Welcome to BSG: The Board Game, guaranteed to make you paranoid within 5 minutes or your money back. ;-)
After forty years passing without a single word from the Cylons, they returned, and all but eradicated the human race. In this time of strife, they must put aside the petty differences that once separated them and focus on one thing — survival.
Humanity's only hope of a future is to find a new home; a place called Earth. The Cylons, however, are in constant and tireless pursuit. They now look, breathe and bleed exactly like humans. Cylons have infiltrated the Fleet, destroyed resources, and threaten to finish the extermination they have begun. The humans have no choice but to run, plagued by the paranoia of an indistinguishable enemy.
Are you a Cylon who will help to erase any memory of the human race? Or will your resilience and determination to survive prove to the Cylons that humanity is worth saving?
This thread is intended to contain all the houserules discussion and such that is currently clogging the general board games thread. Ideas for new characters, new crisis/super crisis cards, and just general brainstorming all go here.
For more information on rules or play-by-post games, check out the following:
Rules and UtilitiesRules, from the Fantasy Flight Games websiteFAQ and Errata, from the Fantasy Flight Games websiteVariant Rules, including the No Sympathizer variant, from the Fantasy Flight Games websitePlayer Aid 1, on BoardGameGeekPlayer Aid 2, on BoardGameGeekCurrent and Previous GamesGame B01 - Host: Akinos
Game B02 - Host: Darian
Game B03 - Host: Valkun
Game B04 - Host: MrBlarney
Game B05 - Host: Darian
Game B06 - Host: Valkun
Game B07 - Host: Hippie
Game B08 - Host: Gandalf_The_Crazed
Game B09 - Host: Hylianbunny
Game B10 - Host: Darian
Game B11 - Host: Hippie
Game B12 - Host: pablo_price
Game B13 - Host: Nosaji (Role Play Game)
Game B14 - Host: Darian / Hermenegilde
Game B15 - Host: Hippie
Game B16 - Host: pablo_price
Game B17 - Host: Valkun
Game B18 - Host: Osvik
Game P01 - Host: Nosaji
Game P02 - Host: MrBlarney
Game P03 - Host: Hylianbunny (Role Play Game)
Game P04 - Host: Osvik[/QUOTE]
To kick things off, someone had mentioned the idea of an expansion pack which would add the Pegasus onto the board, with a few locations of its own. I think this is an interesting concept. The primary questions it raises, however, are:
- Space Combat - How would the space sectors surrounding the Pegasus mesh with those surrounding the Galactica? Would they be entirely separate boards, or would there be overlap?
- Would the Pegasus provide extra Vipers/Raptors?
- What locations could the Pegasus possibly contain that aren't already covered within the Galactica?
Personally, I think it would be interesting if the admiral had to choose a separate commander for the Pegasus, and the two characters could not enter each other's ships. There could also be an additional objective card which included a step about halfway through, where for one or two jumps, no travel was allowed between the two ships at all.
Posts
THAT GAME, alone, made me drop $42 at my LGS for this, and I'm getting my roommates to play it as soon as we have the time. Oh my god I'm in love.
Best game ever.
EDIT: I've been thinking, there really needs to be some kind of Airlock location that we can use in situations like the one we find ourselves in with Boomer right now. :P
Like this?
Airlock
Action: Select your pistol, and then, select your Cylon.
Something very similar in MrB's game at the moment, too.
Good quote from DA, playing Zarek.
3DS: 0963-0539-4405
That being the Admiral's Quarters are busted, the President has basically been cut off from the Quorum deck, and the shit is hitting the fan far too fast and hard for anyone to waste time repairing it and also trying to throw me into the brig.
Rules and Utilities
Rules, from the Fantasy Flight Games website
FAQ and Errata, from the Fantasy Flight Games website
Variant Rules, including the No Sympathizer variant, from the Fantasy Flight Games website
Player Aid 1, on BoardGameGeek
Player Aid 2, on BoardGameGeek
Current and Previous Games
Game 01 - Host: Akinos
Game 02 - Host: Darian
Game 03 - Host: Valkun
Game 04 - Host: MrBlarney
Game 05 - Host: Darian
What about having two separate brigs, since that actually happened in the show? One could allow you to contribute 1 card to skill checks and you could activate to try and get out. The other, no skill check contributions, and there's no way out except to Reveal Loyalty if you're a Cylon. You could make the skill check necessary to throw someone in the second brig much more difficult, if you wanted. But I don't really think that would be necessary, since no one wants to risk throwing a human player in an inescapable brig -- they'd have to be damn sure (like in this case) that the frakker's a toaster.
The revealed "unrevealed" cylon thing is a little annoying but not horrible. Typically it's the result of some specific actions (like leaving the damn Admiral's Quarters blown up) than anything else.
It just seems like there ought to be a way for us to counter-act that more effectively than getting into rounds of "nuh-uh, I'll use Evasive Maneuvers too!"
My concern about fixing this would be a human player who is put in a no-skill card brig is essentially not playing the game anymore.
An effective way of stopping Strategic planning would be to flip the cylon attack rolls so Strategic planning is always of use to the colonials and not the cylons.
As far as I know, there's a rule it can't. Revealed Cylons can't be affected by cards or abilities.
Edit: At least I thought they weren't, trying to find it now.
to preclude situations like this, or at least keep them to a minimum, what if the rule was that you couldn't use FTL control to make your final jump? obviously this would be a boon to the cylons, so you'd have to increase humanity's starting resources to compensate, or something. but it seems like it would make the final rounds more exciting and more based on actual gameplay.
of course, a lot of the final round is based on chance anyway, but it's more fun having it played out via crisis cards and such than just a die roll. :P
I don't much like that houserule, Robo-Bill, because it reduces some of the tension of the last round. Part of what we're facing here is the decision to risk the jump vs. trying to survive long enough to auto-jump. If one of those options were removed, it wouldn't be as stressful, because there's really only one thing you can do.
I know, I know.. I'm just sayin. The board game seems based on seasons 1 and a bit of 2. You could have a season 2, 3, 4, and 4.5 expansion without much difficulty.
EDIT: It is possible that it would be worth playtesting a variant of the game with the airlock location, to see how it gets used in practice, with human players who get airlocked being removed from the game entirely, and Cylon players being revealed without a chance to use their loyalty card ability. It would definitely be more in keeping with the canon. EDIT2: Possibly only the admiral and president should be allowed to activate the airlock, but they are then not allowed to contribute to the resulting skill check?
You have to consider that this is a board game that plays over period of multiple hours or in the case of beeing played in this forum mulitple weeks. I think giving the players the option of removing a player entirely is worse then the possibility of a semi-revealed cylon inducing chaos.
I understand it's not much fun if you get removed from the game via airlock or something. Maybe it can only be activated after 6 or 7 distance has been accumulated? That way, no matter what, you get to play most of the game, but in that last phase, Cylons have to reveal or stay covert lest they get airlocked. EDIT: At the 7/8 distance mark, I don't think there's much chance a human player would get airlocked.
Still sounds too complicated and against the heart of the game.
I think a stronger lockdown would make more sense. I mean, isn't Boomer playing ability cards from the brig? Doesn't that seem... er... wrong? I mean, chipping in on skill tests is one thing, but.
I'd look at limiting the impact of skill cards for the cylons. They aren't supposed to use them anyways.
I'm just trying to figure out a way that doesn't seem so game-ish. There's no good reason someone sitting in the brig should be able to Launch Scout, or help a Raider shoot down a Viper outside.
A player in the brig can only play a skill card if the current admiral agrees. This means, if the player wants to play a card from the brig he has to say so, without revealing the card, he then needs permission from the admiral to actually do it. It's in context since people in the brig helped the fleet with Adamas permission.
That's my thought exactly. Hence restricting the use of skill cards in The Brig. It's an obvious solution that fits the theme of the game. I don't know how it would affect games, as my first real playing of the game will be tonight, but just looking at the scenario it makes sense. And it gives the cylon a reason to get out of the Brig, beyond just playing the loyalty cards.
... Hell, if a non-revealed Cylon had that much power there would be no reason whatsoever to reveal yourself in the endgame, right?
Good.
Hell, Zarek can make it easier to elect himself president from the brig. That makes no sense in that context.
Running around during a Cylon attack while the Admiral's Quarters are damaged is one thing, but covert Cylons should have good reasons to reveal themselves soon after making a bad action but before getting sent to the brig.
I really think the answer to this is adjust the skill cards so that they aren't much use to cylons. Evasive Manevers to "When a Viper would be damaged or destroyed...", change raider/basestar attacks to be defense checks by vipers/galactica (making Strategic Planning only good for humans). With the already existing ban on cylons using cards I think that makes a good compromise.
It leaves Launch Scout but frankly Cylons have much better things to be doing over in Cylon ville than that.
Cally and Tori better be there. I'd also like to see more of the Cylons, like... well.. all of them.