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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Shannon: I will agree with some of the concerns that other folks have had.

Chad is quite right, and the experience of Shadows for a new player can be daunting. I think the whole traitor mechanic doesn't work that well for a new player. My suggestion there is simply to have a new player always be loyal. Then he doesn't have to deal with figuring out how to be a good traitor with no experience (my concern), nor does he have to deal with being accused of the same (Chad's concern). This isn't elegant, nor does it work if you have more than one new player in the game, as that chances throwing the dynamics too far off, but it does solve the problem in most cases.

And, like Mike, I do have some concerns with the game's ultimate replayability. My brain says that this will get played out. However my actual gaming experience says that every game has continued to be great fun, and that's what I have to go with at this point.

I think that calling Shadows the same game as Werewolf is largely hyperbolic. There are actual game systems in Shadows and because of those game systems you have real basis to make decisions about other peoples' actions, something often missing in Werewolf. However I'd agree that if you don't like the style of play of Werewolf, you're at least somewhat less likely to like Shadows because they are kin.

This ain't Tigris & Euphrates, and that isn't a fault; they're just very different styles of games that will probably appeal to very different people.