There and Back Again: When do YOU end the Quest?

[Jafazo]

I guess you could try to beat the EWP cards by making sure a monster is always present on the board. Clarivoyance is good for finding such a room or passing through rock to see the contents of a room then leaving it. Another easy way to fight the deck is to make sure to cast sleep on a weak minded target and hope it stick, then just don't attack the victim and let it sleep.

EWP cards can only be used if Morcar has no monsters on the board after all.

[Daedalus]

That very problem was discovered through play by Sjeng. He posted it at the Inn's blog. His fix was to drop the associated Map EWP Card. I suggested this fix instead. Of course, your points remain a problem. The rules of use would need to be amended to take closed doors or inaccessible monsters into account--good find!

On those Evil Wizard Player card, I glanced at them but I don't agree with their implementation. All they seem to do is make life harder for the heroes and that's an imbalance if quests are designed to be as balanced as possible without throwing more crap their way.

Which is why mine tie into other mechanics, since my "advanced" Heroes have extra abilities, my "event deck" sets up a time preasure to make sure those abilities cannot be abused and to prevent the Heroes deliberately grinding the game.

Second this. I'm still developing my own system and am banking on overall balance through the sum of the mods.

[Anderas]

Jafazo,
You are right if the quest was borderline. Then the EWP can be just enough to push the difficulty beyond the fun level.


However, one might note that the base quest book has only one or two difficult quests in total, the rest is a walk in the park.

Afterwards, all th rest depends on your personal variant of the EWP Deck and your rule for taking a card. In my deck you see several "nothing" cards and the hardest cards are only in there if the quest difficulty allows for it. So mine is more psychological pressure than anything else. It's enough!

[cynthialee]

Been thinking on this awhile....

I guess I could answer when it is best for the enjoyment of all involved.

Like if the players blow through a dungeon in short order, obtain the quest objective in no time and we are all looking at available game time, I will find a way to extend the game play. Perhaps Mentor speaks through the veil and congratulates them on a quick victory, then sets them on a side mission of some form in the dungeon they are currently in. Perhaps a minion of Zargon is in the dungeon, or an item needs to be recovered.

Then the gamer in me wants to totally stretch it out so I can pull the Pyric Victory card so I can bring the dungeon down on their heads. {This is a card in my Evil Wizard deck that can only be played after the heroes have obtained the quest objective. Once played the dungeon starts to collapse and the heroes have 3 complete turns to get out of the dungeon.}

[Gold Bearer]

Like if the players blow through a dungeon in short order, obtain the quest objective in no time and we are all looking at available game time, I will find a way to extend the game play. Perhaps Mentor speaks through the veil and congratulates them on a quick victory, then sets them on a side mission of some form in the dungeon they are currently in. Perhaps a minion of Zargon is in the dungeon, or an item needs to be recovered.

I could never play in your games. Never ever. But if you and your players are happy with those kinds of shenanigans.

[cynthialee]

yet my play style has had my players coming back for more for a solid 25+ years....

[Gold Bearer]

Like I said...

But if you and your players are happy with those kinds of shenanigans.

It's just for me the fun comes from the heroes trying to complete the quest and the EWP doing everything they can to try to stop them.

[mitchiemasha]

Not sure what happened with my reply but this is how it should of looked.

If the Heroes have no monster to face on the exit, the EWP wasn't very good. If the heroes were that good, the EWP should of stepped the game up a bit.

Making changes on the fly and thereby making everything that happens completely redundant. That is NOT good EWPing, in my opinion.

Yes i agree, there are ways of stepping up your game with out making changes on the fly.

[Fallensaviour]

Depending on time and players mood after the quest is completed ,sometimes I'll just give them a secret door that pops open once the main objective is done that leads them out or secret staircase.
Like I said it all depends on players moods if they want to back track searching along the way I'm okay with that.

[mitchiemasha]

I use tokens instead of cards...

I guess you could try to beat the EWP cards by making sure a monster is always present on the board.

Heroes are more than welcome to try that. It gives the EW those precious attacks. Leaving a goblin with MAM can be dangerous, even worse if it has a bow. We also have a turn timer to pick a token.

or passing through rock to see the contents of a room then leaving it.

This activates the room in our game, it's not an invisibility spell. We do have 'Sneak' which would place monsters on the board but as the sneak rule is written, the monsters are considered off the board until detecting the Hero (passing a mind test) or the rooms door is opened.

sleep on a weak minded target and hope it stick, then just don't attack the victim and let it sleep.

Any ideas the Heroes can try to work around the EWP getting a token are good. Ideas take time to implement, time earns tokens. If the sleep spell happened and i was the EW, i'd kill the monster first chance i could. I could imagine an Orc sinking its blade into another after failing attempts to wake it. Do you play Undead can be put to sleep?