Name that Game

[barking_iguana]

I'm thinking of a game. I'll tell you it's from the 1990s, and in the next two paragraphs, I'll describe a characteristic mechanic it used. But I won't tell you whether it was a tabletop RPG, a computer game, or a boardgame. You might get it if you've played the game, and it's just possible you might get it if you know something of the history of gaining, even if you never played and are unfamiliar with the mechanic. Tom Pile is ineligible to guess, because a recent conversation we had would be too much of a clue.

This is the mechanic. You have a repertoire of actions you may take. Each costs points to execute. You also have a reservoir of action points you may spend and a maximum number of points you may spend per turn. If an action takes fewer points than you have in reserve and fewer than your turn limit, you can immediately spend points on another action. If an action takes more points than you available and can spend, you can start paying for it this turn and it will take effect on the turn when you've put in enough points.

Each turn, you receive an income of a master resource that can be allocated across three different benefits:

• You may add to your reservoir,.
• You may work toward adding to your repertoire, generally taking several turns per new action.
• You may work toward adding to your maximum expenditure per turn.

This is an admired game (though not a huge seller) but I'm not aware of the mechanic having been incorporated into any later games. Perhaps there are many such games, but I just don't know them.

Comments

[unclejam.livejournal.com]

/fistshake

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

rot-13ed to avoid spoiling, in case I'm right:

Vg fbhaqf fbzrjung yvxr srat fuhv, ohg V'ir arire cynlrq gur tnzr.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Neither have I. It's not the one I'm thinking of and I don't know if it fits.

[mneme]

I have; it's nothing like this. At a guess, the repitoire are buildings, but it doesn't ring a bell (certaionly not as a rpg or board game; I'm not hugely familiar with computer games of the period).

[avram]

If I was editing a game, and an author turned in a manuscript with "reservoir" and "repertoire" as distinct, mechanically-meaningful terms, I think I'd throw something at the author's head.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to avoid using terms that would remind people of the game, not copy the (in most cases) themed wordfs that were used.

[mneme]

Actually, isn't this functionally the mechanic used in Civilzation? There have been a lot of related games there, though.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

No, it's not civ in any way I can see. Yes, trade is distributed to three subsidiary resources, and two of them (research and gold) are sorta kinda like this, bit I don't think it's a good fit. It is, however, a game that takes other mechanics and interface elements from civ.

[mneme]

It's not a terrible fit, for the whole genre (research being your "big" resource that can give you more different things to build or be used to otherwise improve your lot; population/gold letting you build stuff). But it's not a perfect fit. And yeah, if it's a computer game it's from the era where I didn't play the computer games anyone else was playing.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

It's the spell skill limiting total expenditure per turn (along with multiple actions per round if you have the skill and reserve) that makes I find unique to MoM.