Let me start off with my preferances in MP games. Avoids King of the Hill ie lets kill him because he is close to winning, avoids kingmaker rules ie I can't win but I can choose who wins. Avoids stealing kills ie I killed all the defenders and player after me burns the now undefended zone.

Suggestion 1:

I'm thinking a multiplayer system like Vampire ccg (V:TES) would be simple to play. The player to your left is your prey and the player to your right is your predator. Players would be able to only attack their prey from the battlefield, but they could use tactics or actions on anyone. You get a victory point whenever the player who is your prey is ousted (no matter how or by whom your prey was ousted). You receive an additional victory point if you are the last player left. At the end of the game, the winner is the player with the most victory points, even if she has been ousted. Along with a victory point, may you remove 4 damage from your capital or put into play 4 developments from the top of your deck when your prey is ousted.

Suggestion 2:

Two headed giant. You and your partner share the exact same zones. Each zone has a total of 16 life. With the exception of zones and zone life total, a team's resources (cards in hand, resources, and so on) are not shared. So if my teammate places a one power unit in the quest zone and I do no have any units or support cards in the quest zone, I do not draw 2 cards on the start of next turn, but my teammate does. Teammates may review each other's hands and discuss strategies at any time. Each team takes turns rather than each player. Both the players on a team take their team turn at the exact same time. Thus the players share phases as well

All ears for more suggestion and ideas or thoughts about my suggestions.

Suggestions, solutions they're all the same.

Your suggestion #1 is not one I'd prefer to see - it feels clumsy from a rules and theme perspective, which is why I avoided it coming up with my suggestion/solution in the other thread. In Warhammer you'd not be limited to picking on one race, not by a long shot. The Warhammer fantasy world is all about war everywhere. And then you have the issue of people "gaming" that system by refusing to sit next to opponents that they know have a deck type which is worse for them to match up with...it's just not a very functional way to go about MP.

Suggestion #2 also just seems way over-complicated and really changes the rules too much to feel appropriate to the game system. It could be a potentially functional variant for team-based MP, however...

Wytefang said:

As expected from you. Have you played vtes? be honest. You should try pred and prey. I'm gonna try your version to see if it has merit. You are looking for thematic MP. I'm fine with that. Theme for MP games is not important to me. My MP ideas follow the rules outlined in my earlier post. You randomly assign sitting to avoid that "gaming" problem.....ie roll some dice.

Actually I think 2 is the easiest to implement. Its 2 headed giant....you take you turns with your partner and just have double life on the zones.

I've not only tried V:TES (and its earlier incarnation, Jyhad) but I've also read a bunch about the system as it progressed/evolved. Not a horrible game, just not my choice for style of MP, that's all.

The team thing seems cool. I'll try it out in the near future as soon as I can. I'm going to be busy this week though because my prematurely-born son is finally going to be coming home from the Hospital. Finally. He's been in the hospital since being born on Aug. 10th (had surgery and other complications).

Congrats Wytefang, my prayers are with you and your family.

I played Jyhad and Vtes, I'm just not into the prey/predator dynamic for this game. Even with Vtes it was a weird system which through the different releases always seemed rather meh. It does prevent a lot of the problems you suggested, but so do the AGoT rules for multiplayer... and so far it seems that Wytefang's rules do also.

You may not care about thematic coherence when it comes to MP rules, but a lot of people do. Thankfully there is absolutely 0 chance that FFG will use your MP system.

dormouse said:

Forgive the early morning Sarcasm in advance.

Who cares if they do or don't ? I don't work for them. I like it and my playgroup likes it. I posted it for same reason Wytefang posted his mp rules....To contribute to our community of gamers. You should try it...its pretty fun.

I don't think any mp rules will have thematic coherence..because the base card game doesn't have it either. For example, I get more resources because I played a unit (Black Orcs) in a Kingdom. When have orcs gathered resources....goblins and the like are for that Also, when has a nugrling gone on a quest in RPG or Table top games? Not picking a bone...just saying. The game has great themes, but not all of the rules are based on Theme. It would be way to complex.

We'll have to disagree. An Orc isn't producing the resources, but protecting the supply chain meaning their is less loss, the goblins work harder under the "watchful gaze" of the Orcs.

The problem isn't necessarily that the game isn't thematic and the rules don't support it, but that you aren't looking beyond the strict mechanics and deeper into what they represent. Developing your supply chain and protecting it is a basic concept of any war. You need strong units to defend your supply chain to prevent loss, mischief, and malingering. The Quests represent both traditional quests but more often than not, long term pursuits (as stated in the rule book) which Nurglings are just as likely to do at commander's direction as anyone else. Can you really see Nurglings disputing the orders of a Great Unclean One?

No game's mechanics are all absolutely tied inseparably from the theme, but this game does at least as good a job as most, and better than quite a few.

eh....I guess you can make anything thematic if you want...key word...want. Any "thematic" multiplayer suggestions or ideas? Please contribute.