I feel like corruption is an important mechanism that needs to be added to Villanostra, because it can so easily be caused by Authority and Loyalty and Liberty, while Sanctity and Fairness at least partially exist to act as checks upon it. But I’m not sure how to model corruption in the game. I was thinking of adding corruption counters to the villagers, like the stress counters I already use for them. But that felt too personal. I think corruption needs to feel like a problem for the entire village, and needs to be the entire village’s responsibility, instead of just an inevitable thing that “bad people” do. So for the next playtest corruption tokens will be added to the threat bag, like raids and unrest. When a corruption token is drawn for a facility, every villager not morally aligned with that facility will gain stress. It’s a place to start.
While considering this, I’m also trying to minimize tracking for the villagers. I’ve been using an injury / illness status on the villagers, which makes them more likely to be killed and also reduces their effectiveness when they work. But I’m concerned that could be seen as a criticism of disabled people. So I’m using removing that status and basing its effect on stress instead: for each 3 stress a villager has, their effort is reduced by 1.
Also, when a villager works but generates no effort, the village gains 1 corruption. Hopefully stress and corruption will form a downward spiral that the councilors need to work against together.