Major Incidents

Incidents are one of the first major mechanics in Danmaku!!, shipping with the original base set. Lore-wise, incidents are integral to Touhou's setting. They are the impetus that drives the stories in each game, introduce us to new characters, and push the overarching narrative along.

In Danmaku!!, incidents serve another role. They mix up the normal gameplay, add some interesting twists and surprises, and ensure that no two games end up playing out the same. They can sometimes close out a game quickly, or just as easily turn the tables, giving the underdog a chance to make a dramatic comeback.

However, after playing Danmaku!! for so long, the existing suite of incidents sometimes feels a little repetitive. In Big Box, we plan on addressing this issue in two ways - first, by increasing the size of the incident deck (thus making any given incident come up less frequently), and second, by introducing Major Incidents.

Major Incidents are a new kind of card in the incident deck that have an impactful effect that lasts for the rest of the game. Major Incidents don't have a resolution condition, so once a Major Incident manifests, the only way to resolve them is by playing a card like Master Plan or with Kanako's spell card. 

You continue to manifest and resolve other incidents while a Major Incident is in play. If you would manifest a second Major Incident, you immediately discard it — there's no new incident that turn, granting the table a brief reprieve. This means there is generally only one Major Incident in any given game.

In this way, Major Incidents feel more like a global, background change to the game rules, while still allowing the interesting variance of incidents. This addressed an issue we had with certain incidents that would take a long time to resolve but didn't have immediate impact. They often felt like anti-incidents, effectively shutting down any new incidents until they eventually did leave.

It's not guaranteed that you will flip a Major Incident in any particular game, but it should feel impactful when one does show up. Even so, we've been careful to avoid effects that would shut down any particular player or character, or that shut down player agency or interaction. 

Major Incidents should also have a low overhead. While a normal incident triggering on each player's turn is fine, having a major incident on top of that would just bog the game down. The key is striking a balance between something that feels "major" and something that is easy to play with.

In addition to several new Major Incidents, some incidents from the original version might get redesigned as Major Incidents. For instance, "Crisis of Faith" is a huge swing that can turn a game on its head, which is really cool — as long as it doesn't happen all the time. By making cards like this into Major Incidents, we can reduce the frequency that game-altering effects like this appear without impacting our more bread-and-butter incidents.