Three player variant

At last Tuesday we got only 4 players and one have to left after the first game, so we played several games with three players with regular decks and this "rules variant". What have we gained from it:

1. games are fast (+)
2. games are more interactive - you can't "play your game" and let your predator die (+)
3. parity shift is not so broken (+)
4. Conservative agitation (and other cards with effect changing with number of players) became stupid (-)
5. Early aggression seems too good (+/-)
6. Some deck concepts (walls without eagle sight) work not so well (+/-)
7. It's hard for players to change their habits (-)

Overall with this extremely limited testing it seems fine except p.4, but fixing it with something like "count players as always 4" will make p.5 bad again as well as add more non intuitive rules which I don't like.


"Suggested addendum, everyone can block directed actions in a 3 player game."
It may help early aggression problem, but I see two other problems with this - additional rules and "swing into other way" so walls became too good. It looks even worse

Update: just removing limitations to who can block (so it's not more rules, but less). Maybe we should try it.

About ideas of ICLee: I have thought about concept of GW = number of players - 2 VP with game ending immediately after one player reaches it (and no GW to anybody if time was called before it). It may fasten the game as well as limit some dumb table split deals. But it's too big a change for me to evaluate properly. Somebody may try it.

Also I've thought that this variant may be good for teaching the game - table dynamics with 4+ players is hard for newbie to understand properly.

Alternative idea - 40 pool and each player lose a pool an the beginning of the turn. Should make early aggression a bit harder.

I suggest that you search for Rapid Though format.

At least Hattara was very much into it some years ago.

Lönkka wrote:

I suggest that you search for Rapid Though format.

At least Hattara was very much into it some years ago.

RT got bunch additional rules and unplayable with regular decks - not what I'm searching for.

elotar wrote:

Lönkka wrote:

I suggest that you search for Rapid Though format.

At least Hattara was very much into it some years ago.

RT got bunch additional rules and unplayable with regular decks - not what I'm searching for.

Yup, so many more rules. Just remove vessel, blood doll, villein and minion tap.

Blooded wrote:

Yup, so many more rules. Just remove vessel, blood doll, villein and minion tap.

I want it to be playable with regular decks without any changes, so you can just play when somebody need to leave earlier or you just can't get enough players for a full table. So even idea of allowing to block everything is not good for me because Eagle Sight and other such cards will stop being useful.

Making several competing formats is not good for the game.