Pre-game customization

 Hello, For those of you who do not know me, my name is Indrek Klanberg, and I'm a young game-designer.  Currently I am finishing my first economy board game - Pactio. 

 Recently I had a discussion in Google+ Board game design community with another member about pre-game set-up. Both of us had different ideas in mind, but pre-game customization would be the thing to generalize both of our ideas. 

 My idea basically was that, at the start of game, players draft the political and power situation of a city. Basically the idea was for a sequence game for Pactio (www.pactioboardgame.com). The new game would not involve city building, but instead all players draft their initial buildings (for income and passive abilities), active abilities (you could use 1 ability each turn so they are as useful as much time you spend on them) and plot events (those are basically events that will take place later in the game, effecting all players, so you will want to draft events that synergise with your strategy). Basically all the 3 types of cards would be in the same deck, and you would have to decide, how much you need to focus on property, abilities and plotting. Then the scenery would be set and the struggle for power will start. 

 I started thinking a bit more about it and at first glance, it seemed to me that it might actually be something unique and I couldn't remember where it had been used before. But then I thought further.

 I don't think anything quite like that has been attempted before, but let's see what has done from a more general perspective (pre-game customization). Here's some examples: 

 1) Character creation - I think this is the most used pre-game customization. All RPG-s use it, starting from Dungeons and Dragons. Often it is the only RPG element in a strategy game. Usually however it is not very deep, as games tend to spread out the customization through the entire early game. Examples include choosing your class at level 10, choosing another focus class at level 20 etc. Often the pre-game customization boils down to choosing a name, race and appearance, for example Skyrim. The reason is simple, if you made the customization deeper, players would have hard time relating their choices to the game, might be confused and the flow of information might be just too overwhelming for some players at least. 

 However, I've missed from many games an opportunity for advanced start, meaning that once you've achieved a certain level/beat the game, you would unlock advanced start for your account, meaning you would have deeper customization, starting out as a more powerful character than first time etc. The purpose would be that while playing the game, if you have already played the game at a certain level, it is not fun any more to play it again from the beginner levels, so if you could advance customize your second character, it would be a time saver, and you could start off from a closer to your skill level, not having to waste time to try out a different tactic, or to simply find out if another class is more interesting to play (In guildwars 2, while being an otherwise good game, I just couldn't bother to level up another character, as the second time seemed to be just too... dull, especially considering how little skill was involved during the first 30 levels). 

 2) Magic the gathering drafting - I'm not sure how many of you have tried drafting in MTG, since it is pretty competitive, but basically it's an example where players spend around 30-50 minutes to make decks on the spot from freshly used boosters. Drafting is a separate game itself, with it's own strategy, meta, required skill-sets etc. So it's a pretty much a mini-game, that influences the outcome of MTG matches played after the decks are finished. In Swiss format, you play 3 matches with the freshly drafted decks.

 For some mtg players it is the most fun format, as it creates for much more freshness each time you play it, compared to constructed play (using pre-made decks from your entire card collection). Here, the pre-game customization goes very deep, and it is enjoyed by players, that are already deeply familiar with the game. They (and occasionally I) go through all that trouble to simply have a fresh experience from mechanic, that has lots of chance and unpredictability, but also a ton of skill. 

 3) Civilization 4 advanced setup - It was there, I tried it once, I personally didn't like it. It just seemed to take away lot's of story from the early game - the exploration, struggling with barbarians, and it didn't add anything to the table. I guess the reason why it was attempted was if someone got bored of the early game. Unlike your usual MMORPG, then in civ series, the early game is often the most fun aspect of the game. That's where the most important things happen, that's where you decide which way your civilization will go. That's where you hope you will get something from a hut that will be exponentially beneficial for you for the whole game. So an advanced setup to skip even a little of the sweet old early game was just something I personally didn't touch twice. 

 That's basically all pre-game customization examples I could think of during a small amount of time, but basically the reasons to do it, is to skip some part of the game, save time or create for more variety. 

 In my new idea, I wanted to use pre-game customization for creating an unique scenery every time you play it and to create really this immersive feeling as the initial draft is sort of like telling the pre-story for the game/plot to come. However from drawing the parallel to MTG drafting which is enjoyed by already long-time MTG players, and being intimidating for new players, I might reconsider. 

 One solution would to have a first game mode - all players pick a pre-made starting buildings and abilities and events are drawn randomly from all the events, instead of players putting them in. And the drafting mode could be explored after 1 or 2 initial play-throughs.

Thanks for reading, and don't hesitate to share your comments and ideas on the matter!

Edit: In +Board Games discussion, some extra very good examples were pointed, such as Warhammer Miniatures game army building and Twilight Imperium Galaxy building. From that I get the feeling that adding pre-game is mechanic for usually hardcore games. I guess it's cos what it actually does, it gives players the opportunity to get a fresh experience with some or lots of extra effort. So it really doesn't make sense to use it in a light game, which players would prefer playing as a filler anyways. Only exception that I would see, is if the pre-game, for example drafting, would be as exciting or perhaps even more than the game itself.