Villain flees to only open location, and it still has a henchman...

[lukkos]

I defeated the villain on his first appearance. He then escapes to the only open location, which happened to be totally unexplored. The first encounter here was the Bandit Henchman. Does this still allow me to attempt a location closing, or do I treat the henchman as a normal monster and keep drawing for the villain?

[csouth154]

You can attempt to close it. If you succeed, banish all cards except for the villain and the location stays open.

[lukkos]

csouth154 wrote:

You can attempt to close it. If you succeed, banish all cards except for the villain and thebl location stays open.

Brilliant, thanks!

[Pixel Hunter]

Indeed, it's a great way to quickly clear out locations. If the villain has escaped, and you encounter a henchman in another location, part of the closing process is to search through the deck for any villains. If you find one, he becomes the only card in the deck and the location stays open.

On the other hand, if the villain escapes and you encounter him again, you can close that location if you defeat him, which will banish all remaining cards, including henchmen, while closing that deck. (The exception may be any game that has more than one villain.)

My wife has a penchant for finding the villain. Usually on her very first turn, or her first explore at a new location. Yes, I shuffle the decks. And I've even started seeding the villain/henchmen randomly into the middle of the decks while building instead of adding them last and then shuffling...

[Nefrubyr]

Pixel Hunter wrote:

My wife has a penchant for finding the villain. Usually on her very first turn, or her first explore at a new location. Yes, I shuffle the decks. And I've even started seeding the villain/henchmen randomly into the middle of the decks while building instead of adding them last and then shuffling...

After shuffling, I roll a d10 and move that many cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. Eliminates any bias from dodgy shuffling, at least as far as villain/henchman depth is concerned.

[csouth154]

Nefrubyr wrote:

Pixel Hunter wrote:

My wife has a penchant for finding the villain. Usually on her very first turn, or her first explore at a new location. Yes, I shuffle the decks. And I've even started seeding the villain/henchmen randomly into the middle of the decks while building instead of adding them last and then shuffling...

After shuffling, I roll a d10 and move that many cards from the top of the deck to the bottom. Eliminates any bias from dodgy shuffling, at least as far as villain/henchman depth is concerned.

Please keep any mention of House-rules to the "House-Rules and Home Brews" forum, just to avoid any possible confusion.

[Russ Taylor]

Shuffling techniques don't really qualify as house rules. After all, the rulebook doesn't tell you how to shuffle :)

I do something similar when reshuffling a deck (roll a d10). I roll a handful of dice to order the initial decks because it's easier on the cards (2d10, 2d8, 2d6, followed by d8 and 2d6).

[csouth154]

Russ Taylor wrote:

Shuffling techniques don't really qualify as house rules. After all, the rulebook doesn't tell you how to shuffle :)

I do something similar when reshuffling a deck (roll a d10). I roll a handful of dice to order the initial decks because it's easier on the cards (2d10, 2d8, 2d6, followed by d8 and 2d6).

Yeah. I guess it makes no difference to the randomness of things so....my bad. Carry on. :p

[Red Harvester]

It would still make a nice thread in the House Rules/Home Brews sub-forum.

[Bidmaron]

I went really ridiculous and wrote a spreadsheet to randomize the order to completely remove any inadvertent manual bias. At least when I draw the villain as the first card now (it still happens every once in a great while) in a location, I can know it wasn't crappy shuffling.

[Pixel Hunter]

Well, no matter how you shuffle, you're going to have a 10% chance of finding the henchman/villain as the first draw in any location deck.

[Bidmaron]

True, but when I do now, I cannot wonder if I did a crappy shuffle or not.

[Lord Balen]

The thing about shuffling - it's random as long as you don't know what order it's in.
As long as you didn't just leave it as is, cut it just once or accidentally do a faux shuffle, whatever comes out comes out.
In the same way you can roll a d20 and get a 1 two, sometimes 3 times in a row, or a four of a kind in poker, you can get a bunch of cards bunched together or in a similar sequence. Especially with more or less 10 cards in the deck.

That said, there is such a thing as over-shuffling, to the point that you have higher odds of shuffling them back into the same or similar order.

I recommend doing three or four different shuffles or alternating between two different shuffles several times and you just get what you get.

[csouth154]

The OCD is strong with this thread. :)

[Nefrubyr]

Well to justify my OCD a bit further... ;-)

I don't sleeve these cards (way too many to bother), so I find that I'm typically shuffling one mint condition, never used villain/henchman with nine well-used, slightly worn and bent boons and banes. And even if I manage to shuffle them fairly, if I cut the deck it seems I'm likely to cut at the card that stands out from the others.

So I choose the position for the cut with a d10... uniform randomness, not depending on the cards.

[Doug Maynard]

Thread's a bit old, but very relevant to a question that came up last night.

Pixel Hunter wrote:

Indeed, it's a great way to quickly clear out locations. If the villain has escaped, and you encounter a henchman in another location, part of the closing process is to search through the deck for any villains. If you find one, he becomes the only card in the deck and the location stays open.

In this case, does the villain card stay face up? And what happens next? Do you have to immediately attempt to defeat it?

Rulebook wrote:

Encounter the Villain: The character who encounters the villain must attempt a check to defeat it.

Thanks

[csouth154]

I guess it doesn't matter if you leave it face-up if it's the only card in the deck and you know what it is. It's really up to you.

You may not immediately attempt to defeat it. It must be encountered somehow, first. Locating it while searching the location after defeating a henchman from the location deck is not the same as encountering it.

[Doug Maynard]

OK, makes sense. So if I understand things, two options would be to encounter it as part of the next player's turn at that location, or using a blessing card (or some other card) that allows you to discard it to explore again.

[csouth154]

Yup. Those are two options to accomplish that.

[Hawkmoon269]

Technically, it goes facedown. That usually isn't going to matter, but there could be somethings that add more cards to that location before you encounter the villain. And if you have two locations with only one card, you should have to remember which one is the villain. Not a monumental task, but still part of the game.

[Vic Wertz]

Skull & Shackles sometimes cares about whether cards are faceup or not. So I'd advise against a house rule that has any cards faceup in location decks.

[Chimpy]

I usually do an overhand shuffle, a stack and then a couple of cuts. Seems to work pretty well. Habit from Magic the Gathering :p