David Gregg
United States
Asheboro
North Carolina
NightfallGame.com/FAQ
BoardGameGeek.com/Blog/193
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This variant is intended for those who are less fond of the politics in Nightfall.
Rules
* Instead of a central wound stack, deal each player their own 15 card stack.
* Keep some additional wounds handy for overflow and wounding yourself.
* When a player would wound an opponent, they hand them a wound card from their personal stack.
* When you would cause yourself to receive a wound, use those that were set aside earlier.
* When any player's wound stack runs out, the game ends.
* Players score normally, but also add the number of wounds left in their personal stack to their score.
You can also increase game length by increasing the number of wounds each player has in their stacks.
The idea here is to reduce the political influence on the final score and reward players who are building the most efficient decks and dealing the most damage.
This variant is compatible with the standard game rules, the Constructed Format (assuming all cards use the same sleeves/no sleeves) as well as the Booster Pack Draft variant.
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Blue Jackal
United States
Nowhere
Virginia
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I clearly don't read thoroughly enough, since I missed the "and count up your own remaining Wounds" portion in your other post.
I originally read it without that bit, meaning that aggressive players received additional control over when the game ends - which I thought was a great idea. I view Nightfall as a defensive game, and while there's definite value to dealing a lot of damage to the winning player, allowing an aggressive player some control over when to end the game sounded like an interesting idea. Especially since having the last damage dealing turn can be a huge advantage.
This variant does definitely reduce the value of cards like Blaine Cordell, and while I do kind of like it, it dramatically shifts the nature of the game. Maybe it's the change we've all been looking for, but it really puts a premium on doing damage.
I'm tempted to try out my misinterpretation though! Either way, thanks for the variant.
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Dan Dedeaux
United States
Fontana
California
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I like this variant idea. It puts a little more emphasis on having a good deck without removing the "politics" within gameplay. It does change the way certain cards play, however. So, that needs to be noted...for example, doing damage to "each player" is now a huge deal. And having defending creatures becomes a big deal, as without them you will get trampled on by everyone. But, it will be nice to see how it plays (and scales).
I'm wondering if the # of starting wounds per player should scale based on how many players are in the game...
I'm definitely giving this variant a go when I play next.
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swgod98 wrote: So, that needs to be noted...for example, doing damage to "each player" is now a huge deal.
Blood Rage looks fairly broken in this variant in a multiplayer game. You can get 4 copies in your first turn with DoubleYuri + 3Discard + 2 = 9 influence. More likely you get a combo to chain 2 out. Throw in some bad smoke hate or poor draws on it and you are dealing out 4 wounds a turn with a 2 cost card.
Playing only a single Blood Rage on your turn you can get rid of your stack in 4. Take into consideration chain opportunities on other's turns and additional damage you deal if you choose to chain and I think you're looking at far and away the most powerful card. Not that it matters anyways, because even in this variant, it's out of your hands as to whether or not you win. If people decide that you're going to lose in any particular game, there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent that from happening.
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Dan Dedeaux
United States
Fontana
California
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isobaby wrote: swgod98 wrote: So, that needs to be noted...for example, doing damage to "each player" is now a huge deal. Blood Rage looks fairly broken in this variant in a multiplayer game.
Perhaps it is. So, one could play without it when using this variant...or, just deal with it. Obviously, if someone has too much power, they will get beat up on by the group. So, you can't hoard all the good cards 
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Blue Jackal
United States
Nowhere
Virginia
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To further expound on my misinterpretation:
If you give players the ability to end the game based on an in-game attribute (in this case, the number of wounds dealt), then it may reduce kingmaker issues. It won't entirely, of course, especially with imperfect information, but instead of the quasi-random end game in the normal game, you now have players controlling when the game ends.
Note: I use "attack" to mean "deal Wounds." Additionally, the least wounded player still wins. The only difference is that each player has piles of 15 Wounds, and deals Wounds from their pile.
If the most aggressive player thinks he can win this turn, he can attack and win. If this situation arises, perhaps the other players should have attacked him more? Maybe the aggressive player's perception is imperfect and he loses the game, but that was a gamble he lost.
Additionally, if the most aggressive player thinks his chances of victory are slim but someone else will end the game soon, the aggressive player attacks once again in a gamble to win the game. He might not win, but his chances would not improve - at least in his estimation. This is probably the most "Kingmaker-y" situation, but another player's aggressiveness forced this outcome.
Finally, if the aggressive player knows he is going to lose, then he doesn't attack at all. Perhaps allow players to discard their minions without effect (i.e. deal 0 damage), after any relevant effects are triggered. Maybe enough damage can be dealt by other players to give the aggressive player a chance to win.
Ultimately, if you are both the least wounded AND most aggressive player, then you're guaranteed to win. That seems fair, right? King-making (or rather, bad plays) can still occur, but allowing the players to control the end of the game makes things less arbitrary. Additionally, an Unwounded but Non-aggressive player can't end the game, so someone else will have to make the conscious decision to do so - again, bad plays can screw things up, but that's true of any game.
I think this could alter the somewhat random end of the base game, and avoid drastically changing the nature of the game.
I call the end of the base game random because if you have the opportunity to end the game, you generally want to make sure you do. The only time you wouldn't is if someone else is going to generate a larger attack than you AND avoid attacking you. The base game tries to obfuscate the game end by making the number of Wounds in the center pile unknown. In this variant, if you're an aggressive player and you're losing, you can choose to hold back if you think someone else won't end the game. Maybe in the meantime, someone will weaken the opposition enough for you to come back.
Or I'm wrong. 
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Your misinterpretation was originally how I had imagined the variant was going to be. Dealing out wounds from your personal stack, but then counting up all the wounds in your deck and discard at the end anyways seems to defeat the purpose. It's good that there is a potential reward of -15 wounds to the player able to deal out the most damage but there's up to 56 wounds that can be dealt at the player who runs out their personal wound stack first. So you can still lose by a huge margin because of politics.
This is on top of the reoccurring problem of people ganging up on your sources of damage output or disrupting your deck. It doesn't matter how efficient your deck is or how well you're playing if people constantly target your minions and block your chains. They can even collude to make helpful chain colors for each other to have more material out to stop your attack.
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Blue Jackal
United States
Nowhere
Virginia
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Actually, I think we misunderstand each other. The least wounded player still wins the game in my interpretation. The primary difference is that an aggressive player - who also happens to be the least wounded - can end the game and win by dealing out the last of his wounds.
I think in yours - the player who deals 15 damage first wins?
Which is an interesting idea, and I like it, but still suffers from decreasing the value of cards like Blaine Cordell and increasing the potency of cards like Blood Rage. That's my primary complaint about the new aggressive variant.
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David Gregg
United States
Asheboro
North Carolina
NightfallGame.com/FAQ
BoardGameGeek.com/Blog/193
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Update, Formatting and added the bits:
* Keep some additional wounds handy for overflow and wounding yourself.
* When you would cause yourself to receive a wound, use those that were set aside earlier.
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Nick Jordan
United States
Saline
Michigan
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We played this variant with another twist. All wounds also have the text "Cleanup: You may discard any number of wounds from your hand into your wound pile. Limit 1 wound effect per turn."
This gives a player who took a lot of early wounds a way of trying to get back in the game, though not an easy way. Only problem is potentially long games if multiple people think they need to be discarding wounds.
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David Gregg
United States
Asheboro
North Carolina
NightfallGame.com/FAQ
BoardGameGeek.com/Blog/193
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Entropy42 wrote: We played this variant with another twist. All wounds also have the text "Cleanup: You may discard any number of wounds from your hand into your wound pile. Limit 1 wound effect per turn."
Since the wound stacks are what determine the end of the game, this could allow the game to go on forever. Now, what you could do is let them move the wounds to the bottom of the wound stack, face-down, and end the game when a wound stack's last face-up wound is given out. That way you can thin wounds from your deck at the cost of never being able to exile them later. Just make sure that these face-down wounds are not given to someone else should the final attack need additional wounds beyond the face-up ones. You'll still have to use wounds from the box or elsewhere for overflow in those cases.
Edit: Forgot to say "That's a really cool idea!"
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David Gregg
United States
Asheboro
North Carolina
NightfallGame.com/FAQ
BoardGameGeek.com/Blog/193
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Entropy42 wrote: We played this variant with another twist. All wounds also have the text "Cleanup: You may discard any number of wounds from your hand into your wound pile. Limit 1 wound effect per turn."
Have you tried adding in also "Draw 1 card per wound" to that text? At least that way the player will still have a 5 card hand to work with vs possibly having to lose an entire turn from having a completely empty hand.
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NightfallGame.com/FAQ
