Alan R. Moon is well-known in gaming circles as the creator of games like Elfenland, Union Pacific, Airlines and many others.

In the early 2000s, Moon teamed with fellow Massachusetts resident Aaron Weissblum to design some wonderful games. One of the best Moon/Weissblum games is San Marco, a game of territorial control played on a stylized map of Venice divided into six districts.

Players (3 or 4) attempt to place aristocrats in the districts so that they have either the most or second most aristocrats in enough districts to earn points and win the game.

One bridge per player also is added, each connecting two districts.

To start, each player places eight aristocrats on the board randomly (via a die roll). After that, players are treated to a series of tough decisions as one player draws eight cards (five "action" cards, three "limit" cards) and chooses how to divide them into two piles. A second player then selects one of the piles to take and use. In the 4-player game, this process is repeated with the other two players; in the 3-player version, 10 cards are divided into three piles. This is the core of the game.

The action cards allow players to place aristocrats, add bridges to the board, replace opposing aristocrats with your own, banish aristocrats, or cause scoring to take place in a district. When a banishment card is played, that player rolls the die and removes that many aristocrats from the district. It's possible he will have to remove his own aristocrats in addition to his opponents'.

Moon (ARM) and Weissblum (AW) were kind enough to answer some questions about San Marco.

Which came first for San Marco, the Venice theme or some of the mechanics for the game?

ARM: San Marco started with two different elements. One was the "I divide, you choose" mechanic. We both remembered this from when we were kids. The older brother had to cut the brownie in half. The younger brother then got to choose which half he wanted.

The other element was bridges. We had been talking about a game with bridges and several different ways of using them for weeks. Bridges naturally led to the Venice theme. The prototype was actually called Venice Again, the story being that there had been an earthquake in Venice and players were rebuilding the city. The aristocrats in San Marco were buildings in Venice Again.

What made Venice a setting that you wanted to explore? Has either of you ever been to Venice? Why did you decide to match this particular theme with these particular mechanics?

ARM: I'll answer these three questions together. I have never been to Venice but I desperately want to go, and I hope to visit for a few days this fall. It has been one of my "fantasy cities" for years. But the real reason we set the game in Venice is far less romantic. Venice simply has canals and canals work well with bridges.

AW: I was in Venice in 1979 and I have great memories of running around the city with my little sister. However, as Alan said, the theme idea just came from the bridges.

I was at first disappointed to find out that there was another Venice-themed game which came out this year. How dare they usurp our theme? (Doge, by Leo Colovini) But I met Leo in Essen (very nice guy) and I found out that he lives and works in Venice. Guess I can't complain about that...

Did the game change during the playtest process?

ARM: Very much so. In fact, how the game got published is a little unusual. I first showed the game to Amigo. The card mix in that version of the game had mostly area cards and very few Transfer Cards, only a few Doge Cards, and no Banishment Cards. The game played well during my presentation, but it wasn't exciting.

That night back at the hotel near Frankfurt, I changed the card mix quite a bit. When I played the game again a few days later, it was hugely improved.

I next showed the game to Schmidt Spiele. They playtested it quite a bit but in the end decided not to publish it. Markus Ruether was in charge of Family Games at Schmidt at that time. In his letter accompanying the returned game, he suggested I add more action cards. My immediate stubborn reaction was that I'd already done that. But several days later, I was still thinking about this comment, so I again changed the card mix, adding in lots more Doge and Transfer Cards, and adding a few Banishment Cards in too.

When I showed this version to Ravensburger, ten minutes into the game, I knew it was sold. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Markus Ruether for his contribution towards making San Marco a successful game. Markus, I owe you one.

San Marco's map has six regions. How did you arrive at that as the best number?

ARM: I don't really remember, but I have the feeling six was the number we thought would inspire enough competition but also allow players the opportunity to focus on a few areas. This is usually a tricky balance in games. It is made even more difficult in games using cards. Getting the balance of the different types of cards and the balance of players (and their pieces) within the areas can be challenging.

I do have to add something here though. Many times people ask me why are there are a specific number of pieces in the game. Why 18? Why not 20 or 25? Sometimes my answer surprises them because the only real reason is that was how many of those pieces I had in my "bits" box. So in these cases, the mechanics involving those pieces were designed around the number of pieces, and not the other way around.

These days, I'm not usually limited by my "bits" supply, but it can still just be easier to take the number of pieces I have and use those. You gotta start somewhere.

What inspired the mechanic of having a distributor and a decision maker?

AW: It was just something I remembered from being a kid.

Why did you decide to use a die roll for banishment cards?

ARM: We just thought a few die rolls, which can have significant effects, makes the game more exciting. Some people may think this element adds too much luck, but I think luck elements in games are necessary to keep a game from being too dry.

This article was originally posted on January 18, 2001.