Notes from Fifteenth Playtest

Kris Rolls 3 sixes, and kills a squirrel!

Today's Experiments

Equipment is Free! Your characters gain 1 equipment as they leave the village, but can only pick up equipment they can use themselves. At the start deal out 3 equipment and keep 1.

I'm not entirely sold. I think it's nice in that it makes it easier to recover if you die, but I think it detracts a lot from the long term strategy of the game. Whether equipment is worth buying depends a lot on where you are in the game. This experiment does speed up play.

Kris won by 1 point!

Animal Meat & Hide Values We tried them the same as playtest 14. Their values pretty much tanked. Dan pointed out that it didn't help that he got his gatherer killed while carrying a number of Herbs and Berries, which kept demand for those high.

What's Next?

• Keep keep tuning the Meat & Hide Values.
• Reduce the number you have to roll to defend your gatherer from deadly animals.
• Add Torches to the equipment deck, an item that defends the gatherers from deadly animals.
• Reduce movement to 3 (wounded animals only move one).
• Experiment with different sizes and shapes for the board.

Update: More Ideas

• In the version of the game where you still have to pay for equipment, when a character dies the "cousin" who takes his or her place will get to draw 3 equipment and keep one.
• The rules for "swapping" face down tiles are unclear, and it doesn't come up very often, is it time to bury them?
• Speaking of Berries, would the market (which I want to rename "Village Needs") if I removed them so that the Nuts and Herbs were balanced with the Meat and Hide? With the new animal values this might work. Time to run the numbers again.