Fistful of Dice Endgame Mechanic

For the past couple of weeks, Bruce and I have been playing some Gangster scenarios using the Fist of Dice rules. The rules work very well for skirmish games and I played a short superhero campaign with them the spring.

One of the mechanics Bruce has been experiencing with is a turn limit one. Instead of a fixed turn limit or the game ending when an objective is achieved, he's been rolling 1d6 at the end of each turn and adding the following:

• +1 for gunfire having occurred in the game
• +1 for machine-gun fire having occurred in the game
• +1 for each figure KIA'd in the game

(Each modifier reflects how player behaviour increases the priority the police would give to responding to game events.) When the roll plus mods equals 12, we enter the end-game staged.

At this point, a random number of cops appears at a random board edge and play continues. At the end of each subsequent turn, the cops on the board take two moves towards (1) any visible figure or (2) towards the objective. If they make contact with a figure, then the figure is arrested and removed from play. A random number of new cops also arrives at another random board edge. Players can shoot the cops but the cop figures just recycle. 

The effect of this is pretty cool. The game plays on but there is much more pressure on the players to take action (i.e., chances) to win before the cops nab all of their figures. Basically, it feels like sudden death overtime. The random arrival also make its hard to plan and adds to the sense of pressure.

This mechanic could probably be used in almost anytime there is some kind of authority structure. For example, a shoot out in a space port could trigger the arrival of stormtroopers who detain everyone, including maybe any Imperials they run into (you never know who is secretly Rebel scum).

Overall, a pretty neat mechanic to change the tempo of the game at the end. It also encourages players to think about when they want to shoot and kill. In a hostage rescue, sooner may be better. In a search-and-rescue game, players (or some players) may want to avoid gunfire.

In a bloody game, the average point at which the end phase would be triggered is likely turn 6. But it could happen as early as turn 3 and as late as turn 9. You can, of course, fiddle the target number to shorten or extend play. Anyhow, a fun little add-on idea.