From Blaine Pardoe on Twitter

[CaesarCzech]

Those are brilliant. And the Comstar Game could follow a grand tradition of "Games to ruin friendships" such as Diplomacy, Settlers of Cataan, Battlestar Galactica, and Rising Sun!

Screw it lets make whole Inner sphere game, Five players of great Houses And one player playing Comstar Thus forcing you to be prepared for two kinds of treachery, Hell lets have sometimes legitimate Comm system fail, so players are paranoid if Comstar is screwing them over or has genuine technical difficulties, add 1 GM for minor powers and Boom Diplomacy 2.

 

[Spartakus]

Screw it lets make whole Inner sphere game, Five players of great Houses And one player playing Comstar Thus forcing you to be prepared for two kinds of treachery, Hell lets have sometimes legitimate Comm system fail, so players are paranoid if Comstar is screwing them over or has genuine technical difficulties, add 1 GM for minor powers and Boom Diplomacy 2.

Oh yeah, a diplomacy variant. The Comstar Player get's no forces but the other players can only communicate via notes ComStar delivers. ComStar wins if everyone else is bombed into oblivion.

 

[CaesarCzech]

Oh yeah, a diplomacy variant. The Comstar Player get's no forces but the other players can only communicate via notes ComStar delivers. ComStar wins if everyone else is bombed into oblivion.

Add possibility of random events that ensure that sometimes messages get lost without Comstar interference and you never know if Comstar is sabotaging you or that message was genuinely lost. Roll of dice would add immense additional paranoia

 

[dulahan]

Comstar should have one other Victory condition that could be done instead. You just won't know which they're going for. Heck, maybe they draw it at the beginning of the game! Or perhaps there's multiple Comstar players - one for each faction - and all of them draw their role randomly.l..

 

[CaesarCzech]

Comstar should have one other Victory condition that could be done instead. You just won't know which they're going for. Heck, maybe they draw it at the beginning of the game! Or perhaps there's multiple Comstar players - one for each faction - and all of them draw their role randomly.l..

Okay Draw 3 victory condition from pool of 12 and archieve one of them, Comstar can be expended to two rival players if there are more players. Grand Variant could include 2 Comstar Players 5 great realms. as well as 3 players splitting minor realms between them. thefore 8 players with 2 Comstar players.

Goddamn this could be awesome.

 

[Deaghaidh]

Start a kickstarter for that board game! Although I guess talk to Catalyst first.

 

[Horseman]

Another possibility:
Comstar is the dealer - except that role is different in this game: instead of just dealing cards, they get to look at them and choose which player should receive which one (and may swap the card with their own hand). You never know if Comstar is intentionally sabotaging you or strengthening you to stop another player.
The game also includes mechanics that allow players to draw cards outside of Comstar's control (but that has a cost, whereas drawing with Comstar doesn't).
Comstar wins if either their victory condition is achieved or everyone else fails to achieve their victory condition by a set point during the game.
Perhaps make manipulation the "theme" of the game, with players being able to play cards that "engineer" incidents between their opponents?

 

[CaesarCzech]

Another possibility:
Comstar is the dealer - except that role is different in this game: instead of just dealing cards, they get to look at them and choose which player should receive which one (and may swap the card with their own hand). You never know if Comstar is intentionally sabotaging you or strengthening you to stop another player.
The game also includes mechanics that allow players to draw cards outside of Comstar's control (but that has a cost, whereas drawing with Comstar doesn't).
Comstar wins if either their victory condition is achieved or everyone else fails to achieve their victory condition by a set point during the game.
Perhaps make manipulation the "theme" of the game, with players being able to play cards that "engineer" incidents between their opponents?

Perhaps the Incident cards can be used by player as well ? as it has both cost and benefit ? as such you never know if Comstar is fucking you over of its just your rival eying you as target