Recently I got to try Pandemic. In this game four diseases threaten to wipe out mankind. The players must work together to keep the plagues from spreading while racing to find a cure before time runs out. Each player can be one of five roles (7 roles in the new version) which grant them special abilities. Like the Researcher who can give any card in any location, instead of just the card corresponding to that location. This is important because a set of 5 (or 4 for the Scientist) cards of the same color are needed to cure a disease. It is a very good game and I recommend that you give it a try when you have the chance.
When I was playing with some friends, they were playing that you could only give cards on the giving player's turn and were finding the game quite challenging. Most of that first game with them was spent figuring out how the receiver could end up in the correct city to be given the card they needed. This made the game more an exercise in creating board moving than actually about stopping pandemics and it wasted a lot of turns, which are really the limiting factor in Pandemic.
After some rules discussion, we played the next game by relaxing that giving cards could be done on either the giver's or receiver's turns. The difference in difficulty was astounding. We won easy without a sweat, whereas before it was more like a coin flip. The other big difference to me was the type of discussions we were having. Instead of trying to go through weird gyrations to pass cards, we talked more about stopping diseases. Now we debated the trade-off of heading off the spread of a plague or getting a cure for another sooner. The focus had returned to what the designers had in mind, instead of trying to go through the gyrations of a small rule.
This was a very nice example of how a very simple rule change could have a dramatic impact on how the game is played and really the quality of the game. The lesson I took away from this is when most of the discussions in a game are about how to work within one rule, unless that rule is central to the concept of the game, there is probably something wrong. And then letting the players do what they want to, give cards on any turn in this case, can make a more enjoyable experience as then the players' focus is not distracted by obtuse rules.
Pandemic is a great board game! I contemplated buying it at one point. One of the few board games where you're all competing against a single goal, rather than against each other, and one that does it quite well.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your rule gripe though, I have to respectfully disagree. That rule is in place for a reason, and one that you seem to have hit upon - and that is to make the game more difficult. You "won without a sweat" without it, as you say. Pandemic is a game about, well pandemic. It's supposed to be stressful and difficult (at least on the higher difficulties).
Creating board movement as you say, isn't quite what the game is about to me. It's more about efficiency of actions. You only get a certain number of actions per turn, and you need to make those count. The character roles are where this comes in. Using the special abilities of each role effectively is absolutely crucial to being able to win the game. Having the Dispatcher, I've found is quite crucial to winning a higher difficulty game as it helps with the card-transfer problem you mentioned.
We won without a sweat on easy when before it was quite hard. I also believe that my friends had been playing it wrong the entire time and the ability to give on any players' turn is the way the rules are written.
DeleteI do agree with the efficiency of actions point. When you only have 4 actions in a turn you have to make every one of them count. The problem was we were wasting a lot of actions to give cards. Not only did both players have to be in the same city as the card to give it, but the received had to have ended their previous turn there to for the giver to be able to give the card. Then usually the receiver would have to move a lot again to cure the disease. Which seems to be jumping through far more hoops than is necessary. It causes far less rules stress to be able to give a card on another player's turn, using one of their actions. Especially because they are the one who will use the card.
You are also right about stress being important in Pandemic as it really is a race against time. But I think that this card exchange dance was the wrong kind of stress. If you are stressed because of a weird little rule that is breaking the flow of the game, something is wrong. The right kind of stress is worrying about chain outbreaks in South America because you left the yellow disease active for too long and are on hard so there are a lot of pandemics.