Mal ,'Out Of Gas'
A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.
PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.
Oh! Huh, interesting. I'm not sure I understand how the game works, then. If you're not Jack, the other person is Jack.
There are two players, but there are eight characters, any of whom might be Jack. The staple of game play sees the detective trying to separate all the suspects into roughly even numbers of Seen and Unseen (thus speeding up the process of elimination), while Jack wants as many characters as possible in the same state as Jack.
I think one player is the detective and other player knows who Jack is.
Because I've read Alan Moore's "From Hell" I'd always be going after Gull.
Wait, so neither player knows who Jack is?
Wait, so neither player knows who Jack is?
No, Jack knows who Jack is. (You draw a card randomly at game start.) Jack sees himself as the embodiment of perfection, and thus desires that as many other characters as possible should achieve the same state as Jack.
Now I'm more confused and also more eager to play.
Oregon Trail coming for the iPhone: [link]
Oh, speaking of which, has anyone here ever played Fury of Dracula? I find that it intrigues me more and more of late.
I have. And it's eh. I love the wrapper, and spent more than a little effort painting the figures that come with it. But after a couple times playing it I think it's broken. Not in the way Ticket to Ride is broken, but more like the old bookcase War of the Ring. There appears to be a no-fail strategy for the hunters to employ that will always catch Dracula.
How is Ticket to Ride broken?
There's no limit to the number of cards you can hold. So you simply draw cards on every turn, until you hold all your routes. By that time, you will probably hold several of your opponents' routes also, and may have cornered the market on one or two colors.
There's no limit to the number of cards you can hold. So you simply draw cards on every turn, until you hold all your routes. By that time, you will probably hold several of your opponents' routes also, and may have cornered the market on one or two colors.
I'm not sure I'm following this. You're saying that you leave your opponents to take any routes they want, including ones you need, while you build up your hand?
I can see it being an almost viable strategy in 4-player, but in 3- and 5- the board gets too crowded too quickly. By the time you're ready to let loose, you'll find you're shut out of cities you need. In 2-player it might work with a relatively sedate opponent, but I'm not sure what would happen with a cutthroat game.
When I play, I tend to go for short bottlenecks I need first (Atlanta-Nashville, Houston-NO, Portland-Seattle-Vancouver, those kinds of places), then I sit on the card draw as long as my lines aren't threatened, but if any opponent comes sniffing around the tracks I need, I'm going to have to jump in first. (Indeed, that's what I like about it, the sustained tension between greed and fear.)
I have heard suggestions that the original game has a somewhat broken strategy in sorting out your routes first, then going hardcore after the six-train lines. I believe the 1910 expansion addresses this; more tickets especially in the East, and the 15-point bonus for most tickets completed. (It's still possibly a viable strategy, but not a broken one.)