Privilege was the last mechanic that I added into the game, and for a while, it did all sorts of things. The main goal of Privilege was to introduce a “Role” without it being an actual “Role”, as well as add something that could be something more to talk about.
The idea of some passable token came about during a playtest right before PlayNYC, and it started off as something a little wilder: The original privilege still had it’s wound-healing power, but it also had the power to force two players to duel each other, which was a hit– mainly because it got people dueling sooner.
Swords at Dusk being played at PlayNYC
The reason I ended up tweaking privilege into its present state was partly because I couldn’t figure out a good term for the forced duel, and thematically, it would make more sense if there was a way for the privileged person to affect duels, not start them.
The mechanic evolved further into it's final version as I tweaked the dueling mechanics from a familiar “Rock Paper Scissors” to an even simpler, more flexible dueling system, which made people much less hesitant to challenge each other, because It turns out dueling just had to be really simple– a discovery I’ll post about tomorrow.
