This is a cross post from BGG . It is a variant to have a second player either win together with the game winner or ****** the victory from himThis feature only works in 5-6 player games, no less.

Edited for clarity:

The variant adds one set of 18 cards to the board game, 1 card per player is dealt at the beginning of the game.Once per game, before round 8 a player may discard his secret card and draw another one, he must keep that card for the remainder of the game (after all things do change in politics…)

The player holding the crow no longer gets to peek into the wildings deck, instead he might have a look into one of the other players secret mission. This also gives the lannisters a bit of an edge that reflects well their political savy.

Each card would depict 1 house as your "secret mission" and a specific set of conditions: (if your secret mission depicts your own house, you do not have secret mission)
Holding a specific Territory or set of territories (may be the seat of another active player)
A minimun of logistics
A minimun of power chips

Card Example 1:

Logo Stark:

Conditions for allied win: You hold Lannisport, have logistics X and X power chips.

Conditions for Snatching victory: In addition to the above you also control Kings landing with at least 3 strength.

Card Example 2

Logo Lannister

Allied win: You hold Highgarden, blackwater and the Reach, and Y power chips.

Victory ******: You also control Lannisport in addition to the above

If all these conditions are met you are the true power behind the throne! Varys and Littlefinger are your drinking buddies, you also win the game or ****** victory from the original victor.

Also note that these cards might be more powerful fro some houses than others, for example if Tyrell was dealt Card Example 2 he might be in a very good position to try to ****** the victory away.

Ah buddy I think you're on the wrong forum. This is for the board game and I assume you're looking for the card game?

No man, I am talking about the board game, about adding another layer of intrigue to the players by giving them reasons to support another house if their cause is lost. For example in a game where lannister has been stomped on by greyjoy, by meeting certain conditions the lannister player gets a chance for victory as well.

Have a second look at my proposal, some of it is simmilar to the missions in risk.

I have edited the post for clarity due to your comment :-)

Many apologies! This looks like it good actually be a good spin on the game and I would love to play using it. A few questions:

1) How would you keep the conditions balanced enough for each player?

2) So even if a player obtains all 7 castle/strongholds they could lose due to another play completing their objective?

3) Wouldn't the raven be a bit overpowered? You could find out the other players objectives really quickly with it's new effect and by process of elimination you could know everyone's by turn 4.

Prince Capsicum said:

1) Thats the tricky part, I guess with a discussion with the participation of several experienced players and having a look at the PBF games to see what are the likely end game positions. Also it may be unbalanced if 2 different players have the same house in their secret agenda this needs to be figured out as well. May be with different set of secret agenda cards or a set of cards with the houses and another with the specific conditions.

In any case the secret agendas would cut all the "you are handing the game to X" trash talk…. which personally I would welcome.

2) Exactly, if someone is ostensibly helping you, you cant be too confident, there are 2 set of conditions, if the first set is met, its a cooperative win (Cersei Lannister marries Robert Baratheon and shares the power), if the second set of conditions is met you ****** the victory away (IE: Cerse is the real power behind the throne and Robert a mere puppet).

These conditions must include a certain amount of power and logictics capacity to represent both influence and economic capacity as the lannisters have at the start of the novels.

I am also toying with the idea of the condition of having always at least more power and more logistics than the house you are supporting to share the victory (going back to the theme again, your house gives a bride to the new king that comes with power and money in exchange for the crown) and specific conditions to ****** it away (control kings landing or the seat of power of another house…)

3) There are 10 raven chances during the game, in a 5 player game 2 or 3 houses will get the raven, so it would give them that power on average 3 times each (provided they never change orders). Each player can change his secret agenda once per game until turn 8 (so no last minute changes to get victory by chance) so potentially if your agenda is revealed soon you can change it for another one, the later you change it the less room to maneuver you would have though.

This could be limited to being usable only from the second turn you have the raven, and onwards so it gets used less often and/or still allow the wilding card peek, its a powerful ability that may make people pay more for the raven bid, and also helps the lannister in a way that fits the theme very well (and lannisters do need some help :-)

I'd like to see more of your ideas of objectives. How many would you create at the start of the game and would you give everyone the ability to swap objectives or would you give that power to the iron throne?

Lets try some examples then:

There are 2 levels, objectives needed to "share the crown" and objectives needed to be "the true power behind the throne" (AKA ****** the victory for yourself):

Naming convention: The winner of the game will be called "the crown"

Hidden Agenda card Example 1:

Share the crown:

Your house will get to share the crown if it meets all the following conditions:
- You have more power tokens than the crown by the end of the game
- You have at least the same Logistics capacity than the crown
- You control the seat of power (starting territory/territories) of another house (another house that has played this game)
- You are still in control of your seat of power
- You did not lose any battle against the crown in the last 2 turns of the game

Your house will be the true power behind the throne if in addition to the above it meets at least one of the following conditions:
- You hold the first position on any 2 of the three power rankings.
- You control Kings Landing

Hidden Agenda card Example 2:

Your house will get to share the crown if it meets all the following conditions:
- You hold more total territories than the crown by the end of the game
- You have at least the same logistics capacity than the crown
- You are still in control of your seat of power
- You have the biggest Navy (number of boats)
- You did not lose any battle against the crown in the last 2 turns of the game

Your house will be the true power behind the throne if in addition to the above it meets at least one of the following conditions:
- You Hold Kings Landing
- You control the Crown Seat of Power

Everybody gets the chance to change the card once per game, but this is only feasible on turns 1 to 7.

On the other 2 questions, I am not sure yet how many to have at the start of the game, as many as needed not to be able to predict the set of conditions of another player. Again the difficult part here is balance. If you ask for too many conditions this stops being an option for a player who is losing the game (a destitute lannister player for example) If you ask for too few players may find this kind of victory way easier and preferable to the other…

Again, the objective of this variant is:
1 - To keep everybody aiming for the crown but having a plan B so they keep the hope and the interest in the game until the end
2 - To Discourage the "you are giving the crown to X" trash talk
3 - To give the game more "political depth" and a "political win" in addition to the military one (As Tywin says, some battles are won with the quill…)
4 - To give a slight additional edge to the Lannisters that fits with the theme as the initially control the crow
5 - To allow for alliances that may last until the end of the game
and finally 6 - To have a susprise in store for the leading player as there is a chance that an ally may ****** his hard won victory away in the last moment

As I read what I am proposing I see a problem of players purposelly giving up castles to let another player win, and this would distort the game and make it less fun, I tried to fix it with the "no having lost a battle" rule but it does not work as a player may just march out of a castle to let the other player in…

Need to figure a way to prevent this too…

thanks

I love seeing players add to games and I can see exactly what you're trying to model, Moebius (the particularly labrynthian political complexity of Westeros).

I do, however, have a couple of points of criticism.

1. The Draw e.g. Share the Crown

I'm not sure how satisfying a draw is after playing for the 5-ish hours a "full" Game of Thrones session takes, particularly if 'the win' is taken from you (in relative secret) by a player on the opposite side of the board.

My own preference is for clear wins in competitve games, but of course, others will have a different opinion.

2. Accounting e.g. who won a battle two turns ago

A minor point, but any historic point of accounting needs to be recorded on the board (or elsewhere, a notepad for instance) or it can all get a bit complex. There is a fair bit going on on the board as it is, I wonder if tying Agenda points to things like the influence tracks might make for clearer game management.

Finally, I do think the Agenda notion is a great idea, I do wonder if they'd be used better 'in play' (as opposed to during final accounting), e.g. my secret mission was to take X disparate territories, I play the card and and can remove any one unit from the sea.

Anyway, great idea, I look forward to seeing how you develop it.

1. The idea is to distrust someone helping you, specially if that someone is more powerful than you, that gives you a motive to try to trim down the power of your ally… But I see your point.

Having "in game" agendas (with rewards that are used during the game and not after it) might solve the issue, it would also be able to get a losing lannister get back on their feet.

I lack the experience to properly balance cards here but my first thoughts about in game rewards would be inspired in the type of benefits in the wildings deck like getting a bunch of power tokens, a change in the logistics or the throne ranking…

Thx for the input, I'll give it a thought!

This seems it would overpower the Raven.

What if the Raven could look at the top mission card for turn-ins instead of current missions? Or the Raven could trade missions with someone, not knowing what they have, so long as it was before turn 8 and at a specified price (such as the Raven itself) instead of peeking at people's missions? I believe this would make the Raven just as interesting with this change but not overpower it as you would only know the mission you traded for. For that matter, you could let the person who just lost their mission have to draw a new mission rather then take the Raven's old mission.