Brain Blasts are a creative exercise to see how YOU would solve a hypothetical game design challenge through new mechanics, roleplay, approaches, whatever! Feel free to throw me a comment if you have a topic you'd like to see here.
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This week we're shakin' up mechanical representations.
Take a concept and instead of using rules to representing the concept directly, use them to recontextualize the actions.
For instance, instead of combat rules being used to represent actual combat between two duelists; have the rules as a stand in for the characters' beliefs or ideologies. Their attacks and defenses being the clashes of individual points of those beliefs. Now, it's still a sword fight, but the winner is the one who's strength of belief or ability to convince the other is stronger.
— or —
When crafting instead of having a skill determine the crafter's ability, use the crafter's connection to the materials involved. How did they obtain it? Where did the tools come from? Who is the final result for? Now there's a personal tie bound to the crafter's wares.