This game, being a Euro/Ameritrash hybrid, enjoys the exciting tension and surprise events from its American heritage, but is also suffering a bit from those swings of luck. It's especially bad if your Hunter dies early in the game. You lose your starting choice of weapon, and the positional advantage of those key spaces near the village.
One solution to this is to make equipment free. We've been trying that out for a couple of games. But I'm not convinced that it's the right direction for the game. It removes a tension filled decision of how much to spend on equipment, and whether it's better to go with the more powerful but disposable spear/bow&arrow approach, or the re-usable sling/club. It also forces you to pick things up one at a time (hopefully after a successful hunt, or you're wasting time), instead of making one big purchase when you've had a bit of luck. And it removes the strategy of using your more successful character to support the other.
Another rule we're definitely adding, whether equipment is purchased or free, is that what a character dies and is replaced by a sibling/cousin, the new character gets a piece of equipment for to start. The player has already lost a weapon, a turn, a tile, and possibly a key space on the board. To prevent them from being completely screwed they need to get something.
Now here's what got me thinking. In Small World, when you get completely destroyed you set that society into decline and come back in with a new, often more destructive, race & class and take your revenge. Coming back is often better than lingering with a mediocre society, because you're still getting some points from your society in decline. This is a catch-up mechanism without being overly artificial.
My new thought is that maybe that new characters needs to surge back in with two new equipment, giving that player an advantage to offset their loss.
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