All For One V4.0 - Rules Summary

I found your comments in the other read about people feeling "shortchanged" by not getting to take all 3 actions to be really funny. The reaction of those players shows that people will evaluate a game based on their expectations for the game at least as much as the experience of playing the game itself. I know I've found that when a game lacked a source of tension that I thought it was going to emphasize, there's a bit of a let down. It's funny how just repackaging this one aspect of your game doesn't affect the game but does affect the way players respond to the game.

In practice, how much of an impact does the "secret character" rules affect the game? Is it generally possible to guess who is who? Is there a way to influence the game if you acquire this knowledge?

I know that in the one and only game I played of Clans, one of the experienced players observed that he knew from about half way through what color the eventual winner was, but couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do about this.

In that sense, I think that secret idenity games do two things psychologically to the players: (a) the players think they are supposed to act "sneaky" to disguise who they really are, and (b) the players think they are supposed to solve the mystery of who is who.

I strongly suspect that both of these will happen among players in your game (have you seen this?) and I'm wondering how much it affects the game, and if it doesn't, whether that's a let-down.

In practice, if I want Athos to go to X, and you want Athos to go to Y, how much of a problem does this present for the game play? I'm worried about the possibility of gridlock where players wrestle over control over one or a couple of muskateers, and completing one's missions becomes tedious. Have you seen this at all? I assume that it's a losing strategy as compared to not engaging in this kinds of wrestling matches, but that doesn't exactly settle who is supposed to back out of the match first...

Are they all balanced? Does it matter if they're not?

Also, in games like Dune, for example, the game really only "feels" right when all 6 factions are present in the game, because the special powers all complement each other and when one side is absent, some of the decision making is lost. I guess you don't have this since you do have all 6 characters in every game. Do the NPCs tend to see as much action as the characters who are held by players? Is it straightforward to learn all of the special powers and to incorporate them into decision making? It seems like that is a difference with your game, where in most special power games you want to be aware of all the special powers that all players have but you yourself only have access to one; in this game, you can use any of them, so the decision matrix is much more complicated.

But, it seems like your games are pretty quick so this must not be a problem for most people.

Many of Seth's SRs seem to include one or more rookies. I know that's the place I find myself in with Disciples as well, where it's hard to get a game of "experts" off the ground, so the game always has one or more rookies, which really doesn't help in testing how the game holds up to "expert" play. Have you had many sessions with folks who have 5 or 6 games under their belt? How does the game change when played by such folks?

Sounds like it's coming along well. Keep it up!

-Jeff

I've just played this once, but I thought I'd give you some feedback on the game before I head out of town for a week:

All for One report
Sept 23, 2005

This "report" is actually more of a review of the "feel" of the gameplay.

Game Flow: Since the characters on the board are shared, at first I was uncertain how much control I would really be able to have over my chosen character, since there were three other people between each of my turns, and any or all of them might disrupt my plans irretrievably. After four turns, with no real progress being made toward achieving a mission, I was beginning to wonder about how we'd get through all of the scoring tokens. Since I could only judge my own progress toward a goal, I figured the game would take forever to end, assuming everyone was in a similar position. Then, suddenly, everyone finished a mission, it seemed, and the game was on.

Some of the players were disturbed by the downtime, which I found strange, considering my own turns took less than a minute, usually. By the time a turn came around, my options had usually dwindled to one or two, and it was just a matter of doing the actions in the right order. I still can't figure out why the turns took so relatively long. I think, overall, the gameflow was pretty good, and would only improve with repeated plays.

Depth of strategy: Considering the lack of control over any character's actions, and the severely constrained information, I sometimes felt clueless about what the other player might be doing, and this made incisive strategy decisions nearly impossible. Tactically, there was little to be done to influence the action between turns without sacrificing an entire turn to move some character away from a predicted goal, and this seemed like a foolish plan.

One problem our game encountered was that of a runaway leader. There was nothing to be done to stop him, and he didn't even need to keep his game identity a secret, since we couldn't do anything but inconvenience him by wasting our entire turn on the effort. Also, as I drew but one blue card the entire game, I was constrained to use the Agents almost exclusively. Though this worked out well for me in the end, as I was playing Lady D'Winter, I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened to my game if I have drawn any of the musketeers, and yet couldn't lay hands on a blue mission for one of them to perform.

I hesitate to suggest altering the mission layout (as I know how tough these combinatorial elements are to calibrate), but some thought might be given to loosening the missions a bit, to allow some greater flexibility for who can perform them. But the balance seems pretty tight as it is; maybe any changes here would be a mistake. All in all, though, I couldn't help but feel that my apparent freedom of action on the board was illusionary, since the mission requirements were as tight as a Victorian corset. But, I can imagine that with repeated playings, strategies such as using turns to move many characters all over, exchanging things seemingly at random, would be a good possible ploy, allowing me to slowly maneuver a character or two into position. I can't help but think this was the sort of intrigue you imagined when writing the rules. But then I imagine the gameplay when two or more players are doing the same... Gak!

The most obvious opportunity to influence others was through the duels between characters, but to use any of the signature abilities required the discard of the mission card that character was capable of performing. Thus, if one character is accosted by another in the course of a mission, there is little active defense possible, since to get the bonus move requires the discard of the mission that requires the item you are trying to keep. So you can usually choose to lose an item you need, or keep an item you no longer need. With a four-card hand limit, this was a no win situation, and removed most of my feel of controlling events.

Components: Though this is just a prototype, I appreciated the large areas between spaces on the board, and found the various tokens to be not just amusing, but also actually calling to mind the feel of the novel. Though the size and color of things might change, the actual mechanisms the components embody were usually well integrated and produced. Though I've only seen one other example of your card-layout methods, you pack a lot of information on every one, and this was one of the strongest parts of gameplay.

As noted during play, the rules "cheat sheets" could use an upgrade, including more info. Also, you might consider a "tired" counter that could be placed beneath a character after you act with them on a turn, making it clear to everyone who's tired and who isn't. One less thing to keep track of in your head.

Interactivity: Usually, one of the most fun aspects of boardgames is the interactions between the players as the game goes, giving it an almost role-playing feel at times. All for One, though I initially though it would have a high value in this area, was pretty quiet, with no role-playing to give the bare mechanics some clothing. Maybe it was just the group, but there was little but mechanical chatter during play. Since the rules were pretty straightforward (usually), I was wondering why else this might be. One thing I thought of was the need to keep so much of what you were doing a secret. I don't think I can blame this on the game, though.

Persistent vagueness: The only problem I thought came up with some regularity was the bevy of rules involved in dueling. This could, I suppose, be made clearer with a different play sheet, especially the tie results during duels. Also, the many uses of the One for All card were not shown on the card itself, which, given your excellent clarity elsewhere where cards are involved, was all the more jarring. This card needs its rules explained on the card.

Overall: I have to say, I really enjoyed this game. Though it had a number of mechanical cogs in plain view (such as the lettered items), the theme was overlaid so well I never got distracted by them. With proper art on cards and tokens, they will further recede. I got the feeling, during my one game, that there's a lot of potential here, both for deductive strategies, as well as information-cloaking. That this should be the primary goal of the game play is extremely fitting for a Three Musketeers game, showing a more intelligent take on the tale, rather than just having endless swordplay be the centerpiece.

I'd advise against any radical changes from here on out. This is a very playable version, and you'd do well to note any future changes so you can revert to this "stable beta". Really, this game's too tight to fiddle with too much, at this point, and it's in a good place for that to have happened, as it's a good time. Not perfect, yet, but too close for major surgery.