Quick summary of the odds that everyone playing will turn out to be on the same side:

#Players : Odds
2 : 13 in 28, or about 46%
3 : 11 in 56, or about 20%
4 : 1 in 14, or about 7%
5 : 1 in 56, or about 2%
6 or more : can't happen

So unless you're playing with more than 5 players, there's a chance you're all essentially wasting your time. With just two players, that chance is nearly fifty-fifty. Even with 4 the odds aren't as good as you'd like.

Gameplay is simple. Maybe a little too simple. When it's your turn to move a pawn, a low roll can mean you accomplish little or nothing that turn as you have to land on another pawn to do anything. A series of low roles can make the game mighty slow.

I've been giving some thought to what can be done to improve the game. For one thing, I suggest lowering the odds of a pointless game by taking the lowest powered good character (Cordelia) out of the mix before divvying up the characters in a four player game, and the lowest two (Cordelia and Willow) for a three player games. That makes the odds of everyone being on the same side more like 3% for four players and 10% for three. I don't suggest playing with two.

To reduce the chance of useless turns, I was thinking of allowing any player who rolls a 1 or 2 to roll the die again and add the result. This makes the lowest possible roll 2 instead of 1, and makes that much less likely than a more average roll. Another thought is to add special squares to the game board, to give players another target to move towards besides the other pawns.

In addition, I think this is one game that could benefit from greater complexity. There's simply not enough going on to keep one's interest from turn to turn. I was thinking of adding a second deck that represents special events that might take place such as the appearance of Vampire Willow, or the test where Buffy's powers were temporarily taken from her. Spicing up the existing Fate deck with some more interesting cards (including ones that affect the new Event deck) would help, too.

In summary, I think the game has elements that could be intriguing if the rest of the game held up better. Making a fun game out of it would itself be an interesting challenge.

The only reason that this game ever comes off of my shelf is that I keep trying to figure out some way of making it work. I'd love to know how it was play tested. Usually I look at it for a few days and then it goes back up again. I'm tempted to shelve it in the bin next time I'm pushed for space.

Played this once long ago and encountered several issue. I actually saw that there were going to be some from just reading the rules. I even emailed the publisher asking for clarification but never got a reply. Seemed to me that they were just cashing in on the license without even testing the game.

It's a shame as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game (US) is apparently not bad.