Davido
United States
Mather
California
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This review submitted in fulfillment of the Review Challenge, which in turn was inspired by the Geeklist Challenge.
As the tagline goes, “Into every generation is born a Slayer…”. And so Buffy Summers rounds up her faithful Scoobs and once a week defends Sunnydale versus the vampires and demonspawn of Hellmouth. Just as Buffy appears to be an ordinary teen girl and Sunnydale just another town cut from the suburban cookie cutter mold, this eponymous game at first comes across as little more than yet another quickie license tie-in sired by the Milton Bradley/Hasboro gaming conglomerate.
As a former Grognard and RPGer, I do appreciate games with theme. Although I’ve never watched the show, I fully expect to BE Buffy and co. Not in the sense of a 50+ year old geezer metamorphosing into Buffy Summers (let alone built like Sarah Michelle Gellar), but immersing oneself into the story and spending 90 minutes kicking a$$ and taking names. For me, the key elements to consider are the interplay between scriptability and immersiveness. Good TV episodes are re-watchable, even if after first viewing by definition they also become predictable. Conversely, a game should provide variation lest repeated plays become stale and boring. “Buffy gets Banesword of Whoop-a$$, Scoobs win” might reflect pentultimate season-enders. Unfortunately, such a hoary cliché would render the game a half-hearted one-off at best. Therefore, I equate scriptability with ‘believability’, as in a character move/action (go to the Library, draw cards) that is consistent with say, Willow’s actions on the show. (“Willow hits the libes again to research the latest and greatest majicks”). At its best, scriptibility means that game play supports immersion into an ongoing story-line that the players as characters create through in-game actions.
Buffy is what could be termed a semi-cooperative game. One person is the villain, whom the other players are trying to defeat. This contrasts with pure coop games such as Lord of the Rings or Pandemic. Unlike games such as Shadows over Camelot or BSG where there are hidden traitors/enemies, the Villain in Buffy is known from the start. Knizia’s LotR is generally considered to be the first widely recognized cooperative game with Shadows and Pandemic and BSG further refining and popularizing the form. Interestingly enough, Buffy came out the same year (2000) as LotR and predates Shadows and other later coops. As such, I consider Buffy and its many vs. one take on the coop genre almost as pioneering as Knizia’s more well known and highly regarded riff on Tolkein.
The components are sturdy and functional. As a card-carrying Klutz, I find putting the sun/moon track together a complete PITA. Like opening medicine bottles, it is better to let the tweens on the low end of the recommended age scale (12+) do this chore. I did manage, however, to apply the stickers to the plastic fight/bite dice without too much apparent lopsidedness. The character head shots from the show are effectively rendered on shadowy/gothic backgrounds . Each character is color-coded to match a plastic clip-stand. In each of the four scenarios, Buffy is joined by three of her most loyal (and useful) companions: Willow, Xander, and Oz. While there are a multitude of evil minions, only 3-4 will be deployed in a given scenario, one per colored base. Spike Drusilla, and Vamp X appear in three of the four scenarios. Other minions included are Darla, Bad Faith, and Mr. Trick. Various object/artifact cards provide added abilities and/or game conditions .
After choosing a scenario (one of the four key Boss villains that include The Master, The Judge, The Mayor, and Adam), and deploying characters, game turns follow a set flow. Evil as the visiting team, bats first and rolls black dice to determine whether the Villain (large white flame) and/or minions (smaller flames) move this turn. After Evil completes his turn/actions, each Scoob rolls a pair of d6 to determine maximum movement. A phase (moon) symbol moves the Buffy talisman on the phase with the full moon turning Oz and Veruka (if in play) into werewolves. Hilarity then ensues. Daylight means that minions are restricted to inside locations. Aside from movement, possible actions include play card(s), draw cards from appropriate spaces, artifact recovery attempts, trade card(s), and yes fight. Reflecting limited omniscience, Evil has a slight advantage in that the Scoobs keep their cards face up. Except for Artifact cards, Evil cards remain face down. The good players each have character strips that indicate which of the different card types can be carried by that character.
Fights can occur when a character ends up adjacent to an enemy character. Each character has a fight strength that indicates the number of d6 that are rolled. Each face contains an icon that reflects potential damage: Punch, Jab, Kick are thematic, but interchangeable, each costing the foe one pip of life points. Stakes wound or dust/kill a vampire/minion and fangs help the villain Sire a good character. Fangs are also valid werewolf attacks (e.g. Oz in wolf clothing). No major tactics here, just close/engage, use weapons/modifiers and roll away.
Gameplay involves moving to card/artifact sites, buffing up the fight/majik mods and whittling away at the foes. Unless Evil picks off the Scoobs, the climatic showdown tends towards the prison yard beatdown variety-remaining scoobs corner the Boss and dice fly in all directions until one side or the other succumbs.
N00bs should definitely start w/ the first/basic scenario with the Master as the Boss villain. If possible, the most experienced player should be Evil to provide a more challenging game for the Scoobs. Victory conditions consist of either destroying the Master or destroy/sire Buffy. Overall, this is a balanced scenario given a competent Evil player. The Adam scenario has similar victory requirements. Adam as an amalgam of human, demon, and robot is a much tougher Boss who also benefits from the Power Chip Artifact, making for a good advanced game.
The Judge and Mayor scenarios are trickier as both games have ‘trigger conditions’ for Boss ascendance as well as requiring a specific artifact for the Scoobs to destroy with the Living Flame research card. As one might expect, this entails searching (e.g. crap-shooting through the artifact spaces or draw piles) for the requisite artifact or cards. Also, Evil needs to sire/destroy ALL good characters as well as trying to obtain/keep/use the specified artifact card. I have only played the Master and Judge scenarios. For the latter, unless Evil is really on his game, I find that the sc00bs can win simply by avoiding minions while buying time for Willow to pull the Living Flame card.
It does help to have at least one player who knows the story line backwards and inwards to help enhance the flavor. Even without a Buffy Maven, Buffy is a nice fun romp through the semi-coop genre.
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John Bandettini
United Kingdom
London
No, no, no, no, no, yes
A new season and all is well in the world
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Thanks for doing that David.
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Michael Brown
United States
Carrollton
Georgia
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Great review. I just thrifted a new in box copy and was debating to sell or play. Play based on your review here.
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Marty Kane
United States
Champaign
Illinois
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davido wrote: Buffy is what could be termed a semi-cooperative game. One person is the villain, whom the other players are trying to defeat. This contrasts with pure coop games such as Lord of the Rings or Pandemic. Unlike games such as Shadows over Camelot or BSG where there are hidden traitors/enemies, the Villain in Buffy is known from the start. Knizia’s LotR is generally considered to be the first widely recognized cooperative game with Shadows and Pandemic and BSG further refining and popularizing the form. Interestingly enough, Buffy came out the same year (2000) as LotR and predates Shadows and other later coops. As such, I consider Buffy and its many vs. one take on the coop genre almost as pioneering as Knizia’s more well known and highly regarded riff on Tolkein.
The first time I played Buffy I said "Oh, this is HeroQuest in a different skin!" I'd equate it more to games with a Dungeon Master than coop games. Unless we consider D&D the first coop game? Of course, Buffy is a little simpler, since the evil player is essentially just playing a group of characters against the other players, and not really responsible for running the scenario or revealing any new information. I usually feel sorry for the evil player since the game seems fairly unbalanced so the good players win.
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Posted Wed Nov 2, 2011 5:51 pm
