Chuck Puchala
United States
Albuquerque
New Mexico
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Quick summary of the odds that everyone playing will turn out to be on the same side:
#Players : Odds
2 : 13 in 28, or about 46%
3 : 11 in 56, or about 20%
4 : 1 in 14, or about 7%
5 : 1 in 56, or about 2%
6 or more : can't happen
So unless you're playing with more than 5 players, there's a chance you're all essentially wasting your time. With just two players, that chance is nearly fifty-fifty. Even with 4 the odds aren't as good as you'd like.
Gameplay is simple. Maybe a little too simple. When it's your turn to move a pawn, a low roll can mean you accomplish little or nothing that turn as you have to land on another pawn to do anything. A series of low roles can make the game mighty slow.
I've been giving some thought to what can be done to improve the game. For one thing, I suggest lowering the odds of a pointless game by taking the lowest powered good character (Cordelia) out of the mix before divvying up the characters in a four player game, and the lowest two (Cordelia and Willow) for a three player games. That makes the odds of everyone being on the same side more like 3% for four players and 10% for three. I don't suggest playing with two.
To reduce the chance of useless turns, I was thinking of allowing any player who rolls a 1 or 2 to roll the die again and add the result. This makes the lowest possible roll 2 instead of 1, and makes that much less likely than a more average roll. Another thought is to add special squares to the game board, to give players another target to move towards besides the other pawns.
In addition, I think this is one game that could benefit from greater complexity. There's simply not enough going on to keep one's interest from turn to turn. I was thinking of adding a second deck that represents special events that might take place such as the appearance of Vampire Willow, or the test where Buffy's powers were temporarily taken from her. Spicing up the existing Fate deck with some more interesting cards (including ones that affect the new Event deck) would help, too.
In summary, I think the game has elements that could be intriguing if the rest of the game held up better. Making a fun game out of it would itself be an interesting challenge.
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Roxanne Clark
United Kingdom
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Re: It's got a few flaws
The only reason that this game ever comes off of my shelf is that I keep trying to figure out some way of making it work. I'd love to know how it was play tested. Usually I look at it for a few days and then it goes back up again. I'm tempted to shelve it in the bin next time I'm pushed for space.
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Robin Goodall
United Kingdom
Cambridge
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Played this once long ago and encountered several issue. I actually saw that there were going to be some from just reading the rules. I even emailed the publisher asking for clarification but never got a reply. Seemed to me that they were just cashing in on the license without even testing the game.
It's a shame as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game (US) is apparently not bad.
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Chuck Puchala
United States
Albuquerque
New Mexico
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Re: It's got a few flaws
Finally got a chance to play this again, this time with 7 players. This revealed another flaw that didn't come up in the game where we were all on the same side, as it turned out...
Here's the thing: the rules say that any player whose pawn is present where a challenge takes place may initiate combat, revealing their colour and character cards in the process. This is the only reference in the rules to these cards being revealed, as opposed to only being shown to one person who is forbidden to reveal them. Any other players present at that time may join in... But they don't have to. Any unowned characters whose colour card has been revealed has to fight... But as we've already covered, the only reference to revealing cards is when a player initiates combat. So this will never happen. And if you're playing a weak character such as Cordelia or Willow, there's really no incentive to reveal yourself and get yourself killed. If you don't fight, you can't lose. And then, even if you've been revealed, there doesn't seem to be anything that says you have to fight. So if you think you might be outgunned, you just sit that one out.
It's possible that the intention with unowned characters is that if the colour card matches during a challenge, then it is revealed. But if that was the intention, it was really not clear. And considering, "You are not allowed to reveal to other players any cards shown to you in a challenge. If you do then you are immediately out of the game."... If unowned characters represent an exception that really needs to be made clear.
It's also possible that revealed characters must always fight, whether owned or unowned. That would make a lot of sense, but again it's far from clear that the rules intend this. It's specifically noted that, "Any 'unowned' character will always join in the fight."
It would make sense that when a player declares combat they'd have to declare combat with someone. With the challenged player would make sense - if they had to show their character card to the challenger, thus revealing that they must be one of the colours present. You could say that in this case the challenged player must reveal and fight. Of course the attacker might not know what character the challenged is, which could lead to some embarrassing, "Oh, it's you! You scared me to death!" moments, which wouldn't be entirely out of keeping with the series.
There are still elements of this game that I find interesting, but I'm not sure how much effort it's worth to try and rescue those elements in this particular game. I'd suggest, though:
1) When combat is declared, a player or 'unowned' character is named as the defender, who cannot refuse combat.
2) If the defender's colour is not yet revealed, the attacker is shown the colour card. If it matches a pawn present in the location where the challenge was issued, it is then revealed along with the character card. If the colour does not match, the attacking player is out of the game, and of course may not reveal the colour to the other players.
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