Too Long Between Turns

[MIB2826]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Are you kidding? We usually end up drawing 6-8 DxMs each turn, it seems. Darn near everything in the game gives you a DxM . . .

6-8 per person per turn?
Wow.

You get 1 at the start of your turn,
You get 1 each time you explore a new room.
You get 1 each time a monster appears and your color is rolled (not chosen),
You get 1 each time you kill a monster of your color.

With move 3 you could get 10 in this way. If you explore 3 rooms, roll your own color three times in a row, and manage to kill all 3 monsters.

[rek075]

In my house rules I've removed all ways of obtaining DxM cards except at the start of each player's turn. In addition, a player can spend a movement point drawing another DxM card if they wish. This can help tone down the amount of DxM cards distributed, as well as speed up turns.

Combat seems to be the one thing that takes up the most time on a turn, and yet it doesn't cost any movement points at all. Anything that reduces the number of combats per turn is surely to speed the turns up.

[ArcadianRefugee]

Originally Posted by MIB2826

6-8 per person per turn?
Wow.

You get 1 at the start of your turn,
You get 1 each time you explore a new room.
You get 1 each time a monster appears and your color is rolled (not chosen),
You get 1 each time you kill a monster of your color.

With move 3 you could get 10 in this way. If you explore 3 rooms, roll your own color three times in a row, and manage to kill all 3 monsters.

Don't forget you also get one if your colour comes up during the monster movement phase.

[rek075]

... and with MQ2, you also get DxM when you dodge a trap. I definitely think that DxM draws are too frequent in this game, and that some house rules could fix this. However, I'm not sure whether this relates to long turns in the game.

[mib2932]

Originally Posted by ArcadianRefugee

Don't forget you also get one if your colour comes up during the monster movement phase.

So, you could get a total of 11 *IF* you rolled your own color 4 times in a row, and managed to kill all three monsters. That's also predicated on *IF* you always get a movement point 1 connector on each new room.

[JustinA]

Originally Posted by mib2932

How did everybody get so many DxM cards? If a lot of that went on during the first player's turn, I would think that everyone would have nearly exhausted their hands before the second player started.

With four players, two out of three monsters generate DxM cards. In practice the number is actually higher since defeating a monster of your color gives you a DxM card as well. And most monsters get introduced by exploring rooms and exploring rooms generate DxM cards as well.

So, in general, at least two or three DxM cards are generated per monster. And there are other ways of getting DxM cards as well. And there are multiple mechanisms to make sure that those cards get spread around the table even to the players who aren't currently taking their turn.

In practice, that means there are plenty of DxM cards available to buff monsters and/or allies and/or yourself.

[saladproblems]

I don't understand how the limiting movement is so popular unless those people are also making house rules as exceptions to the sticky floor rooms and similar situations.

[MunchkinMan]

Again, you can always expend all the move for your turn to leave a room. You're never stuck in a room unless it's completely surrounded by walls.

[tgape]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

Again, you can always expend all the move for your turn to leave a room. You're never stuck in a room unless it's completely surrounded by walls.

Yes, but if you only have one move per turn, sticky floors mean nothing. Obviously, it's still meaningful if one is playing with two move per turn, rather than the normal three. However, it's not quite as meaningful, as that just means the player will search in the room on the turn they entered, rather than exploring another room.

I'd be more inclined to propose a house rule which indicated that one couldn't explore a room on every move in one turn, unless they had at less than three move.

Admittedly, I play with a group that have looked at many of the treasures, and know that it's worthwhile to search. Yes, there's a race to get to level 10, but if you get there without much gear, you have something of an issue. Also, depending on what your boss turns out to be, it could be that half your gear won't count. Finally, there's that bit that quite a few items can be used to sabotage an opponent's combat, and not all of those need to be thrown to do so. The victorious pair from my first MQ game had an average level plus constant bonuses of around 23 - and yet the one had to ask the other for assistance on the final fight. (Of course, that was due to the sudden movement of an undead armored Gelatinous Octahedron which had been hanging out beside the entrance, but...)

[JustinA]

Originally Posted by JustinA

So here's what we're going to try playtesting with our next game:

(1) Determine the prime player by rolling the dice. The player with the highest result is the prime player. (In the case of ties, roll until the tie is broken.)

(2) At the beginning of the game or at the end of any monster movement phase, the player with the most green feet (movement points) takes a turn. In the case of ties, start at the prime player and go clockwise.

(3) On their turn, in addition to all of the other actions allowed by the rules (playing cards, combat, etc.), a player can take any ONE action which requires the use of movement points. Their turn then ends and is followed by a monster movement.

(4) If all of the movement points at the table have been spent at the end of a monster movement, then all of the movement points are flipped back to green.

We've now had an opportunity to playtest these rules a few times and they work like a charm.

One issue we did need to deal with were the DxM cards drawn at the beginning of each turn. We realized that by effectively more than tripling the number of turns we would be increasing the flow of DxM cards into the game. So added a rule so that everyone drew 1 DxM card at the beginning of each round of play (either at the start of the game or at any point when all of the movement feet were flipped back to green).

The effects we've observed:

(1) The pace of the game increased, with players less likely to check out because they didn't have to wait as long for their turn to arrive.

(2) Monsters became much more active, which made the dungeon seem a lot less static.

(3) Game balance appears to be completely unaffected.

(4) It didn't appear that any meaningful strategies were eliminated, but we did discover that all kinds of new strategies had been created. One major area of strategy became the manipulation of remaining movement tokens (allowing you to take more turns or affect the sequence of play) and another area of strategy rose up in terms of how players traveled together. (In the RAW we all felt like we were basically soloing the game. But these rules allow people to either move off by themselves; move with small partnerships; or huddle up as one big group and stick together.)

I suspect that once we get the 6-player expansion, the dynamics made possible with these house rules will become even more interesting. And, IMO, necessary: When it takes 45-75 minutes to get to the fourth player's first turn in a four-player game, I can only imagine it would take 90-120 minutes to get to the sixth player's first turn in a six-player game. And that would be outrageous.

And we 100% endorse Quaff_fu's suggestion of calling the prime player the Quest Master.