DECIPHER.com > Star Trek > Expansions > Fractured Time

Variable Consumption

by Evan Lorentz
Game Designer

The Consume mechanic in Necessary Evil was a long time coming. The idea to have dilemmas which "burned" part of their owner's dilemma pile as a cost was something we stumbled on while working on Energize. You already have seen the story about how "Interlink" paved the way for it to become a full-fledged call-out keyword.

Since the designers liked Consume so much and players responded to it as well, we decided to put a bit of a spin on it in Fractured Time, by creating a dilemma with a variable Consume cost. The result was Temporal Misalignment.

The number of personnel this dilemma can stop is limited only by how deeply you're willing to cut into your dilemma pile. This flexibility should definitely give players some interesting decisions to make during a mission attempt. It should make a great dilemma to put at the bottom of your dilemma stacks, since you can pay for a bigger effect after seeing just how well your previous dilemmas have done.

Temporal Misalignment will definitely be a nasty dilemma to face on your second or third attempt of the same mission. Your opponent will have very little to lose since you're soon going to complete the mission anyway, and he may well decide to burn many, many dilemmas in an effort to stop a big chunk of your personnel.

Of course, dilemma piles may well need to be bigger to accomodate the "feeding" of this hungry Consume dilemma. Finding the right balance for your deck is all part of the strategy.

August 24, 2004