Hi folks,

Now I haven't opened my copy yet, and wont get to till christmas, but I have read in several places that beyond the basic action cards, the other action cards are not duplicated. Is this right, and are people finding this a problem or an opportunity to make a group of very diverse characters?

Cheers

Iain

Personally I think of it as an opportunity. I think that each character should be unique, and the psuedo-limitation set by the core box prevents people from all being the same.

I remember running a game of Exalted several years ago where everybody made their characters seperately from each other with their own copy of the rules. Out of the five players, we basically ended up with three different characters! The two wizards were almost identical (especially in their spell choices) and the same was said for the two thief-like characters! Mind you, this is a bit of an uncommon thing to happen, but nowadays I look for ways of preventing it!

I really love the Game but the numbers of action cards is a big failure. Every Player should have the right to create his own carakter as he wants. Oops ic cant choos XY Strike because because someone choosed it beforeme. That is No saying yes to my player. That sounds like even if we printed in China we was to greedy to give every payer his own card. At least it should be possible to buy this cards for every player

Ribuk said:

Honestly I find owning two sets of the cards is the happy middle of the road. I bought two core sets, this gives players a chance to pick up a second winning smile or whatever, I couldn't imagine 3 players wanting the same card and in fact I'd probably put my foot down about it, just to make the game more diverse but a second card in the group? I can see that.

The adventurer's kit comes with all the basic combat cards and duplicates of a few of the more "standard" cards, which helps. Otherwise, my thoughts on the matter:

• I think it *tends* to promote individually different characters, but take into account the following...
• You shouldn't let an artificial limitation like card availability determine the character for you. Why can't you copy the card or, oh I don't know, write it down like we all used to do back when we had character sheets? Seems pretty reasonable to me.

HedgeWizard said:

Honestly it would be great if FFG made a character builder program like Wizards. It contains a copy of all the cards you choose, right on the sheet.

Sinister said:

That would be VERY cool. Along with the Tide of Iron video game we were suggested would be along...

The fact that certain non-Basic cards were repeated in the AT further fuels my conviction that the # of cards is intended to act as a restriction to selection. There are plenty of cards to choose from and limiting selection to cards no one else has picked promotes variety and diversity. I understand that from a player perspective it may not seem logical why they can't learn X just because another player beat them to it, but from a overall game perspective, I think the party benefits from the restriction.

Definitely an opportunity.

I've already let my players know that it's FIRST COME FIRST SERVE until they buy their own boxed set.

It will help create diversity in the party instead of duplicate one-trick ponies

jh

If people think that a forced diversity is compatible with a "say yes to your player appraoch" great, so i guess if the missing card would be in the box you ve had throw them right away. The diversity of cards should be the resaon why no character is the same if the cards can t do that than a forced diversity is even more terrible.

One of you said that from a gamers perspective it seems illogical. True and this game is made for gamers not for GM realising there omnipotence fantasies i thought.

Say Yes (or Roll the Dice) is a principle of play within a game, letting players attempt whatever actions that are within the realm of believability and not denying them because it's not what was expected etc.

It's not a principle of "let the structure of the rules be whatever a player wants", and really whether to let people have duplicate actions is a rules matter.

I think the best answer to this question (duplicate actions or not) is to ask the table and let the table decide the game it wants. Contrary to some references in the rules text, the game is not "the GM's", it is the whole group's. My own vote would be for non-duplication unless we were playing a game with a specific theme linking it and supposed to be creating similar PC's (we're all Waywatchers or Students or something).

Rob

Honestly, I don't think this will be as big a problem as some people want to make it out to be since there are plenty of cards to choose from. It's not like there are a dozen good cards that everyone will want and the rest are crap.

As for whose game it is, I bought the game, therefore it is my game. As GM I decided to enforce card restriction to what is available rather than make copies to promote diversity within the group. Omnipotent GM fantasies aside, if you don't like my rules, don't play. However, if all the players purchased their own copy of the Core Set so that they each have access to all the cards, that would go a long way towards changing my mind; otherwise, my game, my rules.

I like the restriction being an ecouragement for diversity, but if one of my players has a compelling character backstory, I'd definitely be willing to make an additional copy of a card to allow the ability.

JoshuaSable said:

I fully agree with this statement! I personally think it's great that the system encourages diversity. If someone is totally insistant on using an action that other people have already used, simply make color copies and bingo! I much prefer the game the other way however.