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Brought a prototype to game night and it took a hard left turn
I spent like 3 weeks building a board game about managing a small farm, you know, planting crops and selling them. Got my buddies together last Saturday at my place and set it up on the dining table. About 20 minutes in, one guy figured out you could just hoard all the water tokens and starve everyone else out, and the whole game turned into a cutthroat negotiation mess. We ended up laughing about it, but I had to scrap the whole ruleset and start over. Has anyone else had a game idea completely blow up in their face mid-play?
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jessicajohnson11d ago
Why not just let the players figure it out themselves?
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jordanl8211d ago
Wait, @jessicajohnson, you want me to let them figure out how to weaponize water tokens even harder next time? That's like giving a kid a lighter and hoping they don't burn anything down. Your first mistake was not playtesting for the "chaos gremlin" friend who always finds the loophole. I've seen games fall apart faster than a wet cardboard box because one guy decides to be a dictator with the resource supply. Honestly, sometimes the real game is watching how fast your buddies turn into ruthless tycoons over a pile of fake corn and water tokens. Better to scrap it and build in some hard rules from the start, or just embrace the madness and call it "Farm Wars: The Drought Edition.
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