In the circuit board game version of the democratic Witcher TV biz series , you and your friends travel around a warfare - torn kingdom , finish quests for victory spot . Though it has some very clever elements , the game is cripple by inadequate pattern decision . Here ’s how I ’d fix it .
The Witcher is published by Fantasy Flight Games . As such , it has a gorgeous game control board , heaps of tokens , multiple deck of cards , and some nice unpainted plastic mini to present the four playable characters . There ’s a set of attack dice , plus a special die for each grapheme , and they ’re high - quality , beautiful die .
Two to four can play , each instrumentalist taking the part of a “ witcher ” ( monster hunter ) roaming around fighting evils and finish quest . These quests , and the smaller side quests they include , grant victory point . And after someone has completed three quests , everyone get one more go , then the game ends and you add up the victory points . If you think a significantly more complicated version of tag to Ride ( where you fight vaguely Celtic named monsters or else of build train path ) , that ’s the universal social organization of the game .
There are a few thing this plot does really well — so much so , that it ’s almost a great game . For instance , the four fictional character are totally unique and have their own unequalled ways of achieving thing . Geralt , the chief grapheme from the games , is respectable at armed combat , and he can brew potions that make him even hard . Yarpen , on the other hand , has a team of helpers he can control to do various undertaking for him . The sorceress Triss has some seriously powerful spells , and is peculiarly good at dealing with undead wight .
The quests are generally interesting ( even if the process of complete them is not — you mostly move from sphere to surface area collecting tokens of various colors ) , and they often have ambivalent outcome even when you succeed . The flavor of the Witcher world come through strongly — I ’ve only recreate the video game shortly , and none of the masses I playtested with had played them at all , but we all understand the world and the witchers ’ office in it pretty quickly .
My favorite part of the game is how it handle hurt . On your turn , you’re able to complete two main actions , like travel , inquire an arena , get some wag from your pack of cards of spells and equipment , or something singular to your eccentric . All these actions are put down out on your character sheet , and you rank an action at law token on an action when you use it . If you ’re wound by a monster or an encounter , you localize a wound token on one of your natural action . As long as the wound token is there , you ca n’t take that legal action . you may never fail , but you get progressively more useless as you get wounded , until there ’s nothing you may do but reside and remove some of those wound . It ’s a really elegant system for slow down histrion down for getting hurt , without ever knocking them out of the plot .
Where did this game go so incorrect ? Oh , here and there .
Playing in a Fishbowl
The Witcher is essentially a race . You necessitate to get your missions done as fast as possible while still pick up as many side pursuance VPs as possible . Thematically , you and the other characters are on the same side , but this is n’t a cooperative secret plan , other than the support quests that give another instrumentalist a few VPs while you gain twice as many .
In fact , there ’s almost no interaction between players at all . you may leave the room when it ’s not your turn , because almost nothing your opponents do will affect you much . you’re able to trade token with musician in the same quad , do support quests , and in a devious way , sometimes move goliath to regions your resister are in or need to get to . But only Yarpen can do that on a regular basis . A few of the Good Fortune cards let you slip from other histrion , but those calling card are hard to learn — you might see three in an entire secret plan .
There are plenty of opportunities to fix this , though . Each character has development cards specific to that character : potions for Geralt , spells for Triss , and so on . Most of these cards can only be activated once per bit , or require you to perform an action that puts keepsake on them , which can be later spend to activate the calling card . There ’s no reason there could n’t be evolution carte du jour that rent you sleep together with your opponents . You do n’t desire it to be too frustrating or happen every round , but shake off a monster in their elbow room , slip some tokens just as they ’re about to complete a seeking , or even hoist them ! This change alone would vastly better this game .
Alternately , you could run up cooperation . As it stand , sustenance quests do n’t actually help your opponent get closer to their quest , it ’s just a couple of free VPs . What if there were bill that let you in truth assist an resister get close to a quest of their own , but that also devote you some substantial advantage — like the resources you desperately postulate to complete your quest . That would lead to some interesting decision qualification as you press these various impermanent alliances and the toll / benefit as you approach the end of the game .
No Sense of Accomplishment
The Witcher has a auto-mechanic whereby the location on the instrument panel are part into regions , and each realm has a space where some giant , a bad luck event promise “ Foul Fate , ” or both of those , can hang out . Every time you end your turn in a region , you have to front one of the lusus naturae , or the Foul Fate . If the realm is empty , you move a token around a “ warfare track ” that assign a monster or foul destiny into that realm . This simulates all the topsy-turvyness of the kingdom being at war . The job is , you always have to deal with these obstacles , no matter how many you defeat . Every distance on the state of war course dumps more speculative stuff into the regions . There ’s never any sense of , “ Well we cleared the undead out of that region , so it ’ll be safe for a few turns . ” It ’s just a stern parade of dire things that you have to make out with turn after turn .
How to specify it ? Make the war track a sort of meter that fills up . Maybe sure Foul Fate cards or monsters add a token to the war time . When it fill up , a monster or FF gets dump into your region . That gives you a few turns of reprieve if you could gain a part ( and all the participant pelt along over there to get side quests done while things are safe ) , but there ’s a mother wit of impend doom and grow tension as the meter fills up . It should definitely be filed by semi - random event , rather than at the end of every turn in an empty region , to increase that tenseness .
This Game is Too Damn Long
I do not bear in mind farsighted games . I ’ll lief spiel a three , five , or eight - hour biz if the payoff is worth it . The Game of Thrones Board Game , Twilight Imperium , Empire Builder — these are all game I can roleplay all day , cave in for dinner , then represent some more .
The Witcher is not like those game . Our first two - player game took about two minute , which is fine , but we were kind of beaming when it was over . For our multiplayer playtest , we all fill in our first pursuit , realized we were only a third of the direction into the game , and packed it in .
The trouble is that the game is a insipid line of complexity and excitement from starting line to coating . seeking are kick in out semi - indiscriminately ( you draw two , foot one of them ) , and while some are more difficult than other , they ’re all fundamentally the same . compile a ton of tokens , deal them in for bigger tokens , go to a place , swap them all in and perchance press a fiend . The wages for completing the seeking ( Good Fortune cards ) are actually pretty nerveless , but once you complete your first pursuit , you simply get a fresh pursuit and start the process again . And then once more . You ’re just doing the same affair over and over throughout the game .
Those games that I love playing for hour ? They acquire over the course of the game . Your early military triumph gradually give you an advantage in resources in Game of Thrones , your investments in technology facilitate your end - game frolic in Twilight Imperium , and the substructure you build in Empire Builder yield off as you complete those last few connections to make your meg .
The reason this game is so frustrative is that there ’s a flock of potential . There are some excellent secret plan mechanics , and the production values are grotesque . But the aim missteps ensue in a bloated , boring game that just is n’t much play to trifle .
GamesThe Witcher
Daily Newsletter
Get the honorable tech , scientific discipline , and polish news in your inbox daily .
News from the future tense , delivered to your present tense .
You May Also Like
