Congratulations to omnis, and also to Laga and -t who played some fine games. Commiserations to our other players. Often it seems that the difference between doing well and doing poorly is finding that one card that'll get your card flow rolling.

So how did omnis do it? He had a little bit of everything going on - decent layout, some consumption points, his fair share of goal points. But what put him over the top was playing two status developments. That's partly luck, in picking up some good ones, and partly card flow, in being able to pay for them. By game end, mnis got bonus card draws from Developing, Consuming, Trading and Producing.

I'm going to take that as a lead-in to discuss having six players. Actually first let's ask: how did people find the game with six players? Much different, or basically the same experience? I'd suggest the main change is that any given phase is more likely to get picked in a given round. In theory; most rounds we still only had three phases, and we never had all five in a single round. But nonetheless, if more players leads to more phases per round on average, then it becomes a strong benefit to pick up bonus cards in multiple phases. It becomes more likely you'll cash in on other players' choices.

Laga based her strategy on picking up goals. Is that viable? Well, she led for most of the game, and if Galactic Survey: SETI had wound up in her hands instead of omnis' it would've been a different story. But it's risky with that many players. Usually, one would struggle to take so many goals against so much competition. As a general principle, going for goals is worthwhile as long as it doesn't impair your layout.

For the next game, I'm thinking of introducing a new element, and would like to see what people think. It's a search card, that each player can make use of just once per game. It allows a player some measure of control over the vagaries of the card draw. Here's how it works.

• A player who wishes to make use of this card in a round plays it instead of their action card.
• Before we get into the phases, the player conducts a search:
• They pick a category of card from a list of eight. They then turn up cards from the deck, one by one, until they find a card that matches the category they're looking for.
• They then have a choice: keep that card, or keep looking. If they choose the former, they take the card into their hand and we go to the phases as usual. If they choose the latter, then they keep turning over cards one by one, until they find a second match. They must then take that second match.

The categories are designed to remedy times when the cards are against you. For example:

• Want to run an Evil Empire, but can't get your military going? Look for a development that adds +1 or +2 strength.
• It's early in the game, but you just can't get your card flow started? Look for a cheap (1 or 2) windfall world. You can specify either military or non-military, whichever suits you better.
• It's later in the game, and you're looking to pile on the points. Evil Empire? Look for a military world with at least 5 defence. Want to go produce-and-consume, but don't have the Consume powers? Look for a world that lets you consume 2 or more goods at once. Or for pretty much anyone who wants some high value action: go looking for a status development (6 cost, variable value).

That's the basic idea. If you do fine finding the cards you need on your own, that's fine. You don't have to play it, and it won't change your game. But if the deck's against you, it'll give you a way to take control over it.

How does that sound? Should we give it a try?

Sounds like a plan.

Ok, let's get planning underway for game 11 of Race for the Galaxy. I suggeted we allow each player a one-time use of a Search card, and in the words of Dr Zoidberg, I'm not hearing a no, so we'll go ahead with that. Aside from that, we'll use the same set-up as we had this game. Sign up here or send me an email. Who's interested?

I'm in

I'm in

So I just sent my D&D group a "Now might be a good time to start thinking about backup characters" email. Their barbarian got bored while were planning how to assault a fortress full of ogres and decided to just run out and stir up the hornets' nest. They've managed to kill the first wave but have expended about half their resources doing so and there's still twice as many ogres left as they've killed, including the boss types and the spellcaster that's been directing them.

They decided to do this after several NPCs warned them a frontal assault was likely suicidal, so I'm not going to pull any punches.

D&D this weekend: I'm playing a wild mage, and I got to burn off a bunch of poisonous fungi with a fire bolt, which I did with great glee, then got to do it a few more times in other parts of the dungeon. After clearing a large cavern, the DM said, "OK, if the Destroyer of Worlds is done there . . ." That made me very happy.

Nice!

Well, they survived. Ended up being a three hour battle (I've only had one battle that long in 5th Ed before, that was the final fight of my previous campaign) to clear the courtyard (the enemy spellcaster made an appearance after the alarm was raised and made them really miserable. They were very unhappy when she teleported away before they could kill her.) Blocking off the main approach with a Spike Growth so the ogres were forced to either charge through and take a ton of damage or hang back and chuck javelins with disadvantage (because a 40' diameter puts anything on the other side at long range for a javelin) saved their butts.

They still have the keep itself to clear (though they took care of the first floor before we called it a night) and are pretty much running on fumes at this point, so it still could be bad.

I want to design a RPG. The only problem is that I have no time to do it.

My goals would be to get rid of hit points, eliminate any dice rolling for the GM, use a hero token system where you have a supply of tokens that you can expend to replace a bad roll or perform a feat (possible feats depend on abilities and skills). One way it would be possible to earn tokens would be making cool disadvantageous decisions that are in-character, likewise you could lose a token for going out-of-character to gain advantage (the idea is that being true to your ideals makes you more confident in your actions). A design for a loose, story-telling type game rather than a tactical one with a fair amount of judgement calls on the part of the GM.