My group loves this game and it has become my favorite. That said, something came up last game that troubles me a little.

There was suspicion following the sleeper phase but no obvious cyclon. During one particularly tough skill check in which we were all going to need to kick in to help, we discussed and decided to tackle it. Immediately following that announcement the first player to the active player's left kicked in (as normal). Play halted at that point when another player said "Stop! Let's fail this to see if he's a cyclon!". The contributing player was under the most suspicion, and the interrupter's point was that we could chose to stop with his contribution and essentially count cards to see how he contributed. I disaggreed with his ploy but couldn't find rules to counter it, so we proceeded with that plan. As luck would have it, after shuffling and including destiny, no resolution could be made. Turns out later he was a cylon (frakkin toasters!) but that's neither here nor there.

My friend says this is a viable strategy, along the lines of spinning 10 lies in 10 directions and seeing which comes back to find out who's gossiping. I say it violates the spirit of allowing unrevealed cyclons to screw up skill checks. It's not something that's coming up that often, but I would like opinions.

Thanks a lot.

No one thought the guy calling to fail the skill check was a cylon?

It's not CHEATING because it's not against the rules (to have all the other players stop contributing), but it can definitely ruin the most fun aspect of the game and I would frown on anyone using that as 'strategy'. At least when I play, I play with friends to have fun and playing like that will definitely not keep the game friendly. Frankly, I hope nobody I play with thinks of doing that.

Mattr0polis said:

Exactly! Its brillian cylon play if you can get people to go along with you.

Id even try it sometime if I was a cylon who knew the loyalty cards of a particular human. Say I was baltar for example and a Cylon.

If you can talk the table into it that would be fantastic. But what do you do if the cards showed all favorable? Now you are undersuspicion or you need to talk fast to try and make ammends.

A single player playing exactly 1 card will never tell you anything unless the destiny deck also coughs up negative cards and the player is a cylon playing a negative card.

Also while some skill checks may appear to be safe to fail you never know when it will really bite you.

I think the best thing to do as a cylon is to actually play as a human, help then lure them into trusting you then help them make bad decisions.

Playing the cylon takes skill.

I have yet to be one from the beginning I end up joining ranks in sleeper.

aammondd said:

It takes more skill once you're playing with experienced players, but newcomers will find that any idiot can win with the Cylon.

This idea of trying to determine the Cylon via limiting players in a skill check is nothing new, but I'm not sure I'd go along with someone aborting a real attempt mid-stream to find out. I don't know if I'd have a problem with a player trying to do this, but I think I'd stick with the plan for the turn. I think I've seen this done more often with revealed cylons actually. If the cylons will be tossing in cards first, the humans may not even discuss going after it until the Cylons have committed. Or they might talk it up as if they're going for it just to egg the Cylons into wasting cards.

Trump said:

I've also experienced that with revealed cylons but I think the purpose is different. When all the players know which team they're on, it's not about uncovering the cylons, it's about picking your battles. We've also tried to trick the other team into dropping skill cards, or agreeing to fail a skill check when we know we can't beat it.

My point though, was that when the cylons are still unrevealed, this is a trick to undermine the rules of the game to force a player to reveal and THAT'S what I don't like. It basically forces you to reveal on your next turn (which will probably be from the brig since you're the first to discard) and I think it takes a lot of fun out of the game.

Also, I wouldn't try this as a cylon under any circumstances because then it puts the idea in other people's heads and it may end up happening to you at some point. It's just a dirty tactic in my opinion.

I don't really think it's that bad, nor that amazing to do this in the first place. Even the OP said it didn't help them determine if that player was a Cylon or not. Can it get you caught? Yes, but that is why I always say and will continue to say: sabotaging skill checks is and will always be THE single most dangerous thing you can do as an unrevealed Cylon. But yeah, if the humans are going to blindly listen to somebody randomly telling them to fail Crisis cards in the first place, that is the problem imo not this tactic.

Well the first rule of sabotaging skill checks for a Cylon player is "Never put bad cards into a skill check if you are the first player to contribute" unless of course you are an obvious Cylon who isnt trying to hide

The main thing is tact. If you want to encourage them to fail a skill check, just make sure it seems like the right thing to do for the fleet.

As a human, I try to suggest lessening one of our resources into the red, so we can avoid a sympathiser becoming an actual Cylon. That's gone down like a lead balloon, so it's not too rare that you'll get a human harming the fleet. Just seem like that.

Getting someone on-side is great, although they'll feel like a right wally afterwards.

It is always important for a player to look at how much people contribute to the skill check, be they Cylon or Human. If you're the first to place cards, it's something to be aware of.

I'm going to have to agree with the "This isn't cheating but it's not the way it's meant to be played" crowd.

There is nothing against the rules going on here, but it definitely ruins the fun of the game. If you could just forfeit a skill check here and there to uncover the cylons there goes half the fun of the game. My favourite aspect of this game is all the name callings and accusations that are thrown around while trying to uncover the cylons. But using a sneaky and unfair tactic like this, it just completely blows away one of the most fun parts of the game.

Seriously people think this is a problem? The only way I can see this being a problem is if 1. the Cylon player is ALWAYS putting negative cards in each check, which is simply not a good way to play a Cylon. And 2. if players keep agreeing with some random dude calling for failing skill checks, which again, why would the real humans even DO that?

Mattr0polis said:

If you're playing to 'meta-game' then it's no problem. It definitely ruins a friendly game though. In my mind I don't imagine a scenario where every skill check is sabotaged and everyone is frustrated. I imagine a game where one person draws suspicion for whatever reason (real or imagined) and then everyone decides "hey, this check isn't worth anything, stop contributing! Let's see what this guy put in!"

Sure there's a chance you won't be able to figure it out because of destiny, but let's say he throws down 5 cards, you'll know for sure whether or not he's a cylon (and if he's not, it narrows down the list of suspects with certainty) and that certainty is what bothers me. You should never KNOW someone is a cylon unless they let you know.

In your number 2 scenario, obviously the team wouldn't want to fail it and yes it would draw suspicion on the accusing player if the fail is worth a lot of resources, but we're assuming this is a skill check that wouldn't be TOO devastating.

As I said before, I wouldn't like it if my friends tried that strategy and I think it's just not a fun way to play.

BSG a friendly game? Did I hear that right?

Don't get me wrong, I play this game with my friends, my wife, my customers. During the course of a game we scream, we curse (frak gets thrown around alot) and often we hate each other, but at the end of the game we are all stll friends, and the game doesn't change them. But during the game we play with a ruthless determination that there is no way we could call this a "friendly" game.

Situations like the one above have come up often: Let's fail this check so I can look at so-and-so's loyalty card; Use the President's Office to mill the Quorum deck and hope for Brutal Force; jump early, we got plenty of population to spare. Every time a player suggests something in the game, they are providing information to the other players, information that can be used in determing who is -- or isn't -- a cylon.

Just this last weekend, Admiral Saul Tigh was able to look at a random loyalty card before the sleeper phase, and he looked at Starbuck's. When his turn came around again, he threw her in the brig (and never once hinted at what he saw). With a check of 1, none of us helped and Starbuck sat in the brig for 4 or 5 turns, until Saul revealed himself as a cylon. So, as President, I pardoned Starbuck. a few turns later, Starbuck revealed herself as a cylon as well. And they were both cylons from the start of the game. I though it was a poor play, locking away the other cylon, but it did throw suspicion off of her once Saul revealed.

JerusalemJones said:

Agreed. That ruthlessness is what makes it fun imo. I mean, the HUMAN race is at stake, you can't mess around with that, com'on!

But yeah, my players will usually fiercely question any type of strange decisions, which is why I have yet to see certain strategies like failing skill checks or milling the Quorum deck become broken in our games.

JerusalemJones said:

When I say friendly game I mean I expect to stay friends with people when the game is done. Sure we get excited and accusatory, but you're missing the point. It's a dirty tactic and that's what my argument is about.

I'm not talking about failing a check for a chance to look at a loyalty card or throw someone in the brig (I prefer to fail those as a human or a cylon).

As I said before, I'm talking about a skill check where something not TOO serious is on the line but the humans still want to pass it and you just want to test a player.

Re-read my previous comment. I'm not against accusing people of being cylons, I'm against tricks to sneak around the game mechanics to KNOW if someone is a cylon which is what this thread is about. If a skill check RESULT lets you see another player's loyalty cards that's one thing, but stopping play to see what another player did is on the verge of cheating to me.

See, now this is simply your cylons demonstrating a lack of sneakiness. If there's a skill check on the table that doesn't really matter much, and I'm a cylon, I'll throw strong positive behind it, so as to not have them for something more important.

Our group hasn't strategically failed a test to get info about a player's skill cards, but ferdamshur we've done it to get data on the Destiny Deck. I don't see how it's that different. It feels to me as pretty identical to any of the other "guaranteed" cylon checks, like counting cards, or tracking colours. Which is to say, it's only guaranteed if the cylon has made a mistake, or gambled, and always has potential to backfire on the accuser.

James

I see the OP's situation as a valid strategy.

You still have to convince all the other players of it .. and the accusation itself may get you suspected as a cylon.

I find it well within the spirit of the game. I'm sure people have done this less openly to try and flush out cylons .. not contributing cards to a crisis check themselves and counting cards and noticing which skills players have to figure out who threw in what.

The implications of trying to purposely let a crisis fail could have all sorts of other consequences (which would make the game interesting!)

- It could point suspicion to the guy who came up with the idea

- It could flush out the other cylon if someone argues against the idea too much.

- The failure could come back and bite the humans if they lose by that resource in the end.

Really though .. unless you REALLY need something to pass or fail .. you should never dump more than a card or two into the mix to let the destiny deck cover for you.

I guess I misunderstood. I thought the lose condition was "look at a loyalty card belonging to Y", not that one player had already thrown cards, and player X then told everyone else not to throw cards to find out what he threw -- which, really, is stupid if you think about it:

-- The destiny deck still can hose you in "learning the truth"

-- The player may have thrown a positive card(s), even if they were a cylon

-- It would seriously make me suspect player X all the more

-- The rest of the play group might not follow player X's lead (see above)

I can see where you got upset, but this tactic more or less draws suspicion onto player X more than anything else. Next time that player does something like this, do you think as a group you can trust him/her?