audrisampson wrote:
Echo wrote:
That's a pretty interesting way to do it, it works almost like the Mystery Map event at GenCon. At that event everyone plays on the same map, but it's a 100% brand new design that none of the players have seen before, so there's no way to know whether your squad will do well or not on it beforehand.
I've always felt that about half the game is played before dice even hit the table, that being squad choice and map choice. Taking map choice basically out of it makes it a little less "competitive", but definitely adds another interesting level to it. You can't play a squad that just abuses a popular map, knowing that you'll win map roll half the time and then some of the times that you don't win map roll your opponent will be playing that map anyway. You have to build a squad that can hold up on a wide variety of maps.
How do you handle who sets up first, though? Do you do a pseudo map roll and just say that the high roll "picked" the map that's out, so the low roll gets to either set up first or defer?
I don't know about the less competitive aspect of having a pre-picked map. Every squad I play I have to prep to play on a selection of about 10 or so maps. As far as the set up procedures we roll for sides instead of map. High role picks the side and sets up first.
Yeah, the "competitive" aspect is definitely debatable (part of why I put it in quotes), since now you have to more often consider playing on ANY map. It kind of comes down to your definition of competitiveness in games in general, since some people think that less randomness makes a more competitive game (because when you take away player choice, it becomes less about who's good and more about who's lucky), and this certainly introduces more randomness. On the other hand, of course, the better player should be the one who can handle bad luck better, right?
That gets into some much deeper game theory, though, way beyond the scope of this thread. I do like the idea, though.