I am planning on taking BSG to a gaming group next month and I was thinking it would be fun to add a player by having TWO player play Dr. Baltar; hopefully a couple who know each other.

One would play him up until the distance is 4 and then they would switch. The one would offer advice but only what the primary player does counts.

Seems it would be a lot like playing with the real character... lol..

Anyone see a problem with this?

Courtesy of "waferthinninja" over at BoardGameGeek:

"My friends and I got together the other night, and had an unusually high number of players: 7. One of us had just bought BSG, so we decided to play it, and came up with an amusing variant to cope with having 7 instead of the maximum 6:

In a nutshell, two of the players played Baltar, who starts with 2 loyalty cards. We basically played it so that each got one loyalty card, and any skill cards they got were randomly split between them. Baltar could obviously talk to himself and discuss what to do, but they would never know whether the other side of their personality was a Cylon.

Turns out one of them was a Cylon from the start, and had a great time not only convincing us he was human, but also convincing his other half. When the second round of loyalty cards came up, Baltar's new card was the other Cylon, and after a Crisis card revealed him as such to me, and I informed the other players, he/they revealed themselves. From that point they played as a single person, sharing cards etc.

I guess its not a "serious" variant, but if your goal is to have fun and you have two players up for it, its a fun way to play."

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/356723

I thought this was an interesting way of implementing that idea. It'd lead to some interesting discourse, if nothing else.

An easier way to have 7 players would be just to add extra Cylon cards and Not A Cylon cards to the Loyalty Deck. Best way to do this would be to just hand out normal playing cards to the players instead of those included with the game, with numbers 2-10 representing Not a Cylon cards and each of the picture cards (A, J, Q, K) representing one of the Cylon cards. Keep the Cylon cards face up on the table with the relevant normal playing card poking out from underneath so all players can easily remember which picture card matches to which Cylon card.

I was also wondering why this couldn't be possible. Just add another of each card to the loyalty deck for 7.

Either that or just add another "you are not a cylon" but place each of the dials down 1.

Eppic said:

It doesn't work because if you're playing with boomer and baltar than every "You are not a cylon" card is in play.

When we have extra players they form our press corps, who sows dissent and blind accusations on who's a frakkin' toaster. It's epic.

I suppose you could exclude one of the two of them OR have the sympethizer just count as a YOU ARE A CYLON card with no revealing special ability.

YUKI.N> said:

I like the original idea and what YUKI.N> put in his post. Instead of cramming another Cylon/Not Cylon/Sympathizer into the deck, this is far more interesting. Of course, you need the right players to pull it off, but I think that most gaming groups have a couple of players (at the very least) who could pull it off.

Gezebah said:

I think Gezebah's idea is the best I've seen, it is the most true to the experience method.

People I know did a 7-player and had two people playing Balthar - but they took one loyalty card (secretly) each and played alternate turns - so neither knew if the other was a cylon or not. Can't remember what they said happened after halfway but I think they both looked at the third card.

I had similar questions and concerns that I posted in this thread. Check it out for my opinion and those of others who have already commented on the idea.

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=24&efcid=1&efidt=51726

From the other thread that iceberg linked to, as relevant to playing with 7:

You shouldn't be using the Sympathizer card in a 7 player, it's for games with an even number of players (4 and 6 in the base game). There are 16 Loyalty cards: 11 Human, 4 Cylon, 1 Sympathizer, that's enough for up to 8 players (with no Boomer or Baltar).

For 7 players: 11 Human, 3 Cylon (you could use one of Boomer or Baltar and add in Sympathizer as Human, or both with also 1 Cylon card as Human)

We played a 7 player game yesterday, and forunately we had two copies of the game available (we often get 8-12 people when we play). So we borrowed 2 You Are Not a Cylon Cards from the other game, and actually used the Sympathizer card as basically a "True Cylon" that was an option to be chosen among the now 5 available Cylon cards. We played it that if a player got the Sympathizer -- either at the beginning of the game or during the Sleeper Phase -- they had to reveal after the sleeper phase, like normal. The Sympathizer got a Super Crisis card, and could activate the Cylon Fleet location.

Afterwards, we decided not to play a 7 player game again. Skill checks were harder to pass, as 5 skill cards per turn just wasn't enough (I was playing Helo and kept triggering the Press Room just to get 2 more card each turn, even when it might have been argued that I should be on Galactica or in space fighting off cylons). The lag between turns was pretty bad, and the cylons -- even with three of them -- couldn't draw enough cards to be effective in failing skill checks once revealed.

It may be a necessary evil every now and then, and the Baltar variant does sound intriguing, but I don't see it being the best solution until we see some more options available for variant rules. Which, knowing this community, is bound to happen.

This is at least the second time that I've heard about supposed problems with not enough cards in games with more players. I don't understand, how is this possible? The game scales with player count, and the number of cylons scale too. What makes this a problem for you?

Delay in larger player games probably is annoying though, especially as an unrevealed cylon, as timing the reveal must get much harder.

timonkey said:

In the early game, if the first card drawn is a Crisis, one player has 5 cards, the rest three. So right off the bat players start using cards to pass skill checks. In the seven player game we considered ourselves fortunate to have a card or 2 left in our hands when we got to redraw skill cards. The more skill checks, the less likely the humans are to pass them, as they have one additional skill check before they refresh. Once the cylons revel, there are less skill checks, but the cylons are at a greater disadvantage as hindering skill checks as they only draw 2 cards each, and if all 4 humans get skill checks the cylons can be out of cards quickly. Also, the Super Crisis cards get harder to pass with less cards left in hand.

There are ways to mitigate this -- Press Room, Research Lab, Consolidate Power, etc. -- but it does become an issue.

Yes, there are more checks before you draw again, but there's also another player drawing 5 cards every turn, shouldn't he be pulling his own weight?

One player draws their five skill cards, then draws a check that they can only throw two cards in, tops. The next check ha similar colors, the next check requires the colors players only draw 1 of each, so everybody throws a card in the hopes of passing. The more skill checks per round, the more cards are being depleted from your hand. Often the player going next will dump their last 2 cards into a check (if they can) since they are drawing back up next turn. If the team is trying to pass checks (or sabotage them) they are playing cards. Its natural skill card attrition. I may not really be explaining it well, but depending on the crisis cards pulled it can be a real problem.