Thanks Big Remy.

That make perfect sense and is what everyone was basically saying but you were able to say it quite eloquently. I can understand the confusion though as the concept of " letting them have the treasure, etc..." by not killing them is a fairly alien idea in this game for alot of people. I guess I have taken the cutthroat concept or versus concept too far and never thought of this as a counter strategy, which was exactly what I was asking for.

So thank you again.

@Haslo: I appreciate your comments on it and I fully agree with you on playing for fun. I also personally would not play a game with people like you describe either, but I am glad you caught the idea that it was more of a thought expirement (that actually may be tested). And please dont take offense to the earlier reply about quiting, being a baby etc... It was not directed at you, but to someone else, but I realize it did relate to some of the points you made.

As for the Divine Favor rule, its funny because we have implemented almost all the other rules from SOB in RTL, but skipped this one because it sounded so daft. After this little exchange though I can actually see why it has been put into play and will most likely be using it from now on also.

I do not wish to drag out this thread any longer than it needs to, but I think there is an important lesson here that is not immediately obvious.

In other strategy articles and threads I have read here and on BBG, one of the big ideas I picked up was that stopping the heroes or delaying them is a benefit to the OL as, I quote, "Time is on the OL's side", reinforced by the idea that the longer they take, the more potential CT gathered by the OL. I see now that this is a valid idea only to a point. There comes a point where the OL can be TOO good at delaying the heroes, or the heroes are playing too badly (which is odd because unchecked it seems like it could be beneficial to the heroes).

So its up to the OL to maximize his CT gains WITHOUT allowing the heroes to control the campaign advancement. It certainly was not obvious the first few plays to me that this would be something to watch for, but now makes perfect sense.

Bravo McWilley said:

This is a non-issue unless the heroes are just amazingly bad at the game, and strategizing. I can't imagine a scenario where, playing as the OL, I thought to myself "man I better slow down the rate at which this CT is coming in."

But this was exactly the scenario i posted about and was pretty much what I thought to myself when presented with the idea that the heroes could potentially continue this trend, strategy, whatever, all the way into the final battle. I came to the forum here because I did not know how to slow down the CT gains and had some difficulty understanding the concept of how to do so, without alienating my players. I hope this thread will be of some use to others in the future as it was of great help to me.

And yes, maybe my heroes are not the best at this game, but its a very complex game with alot of ins and outs so I personally, can not fault them for trying. Thats how people learn in most cases and they can only get better. I feel it's better to be encouraging and come up with counter strategies to deal with it than to chaulk them up as "Bad" players and not play anymore, or whatever. I hope you would agree and can understand why I pressed this so hard for the "right" answer.

(the right answer, for me, being the one given by others but explained the best by Big Remy.)

Dashakan said:

this is actually wrong. its not even oppinion of yours which i dont share, its just a plain wrong fact. of course they are playing, the heroes are advancing the campaign as fast as they can WITHIN the rules the game provided. this IS exactly the game delivered by ffg.

Dashakan said:

Its better to gain CT in chunks that you can then use than to allow the heroes to dictate the pace of the game by playing by the described tactic. If the heroes are killing each other and giving you CT, then you are no longer in control of the game. Since you can only buy one upgrade per week, they are now controlling how many upgrades you get to buy using this tactic. That is not being an effective OL.

Additionally, I can think of three potential times when I'd like to be behind the heroes slightly in the game. If you are behind the heroes, they are denied the Legendary Areas. Especially in Copper for the Caverns.

but you cannot force them to stop.. unless threatening outside of the game. so you have to stop them from getting stronger. i.e denying them treasure. chasing them with your lieutenant to get more time, there are 3 dungeons they can reach from tamalir. this you can achive with sir alric farrow until you can get slaggaroth, which they cannot escape ;-)

i cant estimate how much cp they get in a single dungeon. if they are lucky they get an easy one. if they are not lucky they wont even get past the first level.

Actually you can estimate how many CTs heroes will earn in a dungeon. Most dungeon levels have 1 Treasure Chest and 1 Glyph, so 4CTs per dungeon level is a fair estimate (at least for my group, who is notorious for failing to roll blanks on treasure chests ). If they go through 3 levels, that's an average of 12CTs for an entire dungeon, plus 1 for exploring it.

The heroes should use that calculation to determine if they should continue a dungeon or not. If they've earned 4CTs for the first level and haven't died yet, then it might be worth their while to continue on with the 2nd level. If, however, they've already died a few times and given the OL say 6CTs, then maybe they should call it quits for this dungeon, since it's only going to get harder from here on out...

-shnar

maybe i was a bit unclear (or you didnt follow this thread):

the cp is not 12. its around 80-150 i guess. an average of 13 per round for like 14 rounds equals 182 conquest per level of a dungeon plus the normal conquest of around 12. with this you can nearly enter gold on your first dungeon.

Bravo McWilley said:

The problem is your outlook. It is most noted by the highlighted segment. You wouldn't be alienating them, they ALREADY alienated YOU by playing (or in this case NOT playing) like ********. You are trying to take blame for an issue that they created.

Turric4n said:

I am not going to be drawn into a semantics argument with you. It is plain to see that any reasonable person would believe standing in a dungeon killing yourselves would be an example of NOT playing.

shnar said:

You are forgetting the CT for killing the level leader (sometimes 2, sometimes 4, and rarely 8).

only in your prison of self made rules. they do a perfectly legal move to advance the campaign. what you are describing is violating the fluff of the game, not the game itself. they are not NOT playing. they are playing in a way YOU dont accept and by no means is the thread starter taking the blame for his players. he is doing one of two ways to resolve this issue by looking for a counter to a (seemingly) overpowered tactic. the other way would be to talk to his player to stop this behavior IF it is really gamebreaking. that is when the heroes still win the final encounter.

here read that:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

i think you will find a pretty close resemblance with yourself. its not an agrumentation of semantics, i am merely pointing out your narrow minded view.

shnar said:

Except that doesn't work, because the heroes can easily kill themselves without any help from the OL. A mage with a blast or breath rune can kill everyone with a battle action. A melee character can usually one-shot everyone else, though it might be two-shots in early copper.

This is true, and technically nothing can stop this poor type of playing, but I think the heroes will rue this type of playing...

-shnar

I think it depends on how quickly they can kill themselves and get to Gold. If the overlord only gets 2 upgrades and the heroes get their one free one (using it to upgrade dice), the final fight will depend on who the avatar is. I think the Spider Queen will still get rolled over unless she gets a good draw of dungeons to give a strong health buffer. but the Demon Prince or Dragon would be close to unbeatable because of a lack of surges to spend on Fear.

Turric4n said:

I'm not saying I don't know how to play to win. I played cards professionally for years. I know what it takes to win. Descent is not about winning. It is about the experience of playing the game. Nobody has fun Tamalir rushing. That is a fact. All it serves to do is get the heroes pissed off, which will lead to an argument, and get everyone pissed. The same is true of this tactic, its piss poor playing is what it is.

Dashakan: I agree with your opinion across the board, but if you're going to make universal claims like that you may want to either qualify the "nobody has fun" statement or provide some evidence.

James McMurray said:

Meh. It doesn't really need qualifying. It is pretty obvious that the heroes aren't going to have fun if the OL rushes Tamalir, and that the OL will have no fun if the heroes sit in a dungeon killing themselves.

You're qualifying it to say that "the heroes" won't have fun with a Tamalir rush and "the overlord" won't have fun if heroes suicide. That's very different than your originla universal "nobody."

I can mostly agree with that, though I'm sure there are some masochists out there who would say the challenge of winning in those situations is fun for them.

James McMurray said:

As I said earlier, in a game like this, unless you are a complete a$$hole, if one party isn't having fun, the other isn't either. One party not having fun is going to start complaining -> arguing -> no one has fun.

You are arguing semantics. Why do people insist on arguing the letter of the word, you get the idea of what I am saying (you even point that out), why do you insist on arguing about it?

so... only a game which is won by the heroes is fun for everyone? what are the chances for winning by plot, maybe a little bit higher than winning by avatar battle?

Dashakan said:

Because what you say you're saying and what your'e actuallly saying aren't the same thing. If I'm supposed to know what you're saying, I need clarification. I also like to know which people are the kind that insist their opinions are universal truths (which you seemed to be doing) and which are the reasonable human beings I can be expected to carry on a meaningful conversation with (which you turned out to be). Without clarification there's no way to know that.