May also give 1 card to another player at your location when resetting your hand

[bit4]

That's it. It doesn't happen very much.
But that's our House Rule.
IF you have more cards in your hand than your hand size specifies when resetting your hand,
THEN you may give 1 card to another player at your location when resetting your hand, IF that player has fewer cards than his hand size.

[Frencois]

Hum... IMHO way too easy...
You usually acquire a boon during your turn.
If you can give it to someone else, that's pretty much having a free hp each player's turn...

[Vic Wertz]

Warning—danger!

There's a very good reason why the "give a card" step happens at the start of the turn, and only allows cards to move from the active player to an inactive player. It prevents you from revealing your Super Awesome Weapon card for every combat on your turn, then at the end of the turn passing it to the next player, who reveals it for all his combats, then at the end of the turn passes it to the next player...

[bbKabag]

What you're doing also means you can potentially give more than one card a turn. One from "give a card" step and another at the end of your turn. I'm sure there's also a reason why you can only give one card per turn.

[Hawkmoon269]

The danger Vic points out is the probably the kind of thing you don't intend for your rule to do, but is something that was realized in design as an important rule. You probably weren't thinking "Hey, let's make a way that we can all play this awesome card on everyone of our turns." You were probably more thinking "It stinks when I acquire cards that someone else might once and I have to either have them take up space in my hand until my next turn or discard it and give it to them later, possibly even after the scenario."

Imagine if you had a ship and everyone kept passing around Besmara's Tricorne.

If you like giving cards, check out S&S Merisiel's Smuggler role. She has two powers related to giving cards. My wife is playing her. She took the +1d4 on all non-combat checks power first after getting her role card, then last night took the power to give cards she acquires to other characters. I'm super excited for her to be handing me some cards.

[bit4]

Sincerely:
Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, but IMHO I don’t see how what anyone has said applies to what’s wrong with doing what we’re doing. Some of what’s been said doesn’t make sense to me. But thanks anyway.

Player B has less than a full hand because he used one of his cards to help another player. So he gave up an “hp” (if that’s what you want to call it). And now he’s getting it back. That makes sense to us.

Only because they were in the same location, player A was able to give player B only one card when player A was resetting his hand because player A had more than a full hand, and player B had less than a full hand.

The card player A gave to player B was because it was not very useful to player A. Player B can’t give one card to player A unless player A is in the same location and holding less than a full hand, when player B is discarding because player B has more than a full hand. It's not possible have less than a full hand whenever you want.

There is no one super weapon card being passed around over and over again. That does not seem possible. Cards are played as usual. They come and go. What I hear suggested by Vic would be difficult to do. I can’t see the benefit being worth the effort. Different cards benefit different characters differently and sometimes not at all.

What you’ve said about passing this one super card around doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t understand how what Vic and Hawkmoon269 are suggesting would be done.

Thank you for your feedback. It’s a simple little change. Doesn’t actually make much difference. But we like it. So we're going to keep our house rule.

Have fun.

[bbKabag]

This is the card Hawkmoon mentioned:

Besmara's Tricorne wrote:

Reveal this card to add 1 to your Constitution, Fortitude, Wisdom, or Survival check, or 1d8 to that check while on a ship

a 1d8 to any Constitution, Fortitude, Wisdom, or Survival check is pretty darn good especially if everyone can use it.

Now let's say you have that card. You go about your turn and use Besmara's Tricorne on several checks during your turn.

At the end of your turn, you happen to have 1 extra card more than you hand size. So, you decide to give Besmara's Tricorne to the next player who has 1 card less of her hand size.

You pass the turn to her. She goes about her turn and uses Besmara's Tricorne on a few checks during her turn.
and ends up with more cards than her hand size and gives Besmara's Tricorne to the third player who is also short 1 card.

Since everyone is aboard the ship, everyone is in the same location all the time.

That is the example of how your house rule CAN be exploited. We are not saying that is what you WILL do, or that your house rule is currently breaking your game. What we are saying is that when and if there is such a card, with your house rule, it IS possible to exploit.

If you guys are enjoying your own house rule none of us can really stop you. We are just pointing out what could go wrong with it. So, as long as you guys are okay with it, have fun! :)

[Hawkmoon269]

Yeah. Basically any card that could be played by only revealing it could be passed back and forth. All you'd have to do to make sure you get receive it was to be sure to recharge/discard/bury/banish a card when it wasn't your turn.

There are some quite powerful cards that can be revealed. Besmara's Tricorne or Ring of the Iron Skull or Ring of Rat Fangs (both of which I believe let you explore at the cost of a reveal). Or the Ring of Wave Walking.

It would be easy to create a situation where we could pass one of those cards on to the next player virtually every turn.

Valeros and Lem at location A.
Oloch at locaion B.
Feiya at location C.

Valeros has Besmara's Tricorne. He reveals it when needed during his turn.

During Valeros' turn, Lem makes sure to recharge a card to help Valeros and Valeros makes sure to acquire an extra card. At the end of Valeros' turn, Valeros gives Lem Besmara's Tricorne.

On Lem's turn, Lem moves to location B. Oloch makes sure to display 1 card in order to help Lem during his turn and Lem makes sure to acquire an extra card. At the end of his turn, Lem gives Besmara's Tricorne to Oloch.

On Oloch's turn, Oloch moves to location C. Feiya makes sure to recharge a card to reduce the difficulty of one of Oloch's checks and Oloch makes sure to acquire an extra card. At the end of his turn Oloch gives Besmara's Tricorne to Feiya.

On Fieya's turn, Feiya moves to location A. Valeros makes sure to get rid of a card to help Fieya. Feiay makes sure to acquire a card. At the end of her turn Feiay gives Besmara's Tricorne to Valeros.

And repeat. Sure, the sequence could be broken at some point if someone failed to acquire a card. But it would be pretty easy to run the sequence for lots of turns in a row.

That is how this idea COULD be abused. It probably isn't how your group WOULD abuse it. You aren't going into it thinking about it this way. You are simply thinking "If I happen to help someone on my turn and we happen to be at the same location and they happen to have an extra card, then they can give it to me." But you can make all the "if it happens" things intentionally very likely to happen, every single turn. And in doing so, you can share a single card that between every player.

Now, this is the houserule section. So if you want to go with this rule, then feel absolutely free to do so. You can probably keep it in check by what is in the "spirit" of the rule. But I know that for me, once I realized what I could do with the rule, it would eventually be tempting to actually do it. I could see myself saying "Feiya's going to need this card Lem has. And we can easily get it to her."

That might be just me. But that is the issue everyone is trying to point out.

I'd be curious to hear more about how it goes if you do continue to play with it. Good luck on your adventure.

[Mike Selinker]

The restriction on giving a card is a rule that slows down your progress. You can remove it, but you will progress faster than intended through the game, and then the game will seem easier than intended to you.

There's really no reason you couldn't remove all the safeguards in the game designed to slow down your progress. For example, you could create the "take the average" rule, which would allow you to voluntarily take the average value on your die roll, so you could never fail a check you would make more often than not. That would remove the possibility of rolling an outlier result of three 1s on a check. It might make the game more fun for you never to fail an easy check.

But it wouldn't make the game better, in my opinion.

[Frencois]

Mike Selinker wrote:

There's really no reason you couldn't ... But it wouldn't make the game better, in my opinion.

I regret I cannot flag that sentence 100 times as my favorite.

It reminds me, very long time ago (yes I am that old), when the first "Deities & Demigods" D&D book was published. 3 months after publication, someone wrote to Gygax complaining that TSR had to write another Deities since their group already had killed all gods in the first book and thus the game wasn't fun anymore for them beacuse they could eradicate the galaxy even when rolling 1 on a d20.
You get what you asked for. Heroism is winning against all odds when the blessing deck is empty and you get 2 cards left in your hand.
Since then, we never never house rule something that would make any game easier, all the more (*) if it wasn't broken in the first place.

I would have said "a fortiori", but not sure everyone speaks Elvish on your side of the pond :-)

[bit4]

Thanks for the feedback.

We are not trying to make the game easier. That’s not what our house rule is about. We were trying to "make the game better,” more interesting, more enjoyable. And in our opinion it does "make it better." It adds something new that makes more sense. It makes more sense to give a card when resetting your hand than right after advancing the blessing deck. None of us see any reason to give a card at that time before our turn begins. So we will choose either or but not both. But we only give cards when resetting a hand.

We’re accused by exaggerations and generalizations that do not apply and/or happen. We’re passing on cards that would have normally been discarded to reduce a hand with too many cards. We all know the card that’s given. We are not using one super card repeatedly by multiple players. I understand what has been said. And I don’t think that it’s possible because of our house rule. Seems like a waste of time to try.

The original rule of giving cards right after turning the blessings deck allows player A to give any card to player B at the same location no matter how many cards are in player B’s hand. Our house rule says when A is resetting his hand player B must be in same location & have less than a full hand to get a card. And player A must have more than a full hand to give a card. So we added restrictions to giving cards that previously were not there. We made it more difficult to give a card. The discard can instead go to player B if B wants it. Our house rule makes more sense. There is logic in doing it. It “makes the game better"

Player A likes having a super card. Player A is not willing to give up the super card knowing it may never come back. Player A says that you can’t have my super card. Go find your own super card. The card that player A gives player B is given like a reward or payback for player B sacrificing a card for player A or some other player. It’s the card player A would normally discard that player B gets. We all see the card player A gives to player B. And we all know player B gets player A's discard card as part of hand reset. It may or may not be useful to player B; but that’s part of the fun. Fun makes the game better.

It’s a small thing. It doesn’t change much. It doesn’t happen very often. Nobody can control it all the time. It does not make the game easier. It adds a new element, or experience to the game. Player B gives up a card for someone’s benefit. Someone in the same location gives player B a card (if restrictions are met). It makes sense. It’s logical. It makes the game better.

So that’s why for us it makes the game better.
That’s our opinion. And that’s what matters to us.

This is an incredible good game. My real goal is to get people to play this —— game with me because I like it. If making this rule will help, then I’ll do that. The people who play with me like this house rule because we made it together. If it didn’t make it better for all of us, we wouldn’t do it. The original reason I posted our house rule was to share something I thought others might not have thought of, yet might enjoy doing. It was not to insult, put down, criticize, or even complain. Now it seems to be going that way. And I don’t want that. So this is going to be my last post on this. Say what you will; I’m done.

We’re good people playing together, trying to have some fun.
We hope you have some friendly fun of your own.

[bbKabag]

Again we are not accusing you of anything we are just stating the possibilities opened up by your house rule. And once AGAIN like we said, if you enjoy it its your house rule we are not stopping you. We are only WARNING you of the exploit that CAN happen. We are not accusing you of cheating or anything exaggerated.

[Vic Wertz]

I posted not to criticize you, but to make sure that you (and anyone else who may wish to adopt your rule) are aware that your house rule may have an impact you didn't intend. The designers place the "give a card" step where it is because placing it elsewhere has design consequences. You have said it doesn't make the game easier, but we are saying that, whether you are aware of it or not, or take advantage of it or not, it *can* make the game easier. As others have said, feel free to play with any house rules you want—I just want people to understand the potential side effects that rule can have.