GenCon OotS "The Shortening"

[Wanderlust]

Okay guys, we all know that some of our readers have been to GenCon this year, and SOMEBODY has had to seen or heard something about the new expansion for the OotS board game "The Shortening." If you guys have any info, please enlighten us who live too far away to make it to the Con! I'm dying to know what's changed!

[Squark]

I'm curious too. I'm probably going to get the game with the store credit from paizo, so I want to know about the expansions, and since it didn't show up at paizo, I'm VERY curious as to what "The shortening" is.

[Indurain]

All I know is that all the games were marked as full, and that APE games were nowhere to be found on the company index.

So...as someone who was at GenCon to see The Shortening...I can't help you, and that saddens me.

[Charlatan]

I played first day of Con.
There were new schticks, which basically worked with other schticks or situations (not to say they weren't cool).
Not sure of new monsters, it's possible, but I don't recall seeing any.
"The Shortening" is surrounded on 3 things that I can recall 1) Background cards - these give victory points for satisfying conditions 2) the Xykon monster card - shuffle him in and you can encounter him anywhere 3) Setting a time limit
You must choose either backgrounds OR wandering Xykon when starting the game. We chose backgrounds.
Unfortunately, adding methods to tally up victory points doesn't shorten the game at all. It adds a layer of complexity to the end game which is cool, but doesn't shorten it.
Putting Xykon in as a wandering monster COULD shorten the game, depending on how fast you move and where he is in the deck.
Setting a time limit, well I'm not sure how to comment on that.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed. I really saw no improvement to the game, which while fun, tends to move at a grind. Instead we've started to experiment with alternate methods to speed things up.
1) No PvP on the first floor, and you must accept loot you drool over and assist when asked.
2) Monster cards with an attack over 9 count as blank screw this cards on level 1 only. If the second level has not been discovered and you have no applicable monsters to put on level 1, you turn your hand in as normal.
3) Add one loot to each monster defeated on level 1

We're just experimenting so as you can tell there's no checks in the above for taking advantage of the situation. Things like a number of schticks on a character or the like would have to be implemented for control. Again, just playing around to make the game more enjoyable. I'm sure there's other house rules out there, I'd love to hear them.

[apegamer]

Good comments below.

There are two new ways of playing included with The Shortening.

Wandering Xykon rules, as a player mentioned below, allow Xykon to come up through the dungeon instead of waiting for characters to find him in Xykon's Lair. We have found that the base game doesn't push players toward the end game - the Wandering Xykon rules are designed to fix that.

Backstories are the other way to shorten the game. Before the game starts, each player is dealt a hand of Backstory cards from which they choose a subset to keep. Backstories are conditions that provide your character additional Bragging Points at the end of the game. The end goal when using Backstories is no longer to defeat Xykon, so players can put a time limit on the game.

[Wanderlust]

Thanks, Apegamer. Any hints on when we'll be able to purchase this from your website or our local comic shop?

[donkyhotay]

Actually having wandering xykon with a smaller battle deck size (maybe cut it in half or so) would really shorten the game. Having wandering xykon with a full size battle deck probably wouldn't be any shorter then 2 levels + lair scenario. The long part for me when I play is getting enough loot or schticks to enter the lair. Generally making slight modification to entering the lair requirements usually works in speeding it up however finding a good balance for it is tough because if you remove ALL requirements it gives an unfair advantage to some players over others.

[apegamer]

Actually having wandering xykon with a smaller battle deck size (maybe cut it in half or so) would really shorten the game. Having wandering xykon with a full size battle deck probably wouldn't be any shorter then 2 levels + lair scenario. The long part for me when I play is getting enough loot or schticks to enter the lair. Generally making slight modification to entering the lair requirements usually works in speeding it up however finding a good balance for it is tough because if you remove ALL requirements it gives an unfair advantage to some players over others.

Ah, but you no longer need to go to Xykon's Lair because he's kind enough to come visit you up in the dungeon. In fact, the dungeon is laid out before the game starts (though all of the rooms are face down) so that Xykon has space to wander.

Was there another reason that you thought cutting the battle deck size would help shorten the game? The mix of cards would be the same.

[apegamer]

Thanks, Apegamer. Any hints on when we'll be able to purchase this from your website or our local comic shop?

I don't want to commit to a date just yet. The game is not yet at the printer, though we're winding down. We got some good feedback from the games we ran at GenCon that we're thinking about before we call the game complete.

[The Giant]

Unfortunately, adding methods to tally up victory points doesn't shorten the game at all. It adds a layer of complexity to the end game which is cool, but doesn't shorten it.
Putting Xykon in as a wandering monster COULD shorten the game, depending on how fast you move and where he is in the deck.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty drastic misunderstanding of both of the included game-shortening mechanics. I wouldn't normally bother correcting this, but since this is the first "leak" of information and it contains a great many factual inaccuracies, I feel like I would be remiss in not correcting it.

First, you seem to be under the misconception that, under the Wandering Xykon rules, Xykon is added into the Battle Deck somehow. He isn't. There is a mechanic for determing when he shows up that is not related to the number of cards in the Battle Deck.

Likewise, Backstories only shorten the game if you ALSO add a time limit. Adding Backstories and no time limit is an interesting variant, but it in no way shortens the game. The time limit is not a separate mechanic for shortening the game, but a key part of the Backstory mechanic.

The Backstories are designed so you can say, "Hey, I want to play for no more than an hour and a half, no matter what." Wandering Xykon is designed to motivate you to the finish rather than hanging around trying to rack up points. Two different ways of shortening the game. Especially since you can use them both together.

[apegamer]

In our GenCon events, we had two different types of games - the 2-hour sessions used (mostly) Backstories with a time limit. We also had 4-hour full-game sessions, and in some of those we also used Backstories.

Almost no one that signed up for the events had previous experience with the game. That's good news and bad news. The good news is that we got to show the game to a lot of new people - some who came back to play the game again later in the weekend! The bad news is that almost no groups got to see the Wandering Xykon cards and rules, since that's an advanced method of playing and we didn't want to thrust that on newbies. Another downside is that in the 2-hour sessions that we used Backstories we also had to explain the rules to participants, which chewed up 15 minutes. Coupled with the fact that they often had trouble getting us tables to run the games on, and suddenly the 2-hour sessions became 1.5 hours.

The poster below was probably in one of the 4-hour sessions where we used Backstories, and thought that it was one of the ways to shorten the game.

[donkyhotay]

Rich figured out what I was referring to with the smaller battle-deck. I was assuming xykon was hidden in the battle deck somewhere and randomly pulled like any other monster. Doing this with a full-size battle deck wouldn't speed things up very much since it *can* take awhile to go through an entire battle deck.