Hi, if anyone is using my market step variant version 2, I have updated the deck mat as my first attemp was a little crowded. Instead of having a new deck mat to include all seven market decks, I have added a small mat, which is to be used with the original one in market step version 1. The new mat adds 3 new market stacks have a look at http://www.martsville.co.uk/runeboundhouserules.htm .

Martin

Cool! Thanks man, yeah this is still one of my favorite variants and yeah, this seems much less crowded doing it this new way.

Thanks again.

I haven't tried it, myself.

Just from reading the idea, I'm a bit worried that this might make it too easy to get the kind of item you're looking for. Why travel for the mace way off in the Vynelvale market when you can just sit in Tamalir and draw weapon cards until a decent one comes up?

Lindsey said:

We play Martin's marketstep variant. Believe me, you can't sit there drawing cards waiting for your weapon while others are defeating challenges getting a lead on you. Yes, it does help some to get a weapon or an armor. But I have seen many a game that 4-5 turns drawing & a player didn't get anything they could use. Do you want to give opponents a 2-3 challenge defeat lead? No. Therefore, the variant is a very good one.

Lindsey said:

Yeah this variant is really cool, plus you still draw a normal market card so people will still see neat items/weapons worth travelling to the towns for.

Cool -- I'm glad it keeps enough of an incentive for travel in the game. Gathering jewels can get dull for me without a destination at the end of the path.

I'd imagine that relatively rare stuff like runes and rituals will have a better chance to make it into the game, this way. And it doesn't sound like much, but making shuffling at the start of the game easier should be a nice benefit, too.

I haven't used your particular market variant, but it is very similar to another one I found on BGG, Fang's Market Variant. I really like it this way, especially since I have all the item/ally deck expansions and have quite a large market deck.

Some of the deck expansions have items that fit two different categories, so I'm wondering if you have these expansions and if so, how you handle these types of items?

Looking at your variant, I have 2 suggestions. First, I think it would be a good idea to put the roll needed for random market draws below the trader. After a while it's not hard to remember but why not make it easier on those who haven't used it much? Second, have you considered adjusting the numbers for random selection to better match the relative numbers of cards for each trader? For instance, there are a whole lot more allies available than armor and yet your variant allows the same chance to get an ally vs an armor. Similarly, the same chance exists to draw a weapon or armor, yet there are more than twice the number of weapons than armor pieces. Maybe it doesn't matter so much since you can choose the specific trader to visit and go through the every last armor card if you wanted to, but to me it makes sense to try and keep the random draws similar to what would happen with the standard rules. Just a thought.

If you want to have a closer match to the card frequencies in the usual deck, I think you could do that by making the armourer a 1 in 10 chance (down from 2 in 10), and the tavern a 2 in 10 chance (up from 1 in 10).

Hey Mighty Martin,

I LOVE your varient to the market step! When I discovered your idea I modified it slightly to fit my game style.

I love random but with all the market expansions the odds of getting something you wanted or was useful to your character was getting slim.

I took all the market card and divided them into:

Weapons and Armor (Mighty Martin Weapons Smith)
Allies and Familars (Mighty Martin Tavern)
Artifcats, Rituals and Runes (Magic Stuff)

These seperate decks are pretty closely matched in numbers and give you much better odds of getting what you want while still having a good element of randomness.

I usually also start each town with two market items (nothing in starting town). And when I deal them out I alternate from the above 3 stacks for good variety. When a player enters a market step they simply chose which deck they want to draw from. Sometimes we play allowing two draws for the market step when we'd like the game to go a little quicker without decreasing XP required for leveling.

Thanks Mighty Martin! Your Mod ROCKS!

Thanks for all the positive comments guys, I glad to see the variant is being tailored to your individual styles of play, everyone has particular ideas for what they want out of the variant and I'm just pleased to have provided the building block. Fang's Market Variant, also a variation of my variant is on BGG, but if anyone else has a link to their variants, please post up so we can all have a look.