Roach Gameplay Questions

[Jason Morningstar]

I got these excellent questions this morning.  If the author wants to be outed, he should reply here!

1) At the end of an Event do the cards that were drawn get discarded or shuffled back into the deck before the next Event?

--There are enough cards that reshuffling isn't necessary unless you are playing with seven.  I'd suggest not reshuffling for variety's sake.

2) If I can become Roach-bound at anytime can I do this: Draw a card, see that it is a Roach Card, declare that I am Roach bound of my own free will, and then use the Roach Card to erase an Enthusiasm and be Roach free?

--I'd be sensitive to your fellow players tolerance for such shenanigans, but as written there's nothing to stop you.

3) I am slightly confused about when non-spotlight characters have to wager and when they don't.

p. 42: "Any player involved in a conflict other than the player in the spotlight automatically wagers a single point of Reputation--no more, no less, no way to wiggle out of it."
p. 44: "If the player framing the Scene assigns you a character, you don't have to wager."

These seem contradictory but I suspect that this is because of a confusion between Player, Player Character, Non-Player Character and how each becomes involved in the scene (through the spotlight player or not).

I have thought of all the permutations and boiled it down to this, "A player must wager Reputation from their Player Character if they contribute dice to a conflict from any source other than a Non-Player Character they were assigned."  Is that correct?

--Yes, that's correct, and the game wording is unclear (yours is better!).  If someone asks you to take on the role of a Pembertonian or NPC, you are helping move the game along without personal involvement. If you introduce an NPC or Pembertonian, or elect to bring your own PC into a conflict, you must wager.

[Eric Provost]

Frist Psot!  Woot!

Oooh.. question #2; Dirty tricks.  How wonderful!  I'm dissapointed in myself that I didn't think of it first.  I mean, especially over those days where I was digging deeply for some way go guarantee the possibility of winning ending the game roach-free.

I mean, it almost seems like a party-foul, playing like that, but I really really wonder how it would work out in play.

-Eric

[Jason Morningstar]

My inital thought is that the penalty (loss of Enthusiasm) evens it out in all but the final Scene, where it would have the potential to be a little dodgy.  I'd hate to rule that you couldn't, because that would be lame.

[jburneko]

Those questions came from me. :)

With regards to question #2 I thought that trick felt like a natural extension of the "I can look at the card and if I am Roach-Free choose to be Roach-Bound in order to control the target of the Command" workaround explicitly stated in the book.  I agree with Jason that the Enthusiam seemed like a fair price to stay Roach free.

With #3 my big confusion was whether a player had to wager if their *PC* was mandated into the scene by the spotlight player.  It seemed to me that if a PC is involved in a conflict regardless of how they got there, they need to wager.  Hence my cleaner wording.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

I'm glad you asked that, Jesse, 'cause it's important, 'cause lots of times, you end up with dice on both sides of a conflict. You could have been assigned a Pembertonian at the outset, say against the character who's in the spotlight, and later, you bring in your own guy on the side of that same character, against your own Pembertonian. So you always use your guy as the guide for where your wager lies, and if he's not in the conflict, then you're not wagering, just playing the Pembertonian or whoever for the greater glory of whoever is involved in the wager.

Best, Ron

[Jon Hastings]

Hi Ron,

...if he's not in the conflict, then you're not wagering, just playing the Pembertonian or whoever for the greater glory of whoever is involved in the wager.

Though I think this was true in the Game Chef version, the rule is slightly different now:

Even if your character does not make an appearance in a Scene, if you introduce characters, you will win or lose a point of Reputation along with the rest.  If the player framing the Scene assigns you a character, you don't have to wager.

So, the only time you will ever be rolling dice without wagering is when you are playing only the characters that have been assigned to you by the Scene-framer.  If you are playing NPCs that you brought into the conflict, you still have to wager - even if your PC is not involved.

-Jon

[Jason Morningstar]

So, the only time you will ever be rolling dice without wagering is when you are playing only the characters that have been assigned to you by the Scene-framer.  If you are playing NPCs that you brought into the conflict, you still have to wager - even if your PC is not involved.

That's correct - if you initiate any interaction, you wager.  If your PC is dragged into a scene, you wager.  Jesse's summary was right on.

[Ron Edwards]

Yes! I get it.

Best,
Ron

[Particle_Man]

re question #2, I would disagree with absolutely everybody. 

First, because I like the idea of it being easy to be roached, but hard to be unroached, and this makes it too easy to avoid the roach.  Especially if the card is drawn in the final event.

Second, because the flavour text indicates that when you draw the card with a Roach on it, you are not so much accepting the Roach as realizing that you are already Roached (it crawled in your mouth during the night).  This puts me in mind of that scene in Babylon 5 where the Prime Minister of the Centauri looks in the mirror and has that Shadow-Servant puppet master eye-thing on his shoulder.  Anyhow, that would mean that, while you can accept the Roach at any time, if you draw the Roach card, you already are Roached, you just realize it now, so that you can't go *back* in time to have accepted the Roach previously.

Anyhow, great game.  I was astonished to see it on sale in the FLGS in Vancouver.  Go Strategies Games and Hobbies, on Main at 22nd!

I hope I get a chance to play it.  My friends are somewhat resistant to indie games so I find myself buying them to read more than anything.