From Idiot to President

Vorwort

In short:
It is the time of the US-American primary elections. The goal of this game is to sway the majority of delegates in you favor in order to be nominated as the candidate to run for office and win the game. In other words, by fulfilling the task given by "headline cards" you are able to conquer states
with different numbers of delegates. These delegates will be counted in the end of the game and the player who has gathered the most delegates wins.

In more detail:

You play for four rounds to complete the game. Each round has an identical structure and entails six game phases. Each player needs to complete the ongoing game phase before the subsequent phase can begin.

1. Drawing of headline cards
2. Rolling, selecting and placing the dice
3. Fulfilling headline card tasks (if possible)
4. Winning states
5. Drawing bonus cards (if possible)
6. Discarding headline cards and changing of starting player

After the fourth round, each player counts his gathered delegates and a winner is declared.

A central game mechanism is the inclusion of dice in each of the four phases. Each number of die represents a different voting group. In order to fulfill a "headline card" you need to collect a certain number or combination of dice.

There are 24 dice in the game. All dice are being used regardless of the number of players playing. When it is your turn, you take six dice and roll them once. You can influence the outcome of your roll with your character card’s ability to manipulate dice or in other words "voters". Afterwards, you can either select two dice of any number or all dice of the same number and place them on according voter grounds on the game board.

You can manipulate the result of your roll with you character card. Each character has one voter group which follows him or her unconditionally and will opportunistically adopt any opinion. If a player rolls the number or numbers of his voter group, he can turn this or these dice onto any desired side.

You will roll the dice, one after another until there are 20 dice placed voter groups.

This game is not intended or meant to be disrespectful towards anyone. It does not aim at ridiculing anyone. Much rather, we would like all of us to be able to have a good chuckle over a board game which does not take itself seriously.

The satirical aspect of the game makes fun of the current political discourse of politicians, news media and pundits which seem to be much more about exaggeration, stereotyping, provocation and polarization than about discussion and consensus. More so, it seems that these days one is more successful as a politician being loud, oversimplifying and hyperbolical than reflective and reasonable. This is a trend which is in no way limited to the United States. We see it everywhere.

This idea is at the core of the game mechanics itself, most visible in our headline cards. On each card you find a totally exaggerated and ridiculous headline but at the same time the headline cards give you a task which you need to fulfill in order to win the game. So, if you fulfill the headline card or, in terms of the narrative of the cards, if you act as ridiculously as the headlines states you are successful in the political race.

The game, its cards and figures are fictional – not so much informed by real persona – but instead focusing on the stereotypes, simplifications and generalizations visible in news coverage and popular culture.

Bilder

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