I spent the past couple of days rewriting the rules to Oath. I'm sure there's a longer piece of writing that I can work up based on that process, but I wanted to share a couple of reflections on the game-play, espeically as it's developed over the past few months. (1/x) 
Right now I've been posting my designer diaries for the game over at BGG on the news forum for the game. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2915…
In order to keep myself sane, I'm using an outline that will take me through a lot of material. I want to make sure I get to all of the important bits and put them in their proper context. But this hasn't let me just talk about what the game is like to play.
To that end, here's a extemporaneous little thread about the game with the obvious caveat that games change a lot in development, and my own games are no exception!
First, I should say that Oath really does feel quite different from any other game I've worked on. This is partly because the perspective of the game is anchored on the actions of an individual as they maneuver through the world.
This means that you might spend your turns travelling around, staying at an inn, digging up dangerous secrets, recruiting some powerful friends to your cause, etc. This is not my usual territory, but it lends itself well to the kinds of situations I want the game to create.
I'm really happy with the action system I built for this. It's one of the strongest and most robust elements of the design and has hardly been changed in months. Often, new players find it frustrating because it forces you to plan and to recognize that you can't do everything.
Often a big plan may take a couple turns to execute. Turns themselves are snappy (faster than Pamir), and there's not a lot of rules overhead to the individual actions, but the game forces you to make tricky timing choices and to deal with the consequences of a past action.
For instance, you might have to chase an important card and then find yourself in a horribly twisted and awkward position that will take a round or so to recover from.
This can be espeically tricky because a big part of the game is figuring out who is in contention and how best to frustrate their plans for victory.
In a lot of ways, the game feels like a Pax-style game. In fact, if I had to put it in any kind of generic category, that's where I'd stick it. But, it shares not a single mechanical commonality with the Pax series outside of the fact that you can maintain a little tableau.
I say *can* because often having a tableau is a horrible thing in this game. Personal cards are expensive to carry around. Usually you'll only want one or two for the entire game.
The other thing that makes the game Pax-y, is the victory condition. The game is built around a simplified version of a Pamir-style victory system, with a secondary system of alternate victory conditions that can emerge in play. There's plenty of bad marriages and scheming.
The other sister-game I sometimes think about is Inis, one of my favorites. Moreso than Pamir, this is a "dudes on a map" game (ugh, i hate that term). Players might need to raise warbands and raid each other's possessions.
Surprising no one, a lot of my interest in operational wargames is built into the military system. The biggest question regarding war in Oath is when and how should you should split your forces.
But, holding a tableau, you don't necessarily need a host of warbands to win the game. Context is everything. You might better spend your turns cultivating relationships with the various peoples in the games world and trying to leverage their love into democratic revolution.
The world of Oath has several factions. Critically, these do not correspond 1:1 to players (like Root). Instead, they are somewhere between coalitions in Pamir and suits in Root. Your relationship to these factions is probably your most critical resource.
This is quite different than the Vagabond's alignment track. In Root, the Vagabond's track was a response to his own actions. In Oath, the relationships are a resource that needs spend and manipulated. Being hated by a faction will almost always be a bad thing for you.
Lastly, I wanted to say a little about how the game changes between games. A game of Oath is fought on and over a kind of weird, shared tableau. The cards on this tableau are many locations of the game as well as the special effects/rules changes/etc that inform the game.
The difference between shared tableau can be dramatic. One might be filled with friendly, cooperative cards that reward working together and encourage players to keep the ruling order in place.
Another might be filled with devastating and destructive powers that will make innovation difficult and keep the game unstable. The differences in their effects are far greater than a starting hand of occupations and minor improvements in Agricola.
And this shared tableau isn't arbitrary. It's something the players build together and fight over during the game. It can be protected or disrupted as the players see fit and elements of it can last for many games (if players let it).
I think this is another reason why I find myself comparing this to a Pax style game. Reading the game state and knowing how to manipulate it are critical elements of good play.
At the same time, the game simply isn't as chaotic. Player positions are dramatically more stable and longer term planning is easier. This is partly because you don't have to contend with a torrent of new cards. A game of Oath will use about 25, of which 15 might get played.
I'm a big fan of zero-sum economies in my games, and Oath's most important economy, the flow of cards, is essentially zero-sum (though it's not quite a drafting game).
So, if on the one hand this is a big ambitious game that continues to scare the daylights out of me each day I push it forward, it's also working through some familiar questions that are near and dear to me.
First and foremost, it's a peculiar game. Hard as nails but also a little goofy. Which is to say, it's the kind of game that I enjoy these days. I'm making it mostly because I just want a game like it to work and to exist so I can play it with my friend when we get together.
Alright, now I gotta pivot to other projects. Feel free to leave questions. I'll answer what I can, but expect me to defer a lot to future designer diaries.
