Got my hands on deck 3 (even though we are still on adventure 1) and was looking ahead to the fun we have to encounter when I saw the location Tower of the Fourth Sphere.
When that location is closed a player may begin playing the character Arueshalae. Is that a 2nd character you get to play in addition to your current one?
Also, when you start to build location decks after this. Does the number of players count as people sitting at the table or characters being played (if one person is playing a second character from the question above)?
The rules state the locations are generated by players however.
Choose Your Character. Each player chooses one character card; this represents the character you'll be playing in the game.
By that rule, 1 player = 1 character. If you as a person are playing multiple characters, you count as multiple players. It isn't asking you to count how many meatbags are sitting around the table, but rather how many individual characters there are in play.
The rules have always been the card do what they day and don't do what they don't say. The location does not say "replace" your character it just says "a player may begin playing the character Arueshalae"
If someone doubles up on characters this seems like it would throw things out of balance though.
If someone doubles up on characters, you treat them as 2 players (or however many players as the number of characters you are playing). This is nothing new, and in fact has been supported since RotR where a solo player could play 2 characters instead of just one, and is treated as if doing a 2-player game.
If you pick up Arushalae in addition to your other characters, increase the party size by 1 so a previously-4p game becomes 5p or a previously-5p game becomes 6p. If you already had 6p before getting her (or 4p if you don't have the character add-on deck), you'll need to swap out a character for her if you wish to play her as the game does not support going above 6 (or 4 without the character add-on deck).
Exactly how you choose to introduce her is your group's own prerogative, the following are all valid choices you can make:
- Bring in a new person to play her
- Someone doubles up and plays her in addition to their normal character
- Replace an existing character with her
- Send her back to the box because nobody wants to play her
In the first 2 scenarios, increase number of players by 1. In the last 2 scenarios the number of players stays the same. There really isn't any more to it than that.
That's pretty much what I was thinking. Someone double up (I"m sure she'll be useful / necessary in the future) and just up the number of players by one to see how that works.
The only ONE issue is... we play WotR from the start with 6 players and as many characters.
This is a tremendous opportunity to have miss 007 join the group...
But then scenarios are only good up to 6 players...
We are working a way to deal with that by adding one location and 5 blessings in the blessing deck but it's a bit tricky with some scenarios (and nasty barriers or locations with difficulty increasing with the number of players).
Any advice Mike?
But that requires someone to dump a character they have been working on for a while now.
I made this suggestion in another thread: don't add another location for a 7th player. Instead take 5 random monsters and 3 random barriers, mix them up and add one to each location as you build them. We tried this a few times and it seemed to work okay, meaning it didn't seem to change the balance of the scenario much. Each location becomes a little more difficult but the 7th player brings a few more tools to the mix. Unless you find the scenarios particularly tough, I wouldn't add more blessings.
Problem if you do not add blessings on the blessings deck is that some players will only play 4 turns... and that is really not fun.
Problem if you do not add blessings on the blessings deck is that some players will only play 4 turns... and that is really not fun.
Hmmm, okay then maybe add five blessings and eight more banes. Beefy locations with 20% more fun!