The rules, and musings on player count

As a follow up to the nutshell post, here's a link to the full rule set (v14.4):  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UObIdfNkddg6VM1gSupXs3CSpH_t4CXP--cKG6NOQFU/edit?usp=sharing


The document is too long and too formatted to copy and paste it into a blog post, but hopefully the link works and everything in the rule set makes sense.


The rules state that the game now seats from 2-5, although I think with a small qualifier or two, 1-5 should be supportable.


We've always viewed 4p as the max, partly due to latency issues and partly due to timing problems associated with the turn-based mechanics of the game.  There were a few systems that depended on which player did such-and-such first, and these kind of rules can leave the last player in turn order out of luck through no fault of his/her own.


With the new rules, simultaneity addresses the latency concern and the timing concern, to some extent -- there is still a 'choose rewards in order' effect but as it affects only those players who drop out of the encounter at the same time, and as the start player should change pretty frequently, this may not be too harmful for a later player. 


It's not a certainty that there's enough information to go around in a 5p game.  I think there are at least enough cards:  each player has 7 slots on his mat, and the group as a whole will get to look at 36 cards over the game.  Of these, for each of the six perils, there are 8 symbols in the deck, and typically there will be 4 unique perils in the temple (5 cards but statistically one peril will show up twice), so that's 32 relevant peril symbols, meaning that each player in a 5p game can get about 6, and cube allocation lets you extend the value of the symbols you've gotten.


What I worry about more is the encounter system.  Players invest in the encounter, and so naturally when there are more players there is more total investment and so the encounter is 'easier'.  But how do we quantify an encounter's ease?  I think it's mostly about how close you can get to the enemy pawn and still have a chance of getting info before the pawn reaches your city.  In a big group, you'll be able to skate closer to the enemy whereas in a smaller group you'll have to travel further away.  This will cost more time in a small group than in a big group.


However, in a big group, you have more competition for the same number of rewards, which means (a) you won't always be able to get the adventure cards that you want, and (b) you'll often be looking at temple cards after other players have viewed them, meaning you have to take a time penalty.


My hope, then, is that the combination of these effects will actually make the different player counts feel qualitatively different.  This is one of my favorite aspects of Knizia's Lord of the Rings, and it would be great to have it come through here as well.  There may be some tweaks necessary to realize it, and of particular concern is whether certain character mats are too good or too weak at a given player count.