Post originally by Darrin at 2005-03-30 10:19:30
Converted from Phorums BB System

It occurs to me that Management Material uses a similar mechanic.

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7139.html

In MM, the jobs come up with a point value, and you either have to decide to take that number of points, or play one or more excuses to pass the job on to another player.

In both games, you're trying to avoid collecting points (which may be vaguely reminiscent of Hearts), but in MM you're trying to avoid going over 30 points, which eliminates you from the game. But instead of chips, you have to rely on drawing enough Excuse cards to get rid of the bigger jobs that will put you over the edge.

MM didn't go over so well with our local group. The high random factor and the inability to strategize turned several players off.

Looks like Geschenkt may have fixed some of these issues by simplifying the strategy even further, giving the player more control over the pass/take decision with the chips. You also get a significant payoff if you chip a card and it comes back around to you, whereas in MM, a card coming back to you is never a good thing.

However, I'm a little disappointed there was no attempt to develop a theme. Even the name "Geschenkt/The Gift" appears meaningless and unrelated to the gameplay.