W M Shubert
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Yes, I really am that awesome.
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My younger daughter got this game for Christmas. She loves it, and my older daughter and my wife and I have had a lot of fun too. But I was worried, many posts (and even some reviews) point up that the game is no fun with fewer players - the witch barely moves, so there is no strategy or excitement, it just becomes roll and move to see who get the gems first.
Looking at the math, it is easy to see why:
Players Average # of witch spins for each of your moves
5 1.67
4 1.33
3 1
2 0.67
With fewer players, you get fewer witch spins per move, so she isn't as much of a threat. To me, the witch and frog is what makes this game fun; even with four players I felt there weren't quite enough witch attacks. So today we tried playing with three players, and I house ruled that you spin the witch on a roll of 1 or 2. It worked out great! All three players got turned into frogs several times, the wizard was running around saving people, and we all had fun.
Here's my recommendation:
Players Rolls to spin the witch Average # of spins for each of your moves
5 1 (standard rules) 1.67
4 1 or 3 2.00
3 1 or 2 2.00
2 1, 2, or 3 1.67
(Note that there are two 1's and two 2's on the die, so "1 or 3" will roll the witch less often than "1 or 2".)
So far I have only played with 4 and 3, but it works great, and it seems mathematically that this should work well, making the game exciting with any number of players. Try it out!
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Mikko Saari
Finland
http://www.lautapeliopas.fi/ - the best Finnish board game resource!
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This is an excellent variant. I'll give it a go next time we play Mago Magino, as I mostly play this two-player with my son. We tried it once with three, and it was already much better that way.
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