Now that I have most of the Item and Ally expansion decks the market deck itself can be gigantic for gameplay. I was wondering what people have playtested as variants to market deck with Rise of the Dragon Lords which would get a few more of those cards in play? A few ways I have either considered or play tested include:

(A) - 2 decks: 1 for items and 1 for allies. Let the player draw from 1 or the other when they take a market step. (B) - 1 deck but players draw 2 cards for a market step adds 1 to the town and discards the other to the bottom.

I don't like players just drawing 2 cards and adding both because an Event card covers that as a special circumstance.

At any rate, what have you all tried?

You're thoughts on this are good. I use to do very similar things.

After many games of Runebound this is what I settled on. And this is something I read from another poster... but I can't remember their name.

I break the Market deck up into 3 decks.

1) Weapons and Armor
2) Allies
3) Magic (Rune, Magic Weapons, Rituals, etc.)

With the exception of Tamilir I put 2-3 (3 if we just feel like it that day) cards in each towns market at the start of the game. I add 1 to each town sequentially and alternate which deck I draw from. This way there is great variety in each town and some selection right from the start. I found that this doesn't unbalance the game. I also put back any doubles and draw again.

When a player takes a market step they can chose any deck to draw from and they can draw 2 cards. Whenever an encounter/event or anything say's you can draw 'x' cards (usually 2) we add one so that it will still be special.

My play group really enjoys this a lot. Becaue there are so many cards drawing still feel very random but you're at least going to get something somewhere in the realm of what you were looking for.

I find that this doesn't make it too easy but it does make it more like to get something you'll use. Even if you draw a crappy sword your fighter can still benefit from it unlike maybe your fighter drawing a Rune.

I bet you'll find many different version of this kind of thing as people add their comments.

I use this one created and posted on BBG ...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/48290/runebound-market-board

It involves die rolling but I think it keeps the cards more organized and managable.

OOPs Board Game Geek .... BGG,

When you're in the Market shopping, you are looking for something to maximize your strengths or compensate for your weaknesses. So we use a more moderate balance between the full randomness of one deck and the over divided ones on BGG. We divide the Market deck roughly in 4 stacks: Allies, for Mental, for Physical, and for Spiritual. There's still some uncertainty (which should not be removed entirely from any aspect of the game), but your needs and intention in shopping aren't completely ignored in the process. And there's no roll needed, you just draw from the deck that suits the need you're shopping for.

The only trick is when there's a card that could suit more than one category or doesn't quite fit in any one of them. When we get a new card pack, we review such cards. If there are duplicates, we split them between appropriate decks. Ones that don't have duplicates or aren't classifiable are split up randomly. At the end of game, we stack them up: Allies face down, Mental face up, and so. They are easy to separate for the next game, shuffle separately, and get on with the game.

I appreciate the effort that went in to creating the BBG market board, but I agree that it is over-divided.

JCHendee: I am interested in the division into allies and then 3 decks for items with their primary attributes. My concern with that system is it could eliminate one of the joys of market step; watching another player draw the item you want (but they dont need) and racing to get there ahead of other players. Have you found that such activity still occurs?

How do you treat armor in that system?

Hein: Do you allow players to draw a card from 2 different market decks or just chose 1 deck and draw 2 cards? (not that I can't adjust house rules accordingly)

miles601 said:

First off, we don't always play this way, but... With my group's approach, uncertainty of what will come up remains but the chance of particular items is not preset by someone else's notion of what should come up most often. That's actually worse (not better) than a straight random draw from one market deck. Some of those roll tables place the highest percentage of results in Armor and/or Weapons. Granted, we all want those, but what if we already have what we need? We roll a die to see what comes up, and get a category for items of which we already have what we need? That's not the way people shop, and makes those 7, 8, 9 etc. different decks pointless

Our approach has surpises, as it should. You don't know what will come up, but instead of item types determined randomly, you get items by your intention and need... by why you bother to go shopping. It may not be the "type" of item you were thinking of, but it'll likely be something close to your "need" for your characters weaknesses or strengths. It's a bit of trade off for want vs. chance, but in the balance we find it does okay.

miles601 said:

Depends on the piece in question, and honestly some are odd that they would stop damage from a Spirit/Magic attack. You have to make your best guess. If a particular item looks like it might be suitable for more than one category (Mental, Physical, Spiritual) check to see if it has a duplicate, and split them up between different categories. Also look at any character attribute based abilities the item has.

In the case of armour, if it also has an ability option based in Spirit, well, if there two such items, your know which categories to split them between: Physical and Spiritual. This way, common items can come up as often as they did when using just one deck, but they come with a bit of character (player) intention in volved. Admittedly, Armour is headache to classify because of the way the combat / damage system works. If the armor doesn't have a clear attribute inclination, we stick it in the Physical deck.

miles601 said:

Adjust it indeed to suit your needs. But in general, no, we don't allow double draw and choose. In cases where a character is instructed to draw more than one card, they of course can draw the required cards from any combination of the four decks. They don't have to draw them all from the same deck.

Hey Miles601,

Yeah, we do allow a player to draw from 2 different market decks. And we find quite often this happens. A fighter character might want to draw from Weapons and Armor but may also want to draw from magic... maybe hoping for a cool ritual or a magic weapon or whatever
I find it does not make things too easy but it really seems like we're drawing items that are much more interesting for a particular character.

miles601 said:

We're splitting the market deck into two (Allies and the rest) but we might start playing with 3 decks (Allies/Weapon & Armour/ Runes & Artifacts) once we have more expansion sets and the market card stack gets bigger and bigger. But I'm not sure if 3 decks aren't too predictable? The key is to find a balance between complete luck (1 deck for everything) and too much predictability (like 4+ decks), isn't it?

If you play with 2, 3 or more decks how you deal with challenge cards that make you draw a market card as a reward and lets you keep it if it's a ally, weapon or rune etc? With split market decks its a automatic item gain as you can chose the proper deck (and not a luck based reward as it was intended).

I've given a few of the market variants posted here a try. Overall some pretty good ideas. Splitting the market deck in 3 piles depending on its main stat was probably the variant I enjoyed most, but it was also the most time consuming to set up. I'm most likely going to stick to playing with 1 deck, draw 2 cards add 1 to market stack, discard the other. Its boring, but its easy to set up and take apart.

Shelfwear said:

With three decks split by rough estimate of attribute they best support, there is a bit more mix in each one for item types... but not perfectly of course. And we require that the player drawing draw from the decks in rotation (starting with which one they want to try first).

miles601 said:

You're right of course, unless once you've sorted them you continue to keep them separated for the next game. That's what we do. When putting them away we put one face down, stack the next face up on top the first, and the last face down. They are then all stacked together but easy to fan through and separate for shuffling at the next game. The same can be done for other market multi-deck approaches. When we buy a new expansion with more market cards, we sit down and decide what goes where... and then its done for good. We are also separating out the Allies as a fourth deck, by the by. Finding people is a bit different, and they wouldn't really be found in a "market." When you have two allies, you wouldn't be looking for such, so drawing one is kind of odd.

As to the draw two and pick, we've tried that as well. It works just fine too, though it doesn't address the approach of "shopping for need" in a big town or city.

That was what I liked best about the system. It gives a feeling that you are going to a city and actually looking for something being sold that could meet your needs. Ex. Why would a warrior go to a store that sells magic wands?

OTOH, the market deck is supposed to be rare, magic items so those things would tend to not just be stocked in a wal-mart in Dawnsmoor.

I like your ideas about seperating the decks and leaving them seperated between games. That certainly solves my issue with a long set up before every game.

miles601 said:

I suppose if any city would, it might be Dawnsmoor.