has a few slots (three?) for “preferences”. You place tokens there for what people prefer (dogs or cats? guitar or piano?)
- First slot = EVERYONE prefers that
- Second slot = HALF the people inside (rounded) prefer that
- Third slot = a QUARTER of the people inside (rounded) prefer that
Then, when you get to “sway dog people”, you know exactly how many people will vote for you from now on.
Those slots all have default values, so we need fewer tokens and things are already happening when the game starts!
Gameplay
You can do a few specific actions each round.
- Give a speech: converts voters within a certain radius
- Send out pamphlets: following some rule, this is how you can reach more remote areas.
- Adopt a point of view: you’ll convert some voters who like that, you’ll lose voters who hate that. => maybe this can only be done/checked during DEBATE rounds or something.
- Actually do something nice: this will push a few voters in that area (“those who are affected”) towards you.
IDEA: Every round, one player is allowed to pick one “law” on which everybody will vote? (And this player changes each round? Or does it depend on something you can control, like “the player who currently controls X leads the vote at the end of the round”.)
Theme
Something silly and not related to real life. Like,
- One issue might be “pet preferences” (some voters are dog people, others are cat people).
- Or a perspective might be “best instrument” (some voters are guitar, others are piano).