After a couple of games of BSG, my wife suggested that whenever we have to discard skill cards from our hands that we discard them face-down into a separate pile (similar to a skill check). She came up with the idea after a game in which she was Laura and a cylon, and wanted to ditch her high value Politics cards without making the rest of us suspicious.

For the last several games we've played, we've tried this variant. Whenever we need to reshuffle a deck we look through the "discard" deck and shuffle in the proper cards. It really has made a difference in keeping things secret, and it looks like our play group is going to adopt this House Rule for the rest of our games. Hey, anything that make the secrecy of this game greater and induces even mroe paranoia scores big with me.

Any other groups try anything similar, or have any House Rules of your own that you want to share?

I'm not much for house rules normaly, but this sounds realy good and goes in the spirit of the game. I'll try it when I get a chanse to play this game.

We do the same, any cards that are discarded are added to a discard pile face down and the pile is immediatly shuffled, this means even if the top card is accidentily revealed the players have no way to trace it back to who put it in.

In short any card that doesn't have to be revealed, i.e. played or used in a skill check is shuffled straight into the discard pile face down. all skill check cards and played cards are also shuffled into the discard pile, which is only separated once one of the skill card decks has run out, (usually the green leadership one )

We do impose a couple of other house rules: The quorum cards stay with the person who drew them even if they loose the precidecy, if they loose the title then they can't play the cards but they don't give them to anyone else.

We are also looking at stopping revealed cylon players from contributing skill cards to skill checks for getting anybody out of the brig. This is a rule which we are looking at bringing in because of how many games have been lost due to having 2 non-cylon players stuck in the brig even after both cylons are revealed. This is a point which i am going to start a thread to discuss so if you have opinions specifically on this rule post them in that thread.

We are looking at doing something with the raptor models as they seem completly wasted as quality plastic models. Am currently thinking of letting pilots piloting them an if so then letting them activate the galactica location (I believe it's command) to activate 2 unmanned vipers from within the raptor.

The only way this would benefit players if having a raptor out does something by itself, am currently thinking that having a raptor launched should allow players who activate a viper (manned or unmanned) to move and shoot, of course this would make starbuck even better so it will take a bit of tweaking but i like the idea of having non-combat raptors out there helping the vipers do more.

We are looking at finding a way to launch unmanned vipers because having both your pilots get toaster fever can leave you with very few options for destrying raiders.

Final rule we are thinking of is if a revealed cylon player activates the cylon fleet then they can choose where to move the units, representing having an experianced cylon in command as opposed to one who thinks move clockwise is a tactic having riaders that will chase you down or will ignore you to go after civilian ships would be a lot more challenging. This rule would make it harder for vipers to protect civilians if the raiders could target civilians before vipers but if the cylon player could just make them fly by vipers on move toward civilians but they would still have to attack down the correct order (ie if vipers are present then the y must be destryed before the civilians can be attacked) but it would make the communications locations better.

If you hate these ideas feel free to not use them, if you like them or you have constructive points to make about them feel free, would always prefer a house rule that really works but someone else created than a rubbish one that i made al by myself

I'm not sure how the Brig issue is such a big deal. Cylons only get to drop a card each -- that's 10 points max, or 15 if the Cylons got the sympathizer in the 6 player game. Sure, the destiny deck can hose you, but that is destiny. Besides, once the humans get out of the brig, if all cylons are revealed, no one else will be going back in there -- unless the humans are stupid.

When a player uses the Command location, they can launch unmanned vipers. See pg. 25 and the back cover, p. 32. This should help you out a bit more fighting against the cylons. Also note that the rules allow for the same viper to be activated multiple times during a player's turn.

As much as I'd like to use your Quorom card rule, I can't bring myself to do so. The last game I played I was Baltur, the President, and a Cylon. I had the Arrest Orders qc, but never used it. After I revealed myself as a cylon, the new President used the Arrest Order to lock the other cylon in the Brig (I knew he was a cylon because I got to see all his cards). I had to use all my guile to convince the other players that the player playing the Preisdent was the other Cylon so they would let the character in the Brig out (after which, he revealed himself as a cylon his next turn). Knowing that once I revealed myself as a cylon I would give another player the opportunity to lock my partner in the Brig, yet being unable to play the card unless I wanted to draw suspision onto myself was a major part of the that game. Throw into this the fact that I had 5 qcs total, that's 5 cards that the humans would not have had once I lost the title.

I keep expecting an expansion for this game, and hope the Raptors play a larger role in it.

I do like the cylon player choosing where to move raiders (rather than just clockwise). Then again, I also feel this game is biased towards the cylons -- and righty so -- so this may be an intentional "weakness" to activating the fleet.

JerusalemJones said:

Is that so? I was under the impression, that you can only activate up to two Vipers - not one Viper twice.

One of the things I missed on the first time I played, was that the Cylons directly toward any Civilian ship. They only move clockwise around the board when the Civilian Fleet ship is equidistant from its starting space.

Mike said:

The unmanned vipers can be activated more than once during a turn but not twice using the command location. You can activate the command area twice if exec ordered and choose to activate the same viper on both activations but i don't think you can activate one unmanned viper twice with a single activation of the command location.

jakimaru said:

Corey has stated that you can. It goes against what the text on the location actually says, I know, but this is from the designer.

Bleached Lizard said:

It may go against the location text, but it does follow the rules on page 25, which say "Each Viper may be activated any number of times during a player's turn..."

TK

Tim Kelly said:

Yes, but that could simply be taken to mean that a Viper could be activated multple time by, say, multiple activations of the Command location through use of Executive Orders. The text on the command location itself (strongly) implies that two different Vipers must be activated when it is used.

Bleached Lizard said:

I quite agree. This is just one of those times when they got it right in the rules, and not-quite-so-right on the board.

TK

jakimaru said:

I was thinking perhaps use Raptors as the scout ships they are. Instead of having them activate just like the command center on Galactica, have it like a CAG giving orders. A piloted Raptor can play cards for unmaned vipers as if they where piloting the Viper, but this can only be done if the Viper and Raptor are in the same space on the board. Also a Raptor can benifit an unmaned Viper by giving it a +2 to the die roll, but only if someone from Galactica activates the Viper from the controll room, just as if it had the advance scouting information. But no bonus with piloting cards played by the pilot of the Viper.

Not sure how this would work, but it was an idea I just came up with.

For years, I played Monopoly with the common (at least in Canada) "Free Parking" house rule: When you landed on Free Parking, you got $500. It seemed like a fun way to turn a nothing space into a jackpot space. Then, just a few months ago, I finally played a game of Monopoly without that house rule. It was infinitely better! Less money meant people were going bankrupt earlier, which made the game both shorter and much more intense. What did I learn from playing a crappy version of Monopoly for two decades? That I am not smarter than a game designer

After months of testing and years of experience designing games, I'm sure FFG has a reason for every rule. I'll never again house rule a change until I know the reason for the rule as originally written. Once I know the reason, then I can house rule something if I disagree with it (e.g. if a clunky rule was included for thematic reasons, I might house rule it if I prioritize gameplay over theme).

Here are my thoughts on some of the rules suggested in this thread, as I try to get into the head of the game designers:

JerusalemJones said:

I disagree that this goes with the theme of the game. The people of the Twelve Colonies can expect a woman like Laura Roslin to be a political force of nature. Ditching high-value Politics cards is the thematic equivalent of Roslin deliberately ignoring opportunities to act, squandering her political resources, and pretty much phoning in every crisis while taking a bubble bath. People around her are bound to notice, and this is why the cards are discarded face-up: to represent the scrutiny of her staff, her security and the countless other people she surrounds herself with. If Roslin is a Cylon, the challenge is to further the Cylon agenda while still acting like a political superpower (and finding uses for all that political capital, or good explanations for why she's putting it to waste).

jakimaru said:

Again I have to disagree. The hand of Quorum cards represents the actual Quorum of Twelve. They aren't loyal to a person, but to the presidency. Gaining control of the Quorum cards is symbolic of the transition of power between two presidents, and could even involve a very thematic conversation as the outgoing president tries to explain what he/she and the Quorum have been working on.

Re: discarding cards being secret

Under pretty much all circumstances, the human players want to hang on to their high value cards. So do the Cylons . There is no good reason for a Cylon to ditch high value cards when asked to discard (Food/Water shortage, for instance). Retaining them does two things for you: 1) when you get to a skill check that doesn't need that color, you can hinder the check more; 2) if you have the high value cards in your hand, that means the humans can't draw them.

I don't think you need a house rule to make discards secret.

Quorum cards: these should most certainly follow the President. Otherwise, the Cylon president can sink so very many actions into just drawing Quorum cards without doing anything with them, doing absolutely nothing to help Galactica. If the quorum cards follow the title, at least the poor humans can use that enormous hand to their advantage when they finally depose the toaster.

I fully agree with Eunomiac and Fry on this one. If it ain't broke, then don't try to houserule it.