As you probably have noticed, Matthew and I have swapped games for playtesting. I have been posting in the Everest thread about how my games of that have been. Matthew has also been looking at 8/7 Central and has sparked some good thoughts on how the start player moves.
It had been the case that one player was P1 for an entire week, then to be fair, the game had to last a set amount of time such that each player had the chance to be P1 for the same number of weeks. Of course initially Mohan and I had simply said that P1 would pass to the left and left it at that.
ORIGINALLY, whoever stated as player 3 got seiously shafted because originally it was advantageous money-wise to be first, but better scoring-wise to be last. So whoever started out as P1 got the most money early (when it mattered), and whoever started out as P2 got the most VPs at the end (when it mattered most), and P3 got the shaft on both.
Then I moved all the die rolling to the end of the day, and making the number of rolls per day constant (rather than 1 per player). This eliminated the advantage of going first, but not the advantage of going last.
That's the history. This has gotten long, so I'll wait for the next post to move on to the new ideas.
- Seth
Matthew had suggested perhaps a game-state determined start player would be appropriate. This would alleviate a lot of problems with the time of the game- a 3 player game could be played for 4 weeks and still be fair for example. I thought about that a little and decided there was no reason the SP would have to be SP all week, why not re-determine SP each day? Here's a reply to a message FL sent regarding how to determine the start player.
Well, lets think about it. *thinking out loud (sort of)*
If you have the most money it means you've either been saving, fundraising, or making money off ads (your shows have been hitting). If Money were the Start Player determiner then you could have some control over being the start player for a day (sometimes) by fundraising one turn in order to either be or not be the start player the next. Also, being last one day would give you the most control over who's first the next day (with some uncertainty due to the die roll after our turn).
This of course assumes a new start player each DAY, which I'm thinking might be cool. It allows for ANY number of weeks to be fair.
If Ratings Counters are the determiner what is different? If you have the most ratings counters on a given day, it means for the most part that your shows on that day have been hitting. You have a little control over this as you can place high pip-count ("popular") shows on days where you want to go first... which is sort of odd- when will that matter? Also, there are SOME cards that can affect the number of ratings counters, but only a couple. And suppose you add some hit numbers to make sure a show gets a ratings counter... it won't matter until NEXT WEEK with respect to start player.
So, based on that little brainstorm, it appears that I am in favor of Money as the eterminer of the start player, IF it is to be determined by a game state and each day. At least I favor that to Ratings Counters. RC's could be a tiebreaker there, so in general out ratings-ing your opponent can help with being Start Player in general, but not specifically.
Funny, at the outset I THOUGHT I was going to favor the Ratings Counters. See what I mean about having the arguement and seeing which side 'won'?
Now, is there any OTHER determiner we should consider? Also, considering it's best (for scoring) to be the LAST player, should we say most money each day goes FIRST? Or Chooses who goes first? Are we rewarding money, or trying to jack the player who's "ahead" in money?
Speaking of the player who's ahead... maybe the determiner should be VPs. Whoever has the most VPs (ahead) must be the first player on the next day (giving his opponents a chance to 'catch up', or at least making it harder to keep the lead. In this case Money would be the first tiebreaker, and I suppose RCs could be the second.
The possible problem with this is there's not as much control over Start Player. In Everest it's neat that you can decide to climb or not based on weather or not it will make you (or another player in particular) the Start Player.
So... to summarize, I think I like the Start Player changing each day. If I want to give the players some control over who's P1 each day then Money should be the determiner (Most/Least money gets to be/choose P1). If I don't want as much control but want to stifle the progress of the leader then VPs should be the determiner.
Have I missed anything? I think this was the kind of good discussion that brings out great ideas and breakthroughs in games. Thanks for sparking it! I welcome any additional comments you may have! [/i]
That last sentance applies to all of you!
As a reminder, the 'current' rules and stuff can be found at www.dakotacom.net/~sej/87central.html
- Seth