Episode 153 AP Table Talk: Variable Player Powers

AP Table Talk: Variable Player Powers

Episode Summary

In this episode of AP Table Talk, Brian and Dave explore Variable Player Powers, where players get unique abilities (or flaws!) that shape strategy and spark replayability. From the classic HeroQuest and Battlestar Galactica to asymmetric gems like Root, Sky Team, and Star Wars: Rebellion, they break down how this mechanic fuels dynamic gameplay, negotiation, and storytelling.

Brian Eng:

Hello and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. As always, I'm your host Brian, and if this were a board game, my character would have a unique ability to misread rules. My co-host, well, he just watch it happen. Joining me as always, Dave Eng.

Dave Eng:

See, what I like to do, Bri, is when reading the rules, I'll skip over a specific paragraph accidentally. Or to divert for a moment, I want to bring up my friend, Chris Ramsey, who you met in PAX East.

Brian Eng:

Yes, Chris.

Dave Eng:

He and his husband were trying to learn On Mars by Vital Lacerda, and they were teaching themselves at PAX, and Chris skipped a whole page. So when he was playing, he was like, "This makes no sense. Why would I do this?" And then only after the fact, he was like, "We skipped a whole page." That's why it made no sense.

Brian Eng:

I think that when we're trying to rush learn, I'll read the beginning few words of a paragraph. And if I think I know what it means, I just skip the rest of the paragraph.

Dave Eng:

Well, that is skimming and it's usually not bad, but if it has the critical stuff in it that you skipped, then that is bad.

Brian Eng:

Yes. And in preparation for this episode, we did that a few times in learning to play ... What was it?

Dave Eng:

Money!?

Brian Eng:

Fate of the Fellowship.

Dave Eng:

Oh, Fate of the Fellowship. No, no, I read the whole rule book. I read the whole.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. No, I definitely skipped.

Dave Eng:

Well, you know what? We talked about this before. I started with the Rodney video, Watch it Played, and I was like, "Okay, this is good. This is a pretty good explanation." I generated his explanation videos. I'm like, "Oh, this video is almost an hour. Do I really want to watch this whole thing?" I'm like, "I'm just going to read the book. Just read the book."

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I watched the video. But, yeah, when the video is too long, I have a problem focusing. I would've been better to read it, but then I was out of time at that point.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Well, we'll break that up when we cover it.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah, that's right. Anyways, actually, to bring up our episode topic, this episode is we'll be discussing Variable Player Powers.

Dave Eng:

Yes, that is true. Variable Player Powers. And what we've done in the past is, Bri, you'll give your personal definition and then I will read the one that's officially on Board Game Geek, BGG.

Brian Eng:

Right. So this one is fairly self-explanatory, I feel. So I think of Variable Player Powers I think of essentially each player has some different ability or trait that kind of allows them to explore different strategies or strengths or weaknesses differently than the other players. Now for myself, I kind of exclude games where you start the same and then you take different upgrade paths. I consider that a little bit different than Variable Player Powers. I know it turns into having Variable Player Powers, but I don't consider that as so much Variable Player Powers.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. That's a little bit like going back to our tech trees episode with Eclipse. No, not Eclipse, what am I talking about? Beyond the Sun.

Brian Eng:

Beyond the Sun, yes, that's the one that comes to mind actually, is where you end up drastically different.

Dave Eng:

I mean, that game is basically a tech tree with a game wrapped around it, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Dave Eng:

We should go back to playing that. That would be a good one.

Brian Eng:

We should. Yeah, yeah, that was a good one for BGA actually.

Dave Eng:

So that's your personal definition, Bri? Should I read-

Brian Eng:

Yes, that's my personal, so yeah, go ahead and see how it stacks up.

Dave Eng:

All right, so the one that's officially on BGG, boardgamegeek.com is, "Variable Player Powers is a mechanic that grants different abilities and/or paths to victory to players. In Ogre, one player controls a single powerful piece, and the others play many weaker units. The net effect is a balanced game. In Cosmic Encounter, each player is assigned a random special ability at the beginning of the game. Although each player has the same victory goal, established colonies on five planets and other player systems, their abilities enable differing means to the end. And Here I stand, each player controls a political power with unique ways to score victory points. Some focus on military conquest, someone religious influence, et cetera. Player powers may change throughout the game, as in Small World or Sunrise City." So this is a pretty robust definition and they actually cite some specific games.

Brian Eng:

They gave a bunch of examples and stuff, so they did our job for us there.

Dave Eng:

Well, not wholly. Not completely. I mean, I still got a lot of opinions to share on this.

Brian Eng:

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, they brought up some good points, like different ... Even though I kind of drove down a little bit on what I thought Variable Player Powers, there is different ways of implementing that. And they talked about it a little bit like you could have cooperative games where you have different things, so you have a unique goal. Each person can have a competitive goal that's the same. But there are games too that I would consider Variable Player Powers where even your win conditions can be different.

Dave Eng:

Right, and we will definitely talk about that in this episode.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, we'll explore those things. Right. All right, so I guess we'll move on to our examples then?

Dave Eng:

Yes. Yes. If you are listening to AP Table Talk for the first time in this section of the show, we like to list major examples. So the three categories are first game we played with Variable Player Powers, our favorite game, and then the last one is most noteworthy or biggest. And Bri, we are going to roll our D20s to see who leads off. Is that right?

Brian Eng:

All right, I'm ready.

Dave Eng:

All. So we got a D20s in hand. On the count of three, we'll roll. Three, two, one, roll. All right. I got 16.

Brian Eng:

I got 8.

Dave Eng:

Oh, 8. Okay. 16 is traditionally larger than eight, so I'll go first. Okay. So I want to start off with this, Bri, because this is how I organize this. So I am going to separate ... When I was researching for this episode, I'm going to separate games into two different categories for Variable Player Powers. I'm separating them into games that have Variable Player Powers, but what I'm calling symmetrical gameplay. So players have different things that they can do, but overall, the core loop of the game is the same as opposed to Variable Player Powers and asymmetrical gameplay, which we'll get into some examples here.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think I know what you're hinting at there, but we'll get into it.

Dave Eng:

And I'm hoping that we can spend some good discussion on this, because I think this is a very large part of the Variable Player Powers mechanic.

Brian Eng:

Right. Actually, yeah, you know what? That's a good point. When I get to my first example, it might be one that to be debatable.

Dave Eng:

We might share. Okay.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, so let's see. I don't think we share it, but we may have some crossover though. I don't think we share this first one at least.

Dave Eng:

There's definitely at least one we share. I know that. I mean, I went through all these games and I'm like, "Oh, man, there's so many Variable Player Power games," but I guarantee we share one. So anyway, so I wanted to say that. So my first game that I played with Variable Player Powers that are symmetrical is Pandemic. And my first game I played with Variable Player Powers that is asymmetric is Vast: The Crystal Caverns. We played that I think at PAX East a number of years ago. I don't remember when. They all merged together now.

Brian Eng:

Okay, why don't you talk about those a little bit before I get into mine?

Dave Eng:

Okay. So Pandemic, if you've never played Pandemic before, is the cooperative game and probably one of the games that spurred the modern popularity tabletop games.

Brian Eng:

Definitely a contributor to the modern renaissance of board gaming.

Dave Eng:

Matt Leacock. It's a cooperative game. It's about stopping the spread of viruses throughout the globe. But in Pandemic, each player has a different character that has a different set of abilities. One character can move other characters around the board when it's not their turn. Another character can better stop the spread of diseases in specific cities. And it's really interesting because you all are working towards the same goal of stopping the spread of diseases.

But in Pandemic with the individual player powers, you all are very good at ... Each individual player is good at doing one specific thing. Conversely, with Vast: The Crystal Caverns, and I say this is asymmetrical gameplay, because this is the first game I ever played that was like this. I'm trying to remember each individual character in Vast, there's the knight-

Brian Eng:

Especially with the expansions.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah. Probably the expansions.

Brian Eng:

I don't know which ones are which, but yeah.

Dave Eng:

But I definitely know there's the cave. The cave is a character.

Brian Eng:

There's the cave, there's the dragon.

Dave Eng:

The Dragon, there's the knight, I think.

Brian Eng:

I think so. There's the goblins.

Dave Eng:

The goblins. It was like the dragon is trying to defend the treasure, the Goblins trying to steal the treasure. The knight is trying to-

Brian Eng:

Kill the dragon?

Dave Eng:

Or kill the goblins. I forget, it's been years.

Brian Eng:

Okay, yeah.

Dave Eng:

And then the cave is trying to kill everyone.

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So that was the first game I was like, "Oh, man, this is really interesting. It's a completely different game for each individual character."

Brian Eng:

I would say that it was very unique when it came out. There was not really anything else like it at the time.

Dave Eng:

No, it was completely unique when I first played it.

Brian Eng:

And so sorry, when did Vast ... 2016 I think Vast came out, somewhere around that?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I'll look it up online.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, 2016.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, 2016. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I don't think there was anything like that prior to that. Okay. So I did not separate mine like that, but I will put an asterisk on mine is that I tried to pick games where the Variable Player Powers are kind of a defining characteristic of the game.

So for first game, I kind of have one where it kind of falls in, but I didn't pick this as my primary. So I have HeroQuest I think is technically the first board game that was variable player power. That's basically your dungeon crawler game. You have one player. Or sorry, you have players playing each of your stereotypical archetypes for dungeon crawler, for RPGs. You have a knight, a wizard, a thief. I don't remember what the other...

Dave Eng:

HeroQuest is a game that recently got a reprint, right? It was like a classic game.

Brian Eng:

It did. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Eng:

This is the one you also forced your mom to play?

Brian Eng:

She got it for me not knowing that you had to have friends to play it.

Dave Eng:

I just remember you got it as a kid and you're like, "No one else would play with me, so I played with my mom."

Brian Eng:

Oh, actually you know what? It does have a little bit of what we talked about because one player is the dungeon master and their goal is to stop all the heroes. The heroes is to get through whatever the quest is. It gave you a book of quests with all the maps and all that stuff, and it's pretty cool. So in that aspect, the players all have similar goals and rule sets and it's just their stats and abilities are different. And then the one player who's playing the dungeon master has kind of a separate game almost. So I guess it falls into what we were talking about. The game where I feel that the Variable Player Powers is kind of highlighted, that is the first one I could think of is same year as Pandemic actually is Battlestar Galactica.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So in that game, I wouldn't call it a variant, but I think Shadows over Camelot was kind of the first big one that had ... It has big focus on the traitor mechanic. So for those familiar with the remake show, Battlestar Galactica, you play crew members on Battlestar Galactica, you're trying to get home, but certain people might be secret Cylons who are trying to sabotage everyone. So everyone gets to choose characters in the beginning and each of the characters has abilities, which give them unique bonuses. But what was interesting too is that they balance that where each character also had a negative trait.

Dave Eng:

I don't remember that. Okay.

Brian Eng:

So for example, Starbuck, who's kind of the main character of the show, so she's the hotshot pilot, so she gets an extra action if she starts her turn in the Viper, which is the fighters. But her counter is that ... So in the show, she's kind of insubordinate. Because you don't know who ...

So a big part of the game is kind of suspecting and accusing people of being the Cylons. And if you think they're the Cylons, one action you can take is to vote them to go into the break as an action. And then everyone has to vote using these ... There's skill cards you get. So each character gets a different types of skill cards, and then each action takes certain numbers of skill cards in order for it to pass. So you're playing those in for everything that happens face down, so you don't know who's playing what, so the Cylons can kind of sabotage things. But because she's insubordinate, they action to put her into the brig, it takes less. It's easier to pass that action.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see.

Brian Eng:

See. So that's her negative trait or Adama who is the captain of Battlestar or I guess the admiral. So has command authority. In a skill check, he can choose one color of the skill card, so it's five different colors that they have, and he can make that color count towards it being successful no matter, whether it was part of what it's supposed to be or not.

So in the show though, one of his weaknesses in the show ... I mean, one of the things that's exploited of his character is that he's emotionally attached to the crew, so he may make questionable judgment based on that. And so he can't use the admiral's quarters, which is the action to put people into the brig.

Dave Eng:

Being in admiral's quarters is the action to put?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, because you move around the ship.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see, I see.

Brian Eng:

If you're in the admiral's quarters, the action that you can do there is to vote somebody into the brig. So if you're playing as Adama, he can't use that action.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see. Okay.

Brian Eng:

Right? So that's the example now. And my favorite character and the best character in the new show, Gaius Baltar, in the show, I mean he's supposed to be ... So spoilers all this, this is a 20-year-old show now. He is the bad guy.

Dave Eng:

But we don't know that yet.

Brian Eng:

But he just played so well. I mean, if you watch the original, he's like a twirly mustache bad guy. He's immediate that he's the bad guy, but he's just kind of like a very selfish person. And he basically betrays humanity to the Cylons because he's selfish. But he's also supposed to be a really smart scientist guy. He's just like a coward though.

He has a few bonuses. When he draws his ... So again, each character has a specific cards they draw based on their skills. But because he's this genius, he can draw one card of any of the skills that he wants each time he draws cards, because he's like a jack of all trades kind of thing. He also builds a Cylon detector. To make himself very useful in the show, he claims to build a Cylon detector. So you have a Cylon detector which allows you to ...

So the way that you decide you're a Cylon, at the beginning of the game, everyone has dealt loyalty cards and they say whether you're a Cylon or not a Cylon. And depending on the player count will depend on how many Cylons there are. As his action, on his turn, he can take someone's ... Once per game, he can look at somebody's loyalty cards. He can't show anybody, but he can look at them. And then it's whether or not he can tell the group whatever he wants. He might be the Cylon. Again, this is balanced out with the fact that his negative trait is that at the beginning of the game, he draws two loyalty cards instead of one. So it increases the chance-

Dave Eng:

Because he's the traitor right?

Brian Eng:

No, no, if you get a Cylon card, it overrides any other card that you have.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see, I see.

Brian Eng:

So he has double the chance to be a Cylon. So you have a higher suspect chance that he has a Cylon, but he's also the person who has the Cylon detector. So it just creates an interesting negotiations and dynamic, social dynamics there, which I-

Dave Eng:

So it's been awhile, Bri, since we played that. Because I remember we played that, it was again at the PAX East.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, right, right.

Dave Eng:

It was in the basement of that hotel. But I forget that, because thinking in this episode, I was like Variable Player Powers. Yeah, there's a thing that your character can do that no other character can do, it's usually good. But I ever thought about it in the negative.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, and that's why I thought this was an interesting example as well, because usually, yeah, you're thinking of everybody has a power. But this one was interesting because they balance out the power with also everyone has a negative trait, which I thought was interesting. Okay. So, yeah, so that was my first game. Well, I mean HeroQuest or that, but I felt like that one focused more on the Variable Player Powers.

Dave Eng:

All right, should we go on to favorite now?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, let's do favorite. Go ahead, do yours.

Dave Eng:

All right, I'll go with the ... All right, so again, separating them into symmetrical and asymmetrical play. My favorite symmetrical Variable Player Power game is ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo. And my favorite Variable Player Power game that is asymmetrical is Star Wars: Rebellion. So we're staying on the space theme. We talked about Battlestar Galactica. ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, I don't think you and I, Brian, we've played it together.

Brian Eng:

I've never played that game.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay.

Brian Eng:

I've played rebellion, but I have not played Alien.

Dave Eng:

It's very thematic, which is what I really like. It's thematic, it is-

Brian Eng:

I know you love the Alien series as well.

Dave Eng:

I love the Alien series. I love the Alien movies. Highly thematic. It's supposed to replicate the very first Alien 1979, and you are playing as one of the original crew members except for, spoiler alert, Kane, because Kane is killed at this point and you don't play as Ash who is the synthetic android because the synthetic android is actually playing against you.

So the whole role of the game is you need to collect parts in order to fulfill a mission, which is all the missions are thematic for the movie. So you either have to set the self-destruct sequence or escape in the escape pod or trap the alien or get the alien out or leave the ship, but also don't forget to bring the cat, Jonesy.

And each character has their own ... Captain Dallas has no special ability, I think, but has extra action points. Brett, who I think is the engineer, he can craft things more easily. And overall, I just think it's like if you like Alien and you like to play really thematic games, this is definitely the one for you. And I remember playing it at my friend's house back in March and we're both big Alien fans and I thought that was a really good thematic game. And then my second one, Star Wars: Rebellion. Bri, you and I played, and that was the last time we played.

Brian Eng:

I've played this a couple times actually.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay. But you played it not with me, and you played the physical version, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, and we've played it together digitally. And then, yeah, I've played the physical as well.

Dave Eng:

I've never played the physical version, although I think it would be really fun to play the physical version, but-

Brian Eng:

There's a lot going on.

Dave Eng:

There is a lot going on. And I remember you explaining it to me. And again, I'm still kind of new. I didn't really know exactly how Star Wars: Rebellion worked, but I like the fact that it's a lot like Twilight Struggle in that it's very much like the cat and mouse game, because as the empire, you're trying to find the rebel base and eliminate it. And as the rebels, you're trying to destroy the Death Star, right? That's the main objective?

Brian Eng:

Yes, yes.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. And basically, it's kind of just like the rebels are really scrappy, but they're hidden. They're not very powerful, but they can hide. Whereas the empire is super powerful, because you're just churning out ships and stormtroopers and TIE fighters and you're spreading out throughout the galaxy. And I just thought it was really interesting in that, yeah, the rebels are kind of at a disadvantage if you try to go toe-to-toe with the empire, but the strategy is, hey, don't go toe-to-toe with the empire. Do hit-and-run, and hide in systems.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah, you're definitely going the guerrilla warfare. And the thing I like too, it really embodied that line. It will be bad if I get this wrong as a Star Wars fan that I am, but I think it's Leia that says to Tarkin like, "The more you tighten your grip, the more squeezed through your fingers."

Dave Eng:

Oh, the more systems will fall through your fingers.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And I feel that that game embodies that, because as the empire side, you have to kind of cover all these planets and check them all. And you do have a lot of forces, but as you start to spread thin, it lets the rebels just poke through in weak points and things like that. And it really embodies that feeling in the theme.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Both of these games I think are really highly thematic, but that's my vote for favorite.

Brian Eng:

I know that Rebellion was a longer game. What's the weight and length of the Alien game?

Dave Eng:

Alien game, I mean, I could look it up, but if I had to give you-

Brian Eng:

If you compared it to Rebellion.

Dave Eng:

Oh, it's a lot lighter than Rebellion.

Brian Eng:

A lot lighter?

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Do you have that game?

Dave Eng:

ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, I do not. My friend has it. We played his copy. Yeah, because it's a cooperative game and you know how we feel about cooperative games, but I really like the theme of it, so I've been trying to acquire it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I was wondering. I'm asking selfishly so that we can get it to the table.

Dave Eng:

So we can play it?

Brian Eng:

It sounds interesting.

Dave Eng:

Well, I mean, maybe at the next con. I mean, it'll probably be in the library or something.

Brian Eng:

Right, right.

Dave Eng:

It's pretty popular and it's in print. They sell it at Target. It's like a mass market thing.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. Okay. I'll definitely have to add that to my want to playlist.

Dave Eng:

That's good.

Brian Eng:

All right, so I'll move on to my favorite here.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay, so I've talked about this one on the podcast before and this is Rising Sun, Eric Lang's second big one. So, again, kind of a dudes on the map game, kind of typical area control, fighting battles and things. But what makes it unique is that the clans have very powerful different abilities that really make their strategies unique.

So, for example, the koi clan. So when you're battling, one of the phases is that you can hire ... It's all like a samurai themed, and one of the phases of going into battle is you can use coins to hire ronin. Oh, actually sorry, I think you actually have to do that ahead of time. I can't remember the steps now, but the koi clan, basically, all of their coins can be ronin at any time. So they can just sway the battle with money at any time. And then at the end of battle, any ronin that they have become coins so that they're interchangeable for the koi clan.

The bonsai clan, their power is that when they buy ... So there are these season cards which allow you to buy different types of troops and things like that, or they actually give you different abilities too. They can give you discounts. All of their purchases can cost a maximum of one coin regardless of the cost. And that comes before any other discounts, because you can get a power that discounts things. So if you get that discount, then everything just becomes free.

Dave Eng:

Oh, wow. Okay.

Brian Eng:

The dragonfly clan has no movement restrictions. They can move anywhere on the map and that includes that when they ... Normally, when you summon units to put onto the map, they have to be built by your fortresses. Theirs can just be summoned anywhere. That's part of their no restrictions to movement. The turtle clan, which has the coolest minis.

Dave Eng:

Oh, my favorite.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So their strongholds are built on the backs of these giant turtles and they act like units. They can move around the board like a unit. They also count as a force in battles and they can't be taken hostage, they can't be killed. And there is a betrayal mechanic in Rising Sun, which allows you to swap units out and they can't be swapped out. So they become very powerful units in the game.

And then the last one that I can remember is the lotus clan. I never remember the expansion clans, so we don't use them, but the lotus clan who can ... It's kind of an action selection game, and what you do is you draw these tiles at the beginning of your turn. I think you get four tiles and you can choose one of the tiles and then the rest go back and then you have to pick an action out of that. Everyone can follow or you and your ally can follow. No, no, everyone can follow, and you get a stronghold. It's like-

Dave Eng:

Your ally does it for free?

Brian Eng:

Puerto Rico. Your ally gets the bonus that you get. It's like Puerto Rico, the person who selects gets a better version of the action and everyone else gets the normal. Your ally also gets the better version. So the lotus clan, when they look at the four, they take one, but they put it face down and they can just say whatever mandate they want. They can just say whatever action they want. So it makes them a strong ally because-

Dave Eng:

They can choose...

Brian Eng:

... they can always just do the action that would be best, but they can also always just betray you, because they can just do it at any time they want, instead of having to draw the betray action.

Dave Eng:

Right, right.

Brian Eng:

So, yeah, it really leads to interesting. And alliances plays a big part in that game. So the different abilities create interesting timing and negotiating for when you want to ally, when you want to break alliances and things like that. And it was one of those ones also that the powers seemed so powerful that they would break the game, but because everyone is so powerful, it doesn't work that way. And I mean, negotiation always mitigates that.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. And I think that this brings up a good point and something that I wrote down in my notes is that for a lot of these games, which I feel like are symmetrical, but have these one very powerful player ability, it's because that one ability is approachable because it just like, "Here are the rules for the game and these are the rules everyone has got to follow." Except for you, you can break this rule.

Brian Eng:

You break this one rule. Yeah, you're right. Yes.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. You only get to break this one rule and that's it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, exactly.

Dave Eng:

That's what I appreciate about it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I like that too because it's not so much overhead. Some of them, the ... Well, if we think about Vast, there's a big barrier to entry for that game because you kind of need to know how everyone plays. Whereas a game like Rising Sun, you kind of all play the same with that one exception. So it's a little easier to ... It keeps it on par with the games of similar weight.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's a lot more approachable I feel.

Brian Eng:

All right. Okay. So, yeah, that was my favorite. So we'll move on to most noteworthy or the biggest game Variable Player Power game in your opinion.

Dave Eng:

All right, so again, splitting it up between symmetrical and asymmetrical gameplay. Most noteworthy and biggest symmetrical Variable Player Power game for me is going to be Cosmic Encounter. And then asymmetrical game is going to be Sky Team.

Brian Eng:

Ooh, good choice.

Dave Eng:

Cosmic Encounter, I think we talked about before. I definitely know, you Bri, you have all of the Cosmic Encounter.

Brian Eng:

I do. I do.

Dave Eng:

Expansion content and everything. And this is building off what we just talked about before in that Cosmic Encounter I think is very approachable with Variable Player Powers because again, it is here are the rules for the game. Here's the goal, everyone's got the same goal. However, you as this one alien species, you can do this one thing that breaks the rules normally.

I have not played Cosmic Encounter. I know that it's a game that I want to get on the table, especially play with you, Bri. I think that it's a game though that it needs the right player, because there's a lot of table talk, right? There's going to be a lot of negotiation involved, but overall, I feel like that is the most elegant way of integrating Variable Player Powers in that you're all the rules except for you with your one alien species, those are the one rule you can break.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely. Now, I would say it's a little bit less like that because they do have some complicated aliens. So they do rank all the alien races as green, yellow, or red in how complicated they are, not in how powerful they are. So it does help though for playing with different game groups because if you have more beginner board gamers, you can make sure they just have kind of green alien races, but there are definitely some complicated ones. But I agree, even regardless of player like skill, you do need the right group because it's on the borderline of you can't have people that are super competitive are not going to like that game too much.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Because everything can be negated through negotiation.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. The fun of that game is the fact that it's so silly. It can get so silly. I like picking just the most silly powers and just see how things go. Okay. Yeah. So we definitely have some crossover here.

Dave Eng:

Wait, do you want me to talk about Sky Team?

Brian Eng:

Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry. I forgot you had your second one. Yeah, go ahead and talk about Sky Team and all.

Dave Eng:

I don't know if we share that, but Sky Team, we played online. We talked about it before in a past episode. I forget specifically what episode we talked about Sky Team in.

Brian Eng:

In the information maybe? Anyways, yeah.

Dave Eng:

Maybe, yeah.

Brian Eng:

Might have been.

Dave Eng:

Sky Team is another cooperative game like Pandemic from before. Both have the same goal of landing the plane, but the Variable Player Power is that whoever's the pilot, I think can only control the flaps and whoever's the first officer can only control the landing gear. And then you both have to-

Brian Eng:

Something like that.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Eng:

You have specific aspects that you have to kind of coordinate.

Dave Eng:

Right, which I also think is funny in that we're both trying to land the plane, but we can't talk to each other.

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

It's like, "Yeah, don't you dare help me by giving me information." You just can't talk to each other. But I feel like that is a ... If you're going to introduce someone into a Variable Player Power game that is asymmetrical, I think Sky Team is a really good approach to that if they're up to it. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I enjoy that game a lot. No, I didn't have it in my biggest. Actually, I kind of forgot. It didn't about it in my list. That might've been a contender for favorite actually. I really enjoy that one. I don't know if it would've beat out Rising Sun, but I probably would've put it in as an honorable mention.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, Rising Sun is pretty cool. It's got good tables.

Brian Eng:

So, yeah, going back to my choices here. Yes, we did have some crossover and Cosmic Encounter. I want to talk about that because I did have kind of the precursor to Cosmic Encounter, which was the original Dune game that got a reprint in 2019, I think, thanks to the new movies giving it some popularity again.

Yeah, so I'm forgetting all the exact details, but my understanding is the designers that made Dune got the idea for Cosmic Encounter basically from the races in Dune playing so differently. What's interesting I thought the first time I saw that game is that not only are there, do they have different abilities and different play mechanics, they also ... Some of them even have different win conditions as well. Which, again, this is a game from the '70s I think. So it was very different. I think the one that always was really interesting to me, so if you're familiar with the Dune franchise, the Bene Gesserit are these psychic nuns.

Dave Eng:

It's a good way of surmising it.

Brian Eng:

You don't really know. They are pulling the strings. They kind of have secret alliances or whatever, and they're just pulling strings and you don't know what their agenda is. And one of the things is at the beginning of the game, so the game takes place, there's 10 rounds. The general rules is there's 10 rounds and you're trying to capture three strongholds. If you can hold three strongholds, you win the game, then that's the standard win condition. I think it's the Fremen. If nobody holds any strongholds or if you reach the end of the game and nobody has won the game the standard way, the Fremen win, because they are the natives of the planets.

The Bene Gesserit was interesting, and again, I felt very thematic because at the beginning of the game, they choose a round that they believe the game will end in. I don't remember if they have to choose the player to. I think they choose the round, and the player that they think is going to win. And if they can cause them to cause that to happen, they win the game instead.

So again, this game has alliances and stuff, so they're very powerful and you can ally with them. They're powerful allies, so you want to have their help, but then there's always the question is, are they helping you? Because they actually want to help you or are they moving forward their own agenda, and I thought that was really cool. I've never actually played the Dune game. I know they had the remake in 2019 and then they made another version that was a more streamlined version a couple years after. I kind of want to try that because I've heard it's a little easier to get to the table, but you still want to play with the max player count because you want everyone fulfilling each of the roles. So I think that's the hard part for me.

Dave Eng:

I know you talked about Dune: Imperium a lot, Brian, because that gets on the table a lot for you. Yeah, this game, the original Dune game from I think 1979 did come up on my radar and I want to play it. Again, like you said, I think you have to be down for that type of game and you also have to have all the roles fulfilled to have the best experience.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Dune: Imperium is definitely a very different kind of game from the original Dune.

Dave Eng:

What if you need your IP fix on Dune? You can get...

Brian Eng:

Oh, it's a great game. I mean, it does have Variable Player Powers, but I wouldn't call it the focus. It's a very small little thing that gives you kind of a Variable Player Power.

So I actually had another one and I kind of grouped Dune and Cosmic Encounter together, and the other one I did have in the most noteworthy is Vast. And actually, I grouped Vast and Root together. So the successor to Vast, I guess, was Root, which is still wildly popular. It's not the same type of game, but I guess it's a war game. But the same idea that the factions play drastically different.

And I haven't played it that many times, but I remember there's the Birds, the Eyrie, and they have to play a card tableau, and each time they play they have to add another thing. But the requirement is I think they have to do every action in their tableau or their thing falls apart. They get a penalty and they have to start over. So they get more and more powerful, but they have to play every action, and that leads to the other factions know that, so they can kind of adjust stuff to make it hard for them to do like, "Oh, they have to take a space as one of their actions so they can move so that they're not able to take a space or not able to move or whatever so that their actions fall apart."

That's another one where it's like you talk about symmetric, asymmetric, I describe it as you're almost playing two completely different games. You just happen to be in each other's way.

Dave Eng:

I would say that I think that I don't know of anyone that really talks about Vast anymore, other than us for this podcast. I think a lot of people play Root.

Brian Eng:

Root took over and I think is very popular still. I have a lot of it and it never gets played for that same reason that we talked about is that the kind of front-loaded overhead is so large that we haven't got into it and my group doesn't meet often enough to get familiar with it. I think they would enjoy it, but I think your friends play it a lot though, right? Or the PAX group at least though.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, the PAX group, they played it. I mean, they played it at PAX Unplugged when we were there last. I don't know if they played it regularly, but that is a game that is right up their alley and one that is not easy to teach, but is something that once they learn it, they want to play through all the factions and they want to have a lot of table talk and a lot of negotiation.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And I think that, that game rewards it being your regular game for your group.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Especially since if you've made that big upfront investment in time and energy to learn it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I mean, kind of a tangent to that, we talked about ... I forget the name of it, maybe you'll remember. The one with the different classes, the working class.

Dave Eng:

Hegemony?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, Hegemony, which sounded like a similar type of thing. You kind of have very different rules in that game, the different classes. I've backed the, I guess, the successor to that, World Order, which is supposed to be a little bit easier on the overhead, but the same idea. So I'll be interested to see how that plays.

Dave Eng:

I wanted to play both of them.

Brian Eng:

Especially not at the max player count, I want to see how it plays, because I don't know how often I'll be able to get it, but it was supposed to kind of introduce some things to make it a little easier, so I'm hoping that's the case.

Dave Eng:

Right.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So, yeah, I think that wraps up our examples.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, we're going to go to Beyond the Basics now, Brian?

Brian Eng:

Okay. And we've once again switched up the format a little.

Dave Eng:

Exchanged up the format.

Brian Eng:

For a little experimentation. I'll let you get into the details of that.

Dave Eng:

So if you're listening to AP Table Talk and you've been a loyal listener since the beginning, Beyond the Basics, it's kind of morphed from different things. So in the past few episodes, we have had it set up so that it is a debate, but we're changing up the format again. So this time we really want to not rehash things that we talked about before. So we're going to try to limit this part to three likes on this particular mechanic and three dislikes that we had. And the other sections, we'll roll our D20 to see who goes first. And then Bri, I think we're going to do your like, your first like, and my first like, and then your second like, and my second like, something like that?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, we'll do that.

Dave Eng:

Okay. And then once we go through all the likes, we'll go through the dislikes. So I'm ready with my die, Bri, when you're ready.

Brian Eng:

Yep, I'm ready.

Dave Eng:

Three, two, one, roll.

Brian Eng:

Okay. I got a 16.

Dave Eng:

I got a two this time.

Brian Eng:

All right. Okay. So we'll start with our likes. Okay. I think we're trying to focus on just more of our personal feelings and experiences with this, the mechanic, the episode mechanic, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

So the first one I have, and mine aren't in any particular order. The first one I have listed is ... I don't know how to sum it up in one word, but basically what I like about Variable Player Powers is that kind of unique feeling that you get as a player because you're different than everyone else. It makes you feel like your character is special.

I like that, that creates ... So we've talked about how one of the things that I like about board games is solving the puzzle. And I feel that putting that power is almost like creating just another piece of the puzzle that you have to adapt your strategy based on the powers that you have, but not just the powers you have, but also the different powers that your opponents might have.

I like how it creates those just unique confrontations of this power and this power either going against each other or working together, encouraging just creative gameplay. And kind of related to that, just the added replayability that gives you too, like using Cosmic Encounter as an example with all the expansions for the version I have. I wrote it down here. There is something like 230 races.

Dave Eng:

Oh, wow. I thought it was less than 100.

Brian Eng:

No, no, no. It's a lot to the point where I've actually looked up online on how to call that a little bit because they don't fit in the box. I want to fit in a single box. So there are some that through expansions have just better versions of other ones, so I've removed some of them just to get it to fit in the box.

Dave Eng:

The race is just like cards. It's just a big card, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

And there's 230 of them?

Brian Eng:

There's 230 of them, so I've taken out probably about ... I think I took out about 30 or something like that, maybe less, but I still don't think ... Even with that, that's a lot of combinations.

Dave Eng:

That's a lot of combinations. I think you could be playing that for years and not do...

Brian Eng:

I know that people play variants too, where you get two alien races.

Dave Eng:

Oh, really? So you match them up together?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, and you just get powers from both of them, just to make it more chaotic. A big part of that game, again, you have to like the chaos, just how chaotic it gets. So, yeah, that's my first thing I like about Variable Player Power games.

Dave Eng:

My first like is ... So I said at the top of the show, I divided the games into symmetrical gameplay and asymmetrical gameplay. I would even say that you can break it down even further in that Variable Player Powers, they fall into what I would call variable goals. So when we last saw each other, we played Rebirth by Reiner Knizia, and that was a very streamlined game, a very Knizia type of game. But as you gain monastery cards, it gave you specific goals that you could and should go for because they would earn you points at the end of the game.

So I would say that there's the variable goals side, and then we talked about this a little bit before about the rule-breaking powers, which I think that if you're going to approach Variable Player Powers from a symmetrical standpoint and make it very accessible, having that one thing that your character, you as the player can break in the game that other people cannot break, is a really simple, elegant way I think of achieving that goal of having Variable Player Powers in the game. So for me, it's either going to be variable goals or rule-breaking powers, and I think if you could, you could apply that to many games that are out on the market there.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of a similar thing, right? We're talking about switching up your approach that you're taking in the game, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So the next thing I've got here is I have it listed as the interesting social dynamics that come up in the game. So mainly, I'm talking about how it drives basically a lot of negotiation, and that negotiation is often based on players' perceived power of each other. Or player's perception of how powerful each other's powers are.

I'm going to use Cosmic Encounter again as an example because the powers ... It is clear that they did not care about balancing the powers in that game, because the entire game is based on negotiation. So if somebody has, I think I remember one of the alien races, the power is just if they ever win a battle, they win the game.

Dave Eng:

So never let them win a battle.

Brian Eng:

So you immediately know that if they're in a battle, everyone has to help to make sure they don't win that battle. So it drives a lot of the negotiation and it's constantly changing, creating a lot of dynamic rivalries or alliances and things like that, and I enjoy that stuff. Kind of table talking and just kind of playing the social aspect of the game.

Dave Eng:

Whenever we talked about Cosmic Encounter, both in person and also on other podcast episodes. But whenever you bring up Cosmic Encounter, I also think about ... Have you heard of a game called Sidereal Confluence? It's another heavy table talk negotiation type of game.

Brian Eng:

You know what, when you first said it, I'm like, "No, I never heard of that." But now, I'm thinking about the name and maybe ... I don't know if maybe you've talked to it about it before with me, but the name sounds familiar then.

Dave Eng:

It comes up on the So Very Wrong About Games podcast. Those guys have played it before and they've mentioned it a few times, but then when Sidereal Confluence comes up, I think about a game that I had bought a while ago, because it was on deep discount called Empires, and the Empires is 18th century old European powers and they have the Variable Player Powers and one of them is ... To your point, I forget the Cosmic Encounter thing. It's like if they win a battle, they win a game. I remember playing, I think it was Prussia or something, and Prussia's ability is like, you can do this, like this action. I forget what action it is. As long as another player agrees to it. So you could do whatever, but you have to get another player to agree to it. And the game is all about trading.

Brian Eng:

You're limited to acquiring. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. It's like, "Okay, well, I want to do this thing. I'll agree to it, but what are you going to give me for it?"

Brian Eng:

Yeah. "What do I get out of it?"

Dave Eng:

Yeah. And that's one of those things where I think it's like, yeah, that is really cool because it's like, "Oh, okay, I get to do that. But now, I have to work with the other players in order to give them something to allow me to do it."

Brian Eng:

Right. Yes. That is the kind of thing I like, for sure. Again, I mean, I called it social ... I should call it social manipulation. That's what I like.

Dave Eng:

I'll do my second like now?

Brian Eng:

That was your second like?

Dave Eng:

No, no, I didn't talk about my second like yet.

Brian Eng:

Oh, I thought that was your second like.

Dave Eng:

No, no, I wanted to insert Empires as a game in there, as something I played in the past.

Brian Eng:

Oh, okay. Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

My second like is that I think that with Variable Player Powers, out of all the mechanics we've covered so far in AP Table Talk, I think that this is the one that allows ... I wrote here in my notes, it allows designers to "Spice the taste." So as a designer, you can be like, "I'm going to introduce a card that says every time you collect three green tokens, that's an extra point at the end of the game, at the very light end." Or you could go like Vast or Root, very heavy asymmetrical end, and then everything in between that, I would consider "falling under Variable Player Powers." And you can go really heavy, you can go really light, you can kind of go in the middle. You can spice the taste it as a designer. And I think that's a really nice flexibility with this mechanic overall.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I remember thinking when I first learned about Vast is that it seemed almost like the game was an exercise in design to see whether they could make a game where everyone played so vastly different and have different objectives, yet still have a balanced game.

Dave Eng:

No pun intended.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. I mean, that's what it felt like. I think you introduced it to me when you played in at PAX that one time and I was like, "This sounds crazy. This is really a game?"

Brian Eng:

I had heard about it, and then I saw people were playing it. I think it did get a lot of popularity, it just got overshadowed when Root came around.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to ask my game group if anyone still plays Vast, because I really feel like it fell off the map.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. I don't know if it's just because Root just polished everything about Vast maybe. Just kind of made it obsolete.

Dave Eng:

You want to do third like?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I'll come on to my third here. One of the things I like is, again, we're talking about this kind of personal experience, almost like a role-playing element that I enjoy, especially when the Variable Player Powers are introduced in a way that's very thematic. I mean, you maybe even gathered this from my examples that we talked about. Oftentimes, what I liked the most about it is in Battlestar, those Variable Player Powers were very thematic.

We talked about the old Dune game, the way that you won as Bene Gesserit, very thematic, those kinds of things. I really enjoy that. It kind of draws me in and it helps to create those memorable moments in games where it's like, "Oh, remember we were playing this, and you were such-and-such and I was this, and I managed to do this with my special power and pull out the win or whatever?" I feel like you get that more often when you have those conversations as Variable Player Powers.

I mean, I can think about a number of times in Battlestar Galactica where that happens, where it's the Variable Player Power is the thing that caused the outcome, whether that was a win or a loss. Again, because they had negative ones in there, right? So it's like, "Oh, I needed to do this, but because I was so-and-so, I couldn't do it."

Dave Eng:

Speaking of other space theme games, I'd say like Star Wars: Rebellion, same way. I remember when we were playing, I was like, "Oh, you're producing three more Star Destroyers in this turn." And I have no ground troops at all on this planet that I'm trying to-

Brian Eng:

In fact, I think they did better. So there's the other Star Wars game that I play, Outer Rim. I think what they wanted was a game where you could create your own Star Wars stories, but I almost feel like the stories that were created out of a Star Wars: Rebellion felt more like you were creating a Star Wars story.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I would say so. And I think that didn't Star Wars: Rebellion also have a Rogue One like expansion? You remember that?

Brian Eng:

Yes, yes. It added more heroes and characters and things.

Dave Eng:

You could play as like Jyn Erso and Cassian?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, yeah. Because I think that was the only one that fit in the timeline.

Dave Eng:

Right. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Should I go on to my third and final?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Go ahead and...

Dave Eng:

Third and final like I should say.

Brian Eng:

Yes.

Dave Eng:

So I brought this up in the second point, which I said allows designers to spice the taste. I'm going to take this again from the player perspective. And I think that for the most part, if it's a game that is symmetrical and has Variable Player Powers, you as a player I think are empowered to be able to choose how when you use them. Some games, I know that this is one of the first modules. It's like if you want, you can play with secret objectives or hidden objectives or special objectives, or you could play with these variable player cards.

And I think that it gives designers a lot of agency, but it also gives players a lot of agency in determining how complex and complicated. To your point, Bri, you said with Cosmic Encounter, if you want, you could just give people just the green aliens, right? Because those are usually the easiest to play, or you could ramp it up and play something a lot more difficult, and I really like that flexibility with this mechanic.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Actually, one that comes to mind is Eclipse. So that game, I think they suggest if for your first games ... So you have different races, which are your Variable Player Powers, but on the back of everybody's race is the humans, which is your generic race. Like every sci-fi show, humans are the generic. And so you can play that game where everybody just plays as humans. Now, that's one where you are building yourself up, so everyone will build out differently, but you start all the same. But I think that game is much more enjoyable to me when everyone is playing their unique races. But yeah, if some people don't want to do that, they can always just flip over to the human side.

Dave Eng:

I didn't even know that was an option. I feel like it is almost-

Brian Eng:

I don't know if many people ... I think the only time I think my friends play it is if they get the race they don't like.

Dave Eng:

Oh, and they switch over to humans?

Brian Eng:

Because it does push you into a strategy, so it's not your play style or whatever. And they're just be like, "I'll just be humans."

Dave Eng:

That was another point that came up in my notes, Bri, about with Variable Player Powers and playing a specific race that it could be, "too much on rails." If you get this one race, you're like, "Oh, I didn't want to play like that, but now I have to because that's the race I drew."

Brian Eng:

Well, speaking of that ... Sorry, did you wrap up your third like?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I'm done with my likes. You want to go into dislike?

Brian Eng:

So let's move to dislikes.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

And I'll talk about my first dislike.

Dave Eng:

Okay. It's familiar.

Brian Eng:

Is that in certain situations, you can feel that you're kind of stuck in a certain role or play style. So again, what we're talking about, and I think I do have Eclipse in this one because I feel it has come up for me. It's not as prominent for me, but it has come up and I generally take it as a challenge to like, "Okay, I'm going to have to try to play this way because this is the efficient route for this variable." But I can see that as an issue.

In Eclipse, I think one of the ones that I don't like to play as much is, I think it's the Planta or whatever. They're the plants alien race, and you really need to spread out and claim territories very quickly in order to make use of them. And that's not my play style. I like to build up a little more Turtley. But I know that people feel that way in Scythe sometimes, which I'm surprised we never talked about Scythe at all yet in this episode.

Dave Eng:

Oh, it'll come up. It'll come up.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Is that faction player-mat combo where you could feel almost stuck in that. "Well, I kind of have to do this, because if I don't, I'm playing so sub optimally." So I don't like that feeling of it. I don't feel it comes up that often, but there are specific circumstances where I feel that way.

Dave Eng:

I think that being on rails can be a good or bad thing. I think that if you are an experienced gamer and you're like, "I want to play this way," it's bad. I think that if you are just new to the game or new to the hobby, it can be a good thing, because it's like, "Oh, okay, this is good. I have a direction." Because you know how if you're new to games and you're like, "I really have no idea what's going on." I think having that player power, it's like, "Okay, I have a direction to go in." If I'm playing, you said Planta, I think for Cosmic Encounter.

Brian Eng:

The Planta. Yeah. I think it's the Planta race.

Dave Eng:

You're like, "Okay, well, I don't know anything about this game, but all I know is that I got to just get on as many planets as possible." And that's something I can do. So I think that from a player experience, depending on who you are, it being on rails could be a good or bad thing.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Actually, an example is Terraforming Mars. So one of the small expansions is the Prelude. I don't think I'd ever play without it. It just gives you some starting resources.

Dave Eng:

Is that the corporation, it gives you a corporation too?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think that's what it is, this corporation. And basically, it just nudges you in a direction because that game can be fairly overwhelming when you start out because there's a lot of options and there's really bad, so you don't really have any focus. So that Prelude just kind of gives you just, "Well, you know what, if you start this way, you get a little bit of a head start." So it just gives you that little bit of direction.

I think the times where I feel that has been a negative experience for me is when you're stuck in something that you consider is ... I keep going back to Cosmic Encounter. There are some races in Cosmic Encounter that are considered a hard counter to another race. So one that I can think of is the Regenerator race. So when you have confrontations, the losing side, your ships go into the middle, it's called the warp, and then on your turn you can slowly get ships back from the warp. That's a standard mechanic. The Regenerator, I think they get their ships back from the warp faster. There is a race called the Void. Their ability is that when they win an encounter, all the ships that they were against get removed from the game entirely.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see.

Brian Eng:

So they don't go into the Void. So if you're playing as a Regenerator and someone has the Void, it's not that you can't win, it just feels that your ... Or for me, it feels like my player power has been completely nullified by this other player power. And again, that's why that game is not for ultra competitive people because those things exist because they have 200 something races.

So we try not to play combos like that. So we'll generally give three races to everyone and you can kind of choose one. But, yeah, I think that, that's kind of where I have the negative experience of this single role thing is when your single role feels completely nullified, that kind of can be a negative experience.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. And I think that speaks to my first dislike, which is with Cosmic Encounter, I think it's a very approachable way to introduce Variable Player Powers. But as the explainer for many games in the Banditos group, I think that true asymmetric games, I'm talking about Vast or Root is like a hell to teach, especially for Root, because it's like I have to teach you four different ways to play the game, because if you don't understand how this other player plays, then you're going to get completely smoked. So I think that if your group is up to it, it can't just be one person that wants to play Root. Everyone that's going to play Root...

Brian Eng:

No, everybody has got to buy into that one.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, because one person trying to do that rules teach is like I would not wish that on my worst enemy. It's so hard to teach.

Brian Eng:

Absolutely. That's a homework game. For my group, if we're going to play that, everyone needs to pre-learn and then we're still going to go over stuff before we start the game.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yeah, that's the thing. It's an events game, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dave Eng:

And that's why I guess a lot of people play it on a regular basis, because they already made the investment.

Brian Eng:

You've invested a lot of your brain into that game.

Dave Eng:

Right, right. So I don't like it from a teaching perspective, true asymmetry games.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So I also had that in my dislike. The increased learning curve. And for me, the negative for that, for me personally, yours is the teach. Mine is that those games, even if I enjoy them, it just means they don't get to the table. So games, again, like Root, I have played my copy of Root one time I think, it just can't stay. I don't play often enough and I don't have a regular enough group for it.

Additionally, I find that because of that extra learning, the game length will get long, and we usually have a specific window to play in, especially on your first play is going to be extra long, because everyone needs to learn that added load of not only learning your game, but now you got to learn everyone else. So again, it could be a challenge from a design standpoint. The games that do it well, where it's not a huge overhead to know everyone's powers and still feel like there's a big variety. Right?

Dave Eng:

Right, right. That was your second dislike then?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So my second was similar to yours for a different reason, I guess. Yes. All right, the third.

Dave Eng:

My second dislike.

Brian Eng:

Oh, yeah, sorry, your second. That was your first.

Dave Eng:

It's not necessarily going back to the teach, but I don't like it when a game has too many edge cases. I think there are definitely going to be games with edge cases, but I think that when it's always do this, this and this, unless this happens, and then if I need a complicated flow chart to figure it out, I'm just tuned out at that point, which is why I feel that if we're considering Pandemic and maybe Cosmic Encounter to be symmetrical games and Variable Player Powers.

I really like Scythe in that you get this really cool faction-mat combo, you'll get Rusviet and you'll get Industrial, which I think is a banned mat combo, because it's too strong, and then it gives you some sort of Rusviet's ability. I think it's an action selection game, so you normally cannot select the same action as last turn, but with Rusviet, you can continue to do the same action.

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

And then as an Industrial mat gives the player an additional bonus to producing stuff on their map. And I feel like it's like, "Okay, well, if you play Cosmic Encounter, you play Pandemic. If you want to play this other resource management Euro game, then here's another variable thing that's set up and everyone's a little bit different. Here's the thing that you can do that breaks the rule. And also, here's another incentive for your economic engine." And I think that's a lot more elegant than just having a ton of edge cases.

Brian Eng:

Right. And what you spoke about before too, something like Rising Sun where it's like everyone's got the same rules, but then each one just gets to break this one rule.

Dave Eng:

One rule. Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And then that keeps it manageable, right?

Dave Eng:

Mm-hmm.

Brian Eng:

It's funny, because you talk about Cosmic Encounter in that symmetrical in that everyone has the same goals. We're talking about complexity and that I think that very much depends on the races that you pick.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Because there's that one race, we just have to win one battle, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And not only that, part of the reason we give multiple, dish out three or four races and just pick is because some people don't want to remember all the things that some of the more complicated races have to do. Because there's one, I can't remember the name, but I think depending on how many colonies you have, your power changes.

Dave Eng:

Oh, it does?

Brian Eng:

So there's a big long list. And if you have one colony, now your power is this. And if you have two colonies, your power is this. And some of them are weaker, weak powers, like weaknesses. So you very wildly ... The game goes wild.

Dave Eng:

This is scale, right? It's like you get a really strong power, then a weak power.

Brian Eng:

No, no, it's just up and down and up and down.

Dave Eng:

Oh, that's crazy.

Brian Eng:

Again, it's fun, but it's chaotic and it's something to keep track of, right?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, yeah. So could you tank a player by giving them an extra colony, just so they would lose power?

Brian Eng:

I mean, that's a strategy, right? You want to keep them at this power because it's weak.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, so give them an extra colony.

Brian Eng:

Right. I think one of my favorite races, just from a thematic standpoint, I think they're called the Moocher. Their power is called Barge In. So when they fail to make a deal on an encounter ... So when you encounter, you can fight or you can negotiate and try and make a deal. If you fail, then usually, the deal is one for one. One colony I want to buy plans, one colony on one of your plans. If you fail, they have these galactic couch tokens and you get to put a couch in their system and put your ships on it, and it counts as you having a colony. So no matter what, you just get to have colonies in there system.

Dave Eng:

Because you're mooching?

Brian Eng:

Because you just mooch into there. And then once you have guys in the couch, anytime people have a conflict in that system, you can force any ships you have on the couches into ally, even if you're not invited.

Dave Eng:

Oh, really?

Brian Eng:

So then it gives you a lot of heads up. So again, just from a thematic and just thinking about these galactic moochers that just live on couches floating around.

Dave Eng:

We'll just be there a few days.

Brian Eng:

But yeah, it does create this weird edge thing that people forget about because it's like, "Oh, yeah, I forgot that you can just force your way in to these things and stuff." So some people like it, some people don't. I think it's hilarious.

Dave Eng:

I think it's funny. Yeah. Are we on third dislike now?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. So that was your second. So my third, it kind of related. I talked about kind of feeling stuck in the role or having your power negated. And one thing that is a hard thing with Variable Player Powers and how you design it is imbalance. Now, my complaint is not about them being imbalanced. My complaint is that when I play games that are highly variable, there's always complaints from people about how it's on balance.

Rising Sun is a classic one where people are just like, "Oh, you're going to win because you have Koi, they're the most powerful, whatever." So my complaint is really just hearing about the imbalance because part of the game to me is like, well, you just have to figure out how to overcome that. I mean, I think there's been a lot of discussion on that on the BGG forums about the clans, and I think someone had a huge spreadsheet of games and just said, "Nope, statistically, they're balanced."

So I think people don't argue about that anymore, but again, I think that when it comes to a game that has wildly different Variable Player Powers. Putting negotiation in is a way to counter that imbalance. Because the negotiation ultimately is how you say, "Okay, well, if they're so powerful and everyone knows that they're the most powerful, then everyone's going to make sure that they team up on them." That's the counter. So, yeah, my complaint is complaints about imbalance.

Dave Eng:

That's really funny, Bri, because that is very similar to my third dislike, which could make designing a balanced game a nightmare? I want to couch this, not to bring it back to the moochers, but I want to couch this in the fact that the games we've talked about are not positional abstracts. You're not designing Hive. You know what I mean?

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

These games don't have ... Nothing fits into neat boxes. Like you said before with Rising Sun and also with Cosmic Encounter, if everyone realizes that this person's player power is very powerful, then it needs to self-balance by the players conspiring against that other player.

But one, I think you have to assume that people know the game. They have the game literacy to recognize that, and they're grokking the fact that like, "Okay, well, this player is clearly going to take the lead. We need to do something about it." Or the thing with what I said about Empires, you can do this one thing so long as another player agrees to it.

First time I introduced that to someone, they're like, "I'll agree." I was like, "Whoa, hold on, hold on. You just can't agree for free, because if you do that, they're going to become super powerful. You got to do something." It just says so like as someone agrees, so it's like, "Yeah, but you don't have to agree. You don't have to help them."

Brian Eng:

Yes. Understanding that aspect of that game is very important. And actually, it's interesting. I've talked about my regular game group before, and there's another guy, Tom, and myself are usually the stronger players in the group. I mean, the meta has developed in our games that we play, whereas as we're setting up and picking our things in a game that has stuff like this and we pick things or pick our starting location or something, we immediately start talking about how the other person has such a big advantage and we need to stop him early, otherwise he's going to run away with the lead.

Dave Eng:

But it's only you and Tom, right?

Brian Eng:

But it's only me convincing the other people about who is the one who has the slight edge.

Dave Eng:

Have you played in that group, Bri? Has anyone been like, since you and Tom are fighting each other since you're the top two winningest players, a third person just sneaks in for the win while-

Brian Eng:

Oh, that's often what happens.

Dave Eng:

Oh, really?

Brian Eng:

Me and Tom are battling out directly, and depending on if we take too much attention or we focus too much attention on each other, that's our balance. We have to make sure that we're not only focusing on each other, because then other people come in while we've been preoccupied and take over.

Dave Eng:

And sweep in?

Brian Eng:

So it ends up working out. Other people win, but generally when it comes to efficient playing and things like that, we can definitely read the game quicker. He's very quick at picking up a strategy and generally not ... So we played a lot of X-Wing together, and he would come up with these crazy lists of combos that I'm usually pretty good at seeing broken combos, but he'll come up with weird strategies that I wouldn't think of and would seem crazy to me, but he could pull them off so they would work for him. That's what was nice about X-Wing. It's kind of like you play your style.

He would have some plan in mind and it would work out for him sometimes. That's why that game was fun for us too, because you just build your list how you want it, right? Yeah. So that would happen where we focused too much on each other, assuming that, that is the alpha threat of each other, and then just people will slide in, take it.

Dave Eng:

Classic mistake, Bri. You gave it up to the third player.

Brian Eng:

Well, that's why it's the constant ... That's why it's evolved and just convincing everyone else on the table that, "Oh, they have way too powerful of a position right now, we all need to gang up on them."

Dave Eng:

Need to stop them.

Brian Eng:

So, yeah. So I think that wraps up our dislikes.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Do you have anything for a bonus round, Bri, to talk about?

Brian Eng:

Any bonus rounds? Yeah, not really. I think we've talked about most of the stuff I've got listed here. Is there anything else you felt we left off here?

Dave Eng:

One thing that we didn't really talk about in depth, Bri, is engagement intention I think specifically with this mechanic. And I would say that you discussed it a little bit, I think a pro for Variable Player Powers is that like Cosmic Encounter, there's a personal investment in it. There's also think I think an innate curiosity, because I think that if you play games like Root and Cosmic Encounter regularly, you're going to want to try out the other factions.

Root is easy if you play with the same group, just rotate factions, always play a different faction. And with Cosmic Encounter, you could play years with different alien encounters. So I think that this makes the games much more replayable if it's a game that you already enjoy.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think I had that in kind of as a side in one of my likes, but yeah, creating that replayability with the combos is awesome for me.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Cosmic Encounter is the one with, I think you said 230 different alien powers.

Brian Eng:

And people are still creating variants because that's not enough for them.

Dave Eng:

But the cons I think are, like you said, with that one alien power, there's analysis paralysis because there's, basically, you have to track how many colonies you have and what specific power you have right now. There could be underpowered roles. Like you said, Cosmic Encounter is not really balanced. The balancing comes through the actual gameplay with the other players.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, they're not hiding the fact that they can't balance that many races.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I know. I like the fact that you allow players to just ... You get three races and you get to choose, because otherwise, you could get a really bad race or one that, like you said, is a hard counter, and then you're just going to be completely disengaged from the game if you had to.

Brian Eng:

I mean, it works the other way for me too. I want my power to be interesting. There are some powers that are just, in my opinion, kind of boring. So it's just like, "Eh, it's kind of boring."

Dave Eng:

Humans?

Brian Eng:

They do have the humans in there, I think.

Dave Eng:

Oh, wait, what is the game where you flip it over and you become human? I thought that was Cosmic-

Brian Eng:

That was Eclipse.

Dave Eng:

Oh, Eclipse.

Brian Eng:

Everybody could just be human if they want. I don't know if they call them humans or if they're like Terran or so something like that.

Dave Eng:

Terrans? Yeah.

Brian Eng:

But they're the generics that they don't excel in any one area. I think there is a human race in Cosmic Encounter. I don't remember what their ability is. I don't actually think they're boring, but they're poked fun in the card in a humorous way that they're supposed to be the boring race, but I don't actually think they are.

Dave Eng:

I'll think about what they would be.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I mean, I could probably.

Dave Eng:

I guess You could look it up, right? I'm trying to think about what is the human trope in Star Trek: Enterprise? The Andorians always make fun of the pink skins. Got to test my Star Trek lore, Bri. The Federation is founded by humans, Andorians, and Vulcans.

Brian Eng:

Vulcans.

Dave Eng:

Those were the first three?

Brian Eng:

Those are the first three. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Always makes encounters easier to win. You have the power of humanity. As a main player or ally after encounter cards are revealed, use this power to add four to your sides total. If this power is zapped, however, your side automatically wins the encounter. Oh, okay.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay.

Brian Eng:

So, yeah, it is kind of boring actually. So you just add four to your ... So in Cosmic Encounter, your ships, your total of your ships, and then you play a card with a number on it, and that's the battle. And whoever has a higher number generally wins outside of all the crazy rules, so they can add four.

Dave Eng:

So humans are kind of like a tiebreaker, right?

Brian Eng:

They can add four. Now, there's a card that's a zap card and that negates any alien race's power.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay.

Brian Eng:

So I think it's called the Loser race, and their power is when they win, they lose.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I was about to ask if there's a race like it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And when they lose, they win kind of thing, but their power is optional. That's what their power is.

Dave Eng:

Oh, they can choose?

Brian Eng:

So when you're going up against them, you don't know whether they're going to use their power. And I think you put your cards down first and then they decide whether they're going to be the winner, or they're going to use their power or not. So they don't see the cards yet, but you have to commit to something before whether they're going to switch it or not.

Dave Eng:

That's interesting.

Brian Eng:

So that's what makes it interesting. So it's kind of like a double bluff thing, right? Yeah. So if you're going up against them, you could zap them so that they can't use it on that specific encounter. Right? So if the humans ever get zapped, they just win. So I don't know why you'd ever zap them, but-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it seems kind of boring. I don't know about the other-

Brian Eng:

Oh, I guess if you have an ally with you, the ally could zap you because you can zap anybody.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see, I see.

Brian Eng:

And force the win then.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay.

Brian Eng:

But yes.

Dave Eng:

Okay, that makes more sense.

Brian Eng:

Their thing is a little boring.

Dave Eng:

I didn't have anything else on bonus round, Brian. That was the last thing.

Brian Eng:

No, I think that's it for me too. So I guess that wraps up our Variable Player Power episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects, and other information about us at www.universityxp.com

Dave Eng:

Thanks for joining us. We'd love it if you took some time to rate this show. We lift to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could benefit. Until next time, game on!

References

Area Majority/Influence – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Area Majority / Influence [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2080/area-majority-influence

Arthur Dallas. (n.d.). Alien Anthology Wiki. Fandom. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://alienanthology.fandom.com/wiki/Arthur_Dallas

Bagiartakis, V. (2023). Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory [Board game]. Hegemonic Project. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/321608/hegemony-lead-your-class-to-victory

Bagiartakis, V., & Timotheou, V. (2025). World Order [Board game]. Hegemonic Project Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/403150/world-order

Beach, E., Beach, M., & Cross, D. (2006). Here I Stand [Board game]. GMT Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17392/here-i-stand

Cathala, B., & Laget, S. (2005). Shadows over Camelot [Board game]. Days of Wonder. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot

Chan, D. K. (2020). Beyond the Sun [Board game]. Rio Grande Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/317985/beyond-the-sun

Cooperative Game – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Cooperative Game [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2023/cooperative-game

Deichmann, T. C. (2017). Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant [Board game]. WizKids. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/202426/sidereal-confluence

Dennen, P. (2020). Dune: Imperium [Board game]. Dire Wolf Digital. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/316554/dune-imperium

Eberle, B., Kittredge, J., & Olotka, P. (1979). Dune [Board game]. Avalon Hill. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121/dune

Eberle, B., Kittredge, J., & Olotka, P. (2019). Dune [Board game]. Gale Force Nine. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/283355/dune

Eberle, B., Kittredge, J., Norton, B., Olotka, P., & Wilson, K. (1977). *Cosmic Encounter* [Board game]. Eon Products / Fantasy Flight Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2024, May 5). AP Table Talk Tech Trees Tech Tracks. (No. 111) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/111

Eng, D. (2019, December 03). Core Loops. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/12/3/core-loops

Eng, D. (2019, October 08). Game Dynamics. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/10/8/game-dynamics

Eng, D. (2019, October 08). Game Dynamics. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/10/8/game-dynamics

Eng, D. (2019, September 10). The Player Experience. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/9/10/the-player-experience

Eng, D. (2019, September 26). Game Theme. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/9/26/game-theme

Eng, D. (2020, August 20). What is Player Agency? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from http://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/8/20/what-is-player-agency

Eng, D. (2020, December 3). Game Mechanics for Learning. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from http://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/12/3/game-mechanics-for-learning

Eng, D. (2020, February 13). Engagement Curves. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/2/13/engagement-curves

Eng, D. (2020, January 09). Socializing Games. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/1/9/socializing-games

Eng, D. (2021, July 27). How to teach someone to play a game. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2021/7/27/how-to-teach-someone-to-play-a-game

Eng, D. (2022, March 29). What is Game Balance? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2022/3/29/what-is-game-balance

Eng, D. (2022, October 25). What is Analysis Paralysis? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2022/10/25/what-is-analysis-paralysis

Eng, D. (2022, September 27). What is Strategy in Gameplay? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2022/9/27/what-is-strategy-in-gameplay

Eng, D. (2023, August 8). What is Game Literacy? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2023/8/8/what-is-game-literacy

Eng, D. (2024, November 19). Types of Games. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2024/11/19/types-of-games

Eng, D. (2025, March 25). What are Role-Playing Games? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2025/3/24/what-are-role-playing-games

Eng, D. (2025, September 9). What are Military Simulations? Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2025/9/4/what-are-military-simulations

Fryxelius, J. (2016). Terraforming Mars [Board game]. FryxGames / Stronghold Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167791/terraforming-mars

Fryxelius, J. (2018). Terraforming Mars: Prelude [Board game]. FryxGames / Stronghold Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/247030/terraforming-mars-prelude

Gilbert Kane. (n.d.). Alien Anthology Wiki. Fandom. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://alienanthology.fandom.com/wiki/Gilbert_Kane

Hidden Victory Points – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Hidden Victory Points [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2987/hidden-victory-points

Jackson, S. (1977). Ogre [Board game]. Steve Jackson Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5206/ogre

Keyaerts, P. (2009). Small World [Board game]. Days of Wonder. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world

Knizia, R. (1999). Money! [Board game]. Gryphon Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/125/money

Knizia, R. (2024). Rebirth [Board game]. Mighty Boards. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/417197/rebirth

Konieczka, C. (2008). Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game [Board game]. Fantasy Flight Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37111/battlestar-galactica-the-board-game

Konieczka, C. (2017). Star Wars: Rebellion – Rise of the Empire [Board game]. Fantasy Flight Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/226840/star-wars-rebellion-rise-of-the-empire

Konieczka, C., & Fanchi, T. (2019). Star Wars: Outer Rim [Board game]. Fantasy Flight Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/271896/star-wars-outer-rim

Lacerda, V. (2020). On Mars [Board game]. Eagle-Gryphon Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/184267/on-mars

Lang, E. M. (2018). Rising Sun [Board game]. CMON Limited. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/205896/rising-sun

Leacock, M. (2008). Pandemic [Board game]. Z-Man Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic

Leacock, M. (2025). The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship [Board game]. Z-Man Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/436217/the-lord-of-the-rings-fate-of-the-fellowship

Leder, P., & Somerville, D. (2016). Vast: The Crystal Caverns [Board game]. Leder Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/170416/vast-the-crystal-caverns

Loser. (n.d.). Cosmic Encounter Wiki. Fandom. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://cosmicencounter.fandom.com/wiki/Loser

Ludogogy. (2022, January 13). Win states in games to keep players playing. Winning Issue. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://ludogogy.professorgame.com/article/designing-win-states-in-games-to-keep-players-playing/

Matthews, J., & Gupta, A. (2005). Twilight Struggle [Board game]. GMT Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12333/twilight-struggle

Negotiation – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Negotiation [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2915/negotiation

Plant. (n.d.). Cosmic Encounter Wiki. Fandom. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://cosmicencounter.fandom.com/wiki/Plant

Remond, L. (2023). Sky Team [Board game]. Le Scorpion Masque. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/373106/sky-team

Rogers, S. (2021). Alien: Fate of the Nostromo [Board game]. Ravensburger. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/332321/alien-fate-of-the-nostromo

Samuel Brett. (n.d.). Xenopedia. Fandom. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Samuel_Brett

Seyfarth, A. (2002). Puerto Rico [Board game]. Alea / Ravensburger. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico

So Very Wrong About Games. (n.d.). So Very Wrong About Games [Website]. Retrieved October 21, 2025, from https://www.sowronggames.com/

Stegmaier, J. (2016). Scythe [Board game]. Stonemaier Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169786/scythe

Tahkokallio, T. (2020). Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy [Board game]. Lautapelit .fi. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/246900/eclipse-second-dawn-for-the-galaxy

Traitor Game – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Traitor Game [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2814/traitor-game

Vallejo, I. (2012). Sunrise City [Board game]. Clever Mojo Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/97357/sunrise-city

Variable Player Powers – BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek. (n.d.). Variable Player Powers [Board game mechanic]. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2015/variable-player-powers

Watch It Played. (2025, May 29). The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship – How to Play [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhCfFQVlT7M

Wehrle, C. (2018). Root [Board game]. Leder Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/237182/root

Yianni, J. (2001). Hive [Board game]. Gen42 Games. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive

Cite this Episode:

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2025, December 14). AP Table Talk: Variable Player Powers. (No. 153) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/153

Internal Ref: UXPD9PNPT34S