CM extension is ready to let us discover a new board game, a strategic one that will take us to the lands of Britannia: Mordred. On the occasion, we exchanged a chat with Andrea Chiarvesioone of the game designers, who answered our questions about the new game.
Interview with Andrea Chiarvesio, designer of Mordred
Where did the decision to propose a “King Arthurian” game with Mordred as the protagonist come from?
From the fantasy and imagination of an extraordinary artist that he is Adrian Smith. All the world of Mordred is his very personal reinterpretation of the Arthurian cycle, very mature and stripped of religious superstructures, if we want it is in some ways a return to the primitive origins of this cycle of stories.
In the stories Mordred is often seen differently: how do you see him in your game?
In Adrian’s imagination, Mordred is the engine, the cause of the events that led to the current situation, with the disappearance of his father Arthur and the fusion between the magical world and the Britannia. So on the one hand he is the ambitious Mordred who wants to prove himself better than both parents we have come to know in the classic tales, but here he is enriched – perhaps – by the aspect deriving from the awareness of having done a big mess … in words he feels no remorse , but maybe internally yes.
A game of Mordred lasts an average of 90 minutes: was the duration of the session a choice for you dictated by the depth of the title, or did you enter everything you thought to then eliminate elements and streamline the game?
As a game designer, I think a game should last just the right amount of time for the players to have the desired experience. An epic game can’t be too short or you won’t have time to properly develop the story arc. At the same time, excessive duration risks weighing down the experience. I think we managed to arrive at an adequate playing time, of course the first game could take longer, given the need to practice with the rules.
The three factions, that of Mordred, Merlin and the witch Morgana immediately make it clear that the game is permeated by magic: how important is this resource on the battlefield? And how did you balance the three archetypes?
Somehow, Mordred, Merlin And Morgana they act as “super partes” entities with respect to the players. Each of them grants a specific benefit if a certain amount of their favors are obtained, but the management of magic as such is entrusted to the individual players’ factions, who represent different races fighting each other for dominance over Britannia and the Chaos Land. We have tried to strongly characterize each faction both through its individual and personalized battle cards, and above all with the three unique spells that each faction has at its disposal.
What is in your opinion the most important feature of the game?
There are probably two: the first is the time management. Everything players do in Mordred has a cost in time, and occupying the right space at the right time in the circular board that tracks the time used is absolutely essential. The other really relevant aspect are the consequences of their own choices. Much like in a game of chess with many players, a seemingly trivial move like casting a minor spell or moving a couple of troops at the beginning of the game it can actually cause a decisive “butterfly effect” on the outcome of the game in the more advanced stages. Ditto for solving events, moving fantasy creatures, etc.
Neither Uther Pendragon nor King Arthur seem to be present in the game at the moment, yet the protagonist Mordred is equally grandson and son of the two respective legendary heroes: how did you deal with this initiative?
Uther is actually the absolute protagonist of theexpansion main of the game, call “Old Enemies”. It is to all intents and purposes a ghost, who returns to earth to try to mitigate the damage done by his nephew, and represents a really interesting variant of the basic game scheme. The non-existence of Arthur (consequence of his disappearance due to the spell cast by Mordred) in this world is precisely the narrative basis of the universe thought by Adrian, therefore, it is the premise of this entire “Mordredverse”. If Arthur returned, the world would go back to what we know from the classic tales, so… it’s not expected in the game!
Once the player has started to get the hang of the game mechanics, how he introduces new elements throughout the game (such as creatures, heroes and knights)
Knights – who in this world look more like mercenaries ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder – e monstrous creatures are actually present in the base game right away and if the former simply represent an option that each player can choose to dedicate time and resources to, the latter represent a source of disturbance and chaos that all players have to deal with. The heroes are introduced by a second expansion, Warbands, and they too can be hired by players. They represent an upgrade over the faction’s basic units, in a less impactful way than a single knight, but they are also much easier to enlist in one’s service.
Why, ultimately, do you think a group of players should choose Mordred for their evenings?
beyond thescenic look of extraordinary impact, of thumbnails very detailed and of excellent workmanship, of the art of Adrian Smithwe think we have offered players a unique version within the panorama of “dudes on a map” games, of territory control and combat, where every single move counts a lot in the economy of the game, in which the ability to predict plans of other players (or to surprise them) does not come from a lucky dice roll or from a single card draw, but entirely from your commander-in-chief ability. It is a widespread opinion – which we also share – that the best games are those that are easy to learn, but extremely difficult to master, and in our opinion Mordred belongs exactly in this category.
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