How do you deal with death in the real life board?

[potterman28wxcv]

When playing online, perma death works nicely - if you die early, you can go and do whatever you want on your PC. If you die late, well you can watch the other players and see how the rest of the game go ; or leave the game.

In real life it's a bit more complicated ; playing with permadeath means that if you die early, you will have to watch the rest of the game for 3-4 hours which isn't fun. On the other hand, if you do not play with permadeath, but die after 1-2 hours, it feels like you just wasted 2 hours of gameplay for nothing and all you can do is roll dices.

What kind of house rule do you use in your playing group to tackle this?

[Cross Eyed Basilisk]

1st peron to die is the beer waiter for the rest of the game ;)

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by Cross Eyed Basilisk:

1st peron to die is the beer waiter for the rest of the game ;)

I like your way! Haha :D

[Marik]

You go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character.

[The Worst]

Flipping the table, usually.

(Kidding.)

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by Wargasm:

Flipping the table, usually.

(Kidding.)

What if you are playing on the ground ? :)

[Marik]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Originally posted by Wargasm:

Flipping the table, usually.

(Kidding.)

What if you are playing on the ground ? :)

You flip the earth.

#FlatEarthSociety

[potterman28wxcv]

I was thinking of a house rule that would go like this.

At the start of the game, whoever dies gets to draw a new character. After the 7th event is drawn, everyone regains all their lives - then death becomes permanent.

Why the "everyone regain all their lives" ; because i don't want people to force suicide just to get a new char full of life before the counter goes down. Why "7th event"? I don't know exactly. Ideally I would like to find a number that would be close to 1 hour of gameplay, but isn't too hard to count..

[Marik]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

I was thinking of a house rule that would go like this.

At the start of the game, whoever dies gets to draw a new character. After the 7th event is drawn, everyone regains all their lives - then death becomes permanent.

Why the "everyone regain all their lives" ; because i don't want people to force suicide just to get a new char full of life before the counter goes down. Why "7th event"? I don't know exactly. Ideally I would like to find a number that would be close to 1 hour of gameplay, but isn't too hard to count..

Or... 'when you die, you go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character'. What you propose is the most contrived house rule I've ever heard.

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by Marik B.:

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

I was thinking of a house rule that would go like this.

At the start of the game, whoever dies gets to draw a new character. After the 7th event is drawn, everyone regains all their lives - then death becomes permanent.

Why the "everyone regain all their lives" ; because i don't want people to force suicide just to get a new char full of life before the counter goes down. Why "7th event"? I don't know exactly. Ideally I would like to find a number that would be close to 1 hour of gameplay, but isn't too hard to count..

Or... 'when you die, you go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character'. What you propose is the most contrived house rule I've ever heard.

Your concept of dying is better than getting toadified, because you don't lose your items and followers in the process.

[Marik]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Originally posted by Marik B.:

Or... 'when you die, you go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character'. What you propose is the most contrived house rule I've ever heard.

Your concept of dying is better than getting toadified, because you don't lose your items and followers in the process.

I didn't say anything about you not losing your items and followers.

[Marik]

So yeah, if the developers could put a house rule like this in the game:

Originally posted by Marik B.:

When you die, you go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character.

And it goes without saying, but you /obviously/ have to drop your items on death. It would be idiotic for that not to be the case. Don't respond with, "but we polled a rule like this where you immediately respawn and don't drop your items and everyone hated it!", because I'm tired of disingenuous excuses to not make the game better. That's not at all what is being suggested. This house rule would be extremely good for the game.

Many people have suggested fixes like this. Implement them already. A rule like this would open up so many more fun avenues for play. Though if you do implement it, players must be given the option to not come back if they don't want to, and stasis for the AI needs to be permanent until their players come back.

And implement the damn house rule to make dragon rage not do damage, so it becomes an actual comeback mechanic for people doing extremely poorly, rather than randomly eliminating people outright in the first 10 turns of the game.

At the very least, implement /some/ house rules that make the game not an absolute deathfest. What're you expecting will happen when cataclysm comes out and all tiles that provide consistent healing are removed? A house rule to avoid players from dying randomly should obviously be prioritized.

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by Marik B.:

So yeah, if the developers could put a house rule like this in the game:

Originally posted by Marik B.:

When you die, you go into stasis for 3 turns, lose half your stats, then move back onto your starting square. Or you may choose to draft a new character.

And it goes without saying, but you /obviously/ have to drop your items on death. It would be idiotic for that not to be the case. Don't respond with, "but we polled a rule like this where you immediately respawn and don't drop your items and everyone hated it!", because I'm tired of disingenuous excuses to not make the game better. That's not at all what is being suggested. This house rule would be extremely good for the game.

Many people have suggested fixes like this. Implement them already. A rule like this would open up so many more fun avenues for play. Though if you do implement it, players must be given the option to not come back if they don't want to, and stasis for the AI needs to be permanent until their players come back.

And implement the damn house rule to make dragon rage not do damage, so it becomes an actual comeback mechanic for people doing extremely poorly, rather than randomly eliminating people outright in the first 10 turns of the game.

At the very least, implement /some/ house rules that make the game not an absolute deathfest. What're you expecting will happen when cataclysm comes out and all tiles that provide consistent healing are removed? A house rule to avoid players from dying randomly should obviously be prioritized.

I agree that when cataclysm comes up, some additional house rules should be in effect. Right now the lack of healing places make the game an absolute deathfest - if you are not lucky in your first encounters, you are screwed big time. I feel like cataclysm and bloodbath don't go along together ; and the board designers actually intended players to die at the start, before there are enough denizens for the board to become viable.

It is not impossible to survive though. If you get lucky in the Woodlands or in highlands, or if you get lucky in your spells, you can get some momentum going. But this requires to play in a very specialized way and makes no room for risks. If Cataclysm gets introduced, I am thinking to remove Firelands, Harbinger and Dragon so that players get a fair chance at staying alive, even though I really love these expansions.

I would like to know what others think though. So far Marik B and me have been the only one proposing alternatives. I like Marik's because 1) it gives players the option to surrender if the gap is too big, and 2) it avoids the "Talisman battle royale" aspect that happens when all expansions are on.

[DeePee]

What we do is on your next turn you draw 3 and pick one to play. Then you are skipped so you can set up while play continues around and you rejoin the following turn.

[dagdriver]

Many years ago when I played the boardgame, I am pretty sure that when you (your character) died, you drew a new one at your next turn - unless a player had entered the throne of command

[potterman28wxcv]

Originally posted by dagdriver:

Many years ago when I played the boardgame, I am pretty sure that when you (your character) died, you drew a new one at your next turn - unless a player had entered the throne of command

Yeah this is still the case ; but then if you die after 2 hours of playing, you have absolutely 0 chance of catching up, and the rest of your game consists in throwing dices around without real meaning.. Hence my quest for something less punitive :) (but still punitive enough)