James Nickerson
United States
Phoenix
ARIZONA
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I really like the idea of this, and have been following it with interest, since I think having more of a significant part to play for more people would improve the game considerably for me and my typical associates.
However, I'm a little puzzled at what seems like the 180 degree shift it represents. My initial hope with the original game was to dish out the roles generously, maybe even giving everyone some kind of special role. There were certainly enough cards and roles to make that seem viable. But the rulebook made a particular point of stressing that the game did not work well unless most people were simple villagers.
So in the limited times I've had a chance to play the game, I dutifully haven't tried any much more role-heavy variants than what the rulebook suggests. What is fundamentally different about the powers provided by these new artifacts cards? About half of them seem like effective duplicates of roles already present, so why is it suddenly okay for everyone to have such abilities, when before it seemed strongly stated that it wasn't?
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Ted Alspach
United States
San Jose
California
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Giving out everyone special roles results in a myriad of issues, unfortunately. One of the basic strategies for any special character is to claim to be a plain villager. If there are only a few villagers in the game, this is more and more difficult to do. And if players can't claim to be a regular villager, the game turns into a strange pseudo deduction mess, with someone going through the roles in the game and checking them off, effectively exposing the werewolves as a result. If the werewolves claim to be a special role, the real owner of that special role will speak up, and then it's a 50-50 shot that one is a werewolf.
There are other issues that you can run into as well, but that's the big one.
That said, what's different about Artifacts?
Well, for starters, having a particular Artifact doesn't mean you're a good guy or a bad guy. Using it in a certain way, however, might indicate that. Or not.
While some of the Artifacts have similar functionality as roles in the game, they're all subtly different, and that difference is pretty critical. The biggest difference between roles and Artifacts is that when you use an Artifact, everyone knows you've used it. It's public. That totally changes things, and is quite different from using your special power secretly (as most roles are). The commonality between certain artifacts and roles exists to help keep the learning curve of the Artifacts to a reasonable level, and also to keep within the theme of the game.
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James Nickerson
United States
Phoenix
ARIZONA
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What a great reply! Logical, drawn from experience, succinct, directly addresses my concerns, and isn't defensive.
Thank you -- I just ordered a copy.
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