[Smiley]

Having tested this a bit we discovered that playing equal amounts of rounds and stopping when any player hit 100+ points was actually more fun. It removed the feeling of unfairness that you got from ending the game immediately and added the reverse that if you where the first players you had to thing about how many points your opponent (second player) could get on his turn as it would end if he got to a 100+. This made the game feel more fair as well as more strategical for both players.

We also discovered that if the first player got 100+ points and triggered the end of the game and the second player caught up it was crucial that you counter points above 100 to see who won. Going second and only being able to draw the game just made you feel cheated. It also added the idea to actually try to earn as many points as possible and not just go to 100 safe points to draw the game. But having to get more than the opponent to actually squeak out a win was a good feeling.

Outside of this the point about other ways to end the game came up as well. The deck depletion now having to be both players felt farfetched. So we tried with only one being empty. This made the game faster as one could go for fast points and try to empty his own deck to end the game early. This could be a NPE but then again you could go for a dual depletion of your own and your opponents could be a potential decktype of honed correctly.

[JeBuS]

How about we acknowledge that there's no way to have a perfectly even playing field within a given game, yet since there's two players and going first is randomly determined, the advantage evens out for everybody over the course of a career.

Also, life's not fair.

Not true. If you play 100 games, there's only an 8% chance that you'll get an even split. Which means that statistically, 92% of players are either at a disadvantage or at an advantage over that length of their career.

Already addressed.

For most people, life isn't fun, either. Should that be 1E's goal, too? Or is "not fun" by design?

[AllenGould]

For most people, life isn't fun, either. Should that be 1E's goal, too? Or is "not fun" by design?

You're thinking of 2E. /rimshot

[Armus]

Not true. If you play 100 games, there's only an 8% chance that you'll get an even split. Which means that statistically, 92% of players are either at a disadvantage or at an advantage over that length of their career.

Already addressed.

For most people, life isn't fun, either. Should that be 1E's goal, too? Or is "not fun" by design?

Now you're changing your argument. Is it an even split between people for whom life is fun and not or are people using bad dice?

That's the thing about arguing statistics, there's 2 sides to a bell curve.

[JeBuS]

Now you're changing your argument. Is it an even split between people for whom life is fun and not or are people using bad dice?

That's the thing about arguing statistics, there's 2 sides to a bell curve.

The argument that everyone has the same chance of becoming the unluckiest SOB to play the game isn't an argument for the best possible game.

[JeBuS]

Let me go at this a different way, if I may.

The rules enshrine a way for the player to lose while playing the perfect, flawless game.

Suppose two players are playing exactly the same deck. The stars align, and their shuffles also were identical. Their cards appear in hand in exactly the same order. They play their cards on the same turns, in precisely the same order. Random selections are all identical.

But the player who went first wins. For no reason other than he went first. He won simply because the rules prescribed that he would before the game even began, not because he played better than the other player.

[Takket]

i find my opponents kick my ass with with impressive efficiency regardless of who goes first.

[JeBuS]

i find my opponents kick my ass with with impressive efficiency regardless of who goes first.

Me too. Another turn won't help me win many games.

But let's say it's two tier-1 players facing off. One has a deck that can score 100 points in 5 turns. Another has a deck that can score 101 points in 5 turns. But because the 101 guy never gets his fifth turn, he loses.

[Discovery rox]

How about we acknowledge that there's no way to have a perfectly even playing field within a given game

can we also acknowledge that theres no way to make a perfect star trke episode?

and that theres no way to make a perfectly fair justice system?

and that theres no way to make a perfectly balanced virtual expansion of star trek ccg cards?

....

and that therfore producers shouldnt try to make each star trek episdoe as good as they can? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

and that therfore we should give up on any notion of having or improving our justice system to make it more fair? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

and that therefore we shouldnt errata or ban cards once there released? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

the advantage evens out for everybody over the course of a career.

if a game isnt fun or balancedat an atomic, per game level, but only at a career length level, then its not a good game.

Also, life's not fair.

this is the biggest punt of an argument for anything ive ever seen. you can use this to justify never improving literally anything and everything, because after all lifes not fair, so why bother trying to make it more fair?

[Armus]

How about we acknowledge that there's no way to have a perfectly even playing field within a given game

can we also acknowledge that theres no way to make a perfect star trke episode?

and that theres no way to make a perfectly fair justice system?

and that theres no way to make a perfectly balanced virtual expansion of star trek ccg cards?

....

and that therfore producers shouldnt try to make each star trek episdoe as good as they can? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

and that therfore we should give up on any notion of having or improving our justice system to make it more fair? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

and that therefore we shouldnt errata or ban cards once there released? because lifes not fair and if you cant be perfect then why bother.

the advantage evens out for everybody over the course of a career.

if a game isnt fun or balancedat an atomic, per game level, but only at a career length level, then its not a good game.

Also, life's not fair.

this is the biggest punt of an argument for anything ive ever seen. you can use this to justify never improving literally anything and everything, because after all lifes not fair, so why bother trying to make it more fair?

So here's the thing: all of these machinations that I've seen have the potential to add a lot of rules cruft to an already very crufty game.

Also, as others have posted, not all games are decided by one turn, so we can disregard all blowouts in this conversation, which I'm guessing happen more often than not. So everything else follows from the premise that the game gets decided one way or the other with that one turn.

In that scenario, I'm not so sure it resolves the unfairness so much as shifts it.

Let's look at this equal turn model.

I play my game, I go first, I work my way through my missions, I overcome your dilemmas, I score 100 points. I win right, because I met the objective victory conditions defined at the beginning of the game?

Not so fast, you say. You went second so you get a turn. But now if you have the advantage of knowing exactly how much you need to win. This is the same reason that college football teams always go on defense first in overtime given the choice: knowledge is power.

So we just literally changed the definition of winning the game in the name of balance? Fairness? Whatever, pick your term. But instead of achieving fairness, we've just shifted the unfairness to the other player, leaving us basically where we are right now, only with a less coherent game.

No thanks.

[BCSWowbagger]

Having tested this a bit we discovered that playing equal amounts of rounds and stopping when any player hit 100+ points was actually more fun. It removed the feeling of unfairness that you got from ending the game immediately and added the reverse that if you where the first players you had to thing about how many points your opponent (second player) could get on his turn as it would end if he got to a 100+. This made the game feel more fair as well as more strategical for both players.

We also discovered that if the first player got 100+ points and triggered the end of the game and the second player caught up it was crucial that you counter points above 100 to see who won. Going second and only being able to draw the game just made you feel cheated. It also added the idea to actually try to earn as many points as possible and not just go to 100 safe points to draw the game. But having to get more than the opponent to actually squeak out a win was a good feeling.

I'm glad you tested it. I'm surprised it was fun. But since it was fun for you, it would be nice to have others try it, see whether it's fun for them as well, and have them report back here.

Armus makes a very good point, of course, that we need to avoid rules cruft. Almost anything added to the list of "things you need to know in order to play the game" should also take something away from that list (ideally, two somethings). Even a good idea will not make the game better if it adds rules cruft along the way.

There are so many ideas out there that could, in theory, lead to a better game... but they require players to memorize 5 new concepts and be able to deduce the 120 or so ways those 5 concepts can interact. The cognitive burden is too great and makes the game just that much farther out of reach to anyone not already very, very steeped in it.

Of course, we can't really know whether a given proposal would add cruft or remove it until someone actually writes a proposal. So, like, for this concept, somebody would need to pull out OTF Rule #7: Victory Conditions, erase it, rewrite it with this change in mind, and prove that the change doesn't break anything or make the victory conditions even harder to understand. (That last is very important, because the victory conditions are already too hard to understand.)

But if any players want to make the case that this idea is both fun and workable, this is how I would go about doing it: drafting and testing.

(This goes for all rules ideas and may turn into something of a refrain of mine. Draft 'n' Test.)

[DarkSabre]

I'll throw out there that I have never seen a person who went first/second as anything helpful outside of Tribunal of Q.

Honestly as a player I prefer to go 2nd because I get to respond to what you did on turn one and usually it changes my entire response while playing the game.