[Death's Head]
FetusCommander:
I've been thinking over the discussion in this thread for the past couple days, and I'll have to admit that I'm kinda at a loss as far as the issue with the game ending before the hordes stage. The reason I wanted that to be a possibility is to give people some reason to try for check/checkmate in the camp phase before the hordes come. Thematically, that maneuvering is pretty important (that is, it's important that players not feel afraid to play aggressively in the first half because they're the ones oppressing; then for the second half, that gets flipped around on them).
I'm not sure I want to pursue the suggestion William made, both for the reason Julie mentioned, and because of the fact that I wanted the onset of the hordes stage to be somewhat of a surprise to the GM as well as the players.
I'm really going to have to think more about this.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Rudy,
Maybe we're all making it harder than it is. I stepped back a little and thought in terms of pure function.
1. There needs to be a signal to mark the chessboard flip and the in-game onset of the hordes.
2. This signal needs to be unpredictable in some way so that it's not a countdown.
3. Pre-signal play has no required content that we have to get to that might be undercut by the signal (although it's not trivial), so if it kicks off early, that's OK.
A (my thought). Play should not conclude via checkmate prior to the signal. So the only issue is whether it happens too late.
All of this seems perfectly sensible and I think randomized music is an excellent signal device. The more I thought about it, the only thing that concerned me was having so many songs, and the checkmate overtakes the signal.
I suggest thinking of this as an edge case, and if the edge is too likely, then adjust the rules for the number of songs or the organization of the signal, or anything of that sort, to narrow it to a small possibility. And come up with some kind of rule to handle it if it happens.
And that leads me to one other point, which is at the moment, we're knotting our heads over something that has not been observed as a problem in play for real. Maybe that's actually the first step - play it as written, with the music, and see how it goes over a number of cases.
Best, Ron
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