Buddhist Wheel of Life and Death - board game?

[madcowchef]

A few thoughts. At the most basic, though perhaps too boring, a morality game like the traditional chutes and ladders. A better model for giving up desires to attain enlightenment would be the classic card game where you win by emptying your hand of cards. Perhaps the card game model could be combined with the already interesting-and-map-like traditional image to impose more cards or allow you to remove cards as you progress? You could even include a few good cards in the deck to tempt people to pick up cards on occasion (which will be bad more often than not as a sneaky morality lesson?).

For a more cooperative game, the goal would have to be universal enlightenment and you'd be working against traditional evils. It would be interesting to have peoples roles (and thus abilities) change as they pass through different incarnations to change the game dynamics as it progressed.

[Gamerprinter]

A few thoughts. At the most basic, though perhaps too boring, a morality game like the traditional chutes and ladders. A better model for giving up desires to attain enlightenment would be the classic card game where you win by emptying your hand of cards. Perhaps the card game model could be combined with the already interesting-and-map-like traditional image to impose more cards or allow you to remove cards as you progress? You could even include a few good cards in the deck to tempt people to pick up cards on occasion (which will be bad more often than not as a sneaky morality lesson?).

For a more cooperative game, the goal would have to be universal enlightenment and you'd be working against traditional evils. It would be interesting to have peoples roles (and thus abilities) change as they pass through different incarnations to change the game dynamics as it progressed.

I like the idea of emptying your hand of cards, and the changing of abilities, as one enters a different place on the wheel - great ideas! Thanks, Madcowchef.

Do you know if there are specific stories or lessons associated with each section of the wheel? Some sort of narrative progression. This is a great thing to puzzle over and ponder, it's like a koan.

Meshon

When the lady bishop was trying to explain the process of the outer wheel, she used a personal story of struggle she had been dealing with in the last few years - including a narrative story as one moves along makes perfect sense to include mechanically in the game. So your point is right on in this concept!

GP