Disciples playtest session report

Why in the world, in this game especially, would you want to reward someone for doing FEWER deeds than other people?

In fact, I think that this game is likely one of the few thematic settings where such a mechanic makes sense. The idea is that while the game is "competitive", I want to avoid scoring systems that are all about being "superior" to the other players. I like goals like the one mentioned above, or variations on that theme, that require you to "put other players before yourself." Of course, whether you can actually do that with the mechanics as they are is open to debate, but the idea is that you want to help yourself, but you want to help others along as well, and this kind of goal mechanic explicitly rewards you for that.

Sure, the specific implementation I gave may have its own attendant holes; it's just an example to illustrate a point, at this point...

Actually, I think it works well thematically, but *mechanically*, it may go against the rest of the game. ie, if you are supposed to be rewarded for "helping other players", but there's no good way to do that, then whether you get the bonus VPs or not is somewhat out of your hands. That's probably ok if it's a very small correction to your score, but if it's a large percentage of your score that's being determined, in some sense, by luck, then that's probably a bad thing.

-J

As one of the playtesters noted, it might be worth trying to write a little computer program that can "shuffle" and "deal" out the cards 1000 times and see what the averages are like. But indeed, we need to be careful about changing things fundamentally based on statistical fluctuations, but it's also difficult to play enough games to see all of the fluctuations.

And moreover, will lose some of the variety. If we have 16 Events and you see 8 or 10 in a game, then each game will feel slightly different (although, it becomes a problem if the game hangs on any particular combo of events being in the game for it to "work"...)

Actually, the die roll works well, as it's already a part of the game anyway. Again, originally there was a rule that at the start of your turn, you flipped a Deed/Event card, and if it was a Deed, you had to increase an action track. We changed that to "roll a die, and increase the indicated action track", and found that this was quite successful. 1-4 each correspond to one of the categories, 5 was "choose one" and 6 was "don't increase a category". The change I'm proposing is that 6 will now mean "flip an event card", and 1-5 will mean "flip a Deed card, and increment the indicated track". It's just a simple switching of the card flip and the die roll. Another reason it's better is that currently, the die roll is easily forgotten since it only happens when you flip a Deed. If it's the way that you determine whether you get a Deed or Event, it will be easier to remember...

Sure, it will lead to some randomness and maybe some strings of events, but at 1-in-6 odds of getting an Event rather than 1-in-3 (or so), the chance for "weird" results is dramatically reduced...

But the idea is just that there are two separate decks of cards that never get mixed. There's no sorting required, it's just "shuffle the Deeds, shuffle the Events, and place them in their respective spaces". Nothing in the game causes them to be mixed or the like, so they're always separate; no set up problem.

I think you're right that the random nature of the deck means that every game will be different, which is good, but also means that a lot of test games will be needed to evaluate the game, which is less good. I think that the game seems to be working just fine, though, even with the randomness; in fact, the variety is one of the strengths, in some sense. The bigger problem seems to be the goals at this point, and it's probably what I'll work most aggressively on for the near future.

Thanks for the reply!

-Jeff

Indeed, this is the concern with these. I think a non-scalable "auxiliary" goal might be better, something like "Receive X VP if the sum of deeds of type Y performed by all other players exceeds your own". (but worded better, obviously). The idea is that you're trying to put others before yourself, not just scoop up all the Deeds so you can get mega points. The current goal is meant to reflect this, but I agree, it has game size issues that probably are too problematic...

There are 6 towns, so this one could be worth 12, but actually, that would be a lot of points to get from one goal. I think 6 will be nearly effortless, and 8 shouldn't be too bad. I think I might need to tweak the value here. But yeah, this is a nice, clean, simple goal.

Nah, it's not so bad. Let's say you have 3 Deeds that affected the Jews: +2, -1, +1. The sum of those is +2. Take the absolute value, which is 2, and that's how many points you get.

No, this goal is all about going in one direction or the other. This guy is Simon the Zealot; you're being rewarded for rabble-rousing (either by making the Jews happy, or mad). This goal was inspired by Preston (e-dad). It's one of the ones I like best of all the ones I have.

Indeed, this one may be too difficult; it should probably be "as many or more deeds than other players". But, that may make it too powerful. I think it's actually priced about right, but it's difficult enough that you may not get the points even though they are pretty fair...(maybe)

This is probably the goal I like the least. In each game we've played, we have identified the traitor, but you don't find out till late in the game who it is, and so your approach with Phillip is just "do a ton of deeds", which I guess is valid but maybe not that interesting; it becomes a bit of a lucky outcome as to who the traitor was. This one's probably on the chopping block...

Something like this could definitely work, but the other night, just getting one Deed per category was tough, so I can't see ever getting 2 or more across the board. Still, something along those lines could be valid and interesting...

Thomas Receive 4 VP if you performed as many Deeds as Jesus. Receive 1 VP for each other player who performed as many Deeds as Jesus

The two related to Jesus and his works. Again I compare James to Peter. Peter can perform one deed of a type for his points, while James must beat Jesus at several places. Certainly some towns won't see Jesus as much and be easier.
For Thomas the question is EXACTLY as many or again Atleast as many. Getting a tie might be hard, especailly if Jesus is running low in numbers and your other Goal is a high-deed one. Also no real internal scaling possible, an all-or-nothing one.

It's "at least as many". Thomas' goal is quite difficult, and it's quite difficult to control since other players can have Jesus perform Deeds. Still, I think it's a nice goal, just the price needs to be right, and indeed, it's an all or nothing proposition. I agree, currently, James is tougher than Peter, but you do have the advantage of not needing specific kinds of Deeds in contrast to Peter who's somewhat restricted.

I know most of these come across as pointing out problems. I mean this more as things to think about with each one than bad things.

Yes, of course, and I really appreciate your articulating the issues you see with the goals. I've seen some of them myself, but it's quite helpful to hear someone else point them out as well. Thanks!

Yes, this is part of the problem, that the goals are different from one another in character. If they all worked the same, it would be much more seamless, yet coming up with 12 goals that are functionally similar yet all different has been quite difficult thus far, thus the mixture. I think the best I can hope for is that in each case, the difficulty of getting X points from a goal is the same across all goals, but beyond that, I fully expect that the scoring potential of the different goals could be different, and I'm not sure whether that's a big problem or not. If I have a card that maxes out at 5, and you have one that maxes out at 7, but for both getting the 5 points is equally hard, then this may be ok, given that there are other avenues for scoring. But, we'll just have to see. Certainly, if one goal maxes out at 4 and another at 12, that's not fair. But if they're all pretty close, maybe it's ok...

Thanks again for your thoughts, I really appreciate them!

-Jeff

Ok, here are some possible changes I've been kicking around...

Changed this to "Receive 1 VP for each X deed you perform, and 3VP if the other players combined have more X deeds than you" (X = compassion, healing, or exorcism)

Changed to "1 VP for every 2 Gospel tokens, and 3 VP if you have at least one Gospel token for each Deed Jesus performed." (some events also give you Gospel tokens, the idea is that this guy will have to follow Jesus for most of the game).

Too powerful, I think; changed to "3 VP for every 2 towns you preached in".

Happy with this one as is, no change.

Torn about this one; could change to "2 VP for each town in which you performed as many or more deeds than any other player". Makes it a bit easier, but a bit more lucrative (right now it's difficult, but has potential for a big payout if you can corner a couple of towns...)

Changed completely, to "In the category in which you have your most Deeds, receive 1 VP per Deed that you performed, and 1 VP for each Deed Jesus performed in that category."

Changed to "If you performed at least one Deed in each category, receive 4 VP. For each category in which all players performed at least one deed, receive 1 VP".

Unchanged for now.

This goal is hard. Changed to "4 VP if you performed as many Deeds as Jesus, and 1 VP for each Deed by which you exceeded Jesus' total". (The 4 VP may even become 5 VP, this one is quite tough...)

Unchanged.

So, as you can see, all of the effects of rewards scaling with number of players are removed. Yet, some goals will still be easier or harder in a smaller game, perhaps, though I need some thinking to see which is which. I welcome any comments on these revised goals...

Well, don't misunderstand me here; I'm not trying to apologize bad elements away by saying "at least they're not too bad." Rather, I'm trying to incorporate some unconventional scoring concepts into the game, and questioning the extent to which that can be done. I think that a game where your score is a little bit "out of your hands" will no doubt irritate the hard-core gamers, but it could work very well thematically. The key is that it has to be fair, and I'm not sure I've achieved that yet, or whether I can. If not, then though I like the idea, it will get jettisoned before the game is done. But, I think it's worth a try for now...

This is a fair point. I do think that the fact that there are 12 different goals presents a learning curve for someone who wants to take those kinds of things into account when planning their actions. I do think that the more experienced players should be able to see signs of who has what goal and plan accordingly -- for example, "Gee, Seth is performing all of his Deeds in just two towns; perhaps he is Andrew", or some such.

Also, see my recent post about recasting the goals that scale with what the other players did. I think that there shouldn't be too much kingmaking going on, at least I hope not.

Right, but again, this is a philosophically different concept I'm trying to exploit. For perspective, the original goal was "Receive 2 VP for each player with more compassion than you." But obviously, this leads to the "just don't do any compassion deeds!" approach, hence I added the 1 VP bonus for each compassion deed. What I'm asking players to do is put other players before them -- to not try to beat or bludgeon the other players, but to help the other players to succeed. That's what these goals are meant to reflect. Clearly, they have problems; they won't scale well with different player numbers, and there might not be clear enough ways that you can help the other players directly. But the philosophical concept behind these kinds of goals is very different than other games with similar goal-oriented scoring.

That said, it may very well not work in practice. But I think the "revised set" of goals I posted may solve some of the issues. Paying attention to the actions of others and trying to influence them may net you a few VPs. And the ways I believe you can influence others include: Giving them cards (a new mechanic), Planting yourself in the same town as a Deed you want them to perform so as to give them a discount, and having Jesus perform Deeds in a category that you want to make cheaper for everyone else, increasing the chance that they'll want those kinds of Deeds.

There should be an inherent dichotomy such that some people want to specialize while others want to diversify, yet both can benefit from the other. For example, as Peter, you want to specialize in preaching, yet you need to go to different towns to do so. This sets you up to have fewer Deeds in any town than Andrew, thus helping him out. Yet Andrew, by needing to perform a lot of Deeds, may end up helping Matthew or perhaps Bartholomew, etc. I think that the Goals, when properly balanced, will have a nice interdependence where pursuing your goal will also help someone towards their own. But, I'm not sure yet how to get there...

This is a change I made to address a concern of a Christian friend who felt that drawing Judas and being "forced" to betray was unsavory. Yes, the system doesn't "force" you to betray, but it heavily leans towards you doing so by only giving you one goal. This was an aspect I actually liked, however, I'm trying the goal with this change so as to hopefully make the game more acceptable to believers without losing any of the tension in the game (since in general, it really will be more lucrative to betray). The idea with the alternate goal is that you have to lock in your approach from an early time. If you are going to not betray, then Deeds that move the Pharisees and would thus help you to betray are not going to be rewarded -- only Deeds that don't help towards betrayal will be rewarded. So, Judas has to decide whether he's going to be "good" or "bad".

Thanks again for your thoughts!

-Jeff

I guess my concern about this is that currently, the separate Rome and Pharisees track symbolize, in some sense, two alternative endings for the game; they represent the idea that even if the traitor never took the payoff, still Jesus would have attracted enough attention from Rome that they would have crucified Him. So the idea is that some of your actions will anger the Pharisees, and some will cause Rome to take notice of you, (and some will do both), but there's a clear sense of which is which, which is what the two tracks represent.

Without this clear distinction, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around what the track means. I guess the closest I can come is that it would represent the Pharisees only, and when they reach the end of their track, they've gotten so mad that they've bypassed the traitor and have found someone else to betray Jesus. It sort of works, but it does lose the flavor that I was trying to go for, that the political situation in Israel was balanced on a knife-edge in those days. That said, I'm not sure how well my current game captures that anyway; whether the current 3-track system conveys this sense, or not.

My other concern is one of gameplay. I worry a little that if both sides (the "good guys" and "the traitor") both need to advance the same track for the game to end, then there could be an endgame lockup effect where no one wants to perform deeds that do so. In a sense, it will become a game of "chicken", where the "good" players have to set things up so that they can run the table and max out the track before the traitor's turn comes up so he can betray. (I'm assuming an endgame where the traitor has been discovered, which will probably be typical. In fact, maybe too typical; maybe the game actually is more fun if no one really knows till the end, even if the "guessing game" is fun. Maybe you guys were right after all...)

Anyway, I think that a lot of the tension in the end game currently is created by the "race" aspect of wanting the game to end via Rome prior to the traitor's ability to max out the track and betray. (Which is a bit odd thematically, I admit)

This "race" aspect would be replaced by a "press your luck" aspect which sounds interesting on the surface, but I do worry about the "who's going to blink first" aspect, which the game really shouldn't have.

I think part of the problem is that I just am having a hard time envisioning how the game would work with this change. Would there still be a Jews track? What would it do? What would it represent? It's easy to see intellectually what the three tracks represent now, but if they merged into one, the difficulty in representation that this creates for me is making it hard for me to see how to consider implementing such a thing mechanically. For some reason, I just don't like it but I'm having a hard time saying exactly why...

-J

Interesting session last night. We had 6 gamers trying to choose a game, and totally without any prompting from me, Disciples was requested. That's always a good thing. I sat out and moderated so Vitas, Teresa, Cindy, Karl, and Chris could play. All are "veterans" to the extent that this is possible in a game where the rules change every week!

We made a couple of changes to the game before playing, the biggest being a tweak in the die roll algorithm at the start of the turn. Ordinarily, you roll the die; if it's 2-5, you flip a Deed and increment an Action Track. If it's a 6, you flip an Event. If it's a 1, you reroll. We felt this still gave too few deeds, so we added that when you roll a 1, you also flip a Deed; that means it's possible to have more than one Deed come out on a turn.

I normally start with 6 Deeds showing on the board. Unfortunately, our die didn't feel the need to behave statistically last night, giving about four "1"'s in the first 7 rolls, and by the time we had gone around the table once, there were 13 Deeds showing, and the Pharisees track was at "1", meaning the traitor could betray and basically be guaranteed a win (since no one had 13 points).

We decided to abort and start over with fewer Deeds initially, and with a different die. Thankfully, it behaved better and we got through more of the game. Teresa decided to try something different and, as the Traitor, betray relatively early in the game. Unfortunately, she tried to do so by moving Jesus into the town she was in and then ending the game; but, I ruled that once you move Jesus, your turn has ended. Perhaps to remove ambiguity, "betraying Jesus" should require a turn action for the traitor. Probably makes sense. Unfortunately, this "outed" Teresa which made the "guess the traitor" superfluous. No big deal there. Two turns later, she betrayed and ended the game. The Pharisees track was on 5, and with 5 Deeds face up, she got 10 points. Cindy had 11, and Vitas had 9, so it seemed Teresa was in the mix. But...Karl had 21 and Chris had 15, coasting to first and second.

The reason leads to the interesting rules issue. The Goals Karl and Chris had are "configurational" rather than "incremental". For example, Karl had the goal "Receive 5 VP if you performed as many Deeds as Jesus and 1 VP for each Deed above and beyond". Since it was somewhat early, and since people were being unusually cagey about calling Jesus for help, this one got 8 points for Karl. His other goal was "3 VP for each town in which you have the most Deeds". Since only one Jericho Deed had come up and he had performed it, 3 of the 6 points he got for this Deed were pretty effortless.

I think Karl, having performed the most Deeds, probably did deserve the win, but it was interesting that he probably wouldn't have increased his score all that much over the course of the game, at least not from the Goals themselves.

That leads to an interesting dilemma; I believe that in a "long" game (ie, a game with at least 30 turns total), all the goals are (or will be) equally tough to achieve and score points proportional to the difficulty (though, as I've discussed, in a discretized way) -- Karl's goal really is a tough one in a normal-length game. But, in a short game (20 or 25 turns total), the game heavily favors the players with the "configurational" goals -- "Get X points if you have more of Y than other players/Jesus" -- as opposed to the incremental -- "Get X points for each Y that you do."

Now, what we seem to see, in each game, is that one goal will emerge as the one that scores mucho points, and that player will typically win; so, it always seems that the game state seems to find a goal that it prefers and rewards it accordingly. I think it will require all players knowing all the goals to be able to really harness this and manipulate the game state so as to prevent players from scoring big off of certain goals. Of course, this will be something "serious" players would do anyway, whereas "casual" players probably will just have fun playing the game (and it is fun...).

So, I wonder if I need to rethink the "configurational" goals to be more "incremental". It may be possible, but man, coming up with 11 unique goals in such a simple game system is proving tough.

Another curiosity is that my group seems unexpectedly cagey about calling Jesus; it seems that Gospel tokens aren't enough of an enticement; people only want to call for help if doing so will reduce an action track that they can then perform a Deed in. I think it's a group peculiarity more than a flaw in the game...

Other than that, after 7 playtests I still haven't changed the numbering on the Pharisees track or the length of the Rome track. I think Rome may need to become one space shorter (maybe) and the left-most space on the Pharisees track can probably go (since the "move back the Pharisees" rule is gone). I've changed the deck distribution a bit, and the goals have been changed a lot. But basically, it's been the same game all along, and it continues to be fun to play, with one caveat; I think, like any game, when it slows down due to perfect planners, the fun slows down to. But with a lively and quick group, it's fun. So, a little tweaking yet to do, then I'll probably call it "done".

Hope you enjoyed reading the latest SR; I'd particularly welcome comments about the two different styles of goals. My inclination is probably to leave it since what I think we saw was that the Traitor betraying too early probably isn't a good bet. But on the other end, the players should legitimately feel like the Traitor could betray and plan accordingly, so maybe if the goals are all "progress"-based rather than "configuration"-based, everyone will be in the same boat of trying to slowly and steadily work towards something, and betraying "early" isn't always a non-starter for the Traitor...

-Jeff

I had what will probably be, sadly, my last regular playtest session with my regular group last night; my wife and I are moving at the end of next week, so it's time to start looking for a new group!

Still, we were able to get one last session of Disciples in, this time with probably the biggest change we've implemented yet, and which I discussed a bit in my GDW thread. The idea is that now, instead of being worth a flat 1 VP at the game end, Deeds score immediately, and are worth 1 VP + 1 if Jesus is in the town +1 if other players are in the town; if they are, they each get 1 VP as well.

I tried this out with a "solo" playtest 2 nights ago, and it seemed good enough to try with the group. The results seem to be quite favorable. This rule change added a good bit of tactical depth and player interaction to the game -- you really need to think now about what deeds you want to perform and where you want to perform them. Since your actions will give points to other players, you want to strike a good balance between scoring more VPs and throwing VPs to other players. But of course, performing a Deed in a town with other players also gives you a (possibly much-needed) discount...

Naturally, this boosted the scores quite a bit. We played with 5, myself, Preston, Cindy, Karl, and Frans. Frans was new to the game. Two firsts for me -- the first time I drew "Judas", and the first time I won! The Rome track increased quickly from an early time, and I knew we were heading for a short game. Despite not having performed a lot of Deeds I managed (or, I would say, machinated!) to be in the right place at the right time to score points off of other players' Deeds, and thus I stayed close to the lead on the VP track most of the way. This led to some interesting tension for me, since I really wasn't sure whether betraying was going to be as lucrative as letting the game end naturally. It's interesting, I was actually sitting on more points for "non-betrayal", but betraying would have given me the opportunity to freeze other players' scoring right where it was rather than letting them score more; a nice dilemma.

A little later in the game, I was all set to betray, but Frans ended the game by moving up the Rome track. I had the lead in Gospel tokens, and this dovetailed well with my goal, which was Gospel-token oriented, thus I came out with 28 points, 2 less than I would have received for betraying. Preston was close on my heels with 25, followed by Frans and Cindy with 24 and 23. (Preston would have had 28 if he had performed as many Deeds as Jesus. He had, up until Frans chose to have Jesus perform a Deed as his last action). Karl, having played before, didn't really pay attention during the rules explanation and thus sort of missed the major change in Deed scoring. He was never really in the right place to score many points from his or other players' Deeds, and didn't make enough progress on his goals to accumulate many points.

I think the big plus is that the Deeds are a little more important than goals right now, which is good, because it feels like you're choosing between working towards your goals or performing Deeds that might net you more points. People still seem to choose Deeds with consequences pretty freely, but later in the game they obviously begin to pay more attention to the consequences of the Deeds.

My only real concern about this change is whether it adds a layer of complexity to decision making that is just too much. For example, the things you have to think about when choosing what deed to perform include: the position of the Action tracks (can I perform the Deed?), the location of other players (both in terms of cost reduction and point scoring), the current score of yourself relative to those players, the possible consequences of the deed, and the goals you are working on.

This, to me, is the kind of thing I really relish -- a slightly complex problem space that is resistant to "perfect planning". But of course, some people still try to perfectly plan no matter how complex the parameter space gets. Still, I didn't feel, and I don't think anyone else felt, particularly lost or overwhelmed at this point; since your choice of Deeds is somewhat restricted (people seem to have about 6 to look at each turn) and since some will be physically out of reach, it's pretty easy to choose among the remainders which work best for you.

My only other concern about the game is that there are a few "steps" to the Deeds action, and the more steps, the more things to forget. For example, after performing a Deed you increment the corresponding action track, you score points for yourself and others in the town, and you adjust the anger tracks (if necessary). This doesn't seem so bad, and with 5 people involved in the game usually someone remembers all the steps even if you forget, but still, it's a mild bit of complexity, though it's probably necessary in this case.

Overall, I feel that other than continuing to tweak the goals (which are nearing being "done", at least conceptually), and perhaps playing with the consequence distribution, we're very close to "done" with this one. I hope to have it playtested by a few more groups, and to do some more solo tests to balance a few aspects, then it should be just about finished!

Hope you enjoyed my latest report...

-Jeff

I had the opportunity to playtest Disciples with some very respected members of the gaming community yesterday -- these are names that many of you would certainly recognize.

The game went pretty well, I think. The action tracks were maxed out for the majority of the game, yet people were still able to perform Deeds; many had consquences that moved the Rome track up pretty quickly. The Pharisees track finally caught up and finally maxed out at 30. As the Traitor, I hoped to betray on my turn and net the 36 points that were available, likely securing me the win, but alas, the game ended just before my turn. That’s the 2nd time that has happened; I find it interesting, and satisfying. On my previous turn, I probably could have betrayed and been in the mix but I couldn’t reach Jesus from where I was. In the final analysis, I came in dead last, but the winner scored a quite respectable 30 points with 2nd place close behind with 27. Once again, the leader got about 18 or so points from Deeds, a little higher than previous games but about in the right ballpark. Only one player did a good job targeting his goals (2nd place), earning about 9 points for both; other players were only getting 1-3 points for each goal.

It was kind of weird; no one actually said whether they liked the game or not. The closest anyone came was one player (the one whose opinion I was most interested in) said “My reaction was neither particularly favorable or unfavorable and I have to think about why that is.” Hoping he’ll get back to me with the answer!

Some concerns that were expressed:

The game is too complex for the family market. This is definitely a possibility, yet I think the complexity makes the game rich enough that it’s not worth simplifying. I think that a variant set of rules would be the answer, and from my solo playtests, my feeling is that ignoring the Anger tracks altogether (and forgetting the Traitor) retains the fun of trying to meet your goals and score for deeds.

Because Jesus moves at the end of your turn, and because He moves towards a town with Deeds, moving Jesus can often result in creating scoring potential for other players, and as a result, people are being a bit hesistant to actually move Him. This only cropped up in this game, really, and it’s clearly attributable to the rule change that you get “1 VP for a Deed, +1 if Jesus is in the town, +1 if other players are in the town, and others also get 1 VP”. This means that having Jesus in the town is a big boost to your scoring; it also somewhat disincentivizes having Jesus perform Deeds (since you score more points of off Deeds than Gospel tokens), although the action track cost reduction should be incentive enough.

The proposed changes were either to have Jesus move at the start of your turn (don’t like it) or to have Jesus’ movement be automatic rather than volitional. I think I’ll at least playtest the latter to see how it goes; since Jesus doesn’t move if He’s in the town with the most (or tied for the most) Deeds, there will still be plenty of times where He won’t move, and anyway, taking a decision away from the players could be a good thing...

What I’m beginning to think about is the role of the traitor. It seems that the Pharisees track rewards the Traitor with VPs in a way that doesn’t directly correlate with the Traitor’s actual performance in the game; in other words, he’s not actually scoring based on his own skillful play. To me, this mechanic works so well thematically that it’s worth keeping this aspect of the game, but I wonder if more avenues for the traitor to have to influence his score are needed -- the only thing I can really come up with is to have the traitor keep his scoring from Deeds performed, but then score bonus points based on the position of the Pharisees track (which would have to be scaled). This would just make the Traitor a different (but potentially more lucrative) goal as opposed to a whole different scoring system altogether. Not sure whether I’ll go in that direction.

So, from my perspective, this was a successful game -- it played out well, was tense and interesting, and I learned a couple of things about the game. I didn’t really get much feedback as to whether people enjoyed the game, but it was still a useful experience nonetheless...