Wytefang said:

I did notice that, but why would I ever attack a zone with more than 50% damage that isnt mine. Also, what happens in a tie? Steal killing will still happen...primarly that if you kill all my defenders, but did not burn the zone. The next player can swoop in and burn the defendless zone.

Yep, those things will happen...but in my experience, they're by far the lesser evil than any other form of MP that can be developed and this format much more accurately fits with the existing rules and theme.

As for why would anyone attack a zone once it has more than 50% damage, you wouldn't...you'd just go find a different zone in that situation. Which is one reason why I prefer my solution a tiny bit more - it's just easier to deal with last-second kill-stealing rather than having to worry about the precise amount of damage someone has done to a Zone.

Again, to reiterate what I said in the first sentence and explain a bit further - naysayers will focus too much on the kill-stealing while forgetting how lame it is to play in a knock-out MP format or how clumsy most other formats will be (especially as most are just weird, convoluted versions of 1v1 shoe-horned into multiplayer). Instead of worrying about "what do I do if the Zone might get kill-stealed", worry more about just doing enough damage to get the Burn in ANY Zone. So if you don't think you can get the Burn in one particular Zone, you have MANY more Zones to choose from. Things only get hairy and exciting in the end, as it should be.

If you play-test all the different suggestions (which I've tried to do, though I've not done some of the team-stuff yet) - you end up finding that the most fun can be had in this format that I'm promoting so vigorously. It's been the most excited and seems to receive the most positive feedback (by a mile) over the other formats our group has attempted. Of course, each to his or her own but as I've repeatedly said - get your group together and give it a go. I pretty confident you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Wytefang said:

MTGs original rules ALLOW for multiplayer, but many do not consider it a multiplayer game, and others consider it still the best single and MP game out there.

In reading the SF rules again, I suppose i would have to actually play the game a bit. Unlike other MP games (A Game of THrones, VTES) it has little/no rules within it THAT I CAN TELL (I might be wrong) that encourage, even out, balance, MP activities that one would want in a somewhat fair and balanced game. I might (and probably am) wrong.

For the record, I do not like games that do not direct my multiplayer activities. FFA Multiplayer has always bugged me, about as much as FFA PvP games bug me... I prefer my 'keep track of who did what damage to each section" method.

apkenned said:

We played for fun and none of us were really cut-throat, at least not at first (until I played Troll Vomit). It also was not always feasible to beat up on a single person, as it let the other player build up unmolested if they get too many turns in a row without being attacked. As we got into it more and the game got more aggressive, there was definitely teaming up, but it usually alternated player to player.

I dont know if I'll get to play the game 2v2 much more, but if it became a problem, in future games I would adjust it such that players do not get eliminated, and one team wins when the other team has 4 total capitol sections burning. That might be a better solution anyway, as it will keep players in game until end (and bring about the end just a little faster).

Now that I think back to the game, the Dwarven player was actually eliminated due to running out of cards in his deck. He had played into his Quest zone the unit which gets +2 Power if a capitol zone is burning... he was drawing 8 cards/turn near the end. If playing without individual player elimination, I'd have to say that the team must run out both decks to automatically lose, and if one player runs out early, they simply don't draw any new cards.

I think the biggest problem with multi-player is the 1v1 players who want it to be just like 1v1. I want table talk, alliances, threats, kill stealing, and yes even some moments of ganging up on someone.

If you really want to prevent kill stealing then how about each damage you do to a city gives you a point and the first player to 24 points wins.

Maine said:

oh..ok. interesting. Reading over your post...I think you might wanna look over thread with Multiplayer suggestions and ideas. I think you would enjoy 2 headed giant variant

I quite like the sound of the MP rules you've come up wth here. I'm going to suggest them to my local players and see what they think. Nice job.

Thank you for the kind words and support of my suggestion here - please post back with feedback and hopefully we can tweak and improve this concept.

Ok, these are the rules i have used for the last three multiplayer game, btw always with 4 players

1. You win if you burn 4 zones or be the last one left in play

2. You lose if all your zones are burnt

3. You can only burn 2 zones from an opponent and the "burner" is the one who put the most damage on the zone or in the case of a draw, the one who put them there later (btw we do count overkill damage, so when a zone has 5 damage counters from an opponent and you attack it for 6 damage, you burn the zone)

4. You can attack anyone you want.

The games played out very well, the power had shifted many times during the games with often two or more resets being played. It is also a lot about diplomacy and with presonal rivalries its even more fun. It happened only once, that a Chaos player was stuck with no cards in hand nor in play after two resets in a round (Grimgor and Judgement) and unfortunately for him, he couldnt draw anything playable for the next 3 rounds so obviously, he wasnt very happy about that. But otherwise it was great fun and i highly suggest these rules. We even started coloring our damage tokens on the sides to help us recognize them.

Anyways, i recommend the rules and i am looking forward to anything on this issue that FFG might come up with.

MKP

I support this format (regarding the colored damage).

I also think that in order to reign back on the number of table resetting conditions that there be an effect. If someone has no cards in play, and during his last turn he had 4+ in play, as a result of other players destruction effect, that player gets 2 resources at the beginning of his turn or may draw an additional card.

Help the bounce back?

I was also trying to think of some way to make the game a bit more VTES feeling... Like give a player a bonus when the player to their left is destroyed, giving them a somewhat decent reason to focus attacks. Bonus could be like "heal a damage from a capitol and gain 1 resource at the beginning of your turn" or something.

I don't like the whole "player to the left" dynamic. It is horribly artifical and there are just better ways to prevent ganging up mechanically.

As to getting wiped out from multiple resets... well let it happen enough and people will stop overextending. You don't get anything special to help you if I play three troll vomits ina game in 1v1 why the artificial boost in MP?

Most of these issues get solved with better play qnd more experience by the players themselves. I like the damage going to whoever does the most damage. I think that is a fair way to do it and avoid the problems other people had with kill stealing (which I still don't personally believe is an issue I do understand others dislike it).

If you want to give a boost to someone who is succeeding you could always let them remove one point of damage from an unburned zone for each zone they burn... though I just don't see the purpose of prolonging a game or rewarding someone for doing what they need to do to win the game. MP games tend to last significantly longer than 1v1 anyway, doing something that makes an opponent hard to kill prolongs the game.

That said if you want to keep someone in the game who has run out of cards how about letting them reshuffle their discard pile and put it back in place as their draw deck at the cost of each zone taking one damage? In some cases that would knock them out in which case they are well and truly ousted from the game, but in most I would imagine it would give them a chance to still do damage, have a chance of winning (albeit from a much weaker position), provide someone else with a nice opportunity to burn one more zone, possibly ending the game faster.

I agree with Dormouse. "Player to the left" crap is awful for Multiplayer. Furthermore, the rules I'm suggesting definitely do NOT allow for anyone to be knocked out - I see being "knocked out" of the game as a crappy thing that does NOT promote fun multiplayer.

As I've already said in my original post, the key is in having "achieved goals" that do not also cause a player to lose the game - rather they cause a player to WIN the game. Thus no one has to sit around waiting for the game to be over because they were annoyingly "knocked out" of the game AND you can avoid making the "kingmaking" effect a common and too-powerful occurence.

No, I'm pretty happy with the rules I've suggested - the only thing I'd tweak is letting people use different colored damage to help keep track of who burned what. That's not a bad idea at all.

Yeah, it sucks to be the first one knocked out of a MP. Youhave to sit around and wait until there is an eventual winner which may 5 minutes or 35 minutes later.

I say stick with whoever burns X zones (where X equals the numbers of players in the game) wins the game. IF you want reward someone for getting closer to the end of the game then give them an extra two resources the turn after they successfully burned someones zone. If a player runs out of cards then they may shuffle their discard pile and return it to their draw spot but face a penalty, every gets to remove one of that players damage tokens from a non-burning zone they control. It puts that player further away from winning without prolonging the game to drastically. Or they skip their entire Quest and Battlefield phases that turn just as if they were the first player of the game.

oooh, how bout this

Multiplayer:

Every person has unique damage counters, color coded to distinguish between players (what a great idea, who every thought of it)

It takes 8 damage (+ additional for developments) of any ONE PLAYERS damage tokens to burn a region. So there is NO Burn stealing!

Now, there would still be the incentive to attack the same area that was just weakened by another player, and if you dont like that, you could try two things to discourage that.

1) different players cant attack the same player's same capital area in the same turn (make allowances once you start running out of areas, near the end where there are lots of burning areas)

2) Different players can attack the same capital area, but at a penalty (thematically, once an area is attacked, the defenders are aware of the threat and ready for the next one), maybe if player one has already attacked player 4s quest area, if player 2 wants to attack the same area he has to pay a resource penalty (2 resources or so) to be able to attack or the first 2 or so damage applied to the capital are ignored, etc...

This penalty could be cumulative ie. if player 1 attacked the quest area of player 4, and then player 2 attacks the same area for a 2 resource penalty (or 2 damage penalty), then if player 3 wants to continue attacking the same area, he has to pay a 4 resource penalty (or 4 damage penalty).

Advantages...

no Burn stealing at ALL

Discourages ganging up on one person (this penalty can also be applied to attacking the same person anywhere, as opposed to just attacking the same person same area... I kinda like this idea, since it prevents ganging up more, and will keep players in longer... I would consides having the "1st player" change every round, to prevent the first player from being the only one with complete freedom to attack anywhere... ie first round goes like this

player 1, player 2 player 3, player 4.

2nd round

player 2, player 3, player 4, player 1

3rd round

player 3 player 4 player 1 player 2

You could also make the turn order random EACH ROUND for more chaos

Disadvantages

Lots of damage tokens, and you will have to color yours differently (or get something else to represent your damage. They stack though, so shouldnt be too much trouble unless you get a lot of players

Game will be longer... this can be good or bad.

... cant think of anything else, maybe you can offer some.

I would consider getting rid of the "run out of cards option" and just let people reshuffle their decks, but if they do have to reshuffle their deck, they get some penalty (apply x generic damage in some fashion to your capital (this generic damage would count as damage for every player). Or you could have a card drawing penalty (lose 1 card draw a turn for each time you have to reshuffle). The deck grinding strategy is just really hard to apply to mutliplayer, since how do you determine who kills who if two players both use this strategy.

thoughts?

oh yeah, another advantage

EVERYONE GET TO KILL EVERYONE!

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

another idea.

When you burn an area (or if you finally knock a guy out of the game by burning 2 or 3 of his regions depending on how you want to play), you immediately get to put one of your damage markers on every enemy area that is not burning yet. This will accelerate the game and reward a player for knocking out a player in a way that is fun and strategic.

Also, you can use the corruption tokens from Chaos in the old World as unique damage tokens, because first of all, you should own that game as it is the best board game ever, second, they are cool looking and in the theme of the game.

Wytefang said:

My friends and I have been playing your multiplay rules all week since the starters came into our FLGS. I have to got to say that we have not found an issues with it at all and find it works very well. There has no ganging up because of the fear of giving someone else a victory and needing two different burns (meaning different players). We have found this to be perfect and much more enjoyable than the basic one on one game.

How about using unique color counter but the damage doesn't stack?

Each player need to damage one zone from each player to win.

thats what I was saying. Unique damage counters for each player that dont stack, essentially preventing burn stealing and ganging up on a single player. Longer game, sure, but I think more fun.

Unique damage counters for each player that dont stack is a nice variant.

Some Question during MP game.....

Organ Gun - Attach to a target unit.
I believe you can attach this to any player unit.

A Glorious Death - Quest. Action: Sacrifice the unit on this quest to destroy up to two target attacking units. Use this ability only if A Glorious Death has 3 or more resource tokens on it.
I believe you can use this action even the attacking units is not attacking you.

Grudge Thrower - Battlefield. Action: Spend 1 resource and sacrifice a unit to have each attacking or defending unit gain l until the end of the turn.
You may use this action to buff any player attacking and defending unit?

Followers of Mork - Forced: After this unit enters play, each player takes 2 indirect damage. (Players allocate their own indirect damage.)
When playing unique damage variant. Which player damage should i allocated? I could allocate orc player damage since orc play this card. How about orc himself? Orc can choose any player damage to allocate? For example, one empire damage token and one chaos damage token both to quest zone.

Doom Divers - Battlefield. Forced: After your turn begins, each player must either sacrifice a development or deal 1 damage to each section of his capital.
Same as Followers of Mork. Which players damage allocated to each section of his capital?

Warpstone Meteor - Forced: After your turn begins, each player must corrupt one of his units in this corresponding zone or deal 1 damage to his capital. (Players decide where their own damage is assigned.)
Same as above. Which players damage allocated to his capital? How about chaos himself?

Banna of da Red Sunz - Kingdom. Each opponent that collects 7 or more resources for his kingdom phase must assign one of those resources as a damage token to a target unit of your choice.
I believe you can assign this damage to any player other than the player that collects 7 or more resources for that turn.

Melekh the Changer - Limit one Hero per zone. This unit gains l for each corrupted card controlled by an opponent.
I believe he only gains 1 power for each corrupted card from one chosen opponent. Not from every opponent. Else playing Nurgle's Pestilence before assign damage can be deadly, since all player units are corrupted.

Shrine to Nurgle - Kingdom. Forced: After an opponent's unit is damaged during combat, corrupt that unit.
During the combat phase between other players, will this Forced be triggered? Even Chaos is not involved in the combat.

Any card that does not specify a restriction to where it can be attached or that attacking or defending units must be yours or participating against you could be used on any unit until the FAQ says otherwise.

Any card that does damage, regardless of who gets to decide where the damage goes, would use the controller of the card's damage counters.

If a card says damage target capitol, the owner of the capitol decides which section of that capitol. If the card says damage target section of the capitol the controller of the card gets to decide.

Banna of Da Red Sunz - Very good eye. Yes there are no restrictions that it must be their unit so that damage can be assigned to any unit in play.

Melekh - This is open for interpretation.I see why you would say a single opponent, but there really is no way to judge this one by the rules we currently have for this game. Send it to Nate for clarification.

Shrine to Nurgle is a force effect, it doesn't care who is involved. It triggers at every opportunity. Was a unit that you do not control damaged during the 5 steps of combat? Yes? Corrupt it.

whipko said:

I'm not sure where you got the qualifier that it has to be any other player than the one who collects the resources. You can target ANY unit, regardless of the player, including the player who collected the 7 resources.

while the wording of the card does NOT say they could CANT target ANY unit, even a unit belonging to a different player, that would create a very lame result that would seem to go against the spirit of the card and game.

I would choose to play that you have to target the player who "triggered" the effect.

That is your choice, but that is not the way the card works. Eric and Nate have designed a number of cards like this for multiplayer because it is a bargaining chip as well as a giant target painted on the card/player in question depending on how it is used.

And yes this card can target anyone's unit, not just the opponent or someone other than that opponent who collected 7 or more resources.

yup, but id bet that for a whole lot of these cards (recent examples including shrine of nurgle, banner, etc) the designers wrote them thinking about single player matches, and so phrased them accordingly. Once they start putting some rules for multiplayer together, they will read these cards again, smack themselves in the forehead for not thinking about more appropriate wording at the time, and then either

a) FAQ/addend them to work as originally intended

b) leave them as they are (since its hard to reprint cards and remember lots of errata), and disregard the impending fan outrage when someone with shrine of nurgle first plays nurgles pestilence during a battle in a large multiplayer game, corrupting EVERY UNIT simultaneously, and then maybe that player has Melekh in power, and gets a 20 power unit.. Maybe that Melekh is in the kingdom or quest area, and that player gets to draw 20 cards or get 20 resource.

Now if only an actual voice of authority will offer the official answers, instead of having to rely on differing player opinions and a less than comprehansive rule book.