Has anyone experimented with alternative movement options? Some things that have been suggested in our group are to be able to stop on any space within your die roll, or just be able to stop on corner spaces or other characters within your die roll. If you have tried these please let me know how it played out for you. Thanks!

Being able to stop at any space you want within your movement is incredibly powerful. I find that getting a hold of a movement modification item is a huge edge in the early game. You would always manage to hit magis streams or items left on the ground, you could pick and choose your fights, and you would almost never land on bad squares (stupid 1s on the oasis).

Allowing a stop on the corners might work, and could help out beginning players, but I would recommend only on the outer region to allow access to healers. I wouldn't allow the middle region to give easy access to the warlock and the temple. I would also allow characters to stop in the graveyard if they wanted to, so that the house rule isn't biased towards good characters.

I like movement as it is.

With alternative modes of movement it really devalues some of the really good movement items. Like the ones where you can move any number of spaces up to your die roll. Or the card that allows you to stop on spaces with objects.

any field definitely not. Corner field should interesting, still it is very powerfull (for example thief every second turn in City etc...), so alterantive movement in this game is bad idea I think

same here. no chance to use alternative rule. its just messing up all that "****, dragon strength 9 or bad Magi craft 8" moment.

wademikalj said:

Your question is a valid one when the game is looked at from the inside, as a realm of high fantasy adventure and adventurers. All responses so far are from the outside, dealing with mechanics and disregarding that sense of actual characters in a land. There are many ways that movement control can be added judiciously to the game, but you must be prepared for how it will change the game. The trick is to do so without removing all "chance" from movement and do so in a rational fashion and not just as making things easier. Oh, and devaluing a few movement cards in the game isn't a great concern; a number of them are ridiculous anyway.

From inside the game's world, it is reasonable that adventurers would always know how to get to known places... places everyone in the kingdom would know how to find. But the spaces that occur multiple times on the board (Woods, Hills, etc.) can be seen as not just a single instance for each one space but as multiple instances even beyond each space. Random movement then simulates a bigger land than the board represents as your path from one destination to the next could take you through different sequences of terrains each time... and not just to order of sequence actually on the board. Random movement over draw spaces should be maintained in order to keep the land BIG.

So, here's what's been found to be the best option in play testing by mine and other associated groups. And no, even we don't play it all of the time. It's a rule adapted for one of my expansions in process, and this version operates a little differently for general play.

The Seek Rule

1. At the end of a player's turn (hence no further action can be taken by it or its character), the player may declare that its character will seek a specific destination space on its next movement. The target space must be a non-drawn space. Example: City, Castle, Temple, Village, etc. This includes spaces where options of choice are not present, such as the Forest, Crags, Chasm, Warlock's Cave (if going there for a Quest), etc.
2. On the player's next turn, movement is rolled as normal, but if the player's character can move to or beyond the destination, the character must stop short on the destination.
3. Once a seek has been declared, the player may not change the decision for any reason by any methodin order to reach a space (or its contents) beyond or short of the destination . Example: After a player declares its character will seek the City, if on subsequent players' turns something desirable appears on the space just beyond the City, the character on a seek must still stop at the City, even if its movement roll is high enough to go beyond the City.
4. A player's character may not seek the same destination within two of its own turns. The character may not exit a desitination only to return to the same destination on its subsequent turn.

The Place/Stranger Options

(Not recommended except for speeding up the game... which really isn't needed.)

• Option: Any space with a Place card may be declared the destination of a seek. All rules for the target space must be followed.
• Option: Strangers may declared as valid in a like fashion to Places.

Question regarding the Seek alternate movement:

If the character who decides to seek fails to roll high enough to reach the destination, are they forced to move in that direction anyways? From an in game perspective, do you know that you aren't going to make it to your goal before you start off?

Oooh I like that seek rule. That may be a new house rule for my game.

Daefaroth said:

Good question, and it's come up before, but when sharing it more and more with others, I've chosen to leave out my personal preference.

My group plays it that, yes, you must move in the direction of your declared destination; at the end of that turn, you may declare (1) the same destination, (2) another destination, or (3) no destination at all and move freely on you following turn. A seek declaration only commits you for your following turn, not forever until you reach the destination. Seek is for when you desperately need to get somewhere specific, so most in my group do call out the same destination again.

Other groups using the Seek Rule have gone the other way. If you don't get high enough roll to get to the destination, then you can go either direction. But that doesn't really make much sense, eh? In fact I think it's just a way to exploit the rule. So I guess you should get together with your group and decide how you want to rule that situation. It's only a house rule afterall, and you should modify it if you and yours see fit.

Oh, and the seek rule doesn't affect game time. It might seem to make the game go a tiny bit quicker, since characters can get to somewhere more easily when needed, like to things they need, thereby regaining lives, equipment, etc. That does shorten the front end of game, but if the back end includes the typical kill-everyone-regardless-of-alignments, then its a bit hard to do when people can get to healing. Time wise, it evens out. If you're just playing a King-of-the-Hill type ending, the seek rule can actually help shorten the game a tiny bit.

Additionally, we sometimes also use 2D6 combat... but most wouldn't like that because again though it might help some in first third of the game, it eliminates almost all auto-kill of Enemies in the latter third of the game. Of course it does give you a slim chance early in the game to not auto-lose a life when you draw that nasty Demon (Craft 10).

Declaring before the roll where a character want to go is a very good idea.

This solve all the situation of cursed charachter (bad followers) who must arrive in some space, but they are unlucky.

I think should be work this way:

"Before rolling the movemente dice, a player may declare a place he must visit.Than he must travel to the shortest path to that space. If he land on that space, he immediately stops."

Hey,

we use a houserule that let´s you choose between two options immediately before you roll the movement die:

a) Travel: Roll D6 as normal and move as normal.

or b) Investigate surroundings: Roll D6, divide by half and round up: So 1,2 = 1; 3,4 = 2 and 5,6 = 3.

The b option is obviously useful if you wish to encounter a specific space within 3 range. It reduces the frustration level of "****, i really need that 1 now!" by half ^^

Best regards

Enas