So does Sidereal Confluence pretty much work on the honor system? With the real-time aspect, can you teach and still play, or do you need to be a referee?
So re Sidereal, yes … sort of. The realtime part of the game is just a trading phase so there aren’t really meaningful rules to enforce. But, the player tableaux (the collection of converters that form their economic engines) quickly become more complex than can meaningfully be verified by the other players. The game would become pretty tedious if you audited everyone as they ran their economy, so just have everyone run them in parallel. So I think there is a certain level of trust required. But the rules for running converters are so simple that honest mistakes are going to be vanishingly rare I think. I have found no need for a referee. It is a game where being the teacher/facilitator and keeping everyone on track the first time is not going to be cost-free in terms of your own enjoyment of the game, but in my experience people catch on quickly.
For QMG, we just found it doesn’t tolerate having players with a variety of experience levels well. It’s a bit like Twilight Struggle: knowing the decks and the flow of the game is so important that mixing players with some expertise in with casual players can lead to very unsatisfying games - with the exception of the 3-player Cold War version which has strong table-balancing tools. The QMG games are still terrific - much better than TS in my view - they’ve just become hard to play for us, at least the larger ones. Cold War, East Front, and War of the Ring: TCG are still strong.
So does Sidereal Confluence pretty much work on the honor system? With the real-time aspect, can you teach and still play, or do you need to be a referee?
Why did Quartermaster General flame out?
So re Sidereal, yes … sort of. The realtime part of the game is just a trading phase so there aren’t really meaningful rules to enforce. But, the player tableaux (the collection of converters that form their economic engines) quickly become more complex than can meaningfully be verified by the other players. The game would become pretty tedious if you audited everyone as they ran their economy, so just have everyone run them in parallel. So I think there is a certain level of trust required. But the rules for running converters are so simple that honest mistakes are going to be vanishingly rare I think. I have found no need for a referee. It is a game where being the teacher/facilitator and keeping everyone on track the first time is not going to be cost-free in terms of your own enjoyment of the game, but in my experience people catch on quickly.
For QMG, we just found it doesn’t tolerate having players with a variety of experience levels well. It’s a bit like Twilight Struggle: knowing the decks and the flow of the game is so important that mixing players with some expertise in with casual players can lead to very unsatisfying games - with the exception of the 3-player Cold War version which has strong table-balancing tools. The QMG games are still terrific - much better than TS in my view - they’ve just become hard to play for us, at least the larger ones. Cold War, East Front, and War of the Ring: TCG are still strong.
Ah, makes sense. I try to give newbies some heads up, like "You want to get Blitzkrieg out." And don't give them Japan! :)
Good to know about SC. I'd love to try it, but given my group it would have to be at a con.