Today we are debating unique starting powers in board games. This is our first debate so hopefully everyone will be civil and not yell although rage quitting I think is still acceptable. The proposition of this debate is “unique starting powers reduce fun”.
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Transcript
hello and welcome to the decking awesome
podcast my name is brian and i’m joined
by the awesome kira and owen hello
hi or am i joined by them
today we are trying out a new style of
podcast where we’re going to be
debating different mechanics and parts
of games that we just like and enjoy or
dislike our first debates today
is going to be about unique starting
powers in games and different factions
whether they reduce the fun of a game or
whether they kind of pigeonhole you into
playing one different route
so with us today in the red jumper
weighing in at one donut heavier than he
was five minutes ago the man who’s hated
starting factions since he lost a game
of hopscotch to a kid with three legs
taking the stance against it’s owen
yay it’s me i love donuts
and in the blue jumper weighing in at
oh okay no she’s no i can’t yeah also
here
the woman who once super glued a fake
extra leg to a child
just to see own loser hopscotch taking
the stance in favor it’s kira
so for this podcast each person is going
to kind of lay out their arguments in
favor
uh or against and we’ll give the other
person a chance to argue against us i
will also talk more because
you know i don’t like just sitting here
quietly so we are
going to focus on kind of um games where
players are all playing against each
other we feel like cooperative games
like pandemic and gloomhaven and stuff
like that
it’s fun to have different factions
because you’re all playing together and
cooperative
so this is more about you know do
starting factions give
different players advantages so
kira talk to us a bit about some pros in
favor of
different starting factions cool so my
main
love of starting factions is to stop
people doing the exact same thing
every time we play a game there are
certain strategies that
we we play games three of us together
and the three of us all have
set styles that we love and we
constantly resort to whenever
we’re playing a game that we play a lot
so i think the worst one we have is
stone age
whenever we play stone age we resort to
the same
strategies each time one of us always
goes for
just the science cards and one of us
always goes for
trying to have the most people and most
wheat
and um one of us tries to build as many
huts as is possible within the length of
the game
and tries to get to the bottom of the
hood stacks as quickly as possible
so we’re very predictable when we play
and i think that this kind of
reduces down the quality of the gameplay
even though stone age is probably one of
my favorite games
yeah so that is my strong proposal for
why having random factions helps is that
random factions means you really have to
play
or you don’t have to but you really
helps to play towards the strength that
the starting faction gives you
so it means that you can be sure that if
everyone takes a random
starting faction that they will be
potentially forced to be a bit more
flexible
or try some things that they wouldn’t
normally try in their gameplay and it
means that they
the game doesn’t always end the same way
yeah true
that kind of reminds me of like pandemic
and stuff like that where you’d have
like starting factions but
you know even even when pandemic though
yeah there is that kind of if there is a
very balanced game everyone picks a
starting player in the case of random
randomly starting players that makes a
lot more sense but yeah stone age is
really good it
gets replayed so much because it’s such
a competitive game but it’s so well
balanced
but yeah i think having balance in the
starting players is such an
important thing especially for random
randomly associated starting perfections
so own taking an early opening backing
keira up on our points
an unusual tactic for a debate i like it
so owen would you say this you know the
you’d be opposed to opening factions you
like to be a creature of habit you like
to
play the same strategy if you think
you’ve found a winning one i think the
problem i have with starting factions i
think
is when it comes down to player choice
like uh keira was saying that
you know people do get stuck into a pat
a kind of rhythm
in stone age where they kind of keep
constantly picking the same
style of strategy okay kind of different
players will
mix things up themselves some players if
they find
a thing that they can kind of get good
at they’ll keep pushing away at it
problem i find though with stuff like
terra mystica and kind of lords of
water deep is it starting players tend
to do the opposite they’ll tend to
actually
because there’s so many choices in the
game and so many different types of
strategies
people just tend to just pick their
starting faction and they will
whatever the best option for that
starting faction is they will just
only do that even if it’s against what
they kind of want to play or how they
play
they’ll just go that just to hope that
they’ll win through the power of their
starting faction
so it although the game could have lots
and lots of choices lots of different
kind of
varied mechanics the starting functions
limits their choice
so they really don’t have a choice at
all does that not add to the
replayability though so because you’re
trying out
things maybe you didn’t try it last time
in the game you’re making choices
sure you’re being forced to make them
because of your starting faction
but in lords of waterdeep for example
let’s say your starting faction was
piety and you know it kind of means that
when you’re disc
when you’re trying to decide on whether
you’re going to take a skullduggery card
you can kind of
really it makes you think about it a bit
more and weigh up the options better
gives you a different angle than you
would have played last time for the pros
and cons
that that’s true from a from a player
perspective each player gets to try out
all the different styles of play and
different mechanics i think even just
playing a game once
such a stone age where there is no star
infections you’ll just by seeing other
people playing the game
you should get a good idea as to what
different strategies work in a game
which you know for something like lords
of waterdeep it can show you that
certain strategies are
a lot better and and certain factions
are
a lot better which can be quite
frustrating you know if you
start the game you pick up a starting
faction and it says your piety
and you’ve played this game so many
times that you know the
construction of your group and how they
play that piety just is not gonna win
it can be pretty hurtful and hard to
play
but it’s not the same thing as trying to
find the best strategy in a normal game
like there has to be a way that piety
can win right it just needs to
tweak well no in lower the water deep it
just sucks we can just accept that
and you get so little reward from it you
put all your time and effort
into getting it because that’s what your
starting faction benefits or bonuses you
for
but you know unless you rack up a huge
amount of them
does it really benefit you in the long
run yeah it’s it’s it’s a really tough
one because
we’re kind of describing balance and
mechanics you know if you if you balance
the starting powers
would the same be true so in lord’s word
if all the characters
all the factions were balanced would it
help kind of how stone age all different
strategies are balanced
kind of we is usually better but let’s
not go there
um yeah it’s about the balance of the
game
and the problem is that starting powers
tend to just i like strip out that
balance to
it it almost means the rest of the game
doesn’t matter it’s just a starting
faction if the starting faction isn’t
balanced
straight away it can feel like you’ve
lost but in a game with like stone age
even though we isn’t balanced you got a
chance to get your own wii
you know i think that in our games we
know that wheat is unbalanced
and i guess the one thing about playing
the same rules every time is
we all try and get weed now no one is
allowed to take all the wheat
whoever’s the first player gets the
wheat that was my strategy and i was
kicking ass you guys just keep stealing
you lost like
six times before that strategy started
to work
[Laughter]
yeah but once i figured it out but there
there’s an example so that’s not a
that’s not a starting strategy but
that’s a game that doesn’t have
starting factions and yet we’ve clearly
found
one path that seems to work the best so
everyone tries to go for
this one faction so would that not be
in favor of starting powers you know if
maybe if
i in stone age if i had a an advantage
towards using tools
i’d focus more on tools than just going
down the wheat route
like we often always seem to because you
know if you don’t have to worry about
players gathering food
then you can focus your players on
getting resources so maybe
that’s a case where you know starting
factions would benefit a game
as opposed to just being a hindrance you
do have the problem
of if there is a stone age faction that
collects wheat
it’s just not a type type faction is
going to if it’s going to be picked all
the time
water deep has one where if you’re a
builder you get
four points or six points or something
like that now building obviously
is super competitive but if you’re
playing a two-player game if you’re
playing a low player count game
you can build a quite a lot of buildings
even though it is
really like competitive higher player
count it’s much more difficult
so i think maybe certain player factions
are more balanced than different player
counts
i would just recommend just rip up that
builder for player fraction just don’t
play with it
just unfortunately through the pandemic
we’ve been playing online and you can’t
just tell the computer to rip up that
card
it’s still a science building to
somebody some every time
so another one of the pros that i think
in this is analysis paralysis which i
think is
a debate that we constantly have between
the three of us because
i’m blamed constantly on taking too long
in my goals
and yet owen and brian also take a
really long time in certain games to
have a go
and make us sit around i’m gonna have to
interject there because
you’re right own does take a long time
as well continue with your point
i do i do i’ll agree to that brian does
too sometimes
that’s not the debate that’s not what
we’re debating we’re not debating
this new hazard okay okay sorry but
having
a certain faction means that there’s
less of that at the start
of a new game i think that because you
have
something um you haven’t played a game
too often maybe you only played it once
or twice
you forget what the winning strategy is
because it’s been so long
and you’re given a certain faction if
this means that your goals take less
time because you’re focused on
one task or another and that gives you
something to look
to try and figure out whereas starting a
game like
gaia project and not having a certain
action
means you look at 500 choices on the
board and you have no idea what to do
okay so yeah i wanna someone who’s sat
there and watched
kira analyze over decisions and turns
not me of course but would you not be in
favor of
you know starting factions giving people
a a direction to follow
you do get to the problem of you know a
guy a project you have 500 choices
the saturn faction just means it’s 500
on one so it it does
it doesn’t help a whole lot it does it
doesn’t mean that your one choice of the
player faction is so powerful that
you’re kind of not even looking at the
other stuff but in the same time that
can kind of be a hindrance because
sometimes the winning goal or the
winning strategy
it might have nothing to do with your
faction i remember here had a fact she
started which guy project she had a
building faction where she had to go
around building she’s trying to get her
faction to kind of utilize that
faction power it never came to fruition
and if maybe she didn’t have that
faction at all she could have focused on
the other 500 options which probably
would have caused more analysis
paralysis
you’re right but maybe she would have
won
okay okay that’s a that’s a fairly good
point thus you know starting factions
don’t necessarily guarantee you a
victory maybe they just say
here’s another option to consider when
you’re already trying to figure out
a massive things happening on a board
yeah it’s it’s tricky it’s a very tricky
one to kind of uh
get because another surprise is just
about playing the game as much as
possible and knowing how deep a game is
and sometimes for your first few plays
of the game you might just have to kind
of
play and not worry about your faction
maybe for the first round or for the
first game and then then start worrying
about your faction later on
but then you know it really depends on
the game
i suppose and i’d go that maybe when
you’re playing your first
few games just go with whatever the
certain faction power is and try and use
it
because at least then you don’t have to
worry about 500 things you’re only
worrying about 10 things that aren’t
going to work
yeah well gary project has a problem
with of the factions definitely having
are not being balanced so there are like
really good factions and really bad
factions
but i don’t know if that’s that was
meant to happen or not
but you can always just tear the
factions and play with
the higher tier factions the ones that
are really powerful and then sometimes
play with the really worse ones
i think uh geir project doesn’t so i
have another con point
on this debate which it’s not related to
this uh it’s a guy project it’s the fact
that some starting powers are hidden
and and this happens in certain games i
think my
obvious one that we use is lords of
water deep where everyone has a hidden
faction
it takes a while to learn you generally
speaking you learn about halfway through
whose factions are what based on what
quests they picked up or if they’re not
picking up any quests
then they’re probably doing something
else so that one is
tricky because it it’s just you’re
putting in this kind of
end game scoring where people are not
really sure what the end game scoring is
or what what the kind of
choices that people are forced to do to
me
i would just pick starting fractions as
always face up and you can always see
them
i don’t really see the point in hidden
certain fractions at all but i don’t see
the point in certain fractions at all
leader
so i don’t know it’s a tough one
okay so this the secrecy of the factions
er the secrecy of the starting powers
is a big con because you know players
can’t work against you they can think
they’re doing great throughout the game
but in reality you know that you’re 50
points ahead of them because but
if they’d tweaked that earlier on they
might have done something to
stop you or slow you down or interrupt
what you were doing
so you know maybe you know face up
starting factions if
everyone always knew what the other
players were doing but does that work
kara i just want to just just i just
want to add one more thing to the story
is that if you use our example of stone
age and a wheat
again if the stone if the starting
powers in stone age were faced down
and we didn’t know who the wheat
starting fraction was
okay we wouldn’t be able to counteract
it the same way we do
we attacks on stone age uh whereas if
everyone has face up
certain fractions stone age which is i
know it doesn’t exist
and we’d be able to attack the weak guy
because we know the weak guy has more
power than everybody else right at the
start of the game
and we could balance ourselves so i’m
gonna go
for i like a little bit of intrigue now
i will agree that where starting
factions have
a massive amount of point differential
that they might add like
50 points to the game i’m not a big fan
of that it unless everyone could add 50
points for a variety of different
reasons
but in a in a game where they only add a
few points
and the words of water sleep doesn’t add
an enormous amount of points
but i have won because of my certain
faction before on i think a few
occasions
so i’m i’m a little bit biased but i
like the secret i like having a minor
secret that just
impacts the game somewhat so it means
that a worker placement game which are
like my favorite type of games has a
little bit of
intrigue and a little bit of player
interaction
to try and figure something out in stone
age you
can generally see everything that
somebody is doing and i like that
sometimes
but also other times i like to have a
little bit of trying to figure something
out
or trying to puzzle a way out of
something so i like the
layer that it adds on the intrigue
element but where it adds i’ll
agree that it can cause a game to be
very unbalanced
if there’s a really really big benefit
point wise in a worker placement game to
having a secret certain faction
like in in games like cold express where
so
you were talking about having the
faction type face up
that’s one where having
you have to counteract some of them i
feel like this i know
brian is one of your big games he when
you play with ghost though we don’t play
with ghost anymore
because it’s a super unbalanced card
having that one face down card at the
start so it’s
almost impossible to deal with for our
listeners who’ve never played cult
express it’s it’s like a programming
game where you
each take turns telling your characters
what to do and they don’t do everything
until the end
so if you can follow along with what
players are playing you can kind of
predict where they’re going to be or
anticipate
ghost is a character where he plays his
first card face down
so you literally have no idea where he’s
gone
you know maybe afterwards he’s running
to the rice or you know he’s gonna rob
something but you don’t know where he is
when he starts us
so it makes it very hard to predict no
other character in the game
has that ability they all have different
interactions with each other or they all
have different bonuses for
gaming stuff but ghost essentially is
impossible as a character to predict
what’s happening
so he’s one where even having face up
factions where everyone knows what’s
happening he still has an
enormous advantage yeah he is definitely
if he’s in the game
and we’re playing with enough players
that we have to bring him in we
literally just have to
he has to be defeated constantly if i if
somebody can like
mess with him on their go they tend to
mess with him when they go because
he’s probably already in the lead and
it’s stolen things
it’s weird because uh cold express is
actually a great example of it
so in that case you have a hidden kind
of card at the start not really kind of
what we’re talking about with the
certain factions
being hidden but every starting faction
has a specific power
and in cold express uh you also have
like a day thing where every every er
the cards are shown and displayed in a
different way
each day uh or done in different rounds
so that like you know we never really
know
what the next card is you’re trying to
hunt someone down it’s really difficult
because you’re not sure if you’re going
to make it in time
or if your programming is going to work
out but the ghost card
is really powerful in cold express if
you took out the starting factions
i think the game wouldn’t be as fun okay
but
because you took out the starting
factions the developers could have put
more uh risk into say like doing
different cooler things
on those day trackers so instead of
having like the second card face down
they could go like three cards face down
or they could like or they could have it
in totally new ways or they could have
rounds where
punching takes people’s money and then
you pick it up immediately kind of like
what the native americans woman’s power
is
so all those kind of things instead of
those satisfaction powers being
a specific person and then a ghost
always winning everybody has that
starting power faction
like you know power on the board but it
appears at different times well
there’s there’s another point so do do
starting factions
like if you know a player has a powerful
starting faction does that
make them a target in the game because
whenever i get ghosts i love it because
you guys don’t know what i’m doing
so i have a very big advantage over you
guys but because of that
you guys focus on getting me so like
i now i’m playing a game against all of
you combined
so while i have the advantage of the
character i have the disadvantage of
everyone
coming after me so does a strong faction
you know
kind of balance itself out does this
does it almost work as a disadvantage
um well i’m on the con side of starting
powers producing fun
so i think yes
[Laughter]
if if we’re if we’re being serious about
it though i think the starting powers
are the mechanics of the powers can be
fun
but the problem is because they’re
associated with a specific person that
seriously reduces the fun because you
could have those mechanics done in
different places inside the game instead
and they could allow anybody to get the
powers and it’s just like you know how
if you’re playing a game where there’s
no starting fractions and one guy’s on
100 points and you’re on 70 points
and another guy’s on 60 points they’re
going to try and they’re going to try
and do king making on you and try and
bring you back from 100 all the way down
regardless of what the board situation
is or what starting powers are
so you’re always going to get that
problem of one person just maybe just
being better or being lucky look here
earlier on in the game
and you’re going to have that pull and
take but because it’s a starting power
thing that happens immediately
round one very start of the game
everyone’s going for ghost the game
hasn’t even started yet
that’s that’s the thing that kind of
worries me and i don’t necessarily
disagree with that
so i think that starting packets are a
great idea i do not think that a highly
unbalanced starting faction helps our
hinders a game i think that
especially for hidden they have to be
minor they have to be
they have to be something reasonable
they can’t be this massive
one person can just kick ass and then
everyone else is just
fighting to to take them down
i don’t necessarily think that factions
should be something that mean that you
have to form alliances
just so that you can win or they they
shouldn’t force you to
change the style of game into a
different
type of game i think that that that does
ruin the fun
because you’re playing a worker
placement game and you want to play that
sort of game you didn’t play a deception
or injury game you’re not playing
q or any of the other ones you’re you’re
playing a game that’s a work replacement
game
so it should just be something that
enhances it
and forces you to think of new
strategies and new challenges
something that having that starting
faction
is more of a thing to broaden your ideas
of what it is to play a game
and not if ghost is on the table we all
need to stop ghost
yeah i think i think having hidden
secret starting fractions
is how kind of developers decided to fix
that problem
which i think in some cases it does say
lords of waterdeep
no one knows who the builder is at the
start of the game so no one’s going to
go against that person
no one’s going to try and find them out
the only problem is halfway through the
game
it tends to become obvious what whose
secrets are what which i love that
mechanic i love finding out
hidden things about players the only
problem is once you find that
information
out then say if i’m the builder i might
be losing because i usually lose a water
leaf so i might be losing
and everyone’s still going to pick on me
because they think i’m winning and so i
can
i’ll profess my case and say yes i’m the
builder but
i’m actually losing so i don’t know
who’s going to win but it’s not going to
be me so don’t pick on me
so it just it just it kind of delays
that effect
so instead of it happening at round one
uh where everyone’s attacking ghost
it happens around five when everyone
realizes i’m the builder and but it is a
cool mechanic i do love the secret
identity i love
finding things out with the players but
but not really starting powers
or factions i think that there’s also
you can play against it as well
so like sometimes i like to just build a
lot of things in lords water deep
i like the benefits that people using
your buildings have
even if i’m not the builder and that
sometimes causes
a lot of confusion around whether i have
the building
because i think before i did a lot of
building and i wasn’t the builder
and then i won just because people
weren’t really paying attention that
much
they assumed they were trying to stop me
building things i just like that element
i like that element of there just being
a little bit of
something i i will say that this yeah
the starting powers
they do kind of work better this this
lighter the touches
when it comes to starting powers so
games like
terra mysticate where it’s almost
central to the whole reason of the game
they you can see a much bigger swing in
the balance
between the different starting factions
but then the lighter the touches so
things like
terraforming mirrors because they’re so
only only a very starting bonus
almost a starting bonus only kind of
aspect to it they
are much kind of more engaging and they
just
put everybody in a different starting
spot and say go ahead and then you all
have different
almost slightly different starts so your
whole end game is going to be slightly
different
but even considering that i would just
say just get rid of them all completely
if they get better with a lighter touch
then just take it out it’s just
is there not some games where like
having wild
chaotic starting powers you know add a
big element of fun to the game and where
you know like if everyone
is is running off in different
directions doing just
crazy stuff you know is that not is that
not more fun is it not
brings a whole wild chaotic element to
the game
santorini is is one of the games that we
absolutely love
that involves wild starting powers but i
think santorini is quite a
almost a bland game without the starting
powers i think it’s
it’s simpler than chess it’s it’s fun
but it’s
it’s not as as intriguing and then you
have these
really powerful characters like apollo
in owns hands just constantly fills the
board those little blue tops
everywhere
[Laughter]
but to me it doesn’t have to kind of
slightly ruin santorini because i i
love being atlas and uh but once i’m
atlas i don’t really care what everyone
else is
and i’m just gonna do my thing so it
doesn’t it doesn’t look like it our
santorini board by the end of it
but without the extra powers i just
don’t think the game has enough pull
i like trying to figure out how each of
the characters
like attina and aphrodite how they would
oppose each other
as opposed to always thinking
oh well owen constantly tries to build
up something in the corner or brian
maybe
tries to build up something in the
corner and block himself off from
everything i can’t remember which of you
does
but i know one of you does that’s me i
like kind of secluding myself and then
you can’t do anything to stop me you
can’t get into me
i’m just gonna win in like eight turns
so i like
trying to figure out how you would stop
the other person doing it
even though i know you both have like a
strategy you tend to like
and so you have to worry about that
strategy depending on the player
or the character you get you tend to
adjust that to something different each
time
so it’s fun to figure out how i could
use the character that i got at random
to oppose that because i think it has to
be at random in that game doesn’t it i
think you shuffled it
guards yeah so it makes it more
interesting yeah i would agree with that
i think santorini i know i should be
agreeing with the vape but
you guys have both done a lot
yeah i think we can still be against the
main topic but i think
santorini is a fantastic game where
starting powers are
kind of core to it i think the pro when
we’re talking to other
other games the other games have like
stone age and terror music and stuff
like that they have a lot of randomness
in it and it’s that randomness that
makes it competitive and kind of
engaging so in santorini
the game itself the rules are really
straightforward
and you know so you play a couple of
games without any powers just to
understand what the game is
and then you bring in the the powers i
would say
it’s a trickier game because it needs a
lot more focus and development to take
out the starting powers
you’d need some way of randomly giving
people
abilities as they do things so like you
know if they maybe if they
build a level one dome a level one
thing they get a power and but there
needs to be some other way of doing it
but yet even in santorini the powers are
so vastly different
that if you get a power that you know
you don’t like i don’t know if you’re
gonna have as much fun
now in saying that when i get atlas i
have so much fun
you know and it’s it’s really cool to to
see the interaction between players
i wouldn’t call it balanced but atlas
doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to
win it doesn’t mean you’re going to
destroy the board
doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win
though i don’t i don’t usually win
you just stop everyone else from winning
easily by
destroying everything that’s true yeah
and you’re just as likely to trap
yourself behind your walls of blue
things as you already strap anyone else
behind anything
yeah so i just find that quite a lot of
fun i find
i think that that starting power just
adds a lot of fun to the game
doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to
win or lose even though it’s an
incredibly powerful starting power
but because all the other ones like move
to the edge and build
when you’re anywhere on the board like
that’s crazy
that’s like you know if you use that
well
it means you have a load of skills that
you have to if you get
any of the different gods you have to
try and think of a strategy
that that’s gonna win with them and that
just means that you’re always on your
toes you’re always thinking
a few moves ahead to try and take
advantage of that thing
i don’t know if we go into santorini
when we play it
to have a competitive engaging game
where we’re trying to figure out who the
winner is
it’s not like chess or something like
that where two people will go in and
then we’d see who
is like better but it’s more of just
yeah i don’t know it’s on the edge of
like uh competitive and
cooperative i don’t even know how i’d
explain it but we’re not going in there
to
to see who the best is you know like
terra mystica it’s really easy to see
who’s gonna be who can build
who can terraform the most sand dunes
you can tear the most mystic out yeah
so i don’t know i don’t know how i’m
trying to say but i i don’t think he
should you can
just frame santorini in the same light
as zero once but like it’s like starting
faction is the whole point of santorini
whereas a game like stone age uh the
whole point of it is a competitive
game to see who can live in the stone
age times
i’m not sure you know what any of these
games are about really
okay so like do do do some games
need starting factions like we’re saying
santorini is a
you know it’s it’s pretty much the same
game every time without the different
gods who throw in
chaos into us i was just going to say
that if you were looking for a
competitive game to see who the best is
at santorini
you probably wouldn’t do it with the
starting factions if you were trying to
do like just a pure skill
kind of chess game now i’m not saying
that’d be fun
[Laughter]
but i would tell you who’s better at it
and this is i i
i think there’s probably the same could
be true for like terra mystica or lords
of waterloo
where if you took out the starting
factions you would find out who the best
player is
but you know i i do think those games
would be i don’t know for me it’d be
more fun because i know it’d be more
balanced
i don’t know if everybody would agree
with that but i think just starting
you know if you didn’t have those
starting fractions you still have the
randomness and the chaos and the player
interaction that you’d still have
and also have more choice as to you know
you’re not limited by your where you’re
starting infections so
i think that you’re only getting fun
from
you’re removing areas where you’re
getting fun from so like
you’re not checking in those situations
what the adaptability of that player is
you’re only checking their skill at one
of the features in the game
so in santorini you’re like you’re not
checking how adaptable and versatile the
player is to win
you’re just saying that they are good at
placing blocks
in a weird set of rules in lords water
deep you’re saying
they are good at understanding what the
most efficient way of getting points is
but like are you really testing out how
good they are at winning the game
how good they are and adapting to new
situations like isn’t that part of the
whole like
winning of the game is and then and like
following is seeing how a player can
deal with a changing landscape
like i like that yeah i i i agree with
that i think some games
alfred uh better than others so tara
miska i don’t think your strategy would
change a whole lot obviously
in in santorini you would not have the
strategy would not change
at all and you’d have you’d have moves
like the queen’s gambit
all that kind of stuff would be very
stark because they’d be so well defined
if you didn’t have certain powers but uh
lord’s worthy but that was a good
example i think of where it could
actually increase the fun because
if you didn’t have piety and paella’s
certain faction didn’t exist and you’re
playing the game
and that this the four quests that came
out were all piety
and you’re thinking to yourself all
right i don’t usually play piety
uh because i never get the chance
because the cards never come out and now
you see four party quests
and you’ve picked up a couple of piety
quests yourself from your starting hand
you’re thinking yourself yeah this could
work
and then you you try a piety for that
for that time and you see and you see
how it works
and then you’re still doing the piety
starting faction although it’s your own
choice
and it was the role of the kurds you can
you’re adapting to what the
the players start off is in lords of
waterdeep is
if you know you aren’t focused towards
one type
of quest are you not just going to find
that everyone goes for the highest point
quests
every time yeah but i think i think
george waterloo
is balanced enough that if one person
takes the highest point of quest
other people there’s still synergies in
the cards so there’s cards that
have like uh constant use cards where
you pick up a
skullduggery card and it lets you you
know do some bad things
for cheaper later on and so you’ll
always have that kind of synergy
between cards i think lords is a little
bit different because
you still get cards at the start of your
game so imagine i pick up my imagine my
certain fraction is the piety one
and then i pick up five cards and
they’re like five i think it’s five
cards
uh when you’re six i think it is it’s
only two is it okay
yeah two or five they’re both the same
number just upside down
we have mandatory quests as well but
when you pick up those cards if they’re
not your starting faction cards
then you’ve got a really tough choice to
make of going should i even care about
these quests that i just picked up
because they’re not my quests whereas if
you didn’t have a starting faction and
that you picked up two skull dug
requests
you’d be like all right guys i’m a rogue
now
i’m gonna be i’m gonna be doing rogus
stuff maybe maybe
you could solve that problem two ways
you could either have no starting
fraction or no
picking up quests and i would have
taught yeah that’s just the same thing
that there’s ways in which lighthearted
factions
if they’re if they’re only a small
influence because i guess the difference
between
the starting faction and the quest cards
is your bonuses tend to be much smaller
so like if you do a skullduggery quest
you only get two victory points for
every additional skulldugger request you
do
if that’s what the reward is whereas
or maybe it’s one victory point and it
might be four
as the starting faction you think i can
remember the points but i actually
haven’t no i can’t remember how many
points you get for any of those things
but
it’s four it’s four for the certain
fraction and and then i don’t know it’s
like one or two or so
you’re right though if you have start
infraction you’re gonna go with
skullduggery
but if you didn’t have the certain
infection and you has those two cards
you still have the cards that are laid
out on the board which means that you’re
the choice between becoming skullduggery
and not
it’s a harder choice to make because you
have to start thinking about everyone
else
and what i’m trying to say is it’s not
around one decision and
also no one will really know if your
school does recruit the entire game
because you’ll never be 100 skullduggery
you know you’ll always be like
60 you’ll touch on pilot a little bit
you can mix and match the kind of things
a little bit more but you are right that
if
a 23 story point or 23 pointer quest
comes out
everybody’s going to want it but that’s
really the same case i think
in it with stern affections just people
tend to go for their own
i think anyone would pick up a 23 point
or the 25 point
quests i think they’re all better off on
your certain faction versus those
that’s probably true people aren’t gonna
go ah you know i’m not getting the bonus
four points for that so i’m just going
to ignore those 20 something points
yeah yeah the only only issue you might
have
with this is at the start of the game if
no one has a faction
then you might just like if i go purple
brian goes
the orange guy’s kira kind has to go
black
and then isn’t that kind of deciding
what your starting fraction is
there but that might be better than just
the starting fractions being piety
because
at least if i if i go white
and curious piety i’ve just taken her
body i didn’t realize it
and now you’re on a you’re in a bad foot
or we might be competing over the same
resource and brian might not be
he might be free reign to just build as
his heart content
and then just win so it’s a tough one
that’s true sure so what’s uh let me ask
you this what about
games that have starting factions where
you know they’re not really beneficial
so like look at the likes of role for
the galaxy you know a roll for the
galaxy gives you
a different starting faction for every
player where you know you might get
extra advantages for building this type
of planet or
you know you get bonuses for shipping or
stuff like that
whereas you know the game ends when
someone builds 10 planets
so is there you know is there not a
tactic there to just
build as many planets as possible build
the highest value planets you can and
just
focus on building 10 and then you have
the best chance of winning it doesn’t
matter
if someone’s getting you know two extra
bonus points for shipping or
someone’s getting an extra dice because
you’ve finished your 10 planets
you know is that a game where starting
factions are pointless you know do you
need them
i think it’s 12 months 12 planets sorry
and i believe that you think this
because you win a lot we win
all the time with that tactic i don’t
think you win as much as you used to
nano we know that that’s your tactic
which is why i think certain factions
are important
i think that there are like strategies
that work
that transcend starting factions in some
games
i think role for the galaxy is one of
them and if you can balance
you know somebody with five planets and
remember that five pounds eight planets
can beat your twelve planets if those
eight planets are really high scoring
planets
and that has i think been the thing that
catches people up
with with using the same strategy each
time
but the point i think is that having
different starting factions means that
it can’t just be
build this you know there’s a good
chance somebody’s gonna have a certain
faction
that they are really good at using or
that they can think of a really good way
and they can stop
just the same way of winning each time
which makes it a little more fun and
means that the same thing doesn’t work
every time
i don’t know that building 12 planets
would work every time i think
it’s casual unawares it doesn’t i try
and do that all the time and i lose
a lot but i might just be doing it wrong
it’s fun game like rolling dice that’s
really why i’m there
[Laughter]
i love rolling dice i think that that uh
that really adds to it
so everyone agrees picking up like 20
dice and dumping them on the board all
at once
the the two things that you get at the
start or
one or two i kind of roll it’s kind of
like a two block but like uh
it can be one power and stuff they tend
to
be no more powerful than a normal tile
so like
in that game your certain faction is
just
so that you don’t start with zero
resources or zero anything
it’s not really but then is it is it
even worth having starting factions in
the game
if they’re so minimal that they’re
essentially pointless
i think i think uh role for the galaxy
is a tricky one because
it can be really complicated to figure
out how the best
solution is because you’re building a
machine but you’re not really sure when
it’s going to pay off
if you haven’t played the game enough
you’re you’re going to be building your
shipping routes you’re going to be
putting
trading things down on planets and
you’ll be like cool i have a little
system going here i’ll need to ship out
all the games over oh i have zero points
oh yeah and you have completely
misjudged the situation
i don’t know if certain powers are going
to help that at all or hit or even
affect it but i
i do know that the role for the galaxy
starting powers are pretty random
there’s a lot of them they’re kind of
all over the place and they do kind of
push you down a specific path yeah i was
space pirates
tree the first three games of it i
played as face pirates
and i hated space pirates i didn’t want
to be space pirates and they were random
we literally shuffled those cars each
time every time i randomly got space
pirates this is either a really
complicated ploy
by odin brian to upset me terribly
the other solution is just don’t when it
says have randomly shuffle out cards
don’t
just do whatever you want it’s your game
you can just choose to
choose whatever factions you want well
is that not a good uh
argument against having starting
factions
in a game where you know what the
starting factions are
or where you know you have one that you
really like
you know which ones are crap you know
which ones are good if you get a bad
starting faction
does that not take away from the fun of
the game from the word go
i think that i just was unlucky i don’t
mind
getting space pirates three times in a
row though randomly out of all the dials
just sucked but but that that one
example aside like
look at look at any other game with
starting factions where you have one you
like
or you have one you think is crap you
know if you’re dealt that from the word
go
does that not take away from the fun of
the game you’re already starting
you know on a bad foot would it not
would the game not be more fun
if you didn’t start on a negative i
don’t think it’s that straightforward
i think there are and there are some
badly balanced cards
in any game but there’s badly balanced
rules in games
i’ll give you a very old example we
traveled the world for five months
back many many years ago and we had to
take out cards
we only brought like four games and they
were all card games and one of them was
monopoly card game which was probably a
bad idea but we we this is before we
were into board games that much
and we had a very limited amount of
games and we had to take out cards
from that game and just get rid of them
or change the rules on them
because they were so rubbish if one of
them was like you could
just win a whole section or something
like that
i can’t remember what it was but it gave
you three cards and whoever got
it won and like that is a a problem with
that game that game just has
a badly balanced card in it that
shouldn’t be in that deck
some starting factions do reduce fun yes
i
[Laughter]
some certain factions are badly balanced
but like some components and games are
body balanced
like you can’t you can’t say staring
fractions are bad
just based on some really bad examples
of them being implemented
starting factions would add a lot to
stone age
starting fractions do add a lot to
santorini and they
do add a lot too and i think they do
have a lot of watery
i actually think the lords of water jeep
is a good game
i disagree that the deck i think the
deck is too big
i think that but i like the fact that
you have starting factions i enjoy that
i have to figure out what other people
starting fractions are
i think that lord’s water would be worse
if it didn’t have certain factions
and i don’t think that having those two
quests would be enough
i think that if everyone got to pick
based on the cards that were out on the
table it’d be too transparent
if you only got two quest cards and four
quest cards came out
and you picked between them everyone
would see more of your hand
than they see in a normal game
so they would just be able to guess what
you’re what you’re planning
and they’ll be able to tell what you
have bonuses for so
transparently that there’ll be nothing
to try and figure out
yeah but the thing is in in lords of
water it doesn’t take you that long to
figure out who
who’s what so if someone picks someone
backs three party quests they know
they’re the party guy
so they’re gonna if they can they’re
gonna block piety anytime they can
like if four party come out and that
person’s winning they’re gonna clear the
board
the problem is if there’s no starting
factions and the person picks up tree
piety
that could just be their early game you
know you fall into my trap i am not
doing piety mid game or late game
i’m changing my tactics so in that case
you can you can always like
or you can also just like if someone
tries to remove the piety stuff you’re
not
winning on piety pilot doesn’t change it
at all so
not having starting factions would help
a lot um i would say on the on the point
of
roll for the galaxy though the starting
factions are really random but
i find anyway that everything is random
and role for the galaxy you’ve got the
dice you’re gonna roll which is super
random
then you’re picking up planets which how
could different colors do in all sorts
of different things
but then with abilities and developments
that are all super different as well
it means that you almost have no choice
ever you can’t
you get a whole lot of things you’re
like okay i’ll put this blue planet
beside this
red ability i don’t know what i can do
so maybe that’s not the best example for
the galaxy um
so owen what about games like villainous
vilnius is
you know it’s more or less a multiplayer
solitaire game where everyone’s trying
to achieve
different tasks different goals sure
they can interact with each other but
for the most part you’re trying to
complete your own
little quest the starting factions in
there give different people
different unique advantages but it’s one
that benefits them
but not necessarily hinders other
players you know
does something like that not work quite
well uh it’s been a long time since i
played vilnius
so um i don’t know
concise i like it i just
[Laughter]
what about owen can you give me an
example of a game
where you like the starting factions
where you think it really benefits the
game itself
i think a good example of that is
probably terraforming mirrors
i love the idea it’s a very light touch
now the rest of the game i don’t like
don’t get me wrong
but i like this i like the starting
factions of it
the fact that it sets up the game based
on uh what kind of corporation you are
coming onto mars
um is great but also the fact is in
terrifying mirrors they have a default
faction okay or default starting power
and this is the it’s what beginners play
beginners pick one and they’ll go and
everybody can be that starting faction
or someone who’s more advanced could try
a different one and they let people go
off on their merry way
and try a different strategy if they
want to the best thing about this
is first of all it doesn’t cause
everybody to pick on
one guy so even if one guy picks a new
corporation
and they’re trying a new tactic not
everyone’s going to pick on that person
because of their faction because they’re
they don’t really affect the game too
much
because there’s no powers that they have
through the game
but the fact is they have a default
faction that everybody can pick and i
don’t i think
like games like lords of water will be
might might solve the problem if they
had a default faction
that say gave them four points for doing
something else
for every quest two points for every
quest and for every building they built
something like that
uh just a point for everything that
could work but at that point you’re
really talking about not having a
faction at all
so in that case i would just be like in
terraforming mirrors it sounds like a
faction but really it’s just a starting
off point
and if you just had no factions at all
and you just said everybody gets this at
the start of the game
pretty much the same thing it’s like the
mechanics of the game and it
from from the from round one it no
longer affects the rest of the game you
could forget about what factions are it
doesn’t matter
and so that’s why i love that and but
it’s more of like a do you know how like
you can have
variant setups to games it’s kind of
like that except for
each person can choose a variant setup
that all work together but in this at
the same thing i still think it’s more
fun if we just everybody
removed that and just said you just did
it without it
okay okay and kiera can you think of a
game
that you know has a lot of starting
factions where you think it doesn’t work
i think gaia project is a good example
of that and in gaia project it’s very
very complicated
to win anyway at the best of times
having a starting faction on your mind
can even though i like the less analysis
paralysis
i think that it’s quite difficult to
find
a path to winning as it is it doesn’t
need the extra
burden of very complicated trying to
wing in your piece and other people’s
pieces
and the variance in powers between those
starting fractions is also a pain
okay so there you have us pros and cons
on both sides
own do you want to give us any closing
statements against
starting factions and games yeah i think
uh as you’ve probably got from this
podcast there’s like lots of different
categories when it comes to
starting fractions like some that only
affect the start of the game the setup
some that are bonuses throughout and
some that are imbalanced and there’s
loads of examples we’ve given
but i think we can safely say that just
taking the selling powers out
would usually mean increased amount of
fun uh but you know it depends if it
like
obviously it depends on the game and the
randomness and the choice
but in most cases just take it out yeah
i think if you’re if you’re still
struggling with a game with starting
fractions take it out
even though i was one of the person who
gave an option of putting it in for
stone age i’m not really sure why i did
that early on in the podcast
but uh yeah take it out
and kira have you got and to say in
favor of
starting factions yes i think
there’s a lot of games in a lot of the
genres but particularly in worker
placement
that would just become too boring
without staring factions
i think that the fun element needs to
come from things changing
i don’t think that if a game is well
tuned
and there’s no variance players will
just play the exact same pattern each
time
and i just think that i would get bored
so i think that all of the fun
comes from forcing people to do things
that they weren’t planning on doing so
that it’s different each time
um and i think that their certain
factions
are the best
concise to the point
so there you have it everyone that about
wraps it up for our first debate
you know did did all this back and forth
change your opinion on unique starting
powers and advantages in games
who do you think wanted a base
personally as moderator
me i say brian and since i have the
final vote
brian good work brian proud of you
couldn’t have done better but do leviton
do let us know on social media or on the
podcast
what you think who won was akira was it
own
do you like starting factions do you not
like starting factions you can find us
everywhere
if you’ve enjoyed us please share us we
have been decking awesome games and
thank you for listening
see you later bye
