House Rules for Dragon Pass

From: Steve W <steve_gb>
Date: Wed Apr 25 22:52:05 2007

CJ X:
> ... was rather disappointed to lose
> Argrath on turn one to a meteor storm from teh Crater Makers! he failed
> his
> heroic escape, so Prince Argrath is dead. the Lunar assassin also managed
> to kill my Stormwalkers - always first unit to be targeted - whereas
> Jar-eel
> survived my assasination attempt and my assasin was killed in teh getaway!
Bad luck over Argrath and the Stormwalkers. But I always think the way to win DP is to hang in there -
wait until luck goes against the other guy, then he may give in and you win! (BTW, the rules say Superheroes "cannot be targets of an assassination attempt" - not just being immune to it, mind you! Since there shouldn't have been an attempt on Jar-eel, there shouldn't have been a getaway - so you could argue your Assassin is still alive. I wonder if your friend would have 'remembered' this rule if the assassination had worked...)

> Cyberboard is what has made it possible for me to finally find opponenets,
For a college project I recently wrote a Cyberboard-like game utility in Java
(see it here if you're interested
http://www.boldhome.freeserve.co.uk/webhex/default.htm) so I'd be interested to hear your or anyone's opinions of Cyberboard's usefulness/shortcomings.
I think a good feature of mine is that the boards are described in a text file, so it's easy to edit.

> Anyway it is a fantastic board game, though I had forgotten how much luck
> plays a part. The first turn random event wa splague in Lunar cities, but
> the swine had left them nearly all empty for just such an eventuality.
Sorry, mate, but that ain't luck!
Anyway, one aim of my houserules is to damp-down the extremes of luck by moderating how destructive any single stroke can be.

> I expect many if not most people on this list own the boardgame, or White
> Bear Red Moon, and I would encourage you to play it again: but do play
> through ALL the scenarios in order, as the modular learning system works
> well and a gae of this complexity demands it really.
I have the Avalon Hill Dragon Pass and the Chaosium Nomad Gods (a treat for me last year).
We do typically play the scenarios in order, to test the rules, our knowledge of them and savour the story.
I think the game mechanisms aren't so complex, but all the special abilities and other strangeness is, until you get to know the world and it's characters.

Steve W