Hauser: You really think you can solve the problem? Come into Wolfram & Hart and make everything right? Turn night into glorious day? You pathetic little fairy. Angel: I'm not little.

'Just Rewards (2)'


Gaming 1: You are likely to be eaten by a grue

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.


billytea - Nov 15, 2010 5:06:00 pm PST #8074 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

I can't imagine the Prez being against the humans from the start. That's rough.

A Cylon President is particularly good at hurting Food - that game we just finished likely would've ended a lot faster if Zarek had been a Cylon. However, once they've tipped their hand, they'll usually lose the Presidency fairly quickly. They also need to build up the Quorum hand before they can do much damage, and eventually that'll be a plus for the humans.

A Cylon Admiral is bad news if your Fuel is low, and they can cause trouble just by picking slow jumps. It's less obvious too, since no one can be sure whether the other choice wasn't worse. They may keep the title for a while.

I think the Admiral might be more dangerous from the start. They can be working against humanity from the very first jump. A Cylon President can make quite a mess at some stage, but whether it's sooner or later probably doesn't matter too much.

I had a BGG game in which Admiral Tigh was a Cylon from the outset. We wanted a human sympathiser of course, so we'd got Morale into the Red. Just before the jump into the Sleeper Phase, I gave Tigh an XO. He used his first action to take the Presidency, and his second action to make an Inspirational Speech to try and push Morale back up. It failed, but that turn's Crisis Card jumped the Fleet, and he chose a bad Fuel destination. We spent the rest of the game desperately trying to get the titles back off him, then defending Fuel and Morale, both of which hit 1 at one stage. Great use of both the Presidency and the Admiralty to try and screw us over.


Volans - Nov 16, 2010 3:45:21 am PST #8075 of 26134
move out and draw fire

Yeah, they should've just named him Badger Crowley.


megan walker - Nov 19, 2010 7:59:46 pm PST #8076 of 26134
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

BSG

Well, the results are in!

Following the survey tiebreaker rules, we get this character selection, which gives 4 first choices and 1 third choice:
William Adama: 3 Leadership (green), 2 Tactics (purple)
Helo: 2 Leadership (green), 2 Tactics (purple), 1 Piloting (red)
Baltar: 1 Engineering (blue), 1 Leadership (green), 2 Politics (yellow)
Starbuck: 1 Engineering (blue) or Leadership (green), 2 Tactics (purple), 2 Piloting (red)
Chief: 2 Engineering (blue), 2 Leadership (green), 1 Politics (yellow)

Adama would start as Admiral and Baltar as President.

Total draw for this group would be 3 (or 4) blue, 3 yellow, 3 red, 6 purple, (8 or) 9 green. Is that okay with everyone? I think it's a pretty good balance.

Note: Starbuck was the most popular character, with 4 votes, then Adama with 3, although Adama was the one with 2 first-choice votes. No one picked Tigh, Boomer, or Zarek as any of their choices.


billytea - Nov 19, 2010 8:17:50 pm PST #8077 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

BSG

Ok! So there's me and... Toaster-frakker, Toaster-frakker, Toaster-frakker, Toaster-frakker...

Aw, crap. We're screwed.

(PS: which players got which characters?)


billytea - Nov 19, 2010 8:43:19 pm PST #8078 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

Total draw for this group would be 3 (or 4) blue, 3 yellow, 3 red, 6 purple, (8 or) 9 green. Is that okay with everyone? I think it's a pretty good balance.

It's certainly workable. We're a bit short of Politics, especially once Baltar is inevitably revealed to be a Cylon, but that's ok.


Laga - Nov 19, 2010 8:50:00 pm PST #8079 of 26134
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.

Jeez we're not even playing yet and already with the accusations.


billytea - Nov 19, 2010 9:35:35 pm PST #8080 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

You're right, we should find another basis for accusations. Let's see, you've been a Cylon more often than anyone else in the game, so...


megan walker - Nov 19, 2010 9:36:36 pm PST #8081 of 26134
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

Jeez we're not even playing yet and already with the accusations.

This is exactly why I didn't put who was who. Once everyone signs off on the mix, I'll make it official.

BTW, the next option in line didn't provide an obvious president, so I didn't post it.

We're a bit short of Politics

There's actually not much yellow to be had since only 4 characters automatically draw it. I guess that's because you get it on the board in the Press Room.

ETA: What's the rationale for Baltar being the only player to get only 4 cards on his turn?


billytea - Nov 19, 2010 10:07:51 pm PST #8082 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

There's actually not much yellow to be had since only 4 characters automatically draw it.

True, but three of those four are politicians, and most games have two pollies. Looking over the BGG games, the average politics draw for a five-player game has been 4.8 cards. Even treating Apollo as if he only drew Green, the average is 4.25 cards. Out of 28 5-player games, all but 4 had greater Politics draws than we have.

I don't know how the game design went with the Press Room, but I think it may have worked the other way around - they usually expect there to be more Politics, but if there isn't, there needs to be a way to address the shortfall.

In any case, although most games there have had more Yellow drawn, it doesn't seem to make much difference to the results. The human victory rate given a 3-Politics draw isn't significantly different from the average rate.

Now you have me wondering about how card draw affects odds of victory. I wil lhave to look into that sometime.


billytea - Nov 19, 2010 10:14:35 pm PST #8083 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

ETA: What's the rationale for Baltar being the only player to get only 4 cards on his turn?

Ah, that's because his special ability, Delusional Intuition, lets him draw one more card after drawing his Crisis card. He gets two advantages: he can draw whatever is best given the Crisis Card, and he can take it from any deck, so in one sense his skill set covers every deck. (Not officially though. The designer's confirmed that if ever we get to draw extra cards from our skill set - including the starting cards - Baltar chooses just from Politics, Leadership and Engineering.)

There's another peculiarity of Baltar drawing one of his cards in the Crisis Card stage. If he's in the Brig, he skips the Crisis Card stage, and so he doesn't get his fifth card. On the other hand, a player starting their turn in Sickbay only gets to draw one card. Baltar, however, still gets his Delusional Intuition, so if he's in Sickbay, he gets to draw one more card than anyone else.