Game: Strange Synergy

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

laurion — 2008-08-29T13:38:33+00:00

Harv wrote:
laurion wrote:
(O)ne tactic for the scientists is to immediately drop everything and have one character pick it all up, making for one uber-character.

What a great idea - haven't thought of that tactic (give me a break, I haven't played SS much!). I guess this is the reason why some gadgets eg. some kinds of 'armour' are not able to be dropped.

It's a good game. It does occasionally suffer from the 'luck of the draw', which is probably why it isn't as highly rated on the 'geek. I notice a lot of the heavier gamers run and cower when faced with the prospect of uncontrollable luck. But overall, if you play it a few times, it balances out. And even when you've got a bad hand, it's still a lot of fun.

I think of undroppable armors as either too cumbersome to drop (you strip out of full plate quickly!), or innate, like the metallic alloys of the Terminators....

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

Harv — 2008-08-29T13:29:30+00:00

laurion wrote:
(O)ne tactic for the scientists is to immediately drop everything and have one character pick it all up, making for one uber-character.

What a great idea - haven't thought of that tactic (give me a break, I haven't played SS much!). I guess this is the reason why some gadgets eg. some kinds of 'armour' are not able to be dropped.

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

Harv — 2008-08-29T13:27:45+00:00

The Scientist team look coolest and have the Star Wars 'Imperial' cog-symbol as their logo. That is their REAL power.

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

kusinohki — 2008-08-28T06:13:21+00:00

laurion wrote:
Don't forget that the flag counts as a gadget, and that the cats only get their bonus if they are holding two or fewer gadgets.I thought the cats only got their bonus if they weren't carrying any gadgets.

Didn't know the flag counted as a gadget either. I do vaguely remember something about it being treated like a gadget for dropping/picking up purposes.

It's been a really long time since I've played/read the rule book though...

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

brdparker — 2008-08-28T02:42:48+00:00

Good points all around. Thanks for the reply

Thread: Re: The point of the scientists' power?

laurion — 2008-08-27T22:01:13+00:00

Don't forget that the flag counts as a gadget, and that the cats only get their bonus if they are holding two or fewer gadgets. Also note that although you have to start the game with three cards per character, one tactic for the scientists is to immediately drop everything and have one character pick it all up, making for one uber-character.

But I tend to agree that theirs is a power that isn't as useful as the others. The other powers are active by default whereas the scientists need to meet a certain condition *before* their power is of any value.

But this game is built for house rules, options, new variants, etc. So if you don't like their power, change it. Maybe you'd like to strip it out and give scientists one extra hit point for every gadget they have (now maximum of 3). Or make every weapon gadget do one more point of damage in their hands (sort of a complementary power to the goths), or make it so scientists can trade gadgets willy-nilly in the same square, without having to go through the same drop-pickup games, or let scientists in adjacent squares 'borrow' any one gadget from an ally on their turn, or....

You get the idea.

Thread: The point of the scientists' power?

brdparker — 2008-08-27T20:03:57+00:00

So orcs get +1 HP, Goths get +1 base attack, cat people get +1 move, and scientists get... the ability to use any number of gadgets? Personally, I've never needed more than 3 gadgets (if any) in a game, so what's the point?

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laiernie — 2008-05-12T18:02:54+00:00

game map, blue side

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laiernie — 2008-05-12T18:02:22+00:00

game map, brown side

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laiernie — 2008-05-12T18:01:40+00:00

box back

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laiernie — 2008-05-12T18:01:03+00:00

box front

Thread: Re: broken powers combo

ItchyD — 2008-04-15T01:51:14+00:00

I think that is probably more likely to create unbalanced combos.

Thread: Re: Review: Strange Synergy - Kinda Like HeroClix without the dials or well known characters.

ced1106 — 2008-03-24T19:30:07+00:00

Thanks for the review!

The game does indeed have a learning curve. Not only do you have to decide which character gets which power (read: how to best combo the power crds), but you have to first learn the basic rules as well. Most BGG'ers wouldn't have a problem with this, but it's a bit of a bump compared to other SJG.

Still, I haven't had any problems playing it with new players, particularly to CCG'ers. Selecting which character gets which power is CCG glee. Also, I've only played it multiplayer, which seems to work itself out better.

Amusingly, IIRC, the base game's Capture the Flag starts off with each player choosing another player's flag to capture. If two players decide to capture the same flag... it's gets amusing.

Speaking of comic books, if you get around to making a RPG-ish or campaign game or adventure for SS, please do!

aka. Washu! ^O^

Thread: Review: Strange Synergy - Kinda Like HeroClix without the dials or well known characters.

BrucecO — 2008-03-24T08:21:15+00:00

I had to get this game the other night after reading about the basic concept. I love the idea of a deck of random powers, and having to cobble heroes together out of them. It makes for an interesting idea with the same feel as heroclix, but without the large amounts of movement or the ability to create a team that works well together. This games biggest asset, is also its biggest problem which is the idea of the powers being random. A very fun idea, but in a two player game this makes knowing when to concede a very important skill. Sometimes one member of a team is so important that if lost the game is over, it will just take 50 or 60 turns to make that outcome final. The game can drag on a little, but I would imagine that a game of more than 3 players would be a lot of fun, and I think a lot of the heroclix and crimson skies maps might also work with this game.

PLAYING PARTS/CARDS:

The cards are as high a quality as you are going to see in most any game, about the quality of Bicycles or Bees. The pieces are all cardboard, which I think might become a problem after 50 or so games of this. A lot of the cardboard pieces are very small and insert into the cardboard warrior pieces, I think this will cause things to get hurt after a while. Hopefully better playing pieces will be made, like they have for Munchkin.

EASE OF PLAY:

If you are already a heroclix player this game is very easy to pick up and understand. If you arent I imagine this is still not very hard to figure out. The only problem I foresee is with trying to figure out how powers interact, which is just a bit dicey no matter how much you play heroclix. Its good to talk it out, and let everyone figure out how to rule some of the cards. With time I think this game gets easier to figure out, it just takes a little getting used to the powers and how to use them. This is not the easiest game to pick up and play, but with gamers or clixers this will not take more than one game to get used to.

STRATEGY VS LUCK:

Any game with a deck of cards is going to be random, and this game is no exception. The luck of the draw can hold the end of the game, before the first turn starts. If you draw powers that dont work well together, or that void your team ability, you are in a lot of trouble, and there is not much you can do to dig yourself out of the hole, thats just the way it goes. The strategy is in formation, movement and placement of powers. I have seen most games won and lost over putting the right powers together, and in a capture the flag game, the flag with the right member. This is not ALL luck, but more than a lot of board games.

HOUSE RULES OR PERSONAL CHANGES:

In the rule book Steve Jackson games suggests a few different versions of how you can play this game. I think more than most games, SS lends itself to many, many different versions. They suggest capture the flag, and deathmatch, a version with 3 characters per team, and a version with 2, a fragish version with hit points and gadgets on the board. I like all of these, and also think a league version, with the ability to get extra powers, and guaranteed powers for future games might be amusing. As would a tourney game where characters that get killed are lost in the next round of play, making the surrender option one you would actually consider.

In the box are 6 teams, 4 that are preconstucted, and two that just have a base and flag, you need to make the team ability, so my ideas for a few new team abilities:

Wizard team: after every other team gets their power cards, this team starts from the top card of the deck and takes the first 9 power cards with the Magic ability

Robot Team: same as the wizard team, but they get ALL the leftover gadgets, and lose a HP every time they lose a gadget, like the power card robot body you can be effected by magnetism.

Ghost team: this team can always move diagonally for the movement part of their turn.

The beyonders : they can see all hidden power cards from all players, but cant warn one team about anothers abilities.

Just a few thoughts, I have to admit I have yet to try them out, but I think they might be amusing.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

I think a lot of people are going to cry about broken cards, and broken combos in this game, but thats just how it works. All the cards break the rules in huge ways OR allow you to have an offensive or defensive bonus. So by nature of the way the game is made the cards will be broken, you just have to hope that your opponent will not have the right cards at the right time, or wont see how to put them together.

The game is a lot of fun, especially for comic book fans, it can get a little tedious if you dont know when you are beaten, but for the most part a great game that is worth the time and money.

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broken_halo20575 — 2007-12-09T02:53:13+00:00

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rseater — 2007-11-01T08:06:14+00:00

A token-heavy game.

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rseater — 2007-11-01T08:05:51+00:00

As I have come to expect from Steve Jackson Games, the cards are interesting but not very well balanced. Certain single cards are simply better than other single cards, undermining the games supposed focus on clever synergies.

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rseater — 2007-11-01T08:04:37+00:00

Character cards for 4 teams.

Thread: Beer & Pretzels? Try Pop Rocks & Coke

mattlaclair — 2007-09-08T02:40:08+00:00

"Hey, uh, you wanna' play a board game?" I almost wince at my brother as he asks me the question. A friend of ours is dropping by and we know he's going to want to play Axis & Allies. I have work in the morning, and I can't be up 'til all hours of the night piling infantry into Moscow. I need a game quick. I scan my "filler" games... euros? too dry... Tom Jolly stuff? Not chaotic enough... Epic Duels? Nah, we played a Star Wars game last week. C'mon, c'mon, think! I need something simple, I don't want to explain a lot of rules, and I want it to be over quick... AHA!

Enter Steve Jackson Games' Strange Synergy, a semi-tactical, pseudo-miniatures combat game that feels right at home alongside Munchkin, Awful Green Things from Outer Space, Ninja Burger, and the rest of SJG's quirky catalogue. In this game of "bizarre battles", depth and subtlety take a super-powered punch to the grill and chaos is the order of the day.

Actually, Synergy plays more like a really violent "capture the flag" than a true skirmish game. Every player is given a flag to hold onto, and a flag they must get in addtion to their own. The first player to kill whomever is holding the flags they need and return to their home base is the winner. The rules are ridiculously simple, covering basic movement (move 2 spaces) and combat (roll a die, 4-6 inflicts one damage on an opponent) and that's about it. While there is a bit more to the rules, they really just serve as a framework upon which to hang the real meat of the game, the power cards. There are 100 different power cards which represent everything from conventional weapons to Wile E. Coyote-approved rocket skates and giant magnets, magic spells to run-of-the mill super powers like laser eyes or elastic skin. During setup, each character is given three of these cards and they more or less determine what a player can do on his turn.

The cards have the dubious distiction of being both Strange Synergy's coolest feature and it's biggest handicap. Since every player's powers are drawn at random at the beginning of the game, chances are good that one or two characters will end up being inordinately strong while the others are left with badly mismatched or downright useless skills. Worse still is the chance that none of the more enjoyable abilities will even factor into the game, making for a wishy-washy run, punch, repeat affair. However, they do pretty much ensure that every play will end up totally different. One play could see a warrior turning his hapless victims into zombies, while another could feature lots of gunplay and explosions, or maybe a warrior could just run around gagging people with his horrible stench.

So when you get right down to brass tacks, Strange Syngergy isn't a very good game. It feels poorly play tested, wildly unbalanced, and to say the components are mediocre would be exceedingly generous. However, the game does manage to skillfully sidestep the common pitfalls that make similar offerings less playable. First of all, it sets up and plays quickly. I was able to re-read the rules, teach them to new players, set up the board and distribute the power cards in a matter of minutes. Gameplay itself is just as swift, you'll barely have time to blink between the end of your turn and the beginning of your next, and reasonably attentive players can finish up in well under an hour. Secondly, the board is rather confined and since movement and attacks must be made orthigonally in most cases, feinting and maneuvering have a pronounced effect on the gameplay. Lastly, and most importantly, the game doesn't take itself too seriously.

That's really the key to enjoying Strange Syngergy, if you're willing to accept the fact that it's all sizzle no steak, there's a decent amount of fun to be had with this madcap mash-up. If you're expecting it to be a competitive test of skill and strategy, not only will you be disappointed, but you'll be somewhat missing the point. Sporting a rule book that makes Frag look like ASL and the decency not to overstay its welcome, Strange Synergy is perfect for when your light games just aren't light enough.

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Herr Niemand — 2006-07-06T18:10:05+00:00

it's your turn...

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Herr Niemand — 2006-07-06T07:14:33+00:00

the chintzy bits -- I've thrown away more substantial confetti!

Thread: Re: Voodoo effecting the same die roll more than once.

laurion — 2005-12-20T21:42:19+00:00

Voodoo costs a point every time you use it? There's one that costs to use, in which case, it is the one that can be used multiple times, as long as the player is willing to pay the cost. This is different from something like Rabbit's Foot, which explicitly states how often it can be used.

Thread: Voodoo effecting the same die roll more than once.

julien_crawford — 2005-12-20T04:38:13+00:00

Yes, I know this is rorty.

It does NOT explicitly say you can not, therefore a friend on mine is saying it Should be allowed.
I however believe it is implied, and is not mentioned as too much game lawyering can make the cards too difficult to read in the first place.

It would help if they had just said, "Once per die roll" or something though.

Thread: Re: Mind control

julien_crawford — 2005-12-09T04:12:38+00:00

The Yahoo group has answered this.

You can NOT control them out off the board, as they need to do this 'volletarily'.

I'd say though that you can leave them in a solid object and make the tangable.

Thread: Mind control

G.I.R. — 2005-11-20T19:25:39+00:00

Can I use mind control on an opponent's hero to force him leave the game board (flee) or perhaps make him unintangle inside an obstacle (which would instantly kill him/her)?

Thread: Re: User Review

Mishenka — 2005-09-01T23:42:33+00:00

Having never played SS, but being a huge Wiz War fan, I may have a suggestion for balancing this game.
In Wiz War while there are certainly wild combinations of cards that can make your opponent temporarily hard to beat (or put you in a bad situation), you are drawing new cards every turn and after a few turns can usually come up with some cards that will overcome the problem.
It seems the problem in SS is that once you draw the cards you're stuck with them for the rest of the game, which can the lead to the stalemates being described.
How about adding rules that allow you to exchange one of your power for a random new one (say at the price of missing a turn or two), or adding some ability that let you strip away a power from an opponent (again at some cost). It seems that in this case even someone with a seemingly involnarable power combination may still be beaten.
Again, as I said, I havn't played the game, so I may be way off base, but this struck me as a possible solution to the balance problem.

Thread: Session Report: Strange Synergy

JRedGiant — 2005-07-08T19:09:54+00:00

Members Playing: Hoss, Pooh, Divil, Stormy and myself.

So we busted out a 5-player version of Strange Synergy last night. I had never played the game before. First step during setup was to determine a team power for the 5th team - something in line with the other four teams. It was decided that the "Cult of Thunder" would be dealt one additional power at startup and that the player would choose and discard one. So we got started.

My two warriors were decked out - one with Eye Beams, Magic Door and Trade, the other with Invisibility, Chameleon, Strength and Glue.

We played on the larger Frag board. The map created lengthy walls and and made line of site difficult in some areas. We decided to randomly place bases on the spawn spots on the Frag board which was, in retrospect, a bad idea.

The game started with a bang as Pooh shot and killed one of Hoss's warriors with the Rifle before he even had a turn, as Hoss was set up close to Pooh and was carrying his flag. A few turns later Hoss was knocked out. I had ported my sniper in range to finish off one of Pooh's warriors however.

After that, a stalemate ensued. Stormy had Inner Peace going with Prayer on one of his warriors, ensuring he'd never be hit and the other warrior, Intangible with Shuriken, would be able to deliver a heinous blast. Neither my Magic Dooring sniper nor my Invisible Chameleon could seriously threaten either Divil (one of his warriors was camping his base with Power Up and got to 17 life) or Stormy and Divil couldn't hit any of us. Pooh was left hamstrung with a rather ineffectual warrior. We ended up quitting early on the game.

Not a tremendously interesting report, granted, but one that points out one of the flaws of the game. The random distribution of powers makes it far too likely that the game will end up in a stalemate or a quick kill. I think this game has the ability to really shine, but it's in desperate need of some house rules.

Thread: Re: User Review

glookose — 2005-06-13T19:56:11+00:00

I played twice and both times I was crippled by really bad initial card draw. The game seemed broken in that respect and was not any fun for me. The gist of what I am hearing from this review and the comments from it is that ..."yes its broken, but as long as you are playing with people who don't take anything seriously, you can sacrifice a game or two to some terrible combo or boring stalemate" or "yes its broken, but imagine how much fun you will have on the 1 time out of 10 plays against a power combo, where you actual David-and-Goliath them"

Well as far as beer and pretzels games go, I have a ton of them and so I don't think I will be sacrificing valuable game-night time for no reason or on the vain hope that I might beat an unbeatable combo. I am not going to play this one again unless different rules for choosing initial powers are published somewhere ...somebody mentioned an auction for powers ..maybe that would help. If I play a game twice and get card screwed both times, what incentive would I have to play it again? There are other superhero type games out there with balance.

No offense, the powers themselves are cool,and good job on coming up with 100 of them, but this game needs some tweaking. I wish I could offer a better suggestion but I didn't feel the urge to play this enough to become familiar with it and offer anything more helpful.

Thread: Re:Tournament rules for Strange Synergy

laurion — 2005-04-19T19:06:14+00:00

As a note, you could easily change it so that walking off the board incurred a loss of 5 points. That should swing the arm even further in the direction of a fight to the finish.

Thread: Re:Tournament rules for Strange Synergy

laurion — 2005-04-19T18:43:47+00:00

grantham wrote:
I imagine that the rule about walking off the board would be open to abuse. For example, if it was down to the last two players, anyone ahead by more than 5 points could walk off the board to ensure victory.

Perhaps, but over several games you should find that the kill points count for a lot more than the survival points. This is not designed for scoring a single game, but for scoring across many games in a tournament. Again, without testing, I can't predict which flaws will come out over a string of games.

Thread: Re:Tournament rules for Strange Synergy

grantham — 2005-01-14T17:59:04+00:00

I imagine that the rule about walking off the board would be open to abuse. For example, if it was down to the last two players, anyone ahead by more than 5 points could walk off the board to ensure victory.

Thread: Tournament rules for Strange Synergy

laurion — 2005-01-09T16:58:16+00:00

Tournament Rules for Strange Synergy

These are for a 4 player game, feel free to modify as appropriate for more or less players.

Standard fight to the death rules apply, with the following changes and scoring system:

For each character your team kills, you get 5 points. No one scores points for characters that walk off the board, but neither do they count as surviving the fight.

For each person eliminated from the game before you, you receive 5 points for surviving. i.e.:
first person out receives 0 points
second person receives 5 points
third person out receives 10 points
last person standing receives 15 points.

This should give a decent award for survival, but place greater emphasis on the real nature of a fight to the death game: eliminating characters.

Modified rules for setup are as follows:
Roll to determine who goes first. (High roll, as always, is preferred).
Starting with that player, and going clockwise, each player selects a team.
At this time, a player may opt to sacrifice the team power for a bonus of 5 points. e.g, the orcs would start with 6 hit points, the cats would only move 2 spaces, etc.
Deal out the standard 9 power cards to each player.
In the interest of reducing the element of a bad deal, each player may discard one power card and draw a replacement for free. Additional cards may be discarded and replaced at a penalty of -5 points to that players per card discarded.

These rules have not been tested. Please leave me a message here on BGG if you try them out, and let me know how they work out for you. Let me know if there are any adjustments or alterations you find necessary.

Laurion

Thread: Re:User Review

Ebon Wendigo — 2004-12-16T06:15:30+00:00

stevenmathers (#69515),

An interesting variant that I heard about but haven't yet tried myself is to play Strange Synergy using the Frag board. It's bigger so you probably have to increase their movement a little to compensate. Also have you tried Deadlands Frag? I think it's a better game.

Thread: Re:User Review

stevenmathers — 2004-12-16T00:17:30+00:00

Jpwoo (#69751),

yeah, it is replayable. I played exactly 1 game of frag and thought it was crapola.

Thread: Session Report

laurion — 2004-12-13T16:42:57+00:00

The BSCF had a run of Strange Synergy last night that proved to be, well, strange. There were a lot of modifier powers involved, but few attack powers. My team (orcs) had Options, The Moves, Speed, and Grace between them, and another player had Fast. One player had a character which was Two Heads, Mind Control, and Elastic Body. It proved to be a very unsatisfying game, which was too bad, as it was the first game for one of the players. Fortunately, as I've said before, the nature of the game is that every once in a while you'll turn up a dud like that, and we all agreed that we wouldn't hold it against the game.

Thread: Re:User Review

Jpwoo — 2004-12-08T09:14:11+00:00

its much more fun to play than Frag and about 20 times more re-playable.

Does this mean that I will play this game about 20 times? Cause frag didn't make it past 1.

Thread: User Review

stevenmathers — 2004-12-07T14:27:26+00:00

I like this game. its much more fun to play than Frag and about 20 times more re-playable.

if you are new to the game, I advise really agonizing over the distribution of your power cards for your characters. this is the most important part of the game, and if you hurry people they will end up with dud characters and a lame game. Perhaps if its your first game, try 4 turns as a test so you can understand how the game works, then start again.

because there are so many power combinations, it is impossible to balance such a game, so if you find there is the odd game that ends quickly because of a super-character, just go with it.

there are a few grey areas in the rules such as the minotaur thing mentioned below, but they are quickly resolved by common sense. i.e. if the minotaur power gives more damage from charging an opponents over a longer distance (character gains speed with a runup), it makes sense that using teleport is not going help because the teleporting character would be appearing at the same speed in the target square that he left the source square.

a nice game, I like it because replayable beer and pretzel games are rare.

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

MostTornBrain — 2004-10-25T01:49:54+00:00

Kirrine (#51614),

I agree the $30 list price is a bit steep. If you look around online, there are places selling it for about $20. Best online price I've seen for the game so far is $18 from Wal-Mart (www.wal-mart.com).

Brian

Thread: Re:Questions Questions Questions

laurion — 2004-09-17T16:07:00+00:00

gsstark (#31785),

4) according to a posting from SJGames elsewhere, it is just like a normal move; i.e, you can change direction in the middle. Logically, if I'm holding the magnet, there's no good reason I can't swing it from side to side. I'm not too clear on how you can use it to push the person _away_ from you though....

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

Kirrine — 2004-08-29T18:59:51+00:00

Matt Ruff (#18857),

I cant agree with you more that Steve Jackson games are WAY overpriced, the production values of the games that they put out do not in any way match up with the retail prices. That being said I did like this game and did in fact buy it bot only after I found a copy at a closeout sale for a SoCal gamestore. $15 ... now I thats more like it!

Thread: Session Report

cyberkev63 — 2004-07-16T23:21:50+00:00

Mike had to get home, which was good in that it gave Nate and I the chance to win a game! We decided to open my shrinkwrapped copy of Strange Synergy. After reading the rules and punching all the counters, however, we decided that we were too tired to actually play the game. So this will just be a "first impressions" sort of report.

Strange Synergy is basically a superhero brawl. Warriors with various powers (from gadgets, bio-modification, advanced skill, mutation, super-powers, and/or magic) try to capture another team's flag and hold on to their own. Of course, one way to get another team's flag is to kill all of its warriors....

How to play:

Each player (up to four) chooses a team of three warriors. They then randomly draw 9 powers from a deck of 100. These powers are then assigned to the warriors - three powers to each. In addition, each team has its own innate advantage: The green Orcs start with 7 life points rather than 6; the red Goths do 2 points of damage with a basic strike rather than 1; the yellow cats move 3 squares rather than 2 if they are not carrying gadgets; and the blue Mad Scientists may carry any number of gadgets, not just three.

Once your warriors are prepped, everyone places their home bases and warriors on the map and the fracas begins!

Comments:

First, this is a Steve Jackson game (not designed by him, but put out by his company), which means that it has a high price tag ($29.95; though you can get it online for about $21.00) for meager components (112 cards, three counter sheets of thin cardboard, a paper gameboard, 12 plastic bases for the cardboard warrior figures, and a die - but the die is a cool purple!).

Second, this is an older-style American game. That means lots of text - a game may have as many as 40 different active powers - with lots of exceptions and specific cases.

Third, it's a chaotic bash-fest with dice-rolling and a serious possibility of unbalanced teams.

So if you're still reading this, you'll probably like this game! I'm not entirely sure how I will feel about it. I pretty much knew what it was when I bought it - and I've had a history of liking such games - but I've also noticed recently that my gaming tastes have changed since my earlier gaming days. It's really just a matter of *time* and finding other players that are willing to devote to the game.

It seems to me that the game has a good chance of running long. However, several of the comments on BoardGameGeek suggest that it moves quickly. And I can see that many of the powers do a fair amount of damage, given that (most) players have only 6 life points, so that would speed things up.

Clearly, I need to play it. I'm looking forward to doing so!

No rating until I've played.

-- SUMO! --

Since we weren't going to play Strange Synergy, I quickly taught Nate how to play Sumo! and we played an enjoyable match of just one bout (which I won).

And thus ended another enjoyable gaming session! I'm just sorry that we didn't work in any of the games from my ever-increasing Alan Moon collection. But there's always next week....

Thread: Re:User Review -- BS!

Game Geek — 2004-06-14T16:06:20+00:00

tempid (#25184),
UPDATE:

It's been almost a year since I posted this review and even managed to play a few more games since then.

I have learned that my enjoyment of Strange Synergy depends more on the PEOPLE that you play with than the game itself. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and there's a bunch of great games that only work well with certain type of gamers (just check out my "it's not the game it's who you play with" Geeklist).

Strange Synergy is for gamers who want to play a light game full of chaos and excitement. This game does not work well with rules lawyers, power gamers, munchkins, and any other type of gamer that focus on exploiting the rules or insisting on playing to the letter of the law.

As long as players cordially agree not to make totally invulnerable combos, combos that don't do anything except annoy people, "sharp shooter" combos, etc...

Basically, Strange Synergy can a fun and fast gaming experience as long as players agree to make reasonably powerful characters so you can all jump into the fray as soon as possible. This honor system dramatically speed up our playing time and eliminated most of the rules loopholes that tend to pop up. Some of our game were as short as 30 mins to an hour.

The point I'm trying to make is that you'll want to consider what type of gamers you plan on playing SS with. Despite Temp Id's claim of being a STRATEGY GAME, strategy gamers will probably hate it and ruin your playing experience (something I learned the hard way). SS can be a great game for beer-&-pretzel fans though.

Happy gaming

Thread: Re:Questions Questions Questions

Lardarse — 2004-05-10T14:35:16+00:00

leprejuan (#32036),

3: You have the choice, a normal move, or an unpredictable one

5: He loses 3 for being hit, and then another 6 for losing the Tough ability

LA Greg

Thread: One rule variant

Ebon Wendigo — 2004-05-08T05:57:42+00:00

This game is great fun especially for an old time four color comics fan like me. What could be cooler than a fast paced game where you can bash your buddies with super powers and great gadgets like super magnets. We found only two problems with this game. One is a small one and the other is a real big one, particularly in certain situations.

The first problem is the bad draw of powers one might occassionally experience. Drawing nine powers is just big enough a group to most of the time even things out. While all the powers are useful it is possible for one player to come up with combos that are decidedly more dynamic and effective.

The bigger problem is when one player, or even worse, two players are unbeatable with the powers that are in use. This can happen with combinations of such powers as "Great Reflexes", "Electro Zap", "Intangibility", "Rubber Body", Bulletproof", "Flameblast", "Intelligence", "Scales", "Robot Body", and "Inner Peace". If you're immune to two or more kinds of damage and your opponant/s don't have access to the type of damage they need to have any effect on you and they can't nullify you in any other way then you might as well stop playing because you have already won. You might not think this happens very much but it happens enough to be annoying, and particularly annoying is finding out that there are two players who cannot hurt each other so the game comes to an indecisive and wholly unsatisfactory halt.

The variant that we came up with is simplly this one rule: On your turn one or more of your warriors instead of moving and/or striking may instead discard one of his/her power cards and draw a new one from the top of the deck.

This rule is simple to follow and it allows you to balance out some of the randomness of the initial draw. It also allows you access to powers that may give you a chance against that unbeatable opponent, if you can hold him off long enough. It also cycles more powers through the game which can a wild and fun experience in itself. This the only way I play this game now and I think it works great. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Thread: Re:Systematic Synergy 3D

leprejuan — 2004-04-02T04:53:43+00:00

MarkMeredith11 (#24913),
We played with this house rule: flags cannot turn invisible or intangible.

It's been fine for us, except the game where I had mind control, confuse, and bedazzle in a two-player game. My opponent didn't have much fun, but at least it was over quickly.

Thread: Re:Questions Questions Questions

leprejuan — 2004-04-02T04:48:00+00:00

These are just guesses, but here you go.

gsstark (#31785),
1) Freeze says you unfreeze on a successful strike. Does that mean *any* successful strike? Or just a normal strike? Ie, can I unfreeze people with grenades or the human bomb?

I think yes, even mental strikes, so you don't lose your character so much.

3) Does caffeine replace your normal move at the start of the game so that warrior has no normal move? Or does it give him the option of replacing his normal move on every individual turn and he can choose to take his normal move instead?

I think it gives you the option.

4) Giant Magnet says you can move someone two squares in any direction. Does that mean in a straight line? Or can you move someone up and then right?

In a direction, without changes, like knockback.

5) In our game the Chameleon gained Tough from another character giving him 6 extra points. Then he got hit for 3 points. When the effect wears off and he loses Tough does he lose 6 points or 3?

He loses all 6. Look at the heading Death Through Power Loss.

I hope that helped...

Thread: Re:Questions Questions Questions

gsstark — 2004-03-29T22:22:27+00:00

Oh, just found that #2 is in fact answered in the rules. A normal strike is Hard damage.

Thread: Questions Questions Questions

gsstark — 2004-03-29T19:16:09+00:00

I just picked this up and played it last night. I thought it was great. I do have a comment though and a whole slew of questions:

comment: I would suggest starting with only two warriors per team at least until everyone's seen most of the cards. Otherwise it just takes too long to read all the cards. A 4 person game with 3 warrior teams has almost 36-40 cards to read before you can actually start playing, and some of them are complicated.

Oh, and to everyone who said teleportation and invisibility are gross: My invisible teleporting grenade launching warrior got killed by someone running into him...

Questions:

1) Freeze says you unfreeze on a successful strike. Does that mean *any* successful strike? Or just a normal strike? Ie, can I unfreeze people with grenades or the human bomb?

2) Is a normal strike Hard damage? Or untyped damage? We assumed Hard but it doesn't say so anywhere in the rules.

3) Does caffeine replace your normal move at the start of the game so that warrior has no normal move? Or does it give him the option of replacing his normal move on every individual turn and he can choose to take his normal move instead?

4) Giant Magnet says you can move someone two squares in any direction. Does that mean in a straight line? Or can you move someone up and then right?

5) In our game the Chameleon gained Tough from another character giving him 6 extra points. Then he got hit for 3 points. When the effect wears off and he loses Tough does he lose 6 points or 3?

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

Foodgeek — 2004-03-13T22:40:56+00:00

Well, Amazon has it for $20.97. They probably have to order it for each purchase since shipping says 1-2 months. It is eligable for free shipping...if the total order is $25....so spending another $4.03 might make more sense than paying for shipping.

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

ced1106 — 2004-01-22T17:51:55+00:00

Yep! Thirty bucks. CCG's and RPG's have the advantage of being in "standard" formats, so that's why you can have two decks of card crack for 2x $10 = $20 and a hardcover for $30. So starting with tuck-box double-decks, you're taking $15 or $20. With SS, you're adding a map, pre-cut cardstock, plastic stands, and two decks. Multiply by two or so for the retailer and distributor's profit margin, and you easily have a $30 game.

Not familiar with the German $20-$30 market, but the only $20 boardgames I know of are by Fantasy Flight Games. But their cardboard boards doesn't remind me of the pre-Hasbro Avalon Hill days. In order for that quality, you're talking $40 or more. (IIRC, That's the price of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.) Pretty annoying that hobby games are caught between the prices of CCG card games and mass-market board games.

And then there's how far computer games have fallen...!

Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

Thread: Re:negative User Review -- disagree

tempid — 2004-01-07T07:38:24+00:00

In argument w/6 out of 10 for this game: I love SS. I'm a huge Wiz War fan b/c of the unpredictability of a game, and I see SS sharing an issue of "control" with Wiz War (although SS is much LESS out of control than Wiz War).

My suggestion to you on the issue of posting complex errata on flags & gadgets, and so on: Gadgets & Flags work fine as is now.
If you MUST post new rules, please post as OPTIONAL rulings & not errata.

One thing that people w/o a lot of strategic brain figure out quickly in your game is, "If I get card X & card Y, I get a real superdude!" But, so what? That's fine.

Even a lame Invisible dude with Judo is fine. It's funny, it's fun. Who cares? Call a stalemate, it's not the end of the world. Live with it, it's just ONE game & it's "just a game" anyway...

But I'd suggest NOT changing gadgets & flags rules much at all. I DO think Robots & perhaps mad scientists should have somewhat different gadget rules, like Robot bodies CAN'T drop gadgets, and Mad Scientists can pick up ALL items with one strike (or something like that).

I think your rules are surprisingly well-balanced considering how much chaos can come on the board. There are relatively few 'first turn kill the whole team' combos in ONE character. There ARE several for whole team interaction, but that's good.
And there are many built-in defenses that would allow a defender to resist.

So that's my 2 cents on the subject.

And please, if you write me back please email rekz@yahoo.com & not just lordbuddha@hotmail.com <-- I NEVER use that address.

Also, I just put up a harsh response to sjgames for the online (lack of) support for Strange Synergy. I think AT LEAST they could put up:
a) some alternative teams for the extra bases (pics & powers)
b) some other game designs (ie 8 teams of 2 players)
c) NEW BOARDS (!!!!)
d) more alternative rules for the game, like "tag" or something

PEACE

REkz

Thread: Re:User Review -- BS!

tempid — 2004-01-07T07:22:10+00:00

I love this game. I've played it on 4 occasions with different groups of friends. They all liked it & wanted to play another round w/different powers.

All your complaint points are true...
But the best part of the game is

IT IS A STRATEGY GAME
IT IS A (potentially) UNBALANCED STRATEGY GAME
IT USES SECRECY TO (possibly) MESS UP 'BROKEN COMBOS'

While YES, it's certainly dissapointing when you've just made a super team & before you do anything, someone runs out on jet skates & living bombs your team, it's also
COOL!

And the fact that you could have a statue (or peaceful)/two headed/mind control is also great. Or invisible/evil eye/sorcery, and so on.

But the GREAT part of a game like that is when the non-"broken combo" person beats the death combo player. That's when strategy has beat out pure muscle. While it's not the rule, in games or life, it does happen.

Then again, a lot of strategy in this game is when to reveal a secret power. Another good idea is to 'hide a character' or leave them behind. While they MAY be useless, or they may be a good character, you might be able to run in AFTER everyone else has crippled eachother & win.

I understand there are deadly combos in the game -- and there was Superman in the Justice League. Did you ever hear Batman whine about Superman? But, in a more recent issue by Bill Miller, Batman rigged up a super-suit that had kryptonite in it & he beat down Superman.

Your brains have to be the kryptonite that smacks down the teleporting minotaur.

You can do it. I did it. Work that muscle!

PEACE (in the real world)
REkz

Thread: Systematic Synergy 3D

MarkMeredith11 — 2004-01-03T21:44:46+00:00

Okay, here's my rules to spice up Strange Synergy. Each player has 3 characters, each with 2 powers. You can not choose any powers that make you immune to all types of attacks. In other words, you must be vunerable to at least one kind of attack. If you have only one thing you're vunerable to, it's your "weakness", and all attacks made with that type of damage do double. You choose 2 powers for each character from the entire stack, without showing your opponent. Your opponent also chooses 2 for each of his characters. Now you play.
You can use any kind of miniature, but a Heroclix mini is best, pulled off their clix base, and put onto a normal base. On the cards, anything with range is doubled, (example: Range:3 is now Range: 6") movement is doubled, (as before) but area effects (example: 15 x 15) are the same. A person can climb up a wall if they have movement left. Anything I'm missing?

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

janus — 2003-11-23T21:50:11+00:00

Matt Ruff (#18857),

Well, I really wanted this game and I bought it, but 38 euros (I payed only 35, because the owner of the shop made a little discount for me) are really too much! I wondered whether Steve Jackson's games are so expensive here due to the import costs, but I'm seeing that they are expensive in the US, too! :0 :0 :0

Thread: broken powers combo

wolver — 2003-10-28T21:56:03+00:00

The biggest problem I hear people complain about is unbeatable power combo's. Personally I haven't encountered this problem yet, and if I would, I would accept it as part of the game. There are 100 powercards, and almost all of them are unique. How big are the chances you get balanced teams?
But a way to give you a little more control over the powers being devided is giving every player 20 cards, putting the rest aside. each player then picks 12 cards and puts the remaining 8 aside. All the chosen cards are mixed again, and now each player gets 9 powers.
If players get to chose more powers, they get them from all the remaining cards, not just the subpiles that were created.
I haven't playtested it yet, but I can imagine it will give some more control.

Thread: Session Report

wolver — 2003-10-21T13:05:28+00:00

I had just bought this game, and introduced it to Yvonne and Jeroen, and they were pretty interested. The basic rules were pretty easy to explain, and the powers were easy enough to understand, so we were ready to start after no more then ten minutes. But then the hard part started. You control nine powers which have an effect on the game and on your other powers. And your opponents have nine powers each that have an effect on you. And most of your powers start out secret, with their backs up so your opponents don’t know them. But you don’t know them by heart either, so there’s a lot of checking and rechecking of powers. But that aside, lets get to the game.

Jeroen started with the goth’s(red), because he liked the tights. They do 2 hard damage in combat instead of 1. I took the cats(yellow), because I like cats. They move 3 squares without any gadgets instead of 2. And Yvonne played with the Evil Scientist(blue), I never wondered why. They may carry more then 3 gadgets, while the others can’t.
Yvonne had the giant magnet, which can be very profitable in the hands of the scientists. But I didn’t have a single gadget, and Jeroen only had a robotic body, which couldn’t be removed. But he could be moved, so as soon as she saw her chance, she smacked him into the wall for a point of damage. That scientist also had a mirror to reflect enery strikes and a gun. One scientist was equipped with tesser knight move, mind control and healing power, and the other had waterjet strike and extra move.
Jeroen had one warrior with the said robot body and taurus move. To bad he played his extra move on another warrior, because with taurus he could have done some serious damage. That other warrior also had shurikens and some sort of reflexes to prevent 1 point of any damage. And his last warrior had a push beam and the Zorch Ball strike.
I had the stunning number of 3 strike powers, none of which did extra damage. And stupid me, I put them all in 1 warrior. Now my cat could strike twice, strike diagonally, and make a glue attack. My other warrior was a stunning beauty with bullet-proof skin and powerup on the homebase. And my last warrior was equipped with an extra move(so he could stille carry the flag pretty quickly around), extra toughness for double life points, and he could erect 3 impassable energy barriers anywhere in the field.

I had no idea what to do with three warriors that could only do 1 point of damage in close combat and virtually nothing else usefull. I mean, come on, how useful is glue if you have no other long range attack.
Jeroen used his Zorch Ball on one of the scientists. It hits if you roll 2 or higher on a sixsided die, but if you miss the ball goes to your target and stays there. To cut a long story short, the zorch ball was used 7 times the whole game, and four times it came up with a 1, and was passed on to yet another opponent. That caused a lot of laughs(“not again!”).
I also moved in on the scientists, shielded with my “stunning beaty” and then a double diagonal attack with my powerhouse, and eventually shielding her of with my energy barriers. I thought my powerhouse was save, but Yvonne jumped over the barriers with her tesser knight move, and mindcontrolled my doublestike warrior right into battle with the Goths. That didn’t do her any good. Yvonne also waterjetted two Goths two squares back, but Jeroen took his revenge and took down the very first warrior. Wow, those Goths can land some powerful blows.
I tried to take down his flagbearing taurus with my doublehitter while making a flankmove with my stunning beauty and fast flagbearer. Jeroen reacted with almost taking down my doublehitter with his taurus and the girl who lost her zorch ball, and using his shurikens on my stunning beauty, just to be fended of with a bulletproof skin. Yvonne just charged in with her gun and zorchball, just doing a lot of damage to everyone.
I moved into the fight with everyone, succesfully killing his flagbearer with my doublehitter, and then fleeing the scene to escape any reprisels. To bad his shurikens were in range, and he killed of my doublehitter. But not before Yvonne had taken out his girl with her own zorch ball.
I ran to take Jeroens flag laying on the ground, with the risk of being zorchballed by Yvonne, but again sh threw a 1, and at last I was also able to inflict some serious damage. I took out Yvonnes flagbearer and took her flag too, and tried to make a run for it. Jeroen tried to stop me, but I effectively shielded my flagbearer from his shurikens with my stunning beauty with bulletproof skin. And while Yvonne tried to make a flanking manoeuvre, I had the time to pummel Jeroens last warrior into the ground. There was little Yvonne could do to try to stop me from reaching my base, so I won.

The conclusion was it was not a great game, but funny enough to play some more if the opportunity arises.

Thread: User Review

wolver — 2003-10-20T20:05:25+00:00

So I've played this game one time last weekend, and we all found it very enjoyable. We didn't encounter the problem with intangable and invisible (yet), so we didn't really needed or used the houserule of striking the flag. We just had a lot of fun with wacking eachother.
One little problem that will disappear with repeated playing is a very slow start. gameplay is very simple, but the cards take a long time to familiarize yourself with. As if nine powers of your own isn't enough, your opponents have nine powers each too. But once the game gets moving, it's run's pretty smooth.

A few minor negative points are:
The powers are very static. Once you've assagned the powers to your warriors, you only run around and club eachother over the head or use those predictable powers on eachother.
There are a lot of small thingies in the game that go with some special powers. Like a lot of zombie counters that can show whitch heroes are resurrected by the zombiemaster, and one stench counter for the hero with the Stench power. And every gadget has it's own counter. Just to many and to little.

But the positive points are big:
The powers are a lot of fun. Wacking your opponent while he hesitates because your warrior is a "Stunning Beauty" is asking for a little roleplaying. Or stomping around in your "Robot Body", and another warrior moves you into walls and pillars with his "Giant Magnet".
With 100 powers the replay value is pretty big. One time your big combo is defeated by a better combo, next time you win because you had the least terrible draw.

But one word of warning:
It's a little more complicated then your average beer-and-pretzels game. Some cards contain a lot of text, and most cards break the rules and need good thinking to avoid game conflicts.

Overall a very funny game. 8

Thread: Re:User Review

wolver — 2003-10-13T10:12:46+00:00

Game Geek (#19527),

How about making the flag always available for attack? The flag should always be visible and physicle, can be hit at +1 penalty(5+ for normal strike), is indestructable, and damage dealt is the number of squares it is knocked back(1 square with a normal attack).
This way an invisible warrior can be very susceptible to attack when carrying a flag. Stupid and intangible warriors are still invulnerable, but should have trouble keeping hold of their flags.

I've just bought this game last weekend, and will be trying it next weekend with our gaming group. I'll make sure to take this problem into account.

Thread: Re:Thirty bucks?

BrianRichburg — 2003-10-12T22:05:51+00:00

Matt Ruff (#18857),
What can you expect, it's a Steve Jackson game!
Regardless of what you think of their games, they're not very big on the concept of "bang for your buck" over there...

Thread: Re:User Review

listener — 2003-10-12T15:14:07+00:00

I played a game of Strange Synergy last night and ended up having the same problem. It was a lot of fun, but I agree with your frustration at the broken combos and how much the luck of the draw in the beginning either made or broke your game. I had a character with intangibility and stupid--in other words, immune to all types of damage. (There were no mind control or confusing attacks in the game, so there was no counter available).

After some consulting the rules and the cards, we decided that there was nothing in the rules saying I couldn't pick up the flags while being intangible. It cost a strike, but didn't do any damage, so it wasn't prohibited by the intangibility card. I leisurely picked up the two flags I needed and walked back to my base for the munchkinly win.

I'm considering next time I play as a house rule to draw face-up all (or most) of the powers that would have been distributed out to the players and then by some method auctioning them off. I'm not sure how that would work quickly and enjoyably, but I'm sure it could be done. That way players could get powers they liked, have some guarantee not to be completely screwed over, all while having an ability to collectively stop broken combos from happening by everyone bidding against a player trying to create one.