This is my suggestion for multiplayer free for all rules. I was going to post it in the multiplayer thread, but after writing it a bit I thought a new thread would make more sense.

Bidding: All players bid secretly and simultaneously. Then the players are paired. Players are always paired with the player either to their left or right. If there is an odd number, a 'leftover' player is chosen, whose bid is compared with a default bid of 3. The other pairings are determined automatically once the leftover player is known. If the same player is selected to be leftover in consecutive rounds, the selection is redone. If there is an even number of players, a coin flip can determine whether the first player pairs left or right, and this determines the rest of the pairings.

Victory: the game ends when any player reaches 25 honor or 0 honor, or when any stronghold is destroyed. If the game ends through a player being eliminated, the player to their right is the winner.

Rings: 2 sets of rings are used (10 total). No player may declare both attacks using the same ring if that ring was claimed during their first attack, even if another ring of the same type would otherwise be available. The exception is if a card effect makes the same physical ring they attacked with available again.

The rules below are to impose a bit of order on things: for a more anything goes experience the above rules are sufficient.

Attacks: Players may attack the player to their left without restriction. An attack against a player not to the left is a 'special' attack. Only one special attack may be declared against each player per turn. This means that once a player has had a special attack declared against them, no one else may declare a special attack against them for the rest of the turn.

Aid: Each player may recieve aid on defence from one other player once per turn. Both players must agree. For that conflict, the aiding player's characters may be assigned on defence. Aid is agreed to after the attack is declared. An aiding player may also play cards that specify that they must be used by a defending player or when defending your provinces as if one of their provinces was being attacked.

More options.

Pooled bids - After bids are revealed each player adds honour equal to the total of their bid into a pool. Players who bid 1 then remove a token from the pool. Next players who bid 1 or 2 remove a token from the pool. And so on. In a case where there is not enough honour in the pool for all the eligible players, those with the lowest bids get to take the honour first.

Paired Rings - Each player has a set of Rings. When declaring an attack choose an opponent and choose a ring that you both share as unclaimed. After the battle, although only one player can claim the ring, both lose it out of their unclaimed pool. This lets you choose a ring to prevent your opponent using it against you.

Titles - Mirror the AGOT multiplayer with a set of Titles. Each title has a bonus, a cannot ally with an Enemy title (+1 Fate when declaring an attack against enemy) and cannot attack an Ally title (+1 Fate when assigning a defender to your ally).

Possible examples.

• Right Hand - Bonus: +1 Mil, Enemy: Left hand, Ally: Underhand.
• Left Hand - Bonus: +1 Pol, Enemy: Right Hand, Ally: Voice.
• Underhand - Bonus: Look at opponents hand, Enemy: Voice, Ally: Shogun.
• Voice - Bonus: Active Player, Enemy: Underhand, Ally: Chancellor.
• Shogun - Bonus: During dynasty turn 1 card face up, Enemy: Chancellor, Ally: Right hand
• Chancellor - Bonus: Draw a card, Enemy: Shogun, Ally: Left Hand

What if the honor gain/loss worked the same way as in two-player, with the highest bidder paying the difference in honor to the lowest bid, but that the first player resolved ties for either bid?

Each person attacks the person to the left and defends against the person on the right. Starting with dirst player take turns clockwise until everyone has had the opportunity for two atracks. First person to do one of the following wins the game:

-Break the stronghold of person to his/her left for military victory

-reach 25 honor for honor victory

-bring person on his/her left's honor to 0 for victory by dishonoring.

As for rings.. have a communal ring pool that adds another of each ring for every 2 extra players.. so for 4 players there will be 10 rings "2 of each". For an odd number like 3 I am not sure what the best solution is. If all rings are taken by the last players last action, perhaps they get to choose a ring of their choice just for that turn.

The favor figured out as normal.

I have a couple ideas for the bidding, but fully satisfied with it yet. One idea for even numbers I kind of like is the idea of drawing a number face down or from a hat that will have 2 copies of #1 and #2 tokens and you just compare bids to the one you have a match with. For odd numbers, just have one tile that just says your bid is matched against a "3" and fate from that bid is exchanged with the bank.

On 7/5/2017 at 9:08 PM, Eugene Earnshaw said:

This is my suggestion for multiplayer free for all rules. I was going to post it in the multiplayer thread, but after writing it a bit I thought a new thread would make more sense.

Bidding: All players bid secretly and simultaneously. Then the players are paired. Players are always paired with the player either to their left or right. If there is an odd number, a 'leftover' player is chosen, whose bid is compared with a default bid of 3. The other pairings are determined automatically once the leftover player is known. If the same player is selected to be leftover in consecutive rounds, the selection is redone. If there is an even number of players, a coin flip can determine whether the first player pairs left or right, and this determines the rest of the pairings.

Victory: the game ends when any player reaches 25 honor or 0 honor, or when any stronghold is destroyed. If the game ends through a player being eliminated, the player to their right is the winner.

Rings: 2 sets of rings are used (10 total). No player may declare both attacks using the same ring if that ring was claimed during their first attack, even if another ring of the same type would otherwise be available. The exception is if a card effect makes the same physical ring they attacked with available again.

The rules below are to impose a bit of order on things: for a more anything goes experience the above rules are sufficient.

Attacks: Players may attack the player to their left without restriction. An attack against a player not to the left is a 'special' attack. Only one special attack may be declared against each player per turn. This means that once a player has had a special attack declared against them, no one else may declare a special attack against them for the rest of the turn.

Aid: Each player may recieve aid on defence from one other player once per turn. Both players must agree. For that conflict, the aiding player's characters may be assigned on defence. Aid is agreed to after the attack is declared. An aiding player may also play cards that specify that they must be used by a defending player or when defending your provinces as if one of their provinces was being attacked.

Haha so after I read your post I realized we had pretty much the same thing. Guess great minds think alike!

The problem with the paired rings

On 7/7/2017 at 8:45 AM, Bazleebub said:

More options.

Pooled bids - After bids are revealed each player adds honour equal to the total of their bid into a pool. Players who bid 1 then remove a token from the pool. Next players who bid 1 or 2 remove a token from the pool. And so on. In a case where there is not enough honour in the pool for all the eligible players, those with the lowest bids get to take the honour first.

Paired Rings - Each player has a set of Rings. When declaring an attack choose an opponent and choose a ring that you both share as unclaimed. After the battle, although only one player can claim the ring, both lose it out of their unclaimed pool. This lets you choose a ring to prevent your opponent using it against you.

Titles - Mirror the AGOT multiplayer with a set of Titles. Each title has a bonus, a cannot ally with an Enemy title (+1 Fate when declaring an attack against enemy) and cannot attack an Ally title (+1 Fate when assigning a defender to your ally).

Possible examples.

• Right Hand - Bonus: +1 Mil, Enemy: Left hand, Ally: Underhand.
• Left Hand - Bonus: +1 Pol, Enemy: Right Hand, Ally: Voice.
• Underhand - Bonus: Look at opponents hand, Enemy: Voice, Ally: Shogun.
• Voice - Bonus: Active Player, Enemy: Underhand, Ally: Chancellor.
• Shogun - Bonus: During dynasty turn 1 card face up, Enemy: Chancellor, Ally: Right hand
• Chancellor - Bonus: Draw a card, Enemy: Shogun, Ally: Left Hand

The problem with paired rings is that it is not clear how to allocate bonus fate. I think my suggestion avoids that problem, although it might mean that a bit too much fate accumulates in 3 player games and not enough in 5.

Pooled bids is interesting, but I think it would lead to some weird situations. Suppose that there are 3 players: A bids 1 B bids 4 C bids 5. There is 10 honor in the pool. A takes three honor, A and B take an honor, and then AB and C take an honor. So far, A has gained 4 honor, B has lost 2 honor, C has lost 4 honor, and there is two honor left in the pool. Do A and B take the last 2? In that case, A gains 5 honor total (a lot), B only loses 1 but C loses 4. Sucks a lot to be the highest bidder and it is conversely very good to be the lowest bidder.

The titles seem like they would take a fair amount of playtesting to balance.

On 12/7/2017 at 3:24 AM, Eugene Earnshaw said:

The problem with the paired rings

The problem with paired rings is that it is not clear how to allocate bonus fate. I think my suggestion avoids that problem, although it might mean that a bit too much fate accumulates in 3 player games and not enough in 5.

1

Good point, I should have detailed it. I think the best way is to allow each player place Fate on any of the rings they have remaining at the end of the turn. It results in some strange situations where one player will grab fate from their ring but the corresponding opponents ring will have none and vice versa. It should keep the Fate similar to a two player game.

On 12/7/2017 at 3:24 AM, Eugene Earnshaw said:

Pooled bids is interesting, but I think it would lead to some weird situations. Suppose that there are 3 players: A bids 1 B bids 4 C bids 5. There is 10 honor in the pool. A takes three honor, A and B take an honor, and then AB and C take an honor. So far, A has gained 4 honor, B has lost 2 honor, C has lost 4 honor, and there is two honor left in the pool. Do A and B take the last 2? In that case, A gains 5 honor total (a lot), B only loses 1 but C loses 4. Sucks a lot to be the highest bidder and it is conversely very good to be the lowest bidder.

11

Hmm I never considered that scenario. My gut would be to trash the remaining 2 so A gets 4, B, loses 2, and C loses 3. For A this is as if their opponent bid 5, for B this is like their opponent bid 2, and for C it is like their opponent bid 2. These seem close to the average bids of all the other players without having to do maths.

On 12/7/2017 at 3:24 AM, Eugene Earnshaw said:

The titles seem like they would take a fair amount of playtesting to balance.

I have a lot of sympathy for the designers having to work out how to keep everyone happy.

One of the reasons it is great to be a random person on the internet full of opinions but no responsibilities