The bigest hang up with SotM at my table is the 5 player limit... I often (especially during the summer) have 6 (2 other couples) over for gaming night. I know there are house rules people have gone on about and I have tried a few, but most don't cut the mustard...either the villian (s) are WAY over powered or its a lazy cakewalk for the heroes.
Is GTG , or have they and I just missed it, planning to come out with a 6 (or more) player game mod, rule, expansion that make the increased players more of a balanced option?????
There are a few houserules versions for six-players, which I expect other forumites will pop up to tell you about some time soon :). Alternatively, you could just play as two groups of three, in separate games...probably not so great if you want everyone to be involved at the same thing at the same time, but...
My group has played with 6 on a number of occasions. I really don't find it needs to be houseruled, just increase H to 6 and if you find it too easy, just play Advanced rules.
I know that others on the forum disagree but we have not found that 6 takes away from the experience at all. It does make the Vengeance villains kind of difficult to use, but most villains still work fine.
Trouble with more players is you have more downtime. That's less of a problem with a co-op game since everyone will probably be involved on other people's turns, but having a smaller proportion of active play time makes the game less fun for me. Especially since I find concentrating difficult at the best of times.
Once a gaming group hits a certain size I think you just have to accept you’re often going to need to split the group as very few games support larger groups or if they do aren’t usually optimal at the maximum amount due to things like excessive down time.
Luckily Sentinels is perfect for being able to split if both groups want to play it as there’s more than enough heroes/villains/environments to share. Sure, I get everyone would rather play together if they can, but in my experience it isn’t always practical unfortunately.
From what I can remember off the top of my head 6 seems to be around the sort of amount where a number of games struggle to support gameplay for.
We play a lot of games with 6, but there is downtime. Each has their own cup of tea. Compared to the old Avalon Hill games that we would play though, today's games seem downright optimal.
Oddly enough, when we have 3 players, we usually prefer to still play with six heroes (the adverse of the norm). As I mentioned, the game doesn't feel broken (whereas 2 heroes or 7+ does) & it gives us a chance to try some heroes that we don't typically play.
I think the coolest part is the fact that this discussion exists speaks to the strength and appeal of the game that you have people who enjoy it based on a wide variety of number of players.
ok... lets assume the breaking into 2 groups isn't an option or desirable.
In the past I was a paid game reviewer (and reviews editor) for the gamingreport.com (before being disbanded by F&W), Scry, Game Trade and others under the pen name “Marc Shayed”. I have also have consulted with several game companies on game design... as thus I have a pretty epic game room with 100s of games on my shelves. I have a 100+ year old restored oak library table (3’ x 8’) to game on and wing back chairs. My players/gamers come to my game nights to interact and be social to play games with their friends, spouses and significant others because I can accommodate a large group and we can all get in on the same games. I would like to be able to have SotM to remain our go-to game, however with 6 players the game tends not to be enjoyable.
We have played Advanced rules... still 6 players makes it too easy
We have tried putting a +1 to all "H"s on top of the advanced rules... villains tend to crush the heroes
We have tried 2 villains... 1 starting the round (before player 1), and 1 villain half way through the round (between players 3 &4)... had mixed results...it’s either a slaughter (villains wrecking the heroes in just a few rounds) or it’s a hard fought slug-fest that still ends up with the villains winning.
We have tried 2 teams taking on 2 villains in 2 environments... where if the heroes beat 1 villain, they can leave that site and join in the other's battle... where BOTH villains have an H of 6... (this was ok... but you have to keep the turns synced and that just makes the game timing a pain)
What I think would be great is a sheet of villain specific rules for 6 players ... ie... (not actual suggestions) Gloomweaver : at the end of turn, Gloomweaver pulls 1 zombie out of the trash and puts it back into play Baron Blade : At the start of the turn Baron Blade flips 2 cards from the villain deck and starts with 2 minions in play The Dreamer : Whenever a Projection is destroyed, the Dreamer deals each Hero 2 psychic damage
so on and so forth...
I don't think a 1 rule fits all approach will work... but a downloadable and updateable sheet with a rule for each villain may work well. Thoughts?
As a fan project, I approve whole-heartedly. As an official release... Mnggheeh...
If you do want fan-made 'Advanced+' rules, here are some thoughts:
Omnitron - Some kind of defensive boost. Certainly up the component damage threshold, maybe give him some kind of Shielding Wind-y protection and/or stick DR on Adaptive Plating Subroutine?
Cosmitron - Front side, +1DR. Back side, 'at the end of the villain turn, play the top card of the villain deck.'
Dawn - I'm not convinced Dawn can be fixed for six. Getting seven Citizens out on her flip side is just too much...
The Ennead - Start on the flipped side, with all nine Ennies on the table.
Apostate - At the end of the villain turn, shuffle the villain trash and reveal cards until a Relic is revealed. Put it into play.
With house rules you can sand off the edges on that peg, though generally speaking I agree with you. Any good 6 player game will need a good amount of custom rules depending on the Villain. There won't be a one size fits all solution because the villains were not designed with 6 heros in mind.
it’s a constructed system… with each villain being set up with their own rules set acting in accordance with a frame work. <o:p></o:p>
Nothing about that says it can't be successfully edited or mod built for a 6 player game.
I am thinking initially each Villain would get a +20% hit point bonus (except the Dreamer) to deal with the extra damage from #6. Then I suspect the best way to approach it is that each villain may start with a specific card (or set) in play at the beginning, or a turn repeated rule.
I am certain it can be done… I just need to but some thought into it. <o:p></o:p>
If you want the game’s design and scaling modified to that level then I would be quite surprised if you found anything outside of user-generated material. As far as I know >G’s perspective is that the core game can support up to ten players at once through two 3-player games and one 4-player game.
And if you're all sitting at the same table, there's no reason why you can't all interact. Just swap seats every once in a while if you want to change the in-game group dynamic of the players.
You could try an h=5 villain plus a member of the vengeful 5 halfway through your line-up. Vengeful fives already count for an H of one thus adding one would push the heroes in a tight fight. Of course environnment could break out a bit on h values of 6 but that would be your job to houserule.
