Modified Rules for Four-Player Games

[TheRadGasm]

I wasn't sure where to post this, but since it's fun, fan-made and unofficial, it seemed most appropriate here.

So, the existing four-player rules still leave something to be desired IMHO: there is relatively little interaction between team-mates and battlefields, so that it still only feels like "parallel play."

Here are the house rules I've put into effect - while their differences from the standard four-player rules are subtle, they address the major problems fairly well, and make four-player games as interesting as I feel they should be.

Please post your feedback, questions, & suggestions here, and try a game with these rules first - see if you don't like it better than the standard four-player rules.


Four-PlayerSummoner Wars: House Rules (1.1β) [PDF]

Players 1 & 3 are allies against Players 2 & 4. The highest roller determines which player goes first (ie. who will be “Player 1”), and standard first-turn rules apply. Turns go 1-2-3-4, repeating (see image).

1. a) Allies share one communal Magic pile and one communal discard pile.

b) “Your side of the Battlefield” refers to your team's collective half of the gameplay area.

2. Units may move and attack freely between the two Battlefields as if the inner buffer between the game boards did not exist. The outer edges of the Battlefield are absolute.

3. During your turn, your ally's Walls are considered “under your control” – you may summon to spaces adjacent to them, and Events/abilities that affect/employ Walls which “you control” extend to your ally's Walls as well.

4. During your turn, you may not Move or Attack with your ally's Units, but Events/abilities that affect/employ Units which “you control” extend to your ally's Units as well (eg. The Demagogue may mutate his ally's common Units).

5. Events which stay in effect “for the duration of your turn” will remain in effect for the duration of your ally's turn as well. Events which are in effect during an opponent's turn remain in effect for the duration of both opponents' turns. Multiple Events in play remain active simultaneously (“stacking”).

6. When your Summoner is Destroyed:

• Your Summoner goes to the Magic pile of the player who destroyed it.
• All of your faction's Units and active Events are discarded; however, your Walls remain in play.
• Any enemy Units under your influence (eg. “Mind Control”) return to the control of their original Summoner; if the original Summoner of a given Unit has already been destroyed, that Unit is discarded.
• Your Draw pile and hand are discarded; your team's Magic / discard piles are otherwise unaffected.
• You are skipped in the turn order for the remainder of the game (ie. the surviving player doesn't get double-turns).

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Three-Player Variation:

Games where one player is responsible for two Summoners follow all of the above rules, but with the following exceptions:

1. The turn-order is 1-2-3 repeating, where “Players 1 & 2” are always allys against the combined forces of “Player 3”.
   
2. During the first round, “Player 1” skips his turn entirely, but “Player 2” takes his turn normally.
   
3. “Player 3” draws from one combined deck, instead of two separate ones.
   
4. On each turn, “Player 3” begins with ten cards, may move up to six units up to two spaces each, and may attack with up to six Units.

[Joseph]

Seems really, cool, i will try this when i can get 4 people who wanna play. Say more later when i am not so tired.

[I LIKE TAU!]

Most of this is the same or extremely similar to the real rules. Why did you get rid of the wrap around? It works well.

[TheRadGasm]

Most of this is the same or extremely similar to the real rules. Why did you get rid of the wrap around? It works well.

Really, the only reason we ditched it was because nobody on my end seemed to like it... it doesn't make a ton of logical sense to the in-game universe, mainly, So, to answer your question: no real reason. We just feel like it's silly, and it breaks immersion because it reminds us of Pac-man.

Like I said at the top, the differences between the standard and house rules are subtle, but encourage more cross-board play and team-mate collusion.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

that Pacman thing you describe is exactly to encourage cross play. IMO is what makes it interesting over the 2 player. With so many summons from a single wall, well I feel it would quickly devolve into all the action on one half of the board trying to gang up on a summoner.

[Joseph]

I would never do that, because that just instigates the rushed player's ally to kill your summoner. If you protect it, the enemy will come to his aid. I find that this may encourage a wider expanse of game play, with units often soloing, due to the huge area of play. Or, on the other side of the unit line, would be massing up. All the extra elbow room is very good for a common swarm, this slight set of rule changes will probaly increaese comon play, or decrease it when people play it.

[esper88]

Might I suggest a communal discard pile? This would make FK and FL usable in this format without too much thought.

[Joseph]

Yes, that would be good. It also allows the fL ad FK to funnel without losing cards that they need.

[chardris77]

I always use communal discard piles in normal 4 player anyway.

[TheRadGasm]

I still need to playtest these rules a lot more (it's hard to get 4 people! Especially into a theme game...), but working without the wraparound has been quite good. For some reason, I'm seeing more victories from players who've lost their Allies; not sure why.

In the long run, I'm concerned that losing the wraparound will allow an exploit where one player can castle their Summoner and just camp out there in the corner, but that isn't necessarily a great strategy, since Summoners are such power-players, and walling one in is a sizeable sacrifice. Only time will tell, though, so please keep trying these rules.

Oh, and if castling does become an issue, we can change 'summon to Ally's walls' to make it more expensive (this will make castling an even grater sacrifice because players will be losing summoning space), but leave in 'control Ally's walls.' IMHO, still a better solution than Pac-Man boards.