Also, regarding the location and plunder thing, it's loosely inspired by Munchkin (I was wondering if anyone would draw that comparison; the actual drafted mechanics look pretty different from Munchkin), but one of the ideas in TPI is to have a sort of object/location permanence.

The way it works is that you basically uncover a deck full of places as you play, moving between them. Each has its own little fluff, and its own challenge to overcome. You always have three places these cards can be; the upcoming deck, the "hand", and the completed place pile.

Players can return to a place that they looted in a previous day to loot it again, which is risk-free but uses up time, which is typically the most valuable resource (basically, you want to try and get through as much of the deck as possible).

However, the central conceit of the game is that you need to find resources while exploring. Since that's a relatively simple concept, we've built up RPG systems around it while having the GM be abstracted out; the actual functional storytelling experience is more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than Betrayal at the House on the Hill, with a lot of player input "I manage to find my way past the obstacle because..."

One potential expansion could be to have an option to add new card types to the game to make it a little more complicated; maybe I'll do this by the time the game's in a semi-final state.