Buffy multi-Evil scenarios
Steven Sharp
Buffy boardgame, so what do you do? One option is to come up with
a scenario that allows more than one to do so at a time, fighting
against each other for domination. I have tried out a couple that
seemed to work. They are not based directly on any episodes from
the show, but are plausible "what ifs".
When looking at the existing villains, there is some overlap in
the minions available to each. The only two that don't overlap
are the Master and the Mayor. The obvious problem with that is
that the Master has no way of destroying the Box, so the Mayor
could refuse to ascend and win by default. I considered giving
the Master a way to deal with the box, but then decided that
another way of handling this was to have a Good player (or
team) also. This puts the Master in the delicate position of
needing to keep the Good side alive long enough to destroy the
Box or pressure the Mayor into ascending. This could be
abused by the Good side, I suppose.
The winner in this scenario has to defeat both opponents (we
required the Master to kill or sire all of the Good characters,
not just Buffy, to avoid odd situations that might arise
otherwise). Both villains' special artifacts are in the game.
We allowed trading artifacts between characters on different
teams when adjacent, but only a simultaneous trade would be binding.
Only one of the Mayor's minions could be holding the Box to cause
him to ascend. The Master goes first, then the Mayor, then the
Good characters.
We play-tested this once. Each side was reluctant to expend too
much of their own strength on attacks that helped one of their
opponents. One exception was potential siring attacks, which
could strengthen the attacker's side. Sired vampires would be
more useful than usual, since the two Evils had to share one
Evil deck, and therefore split the cards to summon new minions.
Faith was a particularly juicy target for the Master, since she
is so powerful and can't fight back with stakes. She never got
sired, which saved us deciding what happened if Good restored
her soul (I think we would have given her back to the Mayor).
Oz is less powerful because the full moon is more likely to
pass between his turns.
The Evils weakened each other a little too much (mostly because
Dru got bored and attacked). Good managed to get the Box and
the Living Flame. The Mayor offered to cooperate in exchange
for not destroying the box immediately. This was a tense truce,
with the Mayor helping against the Master, but without getting
too weakened. Good actually healed Faith from a wounded state
to help keep the Master from siring her. The Mayor was waiting
for a chance to make a surprise attack to take out the Box. But
Good managed a tricky move that took out the Master and then the
Box in a single turn, ending the game.
It could stand more playtesting, but it seemed OK.
Another possible scenario would involve the two villains that
don't require destroying an artifact to defeat: the Master and
Adam. This could be done with or without a Good team. The
overlap in minions (and the continuity problem that the Master
was dead before Adam was constructed), is avoided by assuming
that this is the Master from the alternate universe (perhaps
coming through a portal created by the Initiative). His
minions are Darla, Willow and Xander. The pawn colors for
the second two would need to be decided. If the Master is
weakened too much by such weak minions (and if there is no
Good team, a lack of use for his superior siring abilities),
they could be considered not to match any evil pawn color,
allowing the Master to summon new minions without losing
them first. This would clearly need playtesting for balance.
Boosting the life points on the more experienced alternate
universe Willow and Xander is another option. If there is
a Good side, then Willow-and-Xander-in-leather need different
starting positions from their Good counterparts.
If anyone else finds these interesting enough to play, I
would be interested in hearing the results.