I'm not advocating against talking about what cards probably were played by people, but I am advocating against literal card-counting such as that which occurs (or at least, used to occur) in PbP games.
Speculating about how many cards could have been dropped by people is time-honored, and one of the reasons why I love playing characters who can choose which cards they draw. Might tie into why I have a reputation for always being a Cylon.
I'm not advocating against talking about what cards probably were played by people, but I am advocating against literal card-counting such as that which occurs (or at least, used to occur) in PbP games.
Speculating about how many cards could have been dropped by people is time-honored, and one of the reasons why I love playing characters who can choose which cards they draw. Might tie into why I have a reputation for always being a Cylon.
Yeah, but the speculations are mostly empty unless you keep some information about cards from the DD... You would need a catastrophically one-sided run for this to matter, even in PbP. It almost happened in the Daybreak Game 1 - we had 4 crisis (i think) in a row where there was no Red or Blue played or positive - so we knew the DD composition pretty reliably after that. A single crisis with Red or Blue positive would've knocked all our calculations out.
With an even mix of positives on skill checks, the bonus of being written down in a forum disappears quite rapidly.
Holy shit, some of you actually let people write down notes while playing BSG?
Not IRL, nope. Obviously in a PbP, the very nature has more information saved.
Of course, which is why I would never want to play in a PbP, though I find them fascinating on the outside. Writing down information kinda.. defeats the point? Gives the person doing it a hell of a lot of advantage? Breaks the spirit of all communication needing to be public? Take your pick.
Then again, when the chips are down, use whatever you can, I guess.. I love BSG, but I don't want to play with that kind of hypercompetitiveness.
We'll review skill contributions after a check resolves, in the "welp, somebody spiked that, hey, who draws Engineering cards, eh Cally?" sense, at which point they generally will justify how no it couldn't possibly have been them and hey Starbuck has half an engineering draw. Or Cally shoots somebody. Either way.
This game quickly turned into a hit with my gaming group. We have managed 5 or 6 games in just a few weeks and now I got the first Expansion Pegasus waiting for me in the mail. Tomorrow its time to see if the toasters or humans win!
We'll review skill contributions after a check resolves, in the "welp, somebody spiked that, hey, who draws Engineering cards, eh Cally?" sense, at which point they generally will justify how no it couldn't possibly have been them and hey Starbuck has half an engineering draw. Or Cally shoots somebody. Either way.
Yeah, we usually only stop to analyze a skill check if there's 3 or more off-color cards in it. 2 or less, we just all give each other significant glances as the cards are gathered up and discarded.
So my gaming group loves this game. We have the basegame and pegasus and they know there are two more expansions and are asking me about them. Get the both at once or one at a time?
Exodus give you a new system to handle cylon attacks that works a lot better than the original one, while daybreak give you 2 new important things, new cylon leader handling, making them a lot more versatile and a new mechanic, the mutineer that seems better than the one it replaces, the sympatizer. (both also have other things and a new destination but that are the better things)
Both are worth taking since that new mechanics get the game more fluid and balanced.
If I had to choose I'll go in order and take exodus first, but if you don't fear a lot of new rules at once I'll say both
The nice thing about Exodus is that the different new rules are largely modular. The Cylon Fleet board is a nice improvement, but I've always thought the whole trauma/Crossroads/boxing thing is vastly more complicated than fun.
To provide a more thorough breakdown, here's why you might want to purchase Daybreak over Exodus (or vice versa):
Characters: Daybreak provides, not only four new human characters as standard from the other expansions, but also four new Cylon Leaders to fill out the remaining set as well as four reworked characters from the Base Set, to reflect characters' growth and change over the course of the television series. Debatably, there is also some sentiment that two of the characters introduced in Exodus, Tory Foster and Callandra "Cally" Tyrol, are too powerful or game changing - though the same could perhaps be said of Helena Cain from the Pegasus expansion, and the reworked Lee Adama, Tom Zarek, and Gaius Baltar from Daybreak. Cylon Leader Mechanic: Daybreak has an all-new Cylon Leader mechanic that most would agree is better than the original implementation from Pegasus. Instead of being locked into a single agenda from the start, Cylon Leaders must now play with more nuance in order to achieve victory. Of course, some objectives do remain easier than others to complete, and if you don't play with Cylon Leaders, then this bullet point is of no real concern. Mutiny Mechanic and Treachery Deck: The Treachery deck in Daybreak replaces the Pegasus Treachery deck wholesale and it is generally agreed that the new deck provides some much needed 'bite' to the Treachery cards and the Reckless mechanic introduced in Pegasus. While the Treachery deck from Pegasus only really starts to show its fangs after Cylons have revealed, the Daybreak deck can cause trouble right from the start. On the other hand, it may be too much trouble, and combined with the Mutiny mechanic, humans can get locked down in a state where the Destiny Deck is ruled by Trauma and all humans are stuck in the Brig. Perhaps worse still, the Mutiny mechanic is mandatory with play of Daybreak Crisis cards and can provide too much complication in comparison to the wholly modular nature of Exodus. Crisis Cards: This is less a point for Daybreak than it is a point against Exodus, in that the new Crisis Cards introduced in Exodus do not include any Cylon attack cards. If playing an Exodus game without the Cylon Fleet Board, there will be far too few Cylon Attack cards in the Crisis deck ratio-wise. And while the Cylon Fleet Board does provide some additional choices for Cylon players, depending on the group, the predictable nature of Cylon jump-ins may be boring. The Daybreak Crisis cards, on the other hand, include more Cylon attack cards with fairly interesting and new attack scenarios to deal with. Destination: Again, a point more against Exodus and less for Daybreak. The biggest strike against Exodus's Ionian Nebula destination is the Crossroads phase, wherein a player can be eliminated completely from the game before the final, climactic jump cycle, and cannot win no matter what. This can happen even with careful management of Trauma counters, if luck decides it. Daybreak's Earth destination feels a bit more manageable, requiring additional distance to complete but providing additional, powerful locations to ease the journey. Then again, the extra management can be seen as making things too difficult for the humans and best left to more experienced players. (Of course, because of the tradeoffs of both expansion objectives, some may argue to only go with the original Kobol destination - nonetheless, the variety of goal location is there for those equipped with the expansions.)
The Exodus expansion does provide a few things that Daybreak does not, including additional Quorum and Destination cards. There's also a module for adding new loyalty card types to muddy the waters a bit. Exodus' content divisions make it a more flexible expansion than Daybreak. In addition, many of Daybreak's components overwrite Pegasus' components rather than bringing something new. If you liked the concept of what Pegasus brought in terms of Cylon Leaders and Treachery but thought the implementation weak, Daybreak is worth consideration. But if you want something new, Exodus may be the better choice.
Personally, I think Daybreak is a stronger expansion than Exodus. But if your group is quite into the game, you can't really go wrong with either expansion. It's probably best to go into it one at a time though, to give each module and additional mechanic its due time, and see what fits your group best.
I would say the expansions have very different effects. Exodus improves the cylon game with the CFB, not-guaranteed-human execution and I find allies and crossroads to be not that big of a deal - you're only really screwed for trauma if you're stuck in the brig as a cylon; otherwise you'll eventually draw disaster, or you can visit allies (and take the bad effects hit) to discard them. This generally makes it harder for the humans to win (see the last daybreak game where we had almost 20 raiders out; that won't happen playing without the CFB), or at least gives the cylons a better option than caprica, caprica and oh caprica again
Daybreak on the other hand makes things much easier for the humans, primarily through the Demetrius and card spam. The missions are unbridled awesome if the humans pass them; essentially the distance missions are required, but even if you fail them they can be retried. Permanently removing basestars & heavies is a big advantage, and the mission deck is so small it can be trivially mined for the specific needed one. It does sacrifice actions to use, but particularly with daybreak chars, that's not as bad
My game group has had the base game and Pegasus for about a year and I'd say we're pretty well-versed in both (except for the cylon leader mechanic, which we don't use a lot). Just got Exodus and Daybreak; we ran a test game of Exodus last night but haven't tried out Daybreak, although I've read the rulebook. It sounds like Daybreak is sort of a re-write of Pegasus? A lot of the mechanics are similar. Given that there are now 3 expansions, what are some ideas for combining modules from each? I know I'm asking a lot, since Exodus alone has 3 optional modules...
Pegasus board and CFB complement each other really well, so I highly recommend using both for all games. The Cylon Fleet replacement for the Attack cards is a must.
We pretty much always use the latest Cylon locations and replacement Colonial One. Mutiny cards have settled in as a much better replacement to Sympathizers and part of general play. The only exception is a 5-player game without a cylon leader and not earth objective - when we play that, we don't use the mutiny cards/replacement treachery/replacement Colonial One.
There are no particular reasons not to include assault raptors, new skill cards and new characters from Exodus/Daybreak.
Thanks @kaneski. I know I've had a hard time incorporating individual elements, for instance just characters, from Pegasus into the base game because some really were designed to work best with the new dynamic. I've read some of the posts here and it's been really enlightening to see how the game changes depending on what variants are used. I'm a little sad that Roslin becomes so ineffective with Exodus CFB... she was always my favorite in the series. Oh well.
Pro hint. When making the loyalty deck make sure to put any not used cards far away from the phase 2 cards. I didnt do that this weekend and instead of handing out the last 5 loyalty cards for phase 2 I accidently handed out the leftover You are a Cylon cards. One hour later we have 1 cylon leader and 5 very confused cylons
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Speculating about how many cards could have been dropped by people is time-honored, and one of the reasons why I love playing characters who can choose which cards they draw. Might tie into why I have a reputation for always being a Cylon.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Yeah, but the speculations are mostly empty unless you keep some information about cards from the DD... You would need a catastrophically one-sided run for this to matter, even in PbP. It almost happened in the Daybreak Game 1 - we had 4 crisis (i think) in a row where there was no Red or Blue played or positive - so we knew the DD composition pretty reliably after that. A single crisis with Red or Blue positive would've knocked all our calculations out.
With an even mix of positives on skill checks, the bonus of being written down in a forum disappears quite rapidly.
Not IRL, nope. Obviously in a PbP, the very nature has more information saved.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Of course, which is why I would never want to play in a PbP, though I find them fascinating on the outside. Writing down information kinda.. defeats the point? Gives the person doing it a hell of a lot of advantage? Breaks the spirit of all communication needing to be public? Take your pick.
Then again, when the chips are down, use whatever you can, I guess.. I love BSG, but I don't want to play with that kind of hypercompetitiveness.
Yeah, we usually only stop to analyze a skill check if there's 3 or more off-color cards in it. 2 or less, we just all give each other significant glances as the cards are gathered up and discarded.
Both are worth taking since that new mechanics get the game more fluid and balanced.
If I had to choose I'll go in order and take exodus first, but if you don't fear a lot of new rules at once I'll say both
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Characters: Daybreak provides, not only four new human characters as standard from the other expansions, but also four new Cylon Leaders to fill out the remaining set as well as four reworked characters from the Base Set, to reflect characters' growth and change over the course of the television series. Debatably, there is also some sentiment that two of the characters introduced in Exodus, Tory Foster and Callandra "Cally" Tyrol, are too powerful or game changing - though the same could perhaps be said of Helena Cain from the Pegasus expansion, and the reworked Lee Adama, Tom Zarek, and Gaius Baltar from Daybreak.
Cylon Leader Mechanic: Daybreak has an all-new Cylon Leader mechanic that most would agree is better than the original implementation from Pegasus. Instead of being locked into a single agenda from the start, Cylon Leaders must now play with more nuance in order to achieve victory. Of course, some objectives do remain easier than others to complete, and if you don't play with Cylon Leaders, then this bullet point is of no real concern.
Mutiny Mechanic and Treachery Deck: The Treachery deck in Daybreak replaces the Pegasus Treachery deck wholesale and it is generally agreed that the new deck provides some much needed 'bite' to the Treachery cards and the Reckless mechanic introduced in Pegasus. While the Treachery deck from Pegasus only really starts to show its fangs after Cylons have revealed, the Daybreak deck can cause trouble right from the start. On the other hand, it may be too much trouble, and combined with the Mutiny mechanic, humans can get locked down in a state where the Destiny Deck is ruled by Trauma and all humans are stuck in the Brig. Perhaps worse still, the Mutiny mechanic is mandatory with play of Daybreak Crisis cards and can provide too much complication in comparison to the wholly modular nature of Exodus.
Crisis Cards: This is less a point for Daybreak than it is a point against Exodus, in that the new Crisis Cards introduced in Exodus do not include any Cylon attack cards. If playing an Exodus game without the Cylon Fleet Board, there will be far too few Cylon Attack cards in the Crisis deck ratio-wise. And while the Cylon Fleet Board does provide some additional choices for Cylon players, depending on the group, the predictable nature of Cylon jump-ins may be boring. The Daybreak Crisis cards, on the other hand, include more Cylon attack cards with fairly interesting and new attack scenarios to deal with.
Destination: Again, a point more against Exodus and less for Daybreak. The biggest strike against Exodus's Ionian Nebula destination is the Crossroads phase, wherein a player can be eliminated completely from the game before the final, climactic jump cycle, and cannot win no matter what. This can happen even with careful management of Trauma counters, if luck decides it. Daybreak's Earth destination feels a bit more manageable, requiring additional distance to complete but providing additional, powerful locations to ease the journey. Then again, the extra management can be seen as making things too difficult for the humans and best left to more experienced players. (Of course, because of the tradeoffs of both expansion objectives, some may argue to only go with the original Kobol destination - nonetheless, the variety of goal location is there for those equipped with the expansions.)
The Exodus expansion does provide a few things that Daybreak does not, including additional Quorum and Destination cards. There's also a module for adding new loyalty card types to muddy the waters a bit. Exodus' content divisions make it a more flexible expansion than Daybreak. In addition, many of Daybreak's components overwrite Pegasus' components rather than bringing something new. If you liked the concept of what Pegasus brought in terms of Cylon Leaders and Treachery but thought the implementation weak, Daybreak is worth consideration. But if you want something new, Exodus may be the better choice.
Personally, I think Daybreak is a stronger expansion than Exodus. But if your group is quite into the game, you can't really go wrong with either expansion. It's probably best to go into it one at a time though, to give each module and additional mechanic its due time, and see what fits your group best.
Daybreak on the other hand makes things much easier for the humans, primarily through the Demetrius and card spam. The missions are unbridled awesome if the humans pass them; essentially the distance missions are required, but even if you fail them they can be retried. Permanently removing basestars & heavies is a big advantage, and the mission deck is so small it can be trivially mined for the specific needed one. It does sacrifice actions to use, but particularly with daybreak chars, that's not as bad
Pegasus board and CFB complement each other really well, so I highly recommend using both for all games. The Cylon Fleet replacement for the Attack cards is a must.
We pretty much always use the latest Cylon locations and replacement Colonial One. Mutiny cards have settled in as a much better replacement to Sympathizers and part of general play. The only exception is a 5-player game without a cylon leader and not earth objective - when we play that, we don't use the mutiny cards/replacement treachery/replacement Colonial One.
There are no particular reasons not to include assault raptors, new skill cards and new characters from Exodus/Daybreak.