Malleable Monster and Branches of Power

I talked with Chad a bit about the Monster City design, one thing we batted around was having changable sides. On the city side, there would be six possible factions, each with their own unit and set of cards, and you would choose three of them to use during a game. This would give each game a different feel. Similarly, the monster would choose a number of parts to its body, each of which provided specific move cards. The overall balance of attacks and movement would be preserved by associating them with "leg", "arm" "head" etc, card types, which would tend towards certain types of moves, and each monster wounld choose on of several options from each category.

There's a part of me that likes this for the replay value. The balance would be wonky at times, but this isn't an abstract asymetrical strategy game, its just meant to be fun. More Memoir '44 than Fox and Geese. Players would have more ownership over their abilities, and would be able to try drastically different approaches.

There's a part of me that is aesthetically repulsed by it though, it seems so messy. I'd want to really clean up the basic mechanics down to nearly nothign, and keep the cards themselves very elegant.

Also, because I would no longer be trying to perfectly balance the game, some games would be a little lopsided. So I would design it more as a "one more game" game, with a quick play time.

The end result being, I need to really streamline this down. I think shrinking the board *way* down might also be in order. The district idea might go away.

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Also, I realized I need some kind of drama that rises and falls over the course of the game. Something that makes each turn different than the last, and provides a secondary concern. I know this is at odds with what I just said, and if I streamline the game down enough, maybe I can avoid this. But everything seems very linear these days. A "rage" value that rises and falls might be a step i the right direction, where more powerful moves are enabled by a higher value. Conversely, there might be a "morale" value for the city troops. Some secondary concern to strategically balance against, to carefully judge the importance of at a given moment.

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I wonder if cards are even still the way to go for the monster. Dice, in a particular way, are starting to become appealing again. Its a long story.