I've heard tell that there exists suggested variant rules for playing Runebound in a more cooperative fashion. However, a quick search of these forums and BGG didn't reveal much of substance.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Annecdotes with personal experience?

gatharion said:

I have trouble imagining how RB could be played in a more cooperative fashion than it already is. PvP combat only really occurs if one person deliberately tries to run into another. I suppose you could could impose a house rule that outright forbids PvP combat, although I don't think I've ever seen it happen in our games anyway.

True, there's only one winner at the end, but in my experience this isn't the sort of game where the "losers" end up feeling bad about losing. Everyone has fun along the way and whoever wins just gets an extra pat on the back.

Steve-O said:

Players in the same location could join forces for a Challenge? Players would fight Margath (in vanilla) together instead of individually. For each step of combat they could pick the Hero who defends/attacks. There would have to be a clock of sorts of course, Threat Track or Doom Track. There isn't really any cooperation in RB, although you can trade if you want, there is just isn't a lot of interaction (PvP) unless you go look for it. There is no joint goal in RB, one player is the winner, rest lose. Like Talisman, we play RB as a race game, full tilt for the win.

When it comes to facing a challenge, I've always imagined it as Dam describes: for each phase of combat, the "team" chooses one hero or ally to attack and the rest defend. It sort of changes the whole issue Items as well. There are a few nice ones that cause a wound on a successful defend.

There are other options for cooperation in conjunction with facing Challenges or not. I stumbled on one while working on CoA cards for Frozen Wastes. A group was playing FW in "teams" in a six player games (ouch) and the teams of two worked at gathering clues.

Teammates could not share clues unless their characters met up. They split up in their search for most of the game, occasionally crossing paths to check on clues. Clues had to be used collectively to win the game. The winning team in one session even split up when they had the necessary clues, taking slightly separate routes to a destination in order to throw off the competition. It was claimed this made for a shorter game overall, but especially for so many players. I can't see that many players at a table, but it did sort of sound like a fun variation.

Much as that's rather expansion specific, I'm sure there maybe other options as well when thinking inbetween. Cooperation doesn't have to include all players at the table.

I was discussing trying to come up with a co-op of this game with a friend and after tossing some ideas he came up with something that might work. And then we expanded on it. So I had to try it his weekend.

Treat the red Adventure Counters as we do gates in Arkham Horror.

Object: Remove all the red Adventure counters.

Given an unlimited amount of time all the red counters can all be defeated. So for a challenge we need to use a timer.

Use the Theat track as a timer with a slight modification.....

Raise the Threat Level track as we do when playing solo using with Mr Skeletor's Solo Rules.
Decrease the Difficulty number by 1 each time the number of experience counters equals the number of players.
Example: In a two player game decrease the Difficulty number by 1 when the experience counters in play equals 2. It is decreased again when the amount of experience counters equals 4. And so on.

I played 2 two player games with my nephew using this variant and enjoyed it. We started with the Difficulty at 20. Won 1 game and lost 1 game.
(As in the solo game, once the Threat track goes beyond 10, game over - you lose)

Thats it. We had 2 fun games trying to clear the land of the Dragon Lords.

I always thought a quick and dirty way to do co-op would just be to choose a leader for the "party" and the others act as Allies. Split the XP and make leveling 2 per. No one can level up until theres enough for everyone to.

The only real problem with co-op is green and yellow challenges will be pretty easy against even starting characters. So you would have to take on the blue(purple) and red challenges early on.

Steve-O said:

I have to agree with that. I recently played a game with the Cult of the Rune variant. We used an alarm clock as our timer and only had two and a half hours to play. Only two of us scored any points against the Cult and another player got FIVE corruption markers! We got nowhere near the suggested score or defeating the red Cult members before we ran out of time. We called the de facto winner the highest scorer but everyone had such a great time it didn't matter. Winning can seem pretty arbitrary in Runebound anyway. A lot of the fun is just in the story your character goes through.

Here's another Coop I stumbled upon on here by someone named RAGS .....

""Disclaimer: It is entirely possible that someone on this forum has already thought of this idea, and posted it. If this is the case, my most sincere apologies it is not my intent to hijack your idea. I have searched the Runebound forums and not seen this idea posted before, so I am offering it to you all now.

Our game group is composed largely of old RPG geezers, and we still spend most of our time on pen & paper rpgs, but we like to vary it up with some board games every now and then. Our favorite is Arkham Horror, but lately we have been giving Runebound some play as well. Though we have nothing against competitive play, our instincts (along with a desire to finish the game in under 6 hours) lead us toward co-op, and so we have been considering some ways to incorporate more co-op play into Runebound, while doing the least possible violence to the existing rules and format.

Voila, then, my Co-op Variant for Runebound...

The essence of this variant can be summarized in one sentence: When two (or more) heroes are in the same board space, one may serve as an ally of the other during a challenge.

In practice, this is how the rule works:

1) Two players decide to take on a challenge together. This will usually be an undefeated challenge that is already on the board, since the players can readily see if they have the skills or equipment required to defeat it. The players decide who will be the ally, and who will take the lead during the challenge.

2) The hero who is to be the ally moves into the space first, but does not trigger the encounter.

3) Then, the hero who will lead the encounter moves into the space, and triggers it. During the subsequent challenge, this hero may use the other hero as an ally, exactly as if he/she were an ally card and not a hero. (That is, the hero who is "guest starring" as an ally can make an attack during one phase of the challenge.) If the hero who is leading the encounter already has two allies, he must turn one face down he will not get the use of that ally during this challenge. (This is to preserve the existing restriction on the number of allies allowed.)

4) Likewise, the hero who is serving as an ally does not get the use of his own allies he is doing a cameo appearance here, so his own allies get the encounter off. He does, however, get to use his weapons, armor, and other items, as these are his personal property.

5) If either player is KO'd during the challenge, he is removed to the nearest city and the normal rules applied.

6) If the players are successful in defeating the challenge, they may divide the rewards (experience points, gold) as they see fit.

7) Optional Keeper Card Rule: Some challenge cards can be kept once defeated and used later to mess with your competition. If you desire to be nice and play co-op, you may elect instead to sell these cards during a market phase, for one gold per challenge level (that is, green = 1 gold, yellow = 2 gold, and so on).

And that's all there is to it. This mod does not require any major alterations to the basic game rules, any special phase rules, or anything else. If you wish, you can alter the victory conditions of the scenario to reflect co-op play (make them tougher), or you can just let those who want to use it do so, while others continue to play competitively.

Thanks for your attention, and have a great time gaming.

Rags""

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/124034/co-op-some-added-spice-and-speeding-up-the-whole-m

These are a cooperative variant to runebound using the base game and elements of the Midnight expansion. I don't have Midnight and haven't tried it but the comments from users on the blog seem positive.

Jason

IM looking for a game with lots of player interaction and involvement between players.

From what ive seen RB doesnt seem to have too much interaction. Like 1 player goes out on his adventure and then the other goes out on his own as well, what players dont need to plan ahead or keep constant track of each others movements. First one to kill the boss wins. Or in some variant some people tag in only for battles.

Am i right to think this?

Grove12345 said:

You are correct. Without any expansions there's no real motivation to attack other players. You certainly can, and the game has rules for such, but you basically have to go out of your way chasing down other players when you can get equal or better rewards by doing your own thing and fighting the game directly.

There is a category of card expansions called Class Decks that add some more player interaction to the game, although I haven't got any of them myself so I can't say if it would be enough to make the game interesting for you. Considering how hard it is to even find the class decks nowadays (and that you'd need one for each player to use them properly) it's probably not worth your time to pick up RB.

A better game for player interaction would be Descent. It's technically everyone vs the Overlord player, but it's a highly tactical game, so there's plenty of interaction in planning your heroes' turns and then enacting your strategy. It has a thin shell of a story, but you're better off ignoring that and focusing on the crunchy tactics.

If you want something like RB, but with more interaction, I'd point you at Talisman. It's a more traditional board game format, but it has the same heroic questing feel of Runebound in a much more competitive style.

To Steve (or anyone else)... for those looking to have more PvP or CvC in a fantasy motif, how does Runewars match up? It didn't look to my taste, but maybe (?) that could be of interest to those looking for this kind of play?

And to Tazbro... that's an interesting and clean set up you have there for on the fly co-op. Not sure how well it would work in a fully competitive variant, but it certainly caught my eye.

JCHendee said:

Runewars is a bit of an interesting case in that regard. There's certainly more PvP interaction than in Runebound, however, you don't want to get carried away with attacking for the sake of conflict because you'll end up over extended and your enemies will punish you. To win Runewars you need to focus on the goal (ie: collecting and holding runes and the territory they must occupy.) You fight to gain control or retain control of such hexes and the runes they hold, you don't fight just to take out the enemy force in the next hex. In that sense it's more strategic than tactical, which is a bit unusual for a "war" game. I certainly like it, but others might not.

However, even discounting direct conflict, there is certainly more player interaction in the influence bids and so on. Heroes rarely duel in my experience, but that's probably just how we play. They certainly have plenty of opportunity to cross paths and fight if they so desire. The ability for heroes to cross into enemy territory without having to fight their armies and to explore "behind the lines" is quite intriguing to me. The potential for heroes to change allegiances based on their alignment compared to yours (as a nation) also adds some interesting considerations into the mix.

I would advise anyone looking to RW as an alternative to RB to try it out, if they can. Ask local stores if they have a demo copy or find a friend who has it and see if it meets your expectations in this regard. Direct player interaction has never been a huge priority for me, so it's hard for me to say if Runewars would fulfill that desire.

Good to know, and thanks. Doesn't really sound like my thing. I do like games with the potential for CvC (inside the game environment) but not that interested in the PvP (outside game environment). But sounds like RW does some interesting things in blurring the lines between those two.

Steve-O said:

thanks for the feedback steve.

I looked into Runewars but felt the game isnt reached full potential with just 2 players. And thats all i got. As much as i REALLY want to play Descent with the add ons. I only got 1 friend to play with.

I actually got Defenders of the Realm. Wow that was an intense co-op game. Even though we had turns per player, it felt like we were all coordinating each others players. You need to plan ahead with your buddies to and provide feedback on what you are going to do.

Grove12345 said:

For what it's worth, I find Runewars is quite enjoyable with only two. Normally I don't like most board games with just two (even co-op ones like Arkham lose something with so few), but this one is good. That said, 4 players is still so much better, so I agree with your statement that it doesn't reach its full potential with just 2.

Grove12345 said:

Do you like DotR?

Seem like it has good replayability?

It has really piqued my interest.