Ok, here I am wading into the shallows, testing the waters a little before taking a bigger plunge.
I have been working on a game for some time now, one that has undergone so many small revisions that it has become a living example of Neurath's boat metaphor for me--it looks nothing like the monstrosity I started with, yet somehow has been the 'same' game to me throughout the process. And, now, nearer to the end of the process, I am about to throw out the last mechanical commonality this game shared with its previous incarnation--namely, a dice-based resolution system. Which brings me to my question (I want to bracket the bigger picture of the game itself right now, save that for later)--
Are there any games out there that function solely through the use of tokens like poker chips? I have a couple ideas of how to make the token mechanic work for my game, but would like to see other examples of it. The only thing I have been able to find is Moyra Turkington's Crime and Punishment--which is really very funny, because it didn't dawn on me that it only used poker chips until today. I mean, I knew it only used poker chips but I didn't KNOW it only used poker chips. I'm scouring my brain for others, but am coming up short.
Now, I like that game design a lot and it has been a conscious and unconscious influence on my own project, but I want to do more than have a bidding mechanic. I want the token mechanic to be a process of layering color--each token has a color, each color a certain narrative impact, each additional token coloring (complicating) the action of the game. In other words, I want to use the tokens to underpin a game whose mechanics place the mixture of players' intentions front and center (in contrast to one that places player conflict or even outright cooperation at the center).
Anyone have any suggestions of games to which I might look for some exemplars? I'm most interested in nifty token systems, but if there are other mechanics that seem to function well with my additive aims, I would be glad to have those pointed out to me as well.
--Ian
Nobilis. Sure, they're "Miracle Points" instead of tokens, but save for the physical artifact I'd call 'em the same.
The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game. Published a year or two ago by Marvel itself, it used "stones" of different colors that would regenerate at different rates.
Mortal Coil (http://www.galileogames.com/mortal-coil/index.html). A neat game of magic and the supernatural, by Brennan Taylor.
Also, perhaps Andrew Morris would like to comment on his token-based LARP-design-in-progress, The Great Art... or when I have more time later I'll describe my LARP-design-in-Progress, Ends and Means.
Gregor Hutton's Best Friends (http://www.boxninja.com/) got my personal day-after-GenCon award for most awesome and elegant currency mechanic, and it's a token mechanic.
Paul
Beat me to the punch there, Adam. Also, you might consider Universalis (http://ramshead.indie-rpgs.com/) to be a token-based game, though dice are used every now and then.
There are no dice mechanics ...in Spaaace! (http://www.gregstolze.com/inSpaaace.zip)
Whole lotta monkeys, though.
This is helpful, thanks--I'll be keeping up with this, even though I may not be saying a lot until I get a chance to wrap my head around some of these.
--Ian