Barb and I are still at loss, even after looking at the alternative documents over at Headless Hollow. So... when is the story die an option or requirement...

1. When you land on a gem space without a gem?
2. When you land on a gem space with a game?
3. When you land on any space that isn't a city?

And about drawing a Legend card...

1. In a city if forgoing a market/bazaar phase?
2. On a non-gem space instead of a story roll?

It seemed like several different places in the manual contradicted each other... and likely it's affecting in correct use of the sandstorm as well. HELP!

JCHendee said:

Story die:

#1: Requirement

#2: Option

#3: Requirement

Legend card:

#1: Yes

#2: Yes

If you end in a space with a gem, you can either go for the Challenge (Adventure Step) or if you don't want to take the Story Step: "Draw a Legendary Quest card, roll the story die, or explore a bazaar." (p. 4)

In a gem space without a gem you can only take the Story Step. Story die can only be rolled outside a town space. During the early part of the game when you yet can't have an LQ (haven't levelled up), if you don't take on a Challenge or can't reach a gem space and end up in a non-town space, you MUST roll the Story die.

And you can only pick one of the three options under Story Step, so drawing a LQ, you don't roll the die or explore the bazaar.

Or at least those are my readings of the rules.

What places did you find there were contradictions?

Sigh... thank you! There were several repeats throughout the manual that didn't seem to match up. I won't try to reiterate those places, as I haven't had my morning tea yet and I don't care to go through the manual again just yet. Let's just say there was disagreement between Barb and I, and she didn't like having to roll that extra die so often ... and did not like the fuss with the sandstorm so often either. (You wouldn't believe how many Rivers and Swamps got rolled for the Story die in the game so far).

On that note . . . I came up with an alternate she seems satisfied with and posted it HERE . In our first game sticking to the story dice as you describe, that **** sandstorm wouldn't stop moving.

Thanks again, Dam.

Hehe, we're rolling a lot more Forests in SoAK than in vanilla RB. I swear, you move during the day and you can almost count on rolling 2 Forests. But need to reach a gem in a Forest in RB, pfft, not a chance, you won't get any on five dice.

Ah, those Forests... we haven't seen a lot of them, but the upkeep on Fatigue points was starting to really irritate Barb as well. Fortunately we use Fatigue (and Wound) dice to minimize all that dipping in and out of the token pool.

We finally hit our groove, and Barb's much happier. Still rolling too man Forests, but the new game started last night didn't even see the sandstorm pop up. The Forest/Mirage issue is getting a bit thick. At one point, Barb took a daytime move (1 Fatigue) and rolled 4 Mirages (4 Fatigue). That's just getting excessive.

And now that we have clarity, Barb's not scowling at that story dice anymore.

Oh, one other thing... we did notice that there's no exempt from daytime fatigue when leaving from a city... as with the Lowlands. That just seemed a little odd, so was wondering if I missed something in the manual.

JCHendee said:

You didn't overlook the Sandstorm coming out when you draw a Starburst Challenge card, did you ? IIRC, that's another route for the SS to come out, along with the Story die.

Oh no... okay, I'll remember that, as I just checked and a blue (purple) gem starburst went by last night among the green cards. Not looking forward to telling Barb, as she was all happy that it didn't come out for the night.