Answers from questions in the Peer Review thread

[Tobias]

I made this thread because some questions about Companion Fever arose in the 'Peer Review' thread.

Since 'edit post' seems to not expire, every game author can have one post in this thread. Just hit 'edit' and add to your post when you get another question.

Feel free to PM me your questions on Companion Fever - I'll answer and add them to this single post in this thread.

Questions about Companion Fever

I understand that the three colors of dice represent (I think) entomology, companion, and invincible, but because the three simultaneous rolls are placed in order from highest to lowest, they really don't have any connection, do they?

No, they don't, really. It just determines which die you can use your re-roll power on. This is also why I say I only 'flirt' with the '3-dice' limitation.

Your example starts out with a 6-6-1 combo, and my first thought was cripes if he passes it on and a 6 is rolled, doesn't that mean the end of the mission?

No. If a 6 is rolled, and a "Fever 666" is offered and accepted, the accepting player gets the standard three rolls to roll a fever from scratch (page 9).

You might think about 'The end of the mission' because of the rules on page 9, "Things come to pass?". As you can read there, after the challenge, a new (single) roll (with 3 dice) is made, and that die result possibly has the further consequences. The 666 that was offered previously does not have any value for the "things come to pass" rule.

(The 661 exampe is actually the value I rolled when I decided I needed an example. I thought about re-rolling to make a different example, and then thought "nah, f*ck that, this is what happens in Real Life, man".

Also, I'd like to see an example of duplicate numbers and the Fever concept played out. Like 4-4-4, just to make sure I understand how that's passed.

I hope this clears things up - if it doesn't, PM me.

Duplicate numbers? You mean rolling 5-3-5? That's an offer of 553. Or do you mean someone rolling 6-4-1 while the previous offer stood at 6-4-1? In that case, you better hope you can bluff well.

As to the 4-4-4. If I roll this, I'm allowed to pass on anything as normal, but my highest non-bluff bid is "Fever 4". (I could also pass on "Fever 3", allowing my accused to pass on "Fever 4" in a blind bid - if I wanted to screw my accused's accused and cause general confusion). If my accused accepts, he's got to roll a Fever in 3 goes. So say he rolls 5-3-2 on the first one. No luck. The second roll is 2-6-2. With two 2's, the 6 is re-rolled, either getting another 2, which means the challenge is successfully met, or something else, in which case the accused fails.

- How can I play this with four people? Three? Six?
The game isn't really designed for play under five. You could manage four players by just dropping the Marine Colonel. Three would lose much of the core social talk and back-stabbing since everyone is locked into the killzone. Six would still work, but would make people less aware of the 'whole table' situation. (This is my experience from many games with a 5-player, 'eliminate left' rule).

- What about the one character who's not connected to an entity that anyone else is connected to? Isn't he set up to get screwed?

Not neccesarily - and even if he is, the fact that his strength might be lower from a tactical point of view if offset by the fact that he'll be chosen last and thus gets the best pick of position at the table (player-wise).

Also, if the other players eliminate him early, this opens up a higher probability of the game ending in failure without a winner due to the "Things Come to Pass" rule. So people will be more hesitant to eliminate him than a player who still has a backup (living) player with the same connection.

Also, he's the only player able to offer the table re-rolls of the connected die.

Can you afford to let him die?

[JenniferS]

[kenjib]