Recent Gaming: New-to-me games

Two weeks ago I went to OrcCon in Los Angeles. I posted an account of the weekend's gaming on BGG. I played a lot of games and had a great time at the convention.

In addition to all the great games I played at OrcCon, I've played a number of games this month that are new to me - games I've played for the first time. Here are the new games and my first impressions of them:

Confucious: After hearing a lot about this game in the BGDF chat room I was eager to give it a shot. There were posts on BGG comparing it to something by Martin Wallace (which could be good or bad). Finally I got a chance to play, and stumbling through the rules wasn't the most rewarding experience ever. The person teaching it had only played once, and a large, very influential aspect of the game (the Emperor cards) was sort of glossed over (which ended up screwing me in the game). I didn't like it too much after playing, but that might have been frustration. I discussed the game a bit with JC in the chat room and then wanted to play it again (which I have not done). I remember thinking that the Gift mechanic was a neat idea, but I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. You give gifts in the game in order to ingratiate yourself to your opponents, and that makes the indebted to you in certain respects. I remember thinking that for one thing, having gifts in front of you at the end of the game should be worth points - otherwise once someone gives you a gift you mostly just want to get rid of it as soon as possible. There was more to it than that, but I don't recall at the moment.

Heart of Africa: I may have mentioned that Ryan and Anita, after they started coming over to my house to play games, went to Game Daze and picked up Heart of Africa on sale. They could not figure out how to play from the rulebook, so they asked me to try and figure it out. I finally got a chance to try it, and let me tell you - they weren't kidding about the rulebook! Phalanx Games appears to have a reputation for terrible rulebooks, and it baffles me because they publish games with good production quality, go go through the effort and spend the money, how can they possibly put a game on the shelf that you literally cannot play as written? It took logical reasoning and research on BGG to figure out how to play because the rulebook was incomplete and in fact confused symbols which really made it tough. The game was just OK, I'd like to play it again, but probably not a whole lot of times. It does have some neat ideas in it.

Sutter's Mill: Also by Phalanx, I might have done well to steer clear based on the quality of the Heart of Africa. It turns out the rules for this one left out the entire description of one of the cards in the game (the Adventurer card). Fortunately it's fairly obvious what the purpose of the card is, and there's a thread on BGG about it. Sutter's Mill is about the gold rush. Players build up a town, mine for gold, and when the gold vein dries up it's time to tear down and get out. When the gold runs out, you lose points for stuff you have left in town (prospectors and influence cards). It's a clever idea, but I don't know how deep the game is or how many times I'll want to play it before I get bored of it.

Hamburgum: When Antike came out I remember playing it at BGG.con and liking it so much I looked into getting a copy, and when I couldn't find one I ended up making my own copy. A year later when Imperial came out I played that one at BGG.con as well. I was not nearly as impressed with that one, probably because I don't like stock manipulation, and I also don't like war themed games. When a new Rondel game came out with an economic theme, I was really interested in trying it out. Unfortunately, word on the street was that Hamburgum was underwhelming. I finally got a chance to play it, and I really like the game! I don't know why it's gotten a bad rap. In Hamburgum you get points for contributing building materials to build 6 different churches, and to bu the materials you need to produce and sell Sugar, Cloth, and Beer. In addition to the church donations, you can also spend the resources on buildings which have some effect. The scoring is done by tiles which you get when you donate, and they award points based on your position in the game - how many Sugar buildings you have, or how many buildings you've built in a particular district. The order of actions on the Rondel plays a big role in differentiating the goods which otherwise seem similar to each other - and the buildings you end up buying further differentiate the values of the goods between the players. I find the game interesting and hope to get some more plays in soon. I've heard that after a couple of games I'll find it boring, but until then I think I'll enjoy it.

Hacienda: I remember some friends playing this one a while back, but I never did. I also remember thinking the game didn't look like anything special. A friend picked up Hacienda at Bookman's, and I got a chance to play it last weekend. To tell you the truth, I wasn't particularly taken with it. Each turn you get 3 actions where actions are buy a card (animal or land), play a card to place an animal/land tile on the board, or buy a Hacienda or Water tile. When the deck of animal cards is 1/2 exhausted then you score some points, and when it's fully exhausted you score again. Seems like you'd just want a large mass of land tiles, with just a few animal tiles here and there just to touch the Market spaces on the board, as the big points come from (a) touching lots of markets, and (b) having a big chain of land tiles. Income never seemed to be any kind of problem. It felt a bit boring, almost as if maybe we had a rule wrong or something.

Horus: I got Horus in a local trade and tried it out. It's a tile placement game in which you place tiles to make groups, and then place ownership markers on the groups - most ownership markers scores for the group. I didn't like this game either. There's a game called Micropul which is similar only way better - you can find it on BGG and print a copy if you're into that kind of thing.

Winds of ... change?

I've been letting ideas for Winds of Fate stew since I talked to Jeff and company after their playtest. One of the main things they commented on (and it's something I'd seen myself as well) was that there didn't seem to be enough player differentiation. If everyone wants pretty much the same thing, then the bets are pretty similar, and the game isn't very exciting. So here's the current idea to address this:

Instead of 2 decks of cards (Help/Hinder) - or one deck of Help/Hinder cards - imagine a deck of cards which is comprised of say 5 different suits. Each suit would be associated with a different Greek god. One suit would be Athena, and she would always add to the Help total of an Adventure. One suit would be Poseidon, and he would always add to the Hinder total. The other three suits would be different Greek gods, and each one would add to the Help total in some Adventures and either add to the Hinder total or not at all in other Adventures.

In addition to this, each location (or else each Encounter tile) would be associated with one of these gods. The cards matching the god in the location would be the ones that add to the Help total of that Adventure. Also, particular cardplay in each Adventure would earn a player a token of the god at the location, and these tokens could be used to offer rewards.

I will be thinking more along these lines to see if I can't improve the game and make it feel more exciting.

In addition, to differentiate the betting, I'm considering making bet chips location specific. So far I'm thinking they would be drawn randomly from a bag, and each one would be associated with one of the locations. When placing a bet, you would really be saying "I think that Odysseus will reach THIS location on THIS round" - not just when the game will end. Each player would start with one bet chip associated with the Game End, so you would still be able to bet on that as well, but any Bet Chips obtained during the game would be drawn randomly from the bag.

I'm thinking that it might be neat if a player chooses to use an early, not-too-lucrative bet in order to collect some bet chips to use in later bets, rather than try and fight for them.

Homesteaders update?

I contacted Jay Tummelson 3 or 4 weeks ago to follow up on Homesteaders. The last I'd heard about it was last summer when Dale and Valerie told me they'd sent Jay the game and "recommended" it. His reply was that he's been busy with Dominion and that he hasn't had a chance to look at Homesteaders - and that perhaps next month there would be more time.

As such, it appears nothing is happening on that front. When I get back from OrcCon I should contact Jay to follow up again.

OrcCon imminent, and Winds of Fate thoughts

This weekend is the first Strategicon event of 2009, OrcCon, in Los Angeles. I enjoy the Strategicon events because they are close, and therefore cheap, I have friends in L.A., and these conventions have a lot of tournaments - it's a good opportunity to do some competitive gaming and if I perform well I even get to walk home with some prizes :)

For the last couple of years I've gone by myself, but this time my friend Mikey is coming with me. This should be fun - I've been trying to get my friends to come to these conventions with me ever since I started going several years ago, but Mikey's got a wife and 2 kids now, so I guess it's not as easy for him to get away. Usually the cons conflict with swordfighting events for SCA or ECS, which Mikey used to do, and which Tyler and Jake always go to.

In addition, some new friends I've recently begun hanging out with - Elisa and Jeff - will be going as well. It should be fun to go to a convention with friends for once.

In other news, I've been putting together another prototype of Odysseus: Winds of Fate - my original is still in New York. So far I haven't made any adjustments based on the feedback I got from Jeff Warrender and Gil Hova and they're playtest last month at Spielbany, but I've been giving it some thought and I have some ideas... I'd like to try it again as-is with those ideas in mind and then see about implementing some of them. My next post on the subject should shed some light on details of these changes. I'd also like to talk to Nando about them and see what he thinks.

Winds of Fate - Spielbany verdict

Well, I don't think the publisher actually played the game, but I did hear that Gil taught the game to 3 other players, and that they played it and it was interesting to get some immediate feedback. While at a hotel in Santa Monica, I got a phone call from the playtesters and we had a nice conversation about how the game went.

It turns out Winds of Fate didn't go over as well as I had hoped. I got some excellent feedback from the playtesters, and Jeff followed up with some emails with comments and ideas to fix what they thought were lacking in the game. I have been mulling these ideas over, and will likely be incorporating some of them in one way or another. The one I think that has the most promise is probably the idea of making the Bet Chips more specific. Suppose the supply of Bet Chips each showed a specific location. When placing a bet with that chip, what you'd be saying is that you think Odysseus will visit that location on (or near) a particular round. Thus, you're more limited in what you can bet on, and different players are betting on different things (as opposed to all players betting on which round Odysseus will reach a specific location - Ithaca - or die.)

Another good suggestion was to associate each location with a specific Greek god - adding more characters than just Athena and Poseidon. Then the player who contributes the largest value to the adventure could win a token of that particular deity. In later rounds, players could be rewarded by the deity based on how many tokens of that deity they hold. This would help differentiate players and give them varying incentives as to where they want Odysseus to go.

I'll be thinking about these ideas and others, and hopefully the next incarnation will be better still!

Winds of Fate - last minute edits

This is c&p'ed from Pastebin, so formatting is lost, but here are the rules I'm sending to New York tomorrow to be played at the annual Spielbany playtesting event. I'm hoping my friends get a chance to play it (preferably with Zev, who said he would be willing to try it there) and I can get some good feedback. Who knows, maybe Zev will love it and decide to publish it!

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, I have been working on this largely with Randall McClain from the BGDF - in fact it's based on a Game Design Showdown entry he made a couple of years ago. It began as my version of what I thought he had in mind. Early prototypes of my version were disappointing, and this version I believe is closer to what Nando originally had in mind with his GDS entry.

Odysseus: Winds of Fate
By Seth Jaffee (based on a Game Design Showdown entry by Randall McClain)
Contents:
15 Destiny cards (5 each: Safe Return/Dead/Stranded at Sea)
54 Adventure cards in 2 suits, Help & Hinder
15 heart shaped Crew tokens (10 small, 5 large)
2 black cylindrical markers (1 Odysseus marker and 1 Round counter)
50 Player markers in 5 colors (One marker for score, one for reward tiles, the rest for bet ownership.)
Score board
50 Bet Chips
Game board
Round track
10 Turn Order tiles (2 of each Turn Order tile labeled 1 through 5.)
12 Reward Tiles (The Reward tiles have black backs.)
10 Encounter Tiles
6 Olympus Cards (The Olympus cards are in sleeves backed with Mountains – for mount Olympus. They represent Athena and Poseidon’s influence.)

Setup:
· Place the game board, round track, and score board in the center of the play area
· Shuffle the Encounter tiles and place 9 of them face up on the 9 spaces on the board. The last encounter tile will not be used, but can be placed face down on Troy after the first adventure is over.
· Place the Odysseus marker on Troy and the Round counter on space 1 of the Round track
· Count out the appropriate number of Crew tokens and place them near the board. Set unused Crew tokens aside.
3 players: Use 25 Crew
4 players: Use 30 Crew
5 players: Use 35 Crew
· Give each player a set of Destiny cards (1 Safe Return, 1 Dead, and 1 Stranded at Sea). Return unused destiny cards to the box.
· Separate the Adventure cards into 2 decks – Help (blue back) and Hinder (red back). Deal each player 3 Adventure cards from each deck. Place the decks near the board.
· Shuffle the Olympus deck and place it near the board.
· Place 1 set of Turn Order tiles near the board. With fewer than 5 players, leave the unused tiles in the box. Randomly distribute the other set of Turn Order tiles to the players.
· Mix the Reward tiles face down and place them near the board
· Place a supply of Bet Chips near the board and give each player 2 Bet Chips.
· Give each player the ownership markers in their color, placing 1 marker per player on the Score board and one near the Turn Order tiles.
· Have each player shuffle their set of Destiny cards, place them face down in their area, and then place one of their Bet Chips on one of the face down Destiny cards. After this is done, players may look at their face down Destiny cards at any time.


Overview of play

Odysseus: Winds of Fate is played in a series of rounds. Each round consists of an Encounter phase followed by an Adventure phase and finally a Journey phase. During each round Odysseus will lose some crew and will travel from one Encounter tile to another. The game ends when one of three conditions occurs: If at any time Odysseus loses all of his crew, then the game ends immediately and he is considered Dead. If after round 12 the Odysseus marker has not reached Ithaca and Odysseus has not lost all of his crew, the game ends with Odysseus being Stranded at Sea. If the Odysseus marker reaches Ithaca and at least 1 crew survives the Adventure there, then the game ends and Odysseus has returned safely home.
Encounter Phase
During the Encounter phase, instructions on the current Encounter tile are followed:
· Troy – Each player may Place 1 Bet (in turn order). After the adventure phase, place an unused Encounter tile face down on Troy.
· Isle of Aeolia – Each player scores 2vp per unused Bet Chip. Each player may take a Destiny action. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, move the Odysseus token directly to Isle of Scheria.
· Isle of Calypso – Advance the Round marker twice. Each player may take a Destiny action.
· The Dreaded Charybdis – Double the value of the Olympus card for this Adventure. Each player may take a Destiny action.
· Isle of Circe – Each player may Place or Move 1 Bet (in turn order), or take 1 Bet Chip
· Isle of the Cyclopse – Lose 1 Crew. Add 3 to the Hinder total for this Adventure.
· Isle of the Laestrygonians – Lose 3 Crew.
· Isle of the Lotophagi – Advance the Round Marker. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, return 3 lost Crew.
· Isle of Scheria - Each player scores 2vp per unused Bet Chip. Each player may take a Destiny action. If Odysseus wins this Adventure, move the Odysseus token directly to Ithaca.
· Cliff of Scylla – Lose 6 Crew. Each player may place 1 Bet (in turn order).
· Isle of the Sirens – Each player draws 2 Adventure cards (in turn order). Return 2 lost Crew.
· Ithaca (Suitors) – Double Adventure. Add 3 to the Help total for each adventure. The game ends after the second Adventure (No Journey phase).

Some definitions:
Return Crew: Add Crew tokens to the Crew supply. There is no limit to the number of Crew that can be in the supply.
Unused Bet Chip: A Bet Chip held by a player that has not been placed as a Bet.
Destiny action: Take a Bet Chip from the general supply and place it on one of your face down Destiny cards.
Draw a card: Whenever a player draws cards, they may choose which deck to draw from (Help or Hinder). When drawing multiple cards, choose which deck each card comes from before drawing any cards.
Place a Bet: Place a Bet Chip that you have collected onto any space on the Round track that you don’t already have a Bet on. For each space between the current round and the space of the bet, add a Bet Chip from the general supply. Place a player marker on top of this stack of Bet Chips to indicate ownership of the Bet. (see example). It’s also You may instead place the Bet Chip onto one of your Destiny cards when placing a Bet. Place 2 Bet Chips from the supply along with it.
Move a Bet: Slide 1 bet to an adjacent space on the Round track. You may end up with 2 bets on the same round due to this.
Double Adventure: For the Adventure at Ithaca, reveal 2 Reward tiles per player instead of 1. After the first Adventure, each player will claim 1 Reward tile. Then start a second Adventure with the new turn order and at the end players choose Rewards from the remaining unclaimed Reward tiles. All Reward tiles contribute to crew loss in the case of a lost Adventure.

Example of Placing a Bet:
Tom has a Bet Chip and is given the opportunity to Place a Bet in round 2. Tom cannot place a Bet on round 10 because he already has a Bet there. He places his Bet Chip on round 9, and adds 7 Bet Chips from the supply. Tom then puts his player marker on top of the stack to indicate that it’s his bet. If the game ends on (or near) round 9, Tom will win (some of) those Bet Chips.

Adventure Phase
During the Adventure phase players play cards to influence the outcome of each Adventure. There is a process to resolving each adventure:
1) Reveal Reward Tiles
2) Play cards / Pass
3) Claim Rewards
4) Resolve Adventure

Reveal Reward Tiles
Mix all 12 Reward tiles and reveal 1 tile for each player in the game.

Play cards
Players take turns playing a card face down or passing. The first card played can be either a Help card or a Hinder card, but once a card is played, subsequent cards must be of the same type (EXCEPTION – there are 3 special cards that are not played face down… they are played face up instead and the color of their back does not matter. These cards give some effect such as “Draw 2 cards,” “+2 VP,” or “Advance round marker.” They count (–2) toward the value of your contribution to the Adventure.

Pass
When a player cannot or chooses not to play a card on their turn, they Pass. That player places their current Turn Order tile face down near the Turn Order tile supply, and takes the highest numbered face up Turn Order tile from the supply (the first player to Pass will be the last player in turn order in the following round) and places it face down in front of him to indicate that he’s out of the Adventure. That player receives the reward printed on the tile:
1st: Gain 4 VP.
2nd: Gain 2vp. Draw 1 card.
3rd: Draw 2 cards.
4th: Draw 3 cards.
5th: Draw 4 cards.
Once a player Passes, he is done with the Adventure. After all players pass, all Turn Order tiles are turned face up.
Claim Rewards
In turn order players choose Reward tiles and gain the rewards printed on them. Place an ownership marker on a reward tile to show that it’s been chosen; another player may not choose the same reward tile.

Resolve Adventure
Reveal all cards played by players. Each player totals the value of cards he has played, subtracting 2 for each special card played. The player who contributes the largest value to the Adventure scores 2VP, moving his marker on the Score board accordingly.
Reveal the top card of the Olympus deck. Its value is added to either the Help or Hinder total for the Adventure – Athena [hearts] supports Odysseus and uses her influence to help him. Poseidon [spades] hates Odysseus and adds his influence to the hinder total.
Compare the total of all Help cards and all Hinder cards, including any modifiers due to the Encounter tile. If the Hinder total exceeds the Help total than Odysseus has lost the Adventure. Lose Crew according to the total of red numbers on the Reward tiles for this adventure. Otherwise, Odysseus has won the Adventure.


Journey Phase: Lose 1 Crew and Advance the Round marker
After each Adventure, Odysseus and his crew journey on to the next Encounter. The journeys are arduous, and 1 Crew is lost in each Journey phase. There are 2 possible paths from each Encounter tile, a Calm path and a Stormy path. The path taken (Calm vs Stormy) depends on the outcome of this turn’s Adventure - if Odysseus won the adventure, he takes the Calm path. If he lost the adventure, the stormy path is followed. The Encounter tile just left is flipped face down. Advance the Round marker on the Round track.

Face down Encounter tiles
If Odysseus arrives at a face down Encounter tile, the Encounter, Adventure, and Journey phases are modified as follows. Advance the Round counter one time as Odysseus wanders through the Mediterranean, no matter how many face down tiles Odysseus visits in a row.
· Encounter: If arriving via a calm path, each player draws 1 Adventure card (in turn order). If arriving via a Stormy path, lose 1 Crew.
· Adventure: No cards are played. Reveal the top card of the Olympus deck. Move the Odysseus marker to the next Encounter tile according to the Olympus card If it shows Athena, use the calm path; if Poseidon, use the stormy path. No Crew is lost during the Adventure phase. Repeat this process until Odysseus arrives at a face up Encounter tile.
· Journey: Skip the Journey phase.

Game End
The game ends when one of three conditions occurs:
· Dead: All crew is lost
· Stranded at Sea: After the Adventure phase of round 12 the Odysseus marker has not reached Ithaca
· Safe Return: After the Adventure phase in Ithaca, if at least 1 crew remains
At that time players collect payouts for the bets they have made. Any bet that is on the same round as the Round marker on the Round track is given in full to the player who placed it. For all other bets, remove 3 Bet Chips for each space away from the Round marker and give the rest to the player who placed the bet. For example, if a stack of 8 Bet Chips is on round 9, and the game ends in round 7, the payout would be 8-3-3=2. The player who placed that bet receives 2 of the Bet Chips from the stack and must discard the rest.

Then, players reveal their Destiny cards and receive the Bet Chips that have accumulated on the Destiny card that correlates to the game end condition. Each Bet Chip is worth 2 points. The player with the highest score wins! In case of a tie, the tied player with the most Bet Chips wins. In case of a further tie, all tied players win.

My kingdom for a playtest!

I was able to play a game of Winds of Fate today with Rif and Mike! Huzzah! I implemented a lot of the things I've been talking about, and here's how they went:

* I need to make Player Aids listing the turn sequence and reminding players that they are Fates and NOT Odysseus.

I still need to make player aids, and write down the rules!

* I think I might like to separate the 2 colors of cards into 2 decks, and when you draw cards you choose which deck to draw them from (any combination). I feel like there needs to be more control over which color cards you get, because those cards are used to make your bets good.

This seemed to work just fine. I wonder though if it doesn't make it too easy to tell who's trying to kill Odysseus off and who's trying to get him home.

* When passing without playing any cards in an Adventure, you are allowed to change your Destiny bet. I'm going to add that you can instead add a bet chip to your Destiny bet if you like. Of course you'll have to have a bet chip to do this.

This seemed fine. Mike had some ideas about a different way to handle Destiny bets, which I will consider - the best thing about them was that they could make early Destiny bets pay out better than late ones - which seems only fair.

* I'm going to use the endgame bonus of 1vp per pair of Help/Hinder cards in hand and see how that goes.

It seemed OK to me, and I like the idea of rewarding a balanced hand... but Rif suggested simply 1vp per card in hand might be good enough. The number of points were talking about here is small compared to the final score, so I'm inclined to go with whatever is easiest. Maybe 1vp per card is the best idea. I still think that having cards leftover should be worth something.

* I was considering relating the number of crew lost to the result of the card play for the adventure. As yet I've preferred the random number dictated by reward tiles drawn, which is set before cards are played and can therefore factor into your decision as to which cards to play. It does make sense to scale the number of crew lost based on the outcome, but I think the game is better served with the info up front. This factors heavily into a decision I'm making for the endgame as well, so it'll have to stay. I do think that perhaps some crew should be lost even if the Adventure is won, but I'm not sure the best way to go about that. Maybe a simple 1 crew? Maybe additional crew is lost if the Hinder-minus-Help result is more than a certain number? I'm not sure.

What I tried today was that a number of crew is lost each round equal to the numbers indicated on reward tiles, and if Odysseus loses the Adventure, that number is lost again. I kinda like that, and for the final showdown with the Suitors (the Ithaca double-adventure) could have the potential of losing that number 3 times (once for sure, and again for each of the adventures that Odysseus loses).

On the down side, I was planning on turning up 2n reward tiles for the Ithaca adventure, which is twice as many as usual, and if they all count three times, well, that's a lot of crew lost. I suppose I could say that the 'automatic' crew loss occurs during the Journey phase at the end of the turn, and at Ithaca there is no Journey phase (so the only crew loss at Ithaca comes from Odysseus losing the adventure). I like the sound of that.

* I am considering making the board bigger - 4 columns instead of 3 (still 3 rows per column). I probably won't do that this week though, as I expect it'll be a lot of work to redo the board and make more encounter tiles... but I do need to consider it because I fear the game isn't really lasting long enough for the Stranded option to really come into play. I'm also considering Stages... the first column would be Stage I, the 2nd and 3rd columns would be Stage II, and the 4th column would be Stage III. Then the bigger effects of Encounter tiles could be placed in the later stages, making for more of a story arc. Also, it's a sneaky way to keep 2 tiles I like, one teleports to the other, and the 2nd teleports to Ithaca, short circuiting the board... I'd like to keep that latter tile out of Stage I, and this method makes that easy to do. For this idea I'll have to make 5 more Encounter tiles that are thematic and interesting.

I do think the board needs to be bigger. I might try to do that this week after all, but if I do I'll likely only make 2 more tiles so there's enough for the board (no extras). Alternatively I could change the round in which Odysseus is considered Stranded... make it round 9 for example (as there are 9 spaces). Our game today ended on round 9, but the round track was advanced twice through cards played (I kind of like that a card can adjust the time track). Last update I added things that advance the time track to make sure a 12 round game was even possible. I think I'll leave it as is for the time being.

Other thoughts after the game today:

* The VP rewards on tiles are +2vp or +4vp, and other rewards are +1 Bet Chip or +2 Bet Chip. Bet chips are worth 2vp each at a minimum, and potentially more if you successfully bet with them. Therefore I think I'll increase the VP rewards to +3vp and +5vp. That way the VPs are worth more than the Bet Chips, which are more flexible. Moving a bet can be very valuable, saving 3 bet chips (6vp worth). I might need to consider that and see if those reward tiles are 'too good'. It's also the case that moving the bet isn't certain to get you those points, so maybe it's fine if it's worth more. Also, if it's worth more, then players might fight for 1st choice.

* I am thinking about the value of the Destiny bet. One idea I've had is to put some VP value on the card itself, which means if a Stranded result is harder to orchestrate, then it could be worth more VPs than a Dead result. Then bet chips placed on the Destiny bet could simply be worth some static 3, maybe 4 VPs.

Mike suggested basically making a Destiny bet every round, one way to do this is instead of choosing a result and then adding bet chips to it, players would add a bet chip (from the general supply, not their own) onto one of their 3 cards each round. So if you have been betting on Safe, and it starts to look like he's not going to make it back to Ithaca, then you can start betting on Dead instead. And if the game swings such that you think the Safe return is likely, you can go back without losing the progress you'd already made on that bet. Players would score for the chips that end up on the Destiny card that matches the actual game end condition.

This idea allows for early commitment to pay off better than late commitment, which I like... but I'm not sure if I want betting to happen every turn, and I kinda liked the idea of having one bet being different from the other. The more I think about it, the more I like Mike's suggestion though. I'm not sure if I want to make that change without trying it out.

Nothing like the last minute...

It's been almost 2 months since BGG.con, and I'm FINALLY working on Winds of Fate! Spielbany is next weekend, and I was planning to send the game to be played (by Zev) there. Nothing like the last minute to spur productivity, huh?

In thinking over some of the issues I'd been having with the game in the last couple of playtests, I think I've come to some conclusions. For those following along at home, here are the things I've decided:

* I need to make Player Aids listing the turn sequence and reminding players that they are Fates and NOT Odysseus.

* I think I might like to separate the 2 colors of cards into 2 decks, and when you draw cards you choose which deck to draw them from (any combination). I feel like there needs to be more control over which color cards you get, because those cards are used to make your bets good.

* When passing without playing any cards in an Adventure, you are allowed to change your Destiny bet. I'm going to add that you can instead add a bet chip to your Destiny bet if you like. Of course you'll have to have a bet chip to do this.

* I'm going to use the endgame bonus of 1vp per pair of Help/Hinder cards in hand and see how that goes.

* I was considering relating the number of crew lost to the result of the card play for the adventure. As yet I've preferred the random number dictated by reward tiles drawn, which is set before cards are played and can therefore factor into your decision as to which cards to play. It does make sense to scale the number of crew lost based on the outcome, but I think the game is better served with the info up front. This factors heavily into a decision I'm making for the endgame as well, so it'll have to stay. I do think that perhaps some crew should be lost even if the Adventure is won, but I'm not sure the best way to go about that. Maybe a simple 1 crew? Maybe additional crew is lost if the Hinder-minus-Help result is more than a certain number? I'm not sure.

* I am considering making the board bigger - 4 columns instead of 3 (still 3 rows per column). I probably won't do that this week though, as I expect it'll be a lot of work to redo the board and make more encounter tiles... but I do need to consider it because I fear the game isn't really lasting long enough for the Stranded option to really come into play. I'm also considering Stages... the first column would be Stage I, the 2nd and 3rd columns would be Stage II, and the 4th column would be Stage III. Then the bigger effects of Encounter tiles could be placed in the later stages, making for more of a story arc. Also, it's a sneaky way to keep 2 tiles I like, one teleports to the other, and the 2nd teleports to Ithaca, short circuiting the board... I'd like to keep that latter tile out of Stage I, and this method makes that easy to do. For this idea I'll have to make 5 more Encounter tiles that are thematic and interesting.

Don't paraphrase rules...

... Or if you do, make sure you do it in a way that doesn't in fact change the rule!

Time and time again I have come across rules questions stemming from the questioner's misunderstanding of a base rule - often because rather than learning the base rule in the first place, the questioner was explained an approximation or paraphrase of the rule.

Case in point: There is a discussion on BGG right now in a rules thread for Battlestar Galactica. It seems clear to me that a particular poster in that thread was told when he was taught the game that "Cylon ships don't activate during Revealed Cylon turns." This is not accurate - rather the rule is that the Activate Cylon Ships step and the Jump Preparation step are skipped during Revealed Cylon turns. What's the difference? Well, some Crisis cards which may come up during a revealed Cylon turn, and especially Super Crisis cards which ONLY come up during a revealed Cylon turn, activate Cylon ships as part of the crisis. Obviously, these ships DO activate. Only the symbol at the bottom of the card which may or may not activate other ships during the Cylon Activation step of the turn is ignored (because again, that step is skipped according to the rules for revealed Cylon turns).

If you have read the rules or learned them properly then it sounds trivial and ridiculous to hear "how come there are Cylon activation symbols on the Super Crisis cards, if they can't activate on a revealed Cylon turn?" And yet, that very question came up.

This is a pet peeve of mine, so I thought I'd put up a post which I could perhaps point to at some future time.

Don't paraphrase rules... or if you do, make sure to do so in a way that doesn't functionally change them!
You're just asking for confusion later.

Australia

I played a game a couple of years ago called Australia, and I really liked it. I bought a used copy off of a friend, but I've only played it a couple of times since. I am terrible at that game! In the 6 plays to date, I believe I've only won once, and that was against some new players I'd just taught the game to.

I talked Mike and Tyler into playing it yesterday, and taught them the rules, and once again I finished dead last! I guess I just don't get this game.

In Australia players place Rangers in different locations on the board in order to complete Conservation and Industrialization projects. Conservation projects are completed by filling each location around a Region with at least 1 Ranger. Industrialization projects are completed by getting a specific total number of Rangers in locations around a Region, as indicated by a tile on the board.

On your turn you get 2 actions from a short list of 3 possible actions: Move your plane, Play a card, Pick Up Rangers.

Move your plane: Simply place your airplane pawn in any region you want. This dictates where you are able to place Rangers.

Play a card: Each card has a color, and some combination of Rangers and Coins that totals 4 (i.e. 4 Ranger, 3 Rangers+1 Coin, 2+2, or 1+3). In order to play a card, it must bear the color of the region where your plane sits, or you must pay $3. When you play a card, you get the money indicated on it, and you get to place Rangers (up to the number indicated) into any one location adjacent to your plane's region. If you choose to play no Rangers, you get 2 points on the score track. After playing a card, you draw another, and you get to chose which split (Rangers/Coins) it will be (but you don't know the color)

Pick Up Rangers: You have a limited supply of Rangers, so there will be a time when you will need to pick them back off the board in order to place them again. You are allowed to pick up a maximum of 4 Rangers at a time, from locations adjacent to your plane.

You get to take 2 of these actions on your turn, in any combination (including the same action twice). In addition to your actions, you can pay $4 to move 1 Ranger from anywhere on the board to anywhere else. This is pricey, but can result in good scoring opportunities.

When one of the scoring conditions occurs, points are awarded for each Ranger adjacent to the region being scored. An additional 3 point bonus is given to the player who's turn it is. There is an "advanced rule" involving a Windmill - which is a way to commit Rangers to a side Area Majority scoring thing, which is significant scoring, especially late in the game.

I like the style of the game, but I don't understand why I'm so bad at it! I really like the way the cards work as well - more Rangers in play and less money, or more money and fewer Rangers on the board. One downfall of the game is Analysis Paralysis, but it shouldn't be so bad because you've only got 2 cards in your hand - even if you examined every possible play on the board it shouldn't take all that long. Scores are high and swingy in this game, which might be a turn off for some people. And the values of an Industrialization project are unknown until someone flies their plane into the area. That doesn't bother me at all, though I got kinda stuck last game with a lot of high numbered tiles which never got enough Rangers around them to score. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm going to try to play this game some more in order to figure it out.

Holiday season playtesting and gaming

I usually like this time of year because my friends are in from out of town. I end up playing a lot of games and having a lot of fun. Lately I've been playing a lot of games anyway, but I'm still really looking forward to seeing Luke and Mohan and any other friends who will be in town that I don't already know about. I'm hoping that especially with Mohan around I'll get a chance to playtest some prototypes - both Terra Prime, on which I'm told Loose Cannon should be making real progress starting next month (after the holidays), and on Winds of Fate, which I need to shape up to send to New York in January.

I'm sure there will be a lot of Battlestar Galactica as well. I'm liking that game a lot, and with the thoughts on Cooperative games being on the surface I'm returning to the ideas I've had now and again about making my own - trying to solve the problems I perceive with the genre.

I'll be sure to post about any playtesting that is done in the upcoming weeks...
Stay tuned!

Winds of Fate: minor adjustments

I wasn't happy with the last playtest, and the main reason was because I think the rewards for Adventures were too samey-same. There are 8 different reward tiles, and we were turning up 4 of them per round for 3 players, and 1 player was getting 2. I think that's too many, and as a result there were a lot more bets being placed, and something didn't feel right.

I decided to first off go back to what I'd had before for the person who contributes the largest total of Adventure card value - that person will simply get a couple of victory points, not the left over Reward tile (there won't be a left over tile anymore). Secondly, I added 4 more tiles to the mix, so that any given set of 3-5 tiles will have a better chance of not being just the same as the last one. In the 12 tiles, 3 of them have "Place Bet" on them, 3 have "Move Bet", and 3 have "Destiny (change your destiny bet)". 4 of them give Cards, 4 of them give VPs, and 4 of them give Bet Chips, which can be later used to bet on something.

I think these added tiles will make the drawn tiles feel like more of a variety from Adventure to Adventure. Hopefully that will matter!

Winds of Fate V3.0 - playtests and updates!

The last time I posted about Odysseus: Winds of Fate I referred to the rules and structure as quote/unquote "alternate". That's because at the time I had a vision in my head of how the new version of the game was going to be, and I was planning on trying that version first. But talking with Nando in the BGDF chat room I started to realize that this "alternate" structure was better than what I had in mind, and I started to see how it could work. I also noted how easy it would be to update the prototype for it, so I did that and took the new version (V3.0 as I'm calling it) to BGG.con with me. I managed to play it 4 times over the course of the long weekend, which is great! I got some good feedback as well as a feel for how the game was working and what needed fixing.

So I've scrapped the whole V2.0 idea without even testing it - that was more of an investing thing than betting on the outcome of the game, which was the initial idea behind Winds of Fate. V3.0 is as "official" as it gets over here, and it's more true to Nando's original idea for the game. Here are some playtest comments I assembled over the weekend, in no particular order:

Tom Lehmann said the heart of the game is the tension between information and control. I can see that. He warned to make sure players don't try and identify with Odysseus - and I agree. I think a player aid with the round sequence would be handy, and it would be easy to add something to that to make it clear that the players are the Fates, and not Odysseus and his crew.

In the adventure resolution, it would be good to reward a player for contributing the most to the winning outcome - or maybe simply the rewarding the player with the single largest contribution, irrespective of the outcome. This way a player stands to benefit for spending a lot of high cards, even if his desired outcome is overcome by other players.

At the end of the game there really has to be some value to the cards in your hand. One idea was to skip the final adventure phase and simply add up all the cards in everyone's hands, but I didn't like that one. Another idea was to award 1vp for each X cards in your longest suit or something like that, but the idea I've liked best so far is 1vp for each pair of Help/Hinder cards. So you are rewarded for a balanced hand if you don't play your cards, and you're rewarded for playing your hands wisely by the effect on the outcome and with reward tiles.

Tom thought it was good that the backs of the cards were different and could be used to see how many cards in each suit the opponents had. He said if the backs were common the game would be too chaotic. I agree but I'm not sure to what extent I agree. I do like the separate backs though, so I'm sticking with them for now.

The card distribution used to be such that the Hinder cards were more numerous, but the average value of the Help cards was higher. I am going to try a balanced deck next and see how that goes.

Tom also thought there should be some minimal Bet Chip income. At his suggestion I tried giving players 1 Bet Chip when Odysseus reached the 2nd column of spaces, and another when he reached the third... I didn't love that, and frankly I'd like players to have to work at getting bet chips (by choosing them as a reward from a tile) if they want to place bets, so I think I won't use that rule.

It came up in a playtest that moving a bet seemed weird. That it seemed best to overshoot with your bet (because that makes the payout higher) then try and move the bet forward to when you really think the game will end. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing, actually... but it was suggested that bets only be allowed to move to a later round (We're betting on the game ending on a particular round, and a Move Bet action allows you to slide a bet to the next round). I'm tempted to allow moving in either direction. Christopher Rao suggested 2 separate actions, 1 allowing movement in either direction, and one allowing movement in only 1 direction. That's an idea as well, but I'm nit sure it's necessary.

Christopher also suggested that it should matter how much the Help/Hinder side 'wins by'. For example, maybe a chart that says X crew is lost if Hinder beats Help by Y amount. Maybe 1 crew is lost even if Help wins (if only by a little bit), and several crew is lost if hinder wins by more than 5 or something. I'm currently using a sort of random number of crew loss, and it doesn't currently matter how much an adventure is won or lost by, but that's a good idea. I'll keep it in mind.

The length of the game seems to be good. I always forget to note the length of the game, but it has been feeling correct, at something like 1 hour.

There are too many "+Cards" on the reward tiles. I agree with this, and have revamped them. Now 2 reward tiles have "+2 cards" but other than that, the only way to get cards is via passing early in an adventure, which means you get fewer (or no) points for the adventure, and a later pick for rewards. If you pass without having played a card, you get the opportunity to change out your Destiny bet (the bet on which game end condition will trigger)

Speaking of game end condition... I would like to see late game Place Bet actions remain interesting, so I added that you could place the bet on your Destiny card. Each bet chip on the Destiny card is a multiplier and therefore worth 3 or 4 points - not as lucrative as an accurate early game bet, but worth something. If a player changes his Destiny bet, he loses all multipliers on it. At the beginning of the game you start with a chip on the initial Destiny bet, so hanging even once loses something... a small encouragement to push the game toward your initial Destiny bet outcome.

I had been awarding VPs for the person contributing the highest value worth of cards, as described above. A suggestion from Christopher was that I instead give that player an extra Reward tile... in other words, turn up one more tile than there are players, and after everyone chooses their reward, the player with the largest contribution gets the remaining tile. I think I like that, and I'll try it in the next test.

I've redone the reward tiles and turn order tiles (consolations) to be better balanced. I still need to make that player aid.

I'm considering sorting the Encounter tiles such that bigger effects occur later in the game. This could be done by separating them into Stages, where Stage 1 is the first column of the board, Stage 2 is the second column, and Stage 3 is the third column. This makes intuitive sense, and I could make a total of 12 Encounter tiles - 4 for each column. It might help create a buildup feeling or some kind of story arc. I think I'll hold off on that for now, but I'll keep it in mind.

A big change I'm going to try is the endgame. I want the final adventure at Ithaca to be interesting and 'bigger' tin scope than the other adventures. Not TOO much bigger or different, I don't want it to be a whole different game... but it should be like a double adventure. So I created an additional board (this could well be all on one board) which sort of zooms in on the Suitors adventure. When Odysseus gets to the Ithaca space on the board there is an adventure as normal. According to the outcome of that adventure, he moves to one of 2 space according to the arrows on the board, also as normal. Then there is ANOTHER adventure... probably without collecting rewards from the first adventure (though maybe collecting Consolations - turn order markers) ... or maybe the full reward sequence could happen. At any rate, winning the 2nd adventure would take Odysseus to a space labeled "Home Safe", while losing it would either make him "Stranded" or "dead" (depending on which way he want after the first adventure). I think this sounds like the double adventure kind of thing I'm looking for, and it leaves in suspense the game end outcome when Ithaca is reached. I'd like for the very end to be up in the air as to how the game will end if he reaches Ithaca. I suspect all of this Ithaca stuff will happen on the same round, so once Ithaca is reached, the round on which the game will end is locked in.

Special cards: I would like to add some special cards with effects such as "advance round marker" or "draw 3 Adventure cards" or "Look at the top 2 God cards and put one on the bottom of the deck" which could be played face up for their ability instead of their card value (which would also serve to obfuscate a little bit the number of cards of each type you have in hand, which I think would be good). I just added some cards to the deck to serve that purpose.

I updated the Encounter tiles to tune them and mesh better with rules updates. I'll post updated rules once I've formally typed them up. I might like to playtest these updates before I do anything formal.

I showed the game to Zev at BGG.con, and he said he wouldn't mind giving it a play once I iron things out. I intend to send it to New York for Spielbany in January where I believe he'll be in attendance. So I've got some time, but I also have some work to do to work out all the details of the game. It should be fun!

BGG.con 2008 report

Last week I made my annual pilgrimage to Dallas to visit my friend Brian and to attend BGG.con - the annual open gaming convention put on by the guys who run the BoardGameGeek website.

BGG.con is my favorite convention for a number of reasons: the people, the new games (it's hot on the heels of Essen), the atmosphere, the timing... it's a lot of fun, I haven't missed one yet, and I don't plan to miss it in the future.

I wrote up my experience at this year's convention in a Geeklist. Feel free to peruse it if you like.

A flurry of Cooperative games!

No fewer than 6 cooperative games came out recently, and I was anxious to try some of them to see what they're gimmick was, and to see how they tried to make a game where multiple players can (or better, have to) work in concert to win rather than the loudest, most experienced, or bossiest player playing while everyone else watches.

Space Alert has time pressure and hidden cards indicating what players have the possibility of doing, making it hard or impossible for one person to micromanage everyone's turn. That's a step in the right direction, though I'm not sure if Space Alert succeeds - I liked it at first (played it 6 times in a row, training through 1st mission), then later played it once and thought it was horribly boring.

Battlestar Galactica has the traitor mechanism from Shadows over Camelot, and it has it in spades. BSG isn't so much a cooperative game as a team game, maybe that should really be it's own category. In any event, it tries to keep 1 player from playing everyone's turn by stating up front that player could very well be working against you!

Ghost Stories felt like a step backwards in the development of the genre. It makes no attempt to fix what I believe is the biggest failing of most cooperative games (and perhaps, the entire genre) - it's solitaire.

It's not even multiplayer solitaire... one person can just play the game all by themselves. All weekend at BGG.con people were loving the game and talking about how hard it was, but I'm not sure that "hard" should correlate to "chances it's impossible to win, whether you know it or not." Pandemic suffers from that, some games you can't possibly win, but you don't know that until after you play.

So far the cooperative game that I think promotes teamwork the best is Pandemic. Space Alert with a crew that does a better job of communicating (as opposed to everyone shouting out what they can do, which I heard a lot this weekend) might do a better job, but so far I've not seen it. It's odd to say that Pandemic promotes teamwork when people can just turn their hands face up and one player can play the whole game... but in my experience if you don't turn your hand face up, you actually have to talk to your friends to formulate that good plan, and somehow that feels more like teamwork to me.

There are some more cooperative games that I didn't try, such as Red November, whose gimmick I heard was that any player can turn traitor at any time, but if you don't do it right then you lose. I didn't hear much good about Red November. I did play a prototype of a Pandemic expansion - that was pretty cool. There were new roles, some more similar to the old ones than others. Also they added Viral Epidemics - which make one color (at random) worse than the others. When an Epidemic is drawn, it indicates something bad that happens with the viral color. It serves to prioritize the colors differently because even if Yellow isn't as bad off as Black on the board, you have to count each Yellow outbreak twice (for example).

I'm convinced that a real cooperative game, a game in which players are doing they're own thing but are encouraged to cooperate, will require some hidden information that can't be known by all players. I think time pressure will help keep one player from playing for everyone else as well, but there has to be some ability to overlap my task with yours so I can help you if you need me to. Maybe with this flurry of cooperative games on the market I'll attempt to put my vision for that genre together. My chosen theme so far is the TV show 24, where players play CTU agents cooperating to thwart a terrorist plot. Players will be able to utilize Jack Bauer as an NPC, but they are all generic agents, and at a certain point in the game you can find out that you're actually a traitor. If that happens you'll need to bring the game to a close quickly, because if you wait too long, you may turn back into a non-traitor player! It seems to me that kind of thing happened all the time in the first season.

Rules for "Alternate" Winds of Fate

Contents:
15 Destiny cards (5@ Safe/Death/Stranded)
50(?) Adventure cards (2 suits, Help/Hinder)
30 Crew tokens
1 Odysseus counter
1 Round counter
30 Player markers in 5 colors
supply of scoring chits
supply of Bet Chips
5 Turn Order tiles
8 Reward Tiles
9 Encounter Tiles
6 God Cards

Each player begins the game with:
3 Bet Chips
3 Destiny cards (Safe/Death/Stranded)
6(?) Adventure cards in hand

The board is set up as normal - 9 Encounter tiles distributed randomly. Odysseus marker begins at Troy. Starting crew depends on number of players:
3 players: 20 crew
4 players: 25 crew
5 players: 30 crew

Each round consists of an Encounter phase followed by an Adventure phase. In the Encounter phase, Odysseus and his crew travel from one Encounter tile to the next. The path taken (Calm vs Stormy) depends on the outcome of the previous Adventure - if Odysseus won the adventure, he takes the Calm path. If he lost the adventure, the stormy path is followed. The Encounter tile will indicate any effect it has, follow the instructions on the tile before proceeding to the Adventure phase. Reward Tiles are drawn (as many as there are players in the game) and displayed.

In the Adventure phase players play cards to aid Odysseus in the adventure or hinder him. At the end, the gods Athena and Poseidon weigh in and the Adventure is resolved. In player order, players take turns either playing an Adventure card face down in front of them, or passing. Once a player passes, they no longer participate in the Adventure. Once a player has played an Adventure card to either Help or Hinder Odysseus, all subsequent Adventure cards played during that Adventure must follow suit. When a player passes, they take the lowest turn order marker available such that the first player to pass will play last in the following round, and the last player to pass will play first.

After all players have passed, reveal the top God card and all played cards. Athena cards count toward Helping Odysseus, Poseidon cards count toward Hindering. If the total value of all Help cards meets or exceeds the total value of all Hinder cards, then Odysseus has won the adventure! Otherwise, he has lost the Adventure, and a number of crew is lost equal to the value of the God card (even if the God card pictures Athena).

After the adventure is resolved, players take the consolations listed on the turn order tiles and in turn order draft the Reward Tiles on display. These rewards indicate some number of cards or Victory Points, or the opportunity to take a new Bet chip, place a bet, or move a bet. After the rewards are taken, advance the Round counter and move Odysseus to the next Encounter tile along the appropriate path (Stormy/Calm) depending on the outcome of the last adventure.

PLACING BETS
Scoring in this version of the game is based on placing bets. There are 2 types of bets players will place, a Destiny bet (HOW the game will end - what Odysseus' fate will be: Safe return home, Death, Stranded at sea) and a Timeline bet (WHEN the game will end). The game ends when one of three things happens:
1. Odysseus arrives at Ithaca and survives the Adventure there
2. Odysseus loses all of his crew
3. Odysseus runs out of time (12 rounds)

At the beginning of the game, each player takes one of their Destiny cards indicating which of the 3 game end conditions they think will occur, and place it prominently in front of them face down. At certain points during the game (when passing in an Adventure without having played a card) the player can switch their Destiny card with one of the other 2. At the end of the game, the Destiny cards are revealed and a 10 point bonus is scored by all players who's Destiny card matches the actual game end condition.

When instructed to PLACE A BET, a player may take a Bet chip (assuming they have one) and place it on the Round track. They are betting that the game will end on that round. Additional chips are added to the bet from the supply - 1 for each round between the current round and the round the bet is made on. For example, if it is currently round 2, and you place a bet on round 6, 4 additional chips are placed on your bet chip. The player then places an ownership marker of their color on the stack to indicate who's bet it is. At the end of the game players are paid for their bets. Each stack is paid to it's owner, with a penalty for inaccuracy: players are penalized 1/3/6/10/15 chips for being off by 1/2/3/4/5 rounds in either direction. For example, our round 6 bet, made in round 2 has a total of 5 chips (the bet chip plus 4 additional chips). If the game ends in round 8, our payout is 5-3=2.

After all bets are paid out players score 2 points for each Bet Chip they have. This score is added to the victory points collected during the game and the 10 point bonus for the Destiny bet for a final score. The player with he most points, wins. In the case of a tie, the player with the earliest final turn order is the winner.

Alternate Winds of Fate structure

Randall McClain (Nando on BGDF) - the person who's original idea Winds of Fate was for a Game Design Showdown entry - has been thinking along other lines for this game. Here's what he feels is probably the best structure.

Like my basic skeleton, his idea still has episodes, resolved one at a time via card play as I've suggested (a la Beowulf or Taj Mahal), but instead of this new "invest in Odysseus' safe return" mechanism, Nando suggests players place bets on 2 things:

(1) A timeline - WHEN will the game end? How many more rounds?
(2) A result - HOW will the game end? Will Odysseus return safely home? Will he die trying? Or will he become stranded at sea?

Mechanics for this have been floating around in my mind, but basically they're to the effect of this: Players would begin the game with some limited supply of Betting chips - like the Coins I've been talking about perhaps. At discreet times during the game, players will be allowed to place these bets on the timeline, thereby betting the game will last a certain number of turns. The further away that point is from the time of the bet, the higher the maximum payout will be, and that payout will be reduced for inaccuracy. A nice way to calculate the payout is that you bet the game will last N more rounds, and the payout is = N-(1/round missed by). For example, if you be the game will last 8 more rounds, and it ends in 6, then you are off by 2. Your payout is 8-2=6.

In addition, players would place a side bet on HOW the game would end - Safe Return vs Death vs Stranded (I'm not really sure there needs to be a difference between Stranded and Death, but maybe 3 possibilities is better than 2). At the end of the game players would earn a bonus if they have bet correctly as to how the game ended.

Initially I thought the HOW bet would be a secret, and could change at certain times during the game (at a cost), and that the WHEN bet would be public info. However I quickly realized that your HOW bet might become obvious through your actions, while your WHEN bet would not, so the other way around would probably be more fun.

Then again, the mechanisms I have in mind for making these WHEN bets involve public info, so maybe everything could be in the open. Or - if there are 3 HOW results, maybe secret goals there is ok... "Is he aiding this adventure because he want's Odysseus to make it home, or because he wants to strand Odysseus at sea?"

I'll keep this in mind as an alternative 0 I'd like to try both versions and see which is more fun.

Another Winds of Fate epiphony

As I've mentioned, I've been trying to work on Odysseus: Winds of Fate recently. I haven't been as diligent as I'd hoped, but I did get a chance to discuss the game with Mike Nickoloff at RinCon the other week, and think about a couple of aspects. The current plan is to have a prototype to test at BGG.con this week - which gives me about a day and a half to get it ready.

I gave some thought to the player rewards for each adventure, and I'm (finally) making tokens for them. Here's the epiphany I had today though:

In Taj Mahal there is an additional reward for dropping from an auction without playing any cards. This makes sense, you're giving up any chance of gaining any points at all in order to sort of reload. Since my main mechanism for resolving adventures is similar, it stands to reason that there should also be some reward for dropping without playing any cards - a consolation for not having any say whatsoever on the outcome of the adventure, which contributes to the outcome of Odysseus' overall journey.

Originally I thought maybe drawing additional cards would be the obvious way to go. Then I realized that maybe that would be a good opportunity to allow additional opportunities to 'invest' in the game end! If a player drops early (without participating in the Adventure) then they get no say in the impact that adventure will have on Odysseus' "stock" (the value of a Safe Return). So it would be cool if that's the price you have to pay to make a (potentially lucrative) investment.

The cost of that investment (I'm going to talk about it like "buying a share" in Odysseus' safe return home) will depend on Odysseus' current position on the board. The board is a 3x3 array of Encounter tiles which Odysseus will traverse more or less from left to right. The left column will amount to a cost of 1 coin per share. In the middle column a share will cost 2 coins. In the rightmost column a share will cost 3 coins.

I like the sound of this!

Recent gaming: Shadows over Camelot: Merlin's Company and Dominion

Shadows Over Camelot: Merlin's Company
My roommate won Merlin's Company in a drawing on BGG, so he bought Shadows Over Camelot in anticipation. For a long time the expansion never came, and when I asked him about it he said he tried to email Days of Wonder about it, but he wasn't sure if the email actually went or something, and that he didn't want to deal with it. "That's silly" I thought, so I emailed Days of Wonder on his behalf inquiring about the prize, and they said it had been returned in the mail back in August! While I don't know why they wouldn't have tried to contact Ben about this, I gave them the correct address and they said they'd resend it the next day - and what do you know, a few days later it arrived!

Friday I finally got a chance to try the game with the expansion, and with 8 people, 1 traitor in the mix for sure, probably 2. The group may not have been the best for that kind of experience, as one loyal player did some blatantly awful things like a false accusation, letting a fairly obvious traitor out of prison* and suggesting they also make a (false) accusation. If not for his behavior, I would have been convinced I knew the identity of the other traitor (and would have been correct), but he talked me out of it.

* In Merlin's Company, whenever a player tries to move to a quest he has to draw a Travel card which has some effect. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes Merlin accompanies you on the quest (which is good in general, but if you liked where he was before then it can actually be a detriment to move him away from there)... but most of the time the travel card is a nuisance which makes you discard some cards, fight a siege engine, or simply lose your turn. Knowing the contents of the travel deck one can protect against it by carrying a Grail card and a pair of fight cards that they don't otherwise need (preferably 3's or better, so that you have a good chance vs that siege engine if need be) at all times, but that's a lot of work. If you don't prepare like that then you run the risk of losing your entire turn trying to move and failing. One of the cards is called CAPTURED! which not only ends your turn, but says that your turn is skipped until someone discards a special card as their Heroic action - so not only does the captured player lose their heroic action, but so does one other player, AND the knights lose a special white card, AND whatever quest the captured player was going to advance is delayed AND they have to try and move there again in the future!

I think what I'm saying is that I don't like the expansion much. The up-side is that you get Merlin, who hands out white cards to players for free, but the up side doesn't seem to me to be all that attractive compared to players simply having to lose their turns in a game where you only get to do 1 thing on your turn then wait a while for your next turn.

One good thing about that Captured! card is that if a player who you suspect is the traitor is captured, they not only have to skip their turn (unable to wreak havoc), but at the end of the game, if they're still captured, then they don't get to turn 2 swords from white to black!

Dominion
In other news, I finally played the "new hotness" - Dominion. I played it "irl" at the RinCon game convention last week, and then I figured out how to make BSW work on my computer again (firewall was blocking it) and I've played a handful of times on there. As with Race for the Galaxy and Magic: the Gathering, I prefer Dominion as a 2-player experience, but in this case I'm more tolerant of the multiplayer game than I am with those other two card games.

Dominion is a game of competitive deck building. You begin with a small deck of 7 coins (copper, value = 1) and 3 Estates (worth 1 VP, but useless otherwise). Each game there are cards you can buy into your deck, there are Treasure cards (Copper, Silver, and Gold) which you use to buy other cards, Victory cards (Estate, Duchy, and Province) which count as victory points toward winning, and Kingdom cards (there are 25 different cards) which do different things to help you build your deck. Each game you use only 10 of those 25 Kingdom cards, so the ones you want to add to your deck will be different depending on what combination of cards are available. There will be 10 of each of the 10 Kingdom cards.

On your turn, you get to do 1 Action, and then 1 Buy, then you put all the cards you played, bought, and those left in your hand into the discard pile and draw a new hand of 5 cards for next turn. Your discard pile will cycle through back into your deck when you run out of cards to draw. An Action means playing one of the Kingdom cards, which give you some effect and might give you additional Actions or Buys to use that turn, or money to spend that turn. The idea is that you buy cards which will help construct a deck that does what you want, with the goal being to have the most Victory Points in your deck when the game ends - when 3 of the piles of cards run out (get bought up).

That's it. Dominion is pretty simple rules-wise. The effects of the cards in combination with each other is what makes each game interesting. You are trying to build a deck which performs well, while other players are trying to do the same thing. The number of each card is limited, and buying the popular ones up hastens the game end. The trick is that all these neat Kingdom cards don't actually count toward winning, so you have to figure out how to translate their effects into buying Victory cards. Some people online have suggested that the hands play themselves, but that there's some interesting decisions in which cards to purchase. I disagree. Of course it depends on which cards are available and which cards you buy - if you only draw 1 Action card, then you can only play that card. In that respect your hand plays itself... but in many cases you can be building a deck that contains card combinations which lend themselves to more choice. Sometimes it feels like I'm playing an old Magic combo deck, drawing card after card, getting lots of actions, and ending up having played half of my deck each turn. And in any case, whenever you have a Buy to make there's a choice which can be very significant.

In the end, I like Dominion pretty well. I think it takes long enough to set up that it can be annoying, but if you're playing several games in a row then maybe it's acceptable. I wouldn't want to lug out all the tiny 10 card decks and everything just to play 1 hand and then pack it all back up. It's cool that you can play online, but with laggy connections and long stings of cards to play I don't love waiting for my turn to come around in a 4 player game. But as I said, multiplayer Dominion is a lot more tolerable than multiplayer Race or Magic. I really like the competitive deck building feel I get from playing Dominion.

Winds of Fate: a new idea

I had a new idea about how to resolve the adventures in Winds of Fate. It's really just a variation on the original Taj Mahal type of thing...

So the cards are in 2 'suits' still: Help and Hinder. On your turn you either play a card face down or drop. Once you play a card, you have to keep playing cards of the same suit - and you can tell which suit the card is in by the back of the card. What you can't tell is the numerical value on the front of the card... in other words, you an tell if a player is trying to help Odysseus or hinder him, but you can't tell how much.

If you choose to drop from the round you cannot play any more cards - but your cards played will still count. In addition, when you drop you peek at the top card of the Olympus deck, and then are allowed to add any number of coins to your cards played. Each coin will count toward either helping or hindering Odysseus (depending on which suit you played), but will be discarded and no longer count for your score.

After all players have dropped, the top Olympus card and all of the played cards are revealed, and the total amount of help and hindrance is added up. If there's more help than hindrance, then Odysseus "wins" that adventure. If not, Odysseus "loses".

A win result increases the value of the coins (as described in the last post), while a loss decreases it. Also, a win will move Odysseus' crew closer to Ithaca while a loss will move him to another location parallel or further away for the next adventure.

Meanwhile, players get individual rewards for their personal performance in the Adventure. As before, rewards come from saying in longer, and maybe a bonus for playing the suit that ends up deciding the outcome (help if "win" - Hinder if "loss").

The idea would be to earn these coins, and then either save them if you think they'll be worth more at the end, or spend them to ensure they're not (i.e. ensure Odysseus doesn't make it home). However, if you spend too much on that, then you may lose to someone who has saved some coins.

I believe there would need to be a VP reward for the Adventure that is separate from the coins in order to make the coin value matter at the end - otherwise it's simply about getting more coins than other players, and it doesn't matter what they're worth.