im having some problems with runebound. whenever i use the doom track the game advances to fast, and whenever i use the threat track (from midnight) it advances to slowly and we lose interest. I only play 2 player games, i use the variant where theres a high chance we fight on a space without an adventure counter and don't get a reward only experience ( opposite of the undefeated challenge rematches) i am also using a variant where we level up by getting the amount of experience equal to our current level (for instance we start at level 1 get 1 exp and you are level 2 to get to level 3 get 2 exp than3 exp to get to level 4). My goal is to make the game faster, also i am using the expansions: relics of legend, artifacts and allies, the dark forest, and terror of the tomb, should i get rid of any expansions, what variants should i use? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

At a guess, you're already doing what's possible for speed, and Runebound is never going to play as fast as most typical board games. If you're coming in under and hour per player, that's about as good as it is going to get. If not, dump the threat track, as its built for difficulty, not speed.

shadow? said:

If you want speed play, the first thing you should do is stop with the fighting on hexes that don't have jewels. That slows everything down tremendously, becuase now you have to stop and fight on more hexes. At a glance it might seem to speed things up (you don't need to travel as far to get a fight/XP), but the thing is, it also slows things down when you're trying to get back to town (unless you just circle a town hex all day long which sound boring to me.)

Also, the fact that you don't get rewards from such fights slows the game down as it takes longer to get the money you need to buy gear. Leveling with experience chits is important, but gaining power by getting gear is also important in preparing you for the final red challenge showdowns. Needing to wade through 4 or 5 fights that don't give you any money before you can fight one that does will slow things down horrendously.

Also, when you say XP and no reward is "the opposite" of undefeated challenge battles, is that to say you don't award XP for killing an undefeated challenge? That seems wrong to me. The person who failed to kill that fight the first time leaves the XP jewel on the hex. Whoever wins the fight takes it. That's how I understand the process anyway.

Scaling XP by level is a popular variant rule. You might want to cap the scale at 5 XP or something, though, otherwise higher levels will take FOREVER to gain.

After one player is finished moving, the next player should roll the movement ice and start thinking about where they'll go while the first player resolves his challenges. That will speed things up by allowing the next player to plan while you fight instead of spending that time while everyone else waits for her to make up her mind. This would be especially true if you're just 2 players.

Other than that, the best way to finish the game fast is to push for the next challenge category as soon as you feel comfortable with your chances. Don't wait too long on Green "making sure" you're good enough for Yellow.

Steve-O said:

I agree. If you want to speed up more, the only thing I can think of is increasing XP rewards (or lowering the XP costs for leveling).

You could also increase money rewards, with the result of a better equipment earlier in game, but I'm afraid that wuould make many low budget items/allies completely unuseful.

Steve-O said:

All great points. Especially the next player rolling movement and sorting out what he's going to do with the dice while you finish facing challenges or shopping. That will probably cut 15-20 minutes off the game right there per player when you consider rolling and deciding how to spend movement dice takes a minute or so each turn.

Regarding the threat track slowing the game down: the benefit I see in the threat track is that you can adjust the difficulty rating which speeds up or slows down gameplay right there. if the challenge rating is 20 obviously its going to make for a long game than a challenge rating of 12. Try fiddling with the challenge to see if that effects gameplay time.

If you like the Travel Hazard variant why not just allow ExP and Gold rewards as usual for defeating such encounters? I think it still slows down the game, for better or worse, since there is a higher chance that you face a challenge. However, if you are getting full rewards from the Hazard it alleviates the concern that Steve brought up in his post about the need for gold to buy gear upgrades.

Incremental is a great way to get started quicker, but at the upper end, its not a good idea unless (like me and mine) you like a good hard slog and don't care about time. Steve is 100% right that capping the cost of an exp. counter at max. 5 exp is the perfect balance.

Standard Exp.
4 EXP = 1 exp. counter, so to acquire...
40 EXP = 10 exp. counters .

+1 Incremental Exp.
where the cost = exp. counters + 1...
1 EXP = 1 exp. counter; 3 EXP = 2 counters; 6 EXP = 3; 10 = 4; 15 = 5; 21 = 6; 28 = 7; 36 = 8; 45 = 9;
55 EXP = 10 exp. counters;

+1 Incremental, Cap @ 5 Exp
1 EXP = 1 exp. counter; 3 = 2; 6 = 3; 10 = 4; 15 = 5; 20 = 6; 25 = 7; 30 = 8; 35 = 9;
40 EXP = 10 exp. counters ;

Based on only exp. needed and ignoring all other factors, using pure +1 Incremental could increase game time by about 15% to 30%. Gaining exp. through wilderness encounters might offset that if it weren't for the increases in combats as well. So combining wilderness encounters with +1 Incremental becomes a push, and the two are still extending game time.

miles601 said:

That's true, too. If you get full reward and XP for travel hazards then you don't have to travel all the way to a gem for anything, so the game wouldn't be slowed by needing to aim for any particular hex. Personally I've rarely had trouble finding a gem within 5 hexes, so I don't feel compelled to add more fights, but either way as long as you can get one (fully rewarded) fight per turn, you're progressing at roughly the same rate.

the reason i use travel hazards is sometimes we cant get to a space with an adventure counter so this is a substitute so you could still get exp, and undefeated challenges in the rules say if a player stops at a space with an undefeated challenge counter and adventure counter gets to choose to fight the undefeated if they really like the reward, or play the adventure counter as usual and ignore the undefeated. But i will go with Steve's idea and just give the xp with the undefeated.

Here are two variants my group likes to use that speed things up:

1. Start the game leveled up. Each player gets to choose 3 stats to increase at the start of the game. This cuts out roughly 20 minutes of playing time per player. So in a three player game that can be around an hour give or take.

2. Give a starting gold allotment for market cards. I like to use 5 gold. The players can roll off to determine who gets to go through the market first or if your market deck has gotten so big because of expansions its easier just to divide it into pieces and pass them around in a circle. Players must use this gold up during this process. If you want to use a bigger allotment of gold I suggest you limit the price of items that may be bought. 5 is a good limit that keeps players from starting with unbalanced rituals, allies, weapons, etc...

3. Use a real timer. Decide how long you want to play and set an alarm clock or whatever. This can be tricky to do, but a good rule of thumb is one full hour of game time in order to be ready to take on the reds. So if you combine this with the first option you can shave that time down to 40 minutes per player. When the timer goes off, the round of turns is finished then the endgame begins.

These options also allow for greater customization at the start, however they tend to remove the story threads found in the green challenges since most players will set out for yellows and only use greens to fill in xp gaps. Also getting the timer just right can be tricky but has worked well once we mastered it. Most of our games that make it to the endgame are nail biters. We've now lost a and won a few of them by the skin of our teeth.

oops. Meant three variants : )

Tony P. said:

Great variant ideas Tony, I like these alot and definitely going to try this next time we play. We already do the real timer for end game which seems to work well mainly since there are guys who's wives only let them play till a certain time lol. So if they can only play till 11PM then at 10:45 we start endgame. Love the idea of starting out with stat counters and market cards. I might tweak the rule about picking the cards but going to try in non-the-less.

Jujitsu said:

I love my wife but she's the bane of my gaming life!

A lot of the variants I use get tweaked every time I play since they don't always get written down. The flexibility is one of the best parts of Runebound IMHO.

Tony P. said:

"Three! Our THREE variants for speeding up play are: Start the game leveled up, give a starting gold allotment, use a real timer... and read cards while other people play. FOUR! Our FOUR variants are..."

...My fourth variant to speed up play is lots of caffeine! We sometimes start playing so fast we break out into aerobics!

"WOO! LETS BEAT THOSE DRAGONLORDS! FIFTY SQUATS! AND ONE..."

You have the midnight?!

no i use a home made version