Max number of players?
Wed, 12/22/2010 - 21:33
I know Inevitable is listed as being for 2-5 players. But what happens if that upper limit is breached by an extra one or two players? Has anyone tested Inevitable with 7 players or does that just end up becoming really unwieldy? Because it seems to me like it might just amplify the wonderful chaos of a regular game.
Wed, 12/22/2010 - 23:37
#2
I'd expect play balance
I'd expect play balance issues eventually - ACME gets more powerful with more players, for instance.
Groups with once-per-round (rather than once-per-turn) powers might get less powerful. The Church, say, since there would be proportionally more chances to attack or mess with them per use of their power. But that might be counterbalanced by them having more bidders if they want to sell off that die roll.
That's all conjecture. I have enough trouble finding 2-5 people to play with these days :-)
Howdy,
Noah makes a lot of good points, regarding groups that "feed off of" the rest of the players becoming more powerful and groups that have "once per round" (OPR) powers becoming less powerful. The impact isn't so bad on OPR groups – as Noah pointed out, they tend to increase their fee for using their power and get stingy with it.
The impact of playing with 6+ players is a little more significant for "feeding" groups. Typically, play groups will dynamically readjust their ideocultural play dynamics to adjust for perceived imbalances in power. In other words: Ifthe other players notice that you're doing too well, they'll beat you down. (See also: Munchkin, Illuminati, etc.)
My actual concern is time/duration: Since turns in Inevitable resolve in series (ie: are not simultaneous), there can be a bit of down-time between your turns. (Yeah, you need to watch for combat opportunities and GameShow!s , and the game itself is funny, but it's still down-time.) If you have a group of experienced players, and an average turn takes 90 seconds, that's nine minutes from the end of your turn to the start of your next turn. If there's a combat, or if a player is having trouble deciding what to do, it'll be longer than that.
So, if you've got a group of experienced players who aren't prone to analysis paralysis, and you're cool with people getting up from the table and coming back in between turns (or playing side games) and have about four hours to play, a seven-player game can work out just fine. Some of my fondest Inevitable memories come from six-player games – mostly because of the interaction between special powers. (If I remember correctly, I won my first 6+ player game with The Faces in the Crowd.)
Thanks for asking, Michael!
PS: A while back, I was working on a card-based version of Inevitable with simultaneous play. It took the Inevitable experience, and cut the play time down to about an hour. I don't remember what the upper limit was on how many players it could handle, but I suspect it could do six. I don't think The City deck had enough cards to handle seven players, but I could change that. ... I should dust that design off... It could be big fun.