dear internet hivemind.

I am soon to run a campaign with my group of gamers but i appear to be in the unfortunate position of having too many friends who want to play.

given that we have 8 heros and the game is designed for 4 heros can you give me an idea of how i should try to balance the game so the empire doesn't get completely tranced by 6+ heros every game.

my initial thought was to up the starting threat by 5-10 per hero which would perhaps be a valid method but would make the initial games harder but have little effect later in the campaign. My thoughts then turned to upping the overall threat level by 1-2 point per addition hero as then the later multipliers would add the required 'toughness effect' for later missions.

what are your thoughts?

start 2 different campaigns if you have 8 heroes. seems like a good idea for me

would need to keep track of each one somewhere on paper though

I KNOW this is a not an RPG but....I have completely NO IDEA how this game works so.... could you have two games running parellel to each other i.e. similar to Buffy & Angel or Hercules and Zena TV series.. and the gropus meet up once a month as a 'crossover' where they assault a large imperial garrison or a star destroyer etc

OR

could you have one team playing Rebels and the other playing Imperials? and the success or defeat of one team influences the next teams game?

You could send some of your friends down to San Diego to play with me. All my friends stopped hanging out with me once we all started having kids, but I'm still up for gaming.

I have a quick fix.

1) Play the game with four heroes, and stick with those four heroes for the entire campaign. Expect people to drop out, and explain to the whole group no matter what these four heroes will be in every mission and whoever is there to play them gets to make the decision to and how to upgrade them. Whoever happens to be playing said hero at the end of a mission makes the decision to upgrade and how to upgrade at that time, or to save XP.

2) Additional rebel players may enter the game as allies. Then give yourself the appropriate amount of threat for each one (I recommend 2/3 not the full threat). No uniques unless you've earned them or the Rebels have earned them (what better incentive with extra players??). The only exception being the 5th hero skirmish card made be played (like for instance you're playing all heroes except Jyn), because it is unearnable. This does break the rule of not having multiple allies, but somethings gotta go. I think if you start adding multiple heroes and then nerfing them you're going to run into all kinds of trouble.

3) On every new mission, the ally players now play the heroes, and the hero players now play the allies. No whining or pleading, it must be this way and it must be agreed to by all. I hope you have bought some ally packs!

Note: the bigger the crowd, the clearer and firmer the communication and ground rules must be. Otherwise, everyone's going to have something to say about it and want to change things, and you're going to spend the whole night negotiating instead of gaming.

Thanks Boba,

that is an excellent idea

Glad you like it. PLEASE let us all know how it went, because it sounds like a crazy trainwreck and we want to know what happened.

Rick's idea is very good, however I would not start reducing the threat for Allies until you see where skill levels are at. The reduced threat thing is usually to handicap good/decent Imperial players who, as the game actually requests, are the better players of the group. However, if your Rebel players are good, you're going to need full threat against them. That's how the game was designed and balanced, which is the exact reason that nobody suggests running more than four heroes... that's how the game was designed and balanced.

But if you find you need the handicap because the Imperial player is winning everything, it's a good light fix.