There's almost zero player interaction. Aside from reading cards to each other there isnt any real method to influence the play or decisions of another character. You certainly can't fight another player and there isnt any incentive to trade items with them either since you might be giving your opponent something they need to fulfill an agenda card.

Its not fully co-operative since you can't complete tasks or combat together but its not fully competitive either for reason listed above.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

26 minutes ago, vyrago said:

Its not fully co-operative since you can't complete tasks or combat together but its not fully competitive either for reason listed above.

It's not a co-op game.

Fallout has always been a single player experience, I don't mind the lack of interaction with other players since I get enough interaction with my other board games like TI4. It is fun when everyone loses though.

22 minutes ago, Hedgehobbit said:

It's not a co-op game.

I know, but yet all players can complete quests part of the same story. If I had to define it, I would call it "competitive solo".

It's the same as Runebound in that respect. It's a race to the finish - side by side competitive instead of head to head.

Considering this is a VP race it's weird that FFG didn't put anything in the box to help track Influence. How much (non agenda-based) influence each player has accumulated should be visible, open knowledge. Guess we'll use glass stones?

FFG is notorious for overproduction so this just seems really off.

I'm definitely concerned about this game having low-to-no player interaction, especially because solo play strikes me as incidental. Haven't played with friends yet but I think enemy movement and agenda-based influence assume more than one player. And yet, if the four of us are mostly just going about our own business ... IME that leads to anticlimactic end games.

31 minutes ago, Manchu said:

Considering this is a VP race it's weird that FFG didn't put anything in the box to help track Influence. How much (non agenda-based) influence each player has accumulated should be visible, open knowledge. Guess we'll use glass stones?

FFG is notorious for overproduction so this just seems really off.

I'm definitely concerned about this game having low-to-no player interaction, especially because solo play strikes me as incidental. Haven't played with friends yet but I think enemy movement and agenda-based influence assume more than one player. And yet, if the four of us are mostly just going about our own business ... IME that leads to anticlimactic end games.

Manchu once you play you should feel assured that interaction is there. Just because you aren't attacking the other players doesn't mean we are all not involved. The stories are great to listen to and be a part of when its your turn to read. Also, if someone does a quest that I wanted to do before me rest assured I am going to give them a nice ..i.. . The game objectives move all over the board as the quests complete and sometimes someone can be standing right where the next quest objective appears. That happened to me and I was thanking my buddy for rushing to finish the quest and choose that particular option that brought the next one to me.

I have definitely played games where during a players turn, whatever they do, doesn't affect me at all and I just sit there and its relatively quiet. This isn't the case so far in my opinion with fallout. We have been laughing and commenting on what the other players are doing and for me that is enough interaction. In the end, its all about having fun within the dynamics of the game and my group is definitely having that.

Yeah - playing solo just made me really want to play with friends. Should get an opportunity the weekend after this one.

I'd be curious what people would think there should be for player interaction aside from trading and promises or the things Malcom talks about above. It's not a co-op game, it's a competitive race for VPs. I think Wasteland Express has a similar low-level player interaction but people seem to love it. What would someone who expected a higher player interaction have liked to have seen? Other than player combat with one another since that can take this type of game off the rails pretty fast.

Also, the influence cards track the VPs. I haven't played through, but it sounds like the amount a card is worth other than the standard 1 can vary from round to round depending on what's going on so you'd have to be adding/subtracting tokens frequently (or that may be my misunderstanding). can use those punchout blanks from the player boards for trackers.

@keltheos I was confused about the thumbs up symbol in the results field of Quest/Encounter cards - I thought it meant, gain an Influence point when it really means draw an Agenda Card.

Setting aside PvP, one possibility for more player interaction would be a formal mechanic for cooperating on quests and sharing rewards.

Well there can be a coop element. You can tell pretty quickly if the agenda card someone has will favor one faction or the other. So if you and that player seem to be trying to help a certain faction you are kind of playing coop because if that one faction is doing well, you are both doing well.

Now, you can get more cards which can make you wish you were the other faction as the game goes along which is interesting to me. But that is also neat in a sense that if the other faction, which is not on the agenda card I have, starts running away with the game I may get an agenda card later for that winning faction and in essence I will switch sides. But the agenda cards are not always just for one faction or the other. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played it but there are other things on the agenda cards you can work towards to get influence to win that has nothing to do with which faction is winning.

On 12/7/2017 at 11:39 AM, Manchu said:

Considering this is a VP race it's weird that FFG didn't put anything in the box to help track Influence. How much (non agenda-based) influence each player has accumulated should be visible, open knowledge. Guess we'll use glass stones?

FFG is notorious for overproduction so this just seems really off.

I'm definitely concerned about this game having low-to-no player interaction, especially because solo play strikes me as incidental. Haven't played with friends yet but I think enemy movement and agenda-based influence assume more than one player. And yet, if the four of us are mostly just going about our own business ... IME that leads to anticlimactic end games.

Actually it's a specific design choice that the agendas are hidden so you don't know the goals of the other person. This is a common mechanic in VP race games. Ticket To Ride has the hidden ticket cards, Settlers of Catan has development cards that are hidden VPs that you only reveal to declare victory. Lords of Waterdeep has hidden victory points based on the Lord you are playing.

Each agenda card is automatically worth a victory point by itself, so that is public knowledge. Then each agenda card seems to generally have a fairly easy condition to get a second VP and a more difficult one to achieve a third off of the agenda card. With a couple exceptions you're not supposed to know what those conditions are. One of those exceptions is the faction agendas where you can flip it face up to declare loyalty to a faction so you can ignore the agents of that faction.

On 12/7/2017 at 1:45 PM, Manchu said:

@keltheos I was confused about the thumbs up symbol in the results field of Quest/Encounter cards - I thought it meant, gain an Influence point when it really means draw an Agenda Card.

Setting aside PvP, one possibility for more player interaction would be a formal mechanic for cooperating on quests and sharing rewards.

In a sense it does mean gain an influence point(unless you're already at the max four cards) since each agenda card is worth an influence point automatically.