One Doesn't Have To Be Lonely

Do you have an intense dislike for orcs? Possibly a loathing for paladins? There is an option for you. Take your team and go it alone in this variant for World of Warcraft.

A One Sided Affair

Is the idea of playing the foul creatures of the Horde distasteful? Or is the thought of being an Alliance goody two shoes making your skin crawl? Fear not citizen of Azeroth, you have another choice. This week we will look at playing only one side of World of Warcraft. Sometimes you just want everyone to be friends. That’s okay, I understand.

The first thing to look at is game balance. The game itself is hinged on the 2 factions opposing each other throughout the game, as well as the large scale PvP at the end. To preserve this balance, you need some way to prevent your party from romping through the lands without fear of the Overlord.

To do this take the quests of the opposite team. Set up the opposing team as normal. When a character of the opposing faction would normally take a turn, draw the top card. Move an enemy figure towards the location mentioned first (if there are multiple paths of equal distance, choose 1 of them). Repeat for each opposing figure until their turn is done. This provides potential PvP encounters as you have no idea where they will be moving each turn. If they do come across one of your quests, the quest is discarded and the creatures from it are removed. Replace it with a quest of the same color.

The second thing to look at is the end game. At the end of the game, if your team has not managed to trigger the Overlord, then you have lost the game. After all the point is to dominate, and you cant do that with a dark menace lurking over the horizon. Each Overlord has specific rules to make your life harder, with this variant you should be able to concentrate on going after just them for a change. Many monsters stand in between you and the glory of besting these vicious rulers.

The last thing to remember is to have fun. A game that is too easy gets boring, a game that is too hard gets frustrating. If you are playing, and the heroes are wading through the game like it’s nothing, try treating all enemies as if they are red. Or try requiring the heroes to eliminate both the independent creature as well as the quest objective creature. If the opposite is true, and the heroes are not doing well, try adding 2 gold to each quest’s rewards. Or you can give every hero 1 free item from the triangle merchant deck worth 5 gold or less at the start of the game.

Those foul creatures/goody two shoes will quail before the awesome might of your adventuring team. Take them to victory, defeat the Overlord, and return to your people champions!