Large game question

[Dr.Jay]

Hey folks,

The largest game we have played is 3 characters, so forgive me if the answer to this question is readily apparent during game play.

How do really large games, like 6 people work in a way that you can win them?

Since the timer (Blessings Deck) is always 30 cards deep, for a six person game that means each person gets (baseline) 5 encounters. Since each location has 10 cards,you are talking 80 potential encounters for a game of 6 players.

In the games we have played so far, we have not had enough blessings and allies to consistently give each player 8 or 9 more encounters. I know if you hit a henchman or villain you can kill a location quickly, but if they are buried deep, how does that work?

[Fromper]

Just play lots of blessing and ally cards that let you explore an extra time on your turn. Don't discard blessings to add dice to checks - have players team up to assist each other to beat things instead. ie Lem, Valeros, and Harsk's powers. Also, Cure spells to get your blessings and allies back, so you can use them to explore again.

I haven't played with 6, but that's the theory, anyway. I played with 4, and we intentionally made a point of exploring whenever we could, and we easily won with plenty of blessings left in the blessings deck.

[Scribbling Rambler]

I haven't played with 6 yet, but...

1/ When you have more players/less turns, you tend to focus only on defeating the scenario, not exploring/looting

2/ You're able to burn through your cards a lot more, because damage becomes less of an issue. Consequently, turns are longer and success against cards is easier because people spend cards more freely.

3/ With more players, you're more likely to have characters suited to take on specific challenges because of their powers or cards.

4/ Each scenario so far consistently has 2 more locations than the number of players. As the number of players increases, the "extra" locations become statistically less significant. IE 1 player exploring 3 locations requires a lot more turns than 6 exploring 8.

5/ As you mentioned, you can hit a villain or henchman early. The odds of this happening increase with more locations (as do the odds of one being deep).

All told, the odds of closing locations in a low number of turns is greatly increased.
The key is to make sure you do it and don't get greedy looking for extra boons.

All that said, I do think the game is slightly more difficult with 5-6 than with 3-4.

[Scribbling Rambler]

Oh... the other thing about large games is that you're more likely to get good items in the long run, due to the increase in trading and reward cards.

[Vic Wertz]

There are a number of threads that discuss this, including this and this.

The bottom line is that it works as intended—differently sized groups need different approaches, though.

[StarSlayer]

I had a 3 player game last night. We ended the encounter in 7 turns. With different people shuffling the decks, every deck had the henchmen or villain as the top card or 2. I have run out of time in a one player game (not able to close locations due to needing a 6 on a d6 and spending 5+ turns trying to close one location)