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I was thinking of how to make a less luck-based and more strategic game out of Redemption. I don't want to remove the luck factor entirely, so there will still be drawing, but I mostly wanted to alleviate the issue of soul-drought. Here are my initial thoughts, feel free to comment or propose changes.

Redemption Chess/Stratego: For 2-4 Players.

Deck building rules:

-Decks must be exactly 60 cards
-Number of Lost Souls is optional up to 8 (nine with Hopper), Dominants and Sites may still not exceed number of Lost Souls.
-Each deck must contain exactly 10 Heroes and 10 Evil Characters, with at least one of his characters being unique.
-The number of good cards must equal the number of evil cards.
-All other T1 deck-building rules apply.

Game play:

Before the game begins, each player places all of his Heroes and Evil Characters in his territory. Each player then selects a unique character in his territory (Hero or Evil Character) and writes the character's name secretly on a piece of paper, and sets the piece of paper aside. This is his "King". The rest of the decks are shuffled, and each player draws 8, replacing any drawn Lost Souls as usual. All players then decide who goes first by dice roll, rock-paper-scissors, or any other method agreed to by all players.

Game continues retaining most of the rules of Redemption, with the following modifications:

-The object of the game is to remove your opponent's "King" from the game. If 3 or more players are playing, then the winner is the last person to have their King not removed from the game. If your King is removed from the game in a 3+ player game, then you are out of the game and your cards no longer have any effect on the game.
-Lost Souls may be rescued during rescue attempts, but the number of redeemed souls only matters if everyone's King is removed from the game simultaneously. In this case, the person with the most redeemed souls wins; if there is a tie, then the person who rescued the last redeemed soul wins.
-If you win a battle (rescue attempt or battle challenge) then you may remove from the game any card in opponent's territory, set-aside area, or discard pile (regardless of protection or restriction). Note that converting a Rescue Attempt into a Battle Challenge does not count as winning the battle.
-Evil Characters may win the battle by defeating all Heroes in battle, when the battle ends as a stalemate, by mutual destruction by mutual removal, or by being unopposed during a Taunt.
-Heroes may win the battle by defeating all Evil Characters in battle, or when the battle ends as a mutual destruction by numbers.
-Each upkeep, a player may remove from the game a captured character in play or a character in an opponent's discard pile (regardless of protection or restriction).
-Each upkeep, a player must place in territory any characters in his hand or deck. At the beginning of each turn, the number of each player's characters (and/or captured characters) in play or set-aside area must be equal to 20 minus the number of characters already removed from the game.   
-On your turn, you must either attack, or remove two of your cards in your territory or set-aside area from the game. The only exception is when a restrict ability is disallowing you from attacking (e.g. Burial Shroud).
-If your "King" is converted, then the character remains your "King" as the new card type.
-If your opponent retains permanent control of your character (including your King) via an exchange or take ability, you may elect to return the character to your territory instead of removing from the game a card in your opponent's territory or set-aside area when you win a battle.
-Abilities that target multiple characters (such as Authority of Christ, Wrath of Satan, etc.) may only target a maximum of 2 characters of each player. The player who uses such abilities chooses the targeted characters.
-When all but one player's King has been removed from the game, that player is the winner. If an ability removes the Kings of all players in the game simultaneously, then the winner is the person with the most Lost Souls redeemed, with the tie going to the person who rescued the most recent Lost Soul.

Thoughts? I'm sure there is something broken that I am not thinking of at this point, but I tried to account for as much as I can.

Quote from: Professoralstad on August 01, 2013, 01:44:41 PM

-If you win a battle (rescue attempt or battle challenge) then you may remove from the game any card in an opponent's territory, set-aside area, or discard pile (regardless of protection or restriction). Note that converting a Rescue Attempt into a Battle Challenge does not count as winning the battle.

So in a multi-player game if Player A beats Player B in a battle challenge by B simply refusing to block, then Player A can remove a card in Player C's territory?

If so then this will lead to ganging up on players and could be volatile

Very good point. I meant to say in "opponent's territory". Good catch.

The point is still valid if 3 players all attack one player in a round. That isn't much different from most multiplayer games in general where you pick on the leader.

Kirk

I had thought of instituting a rule that a player could only be attacked once per round, but I must have forgotten to include that. I guess I can't think of a good reason why it shouldn't be a rule, but I might await further feedback.

Wow.  I can't believe we thought of such similar things.  I still have my old Redemption Stratego game board I put together back in about 1999. 

You actually use a Stratego board, and have Redemption cards face down in slots representing the pieces on the board. The difference is that the evil player has 7 Lost Souls hidden on the board that the good player is trying to rescue, and that both players have a hand of enhancements (5 cards) that you use to battle with when you move into a space occupied by an opposing character.

Rather than 1 Flag and several bombs, the evil player has several "flags" (Lost Souls) and one bomb (Christian Martyr).  The Good player has one bomb (AotL), and zero Flags.  The good player loses when X # of his heroes are removed (I can't remember).