New Rule

Introduction: In the good old days of Victorian England, raising a family was a breeze. Children were assets, measured in terms of marriageability and earning potential against cost of upbringing and risk of death or disownment. Why, it was practically just a business proposition. And women? Simply the means of production. In Progeny, players get in touch with their inner patriarch (or matriarch) as they attempt to grow and bloom a dynastic family tree. Have kids, raise ‘em, marry ‘em off, but watch out for usurpers and poor connections — they might dilute your noble bloodline and keep you from true aristocracy. Try to build the most dominant family before your fertility runs out!

Players: 3+

Materials:

• Several sheets of standard, letter-sized (A4) paper, one per player.
• Pens or markers of different colors, one per player.
• One coin.

Setting Up: Lay the sheets in the center of the table and distribute the pens or markers to each player. Roll off to see who goes first; play proceeds to the left. Beginning with the first player, each player writes their name at the top of their sheet of paper as the head of a new family tree. Each player then invents a spouse and connects his or her name to their own (see an example of a family tree diagram). These are the progenitors of the player’s family tree, the first generation. Draw three lines under the husband and three circles under the wife to represent their starting wealth and fertility (see below).

How to Play: Each turn, players manage their family tree, growing the wealth and influence of its male members and the fertility of its female members. Wealth and influence points are simply a measure of the level of the male member: males with greater wealth get preferential treatment when seeking wives, and can support more children. Wealth is indicated by lines drawn beneath the male family member’s name on the family tree. Fertility points are simply a measure of the level of female members: females with higher fertility are worth more as wives because they can produce more children. Fertility is indicated by circles drawn beneath the female family member’s name on the family tree.

Each turn, players take one action chosen from the following options. When the action is completed, their turn ends and play passes to the next player.

• Educate (Male): Any male family member may be educated or improved by age and experience. Education improves the member’s wealth and influence one level; to add education, draw a line underneath the name of the male family member. Males cannot be educated beyond level five (no more than five lines beneath their name).
• Court (Male): Any unmarried male member in the family may court an unmarried female member of another family. For each point of wealth or influence the male member possesses, draw a star beside the female’s name on her family tree. The first suitor to acquire five stars beside an available female’s name acquires her hand in marriage (see below).
• Birth (Female): Any married female family member with at least one available point of fertility can expend it to give birth to a child; gender is determined by a coin flip (heads are males, tails are females). Cross out the open circle beneath the female’s name and add the child to the tree. All newborn progeny begin with zero wealth or fertility.
• Debut (Female): Any unmarried female may be debuted: primped and primed and ‘put on the market’ for eligible marriage. Choose any unmarried and undebuted woman in your family and add three points of fertility to her.
• Arrangement (Couple): Any couple may resist an unwanted suit of one of their females by an opposing male. For every point of wealth the father possesses, negate one star placed by a courting male on any of his daughters. Note: you may resist suits against multiple daughters simultaneously.
• Settle (Couple): Any married couple in which the husband has more levels in wealth than the wife has levels in fertility may be settled — the husband’s stature is converted to fertility, representing the establishment and stabilizing of the family. A wife is allowed levels of fertility equal to her husband’s wealth, though this does include expended fertility (i.e. children already born). Add one point of fertility to the wife for every level of wealth not already assigned. Example: A couple has three levels each in wealth and fertility. Two of the fertility points have been used to produce two children, so the wife has one free point and two expended points of fertility. Events conspire to give the husband two new points of wealth, bringing his total to five. On their next turn, the player may settle the couple to add two new free points of fertility to the wife, bringing her total to five as well.

Marriage, Alliances, and Connections: The goal of the game is grow the largest and most influential family tree, and the best way to do so is by forging strong connections with other families through marriage. Male family members taking females from another family not only acquire the woman and all her fertility points for the purposes of birthing new family members, but they may also lay claim to the wealth and influence possessed by her father. Any male member acquiring a wife from another family immediately gains wealth or influence equal to half that of the female’s father (rounded up). Additionally: at the end of the game, the son-in-law with the most wealth gains the remainder of the father’s influence. Note: the father does not lose wealth or influence when his daughters are married. Rather, new wealth is generated and awarded to the new son-in-law.

Female also gain advantages for marrying eligible bachelors. When a female member is first married, she immediately gains fertility equal to the wealth of her new husband (not including the wealth he is about to gain from her father). Additionally, when a marriage is formed the female member is crossed out from her native family tree and added in to the husband’s tree next to his name. She still counts for one point as a member of her native family (see Winning the Game), but her fertility points are now counted as part of her husband’s family and will add to or subtract from that player’s score.

Diplomacy and negotiation are allowed and encouraged. Players are free to arrange for exchanges of marriage ties as they see fit.

Winning the Game: Play continues until one family tree reaches its fifth generation. The player with the highest score wins — points are awarded as follows:

• One point for each family member in the entire tree, including married daughters.
• One point for each child per family above three (example: a family with five children scores two points).
• One half-point for every level of wealth and influence per male member.
• Minus one point for every unused point of fertility per female member.

Next: Designing “Progeny”:
This game arose from similar technical constraints as my other “draw-the-board” games, as well as my recent experience visiting my brother’s college graduation on the same day my sister gave birth to her first child. I considered formal drawn structures such as family trees and though that, given some rules to fly by, creating an imaginary family could easily be modeled into gameplay.

The premise was set in days of yore because, quite frankly, no one plays by strict rules when planning families any more. In those days, things really were all about business: power, wealth, and influence. People routinely entered into marriages with people they hated, from families they hated more, simply for the advantageous connection. I have observed how people delight in pretending to be despicable, so I figured the color would be an asset.

It also lent itself well to game mechanics. Several abstracted motivations could be modeled as actions — education, debuts, arranged marriages, etc — that flowed nicely into the premise and would give rise to some fun diplomatic dynamics. I wanted to encourage players to be ruthless, to plan for the development of their family with uncaring, businesslike agendas. What remains to be seen is whether there are enough actions with divergent results, enough variety and possibility to ensure the game does not stagnate. This one I’m definitely going to have to playtest and refine — I like the idea too much to just set it free and see if it flies.

Tags: Game Design //