Firefly PBF game 1

It’s definitely a fun solo game although it’s an Arkham Horror-beater in size. A bit more variety in the solo objectives would be nice but I believe there’s BGG mods to make the multiplayer objectives solo.

Wow. Did I make regruntling a real word?

Oh… it appears to actual be a word! I thought I’d made it up. This is borborygmi all over again.

I’m afraid you’re not even the first person to use it in a game of Firefly.

The base map is 30" × 20", and it comes up to 50" × 20" with Blue Sun and Kalidasa (76-127cm × 51cm). Here’s a pre-game setup on my 2.6m × 1m table from a few years ago :

Of the nine ship cards on the right, the ones that aren’t picked are put away, which gives a bit more space. The spaces currently occupied by stacks of poker chips in front of each chair become the player areas (25cm deep per player). Each supply and contact deck is in a two-part business card holder so that it can be passed around the table when people want to look at the discards; on the right you can also see the big holder for other decks. (ETA: apparently this is from before I also got the big card holder.)

4 Likes

@Scribbs! You were supposed to get eaten by Reavers! Now the fun is over. :frowning:

In all seriousness, congrats and well-played. A huge “thank you” to @RogerBW for running this monster of a game. After setting up the physical base game, one can see just how massive it must be with all the expansions thrown in. Probably rivals TI4. It is a ton of fun though and well worth it. Administering it with 6 players had to be a nightmare!

Thanks to all the other players as well. You made the 'Verse less lonely.

4 Likes

Had I known that River and Simon were in the Persephone deck, I would have stayed there much longer at the start of the game to try and find them! Maybe if the location decks were split into crew and gear/upgrades piles that may help players search for what they need quicker.

On the jobs front, I was enjoying the idea of the passenger/fugitive runs. They were looking profitable especially as it seemed that I could avoid Reaver trouble through my Electronic Defense Suite but I knew that as soon as I had the money I was going to make a stab for the three goals to see how that process worked, especially as my jobs largely kept me over that right side of the board. (I would have got away with it too if it wasn’t for those pesky Alliance!) I was surprised that few others wanted to push for the goals but none of you seemed to hang around Red Sun much. Perhaps another overall goal card may have made it more of a race if players could complete their goals while scattered around the Verse.

Another thing I did feel is that it largely felt like a solo game given the relative lack of player interaction we had. I barely followed where the other players were and what crew, gear, upgrades and jobs they had. It was only once I realised that Scribbs was starting goal one that I started to pay more attention - and hoped that those Reavers hovering around Boros would have had more affect than they ended up having.

4 Likes

I think in person I would recommend using tricks like the player to the left handles the misbehave and nav decks to force a feeling of interaction.

2 Likes

The fastest Fly routine I’ve found is to have the active player call “alliance” or “border” or “rim”, while the nav-card-handling player (anyone other than the player to the right) turns the cards and says “keep flying” or “problem”.

And of course the last action of a turn that doesn’t affect other people (Buy or Deal when there’s nobody else near that contact/supply) is a standard thing. But looking through the discard piles when it’s not your turn is also worth doing.

Yeah, I could see having one player be the banker, one handle jobs, one handle items, and one handle the Nav decks. That would keep everyone involved with something most of the time.

1 Like

The dinosaur thing: if my second action is to Buy at Silverhold, I want to look through the discard pile and that could take a while, so I pass the dinosaur (active player marker) to the next player and they can start their turn – as long as they don’t want the Silverhold deck. Sometimes everyone else can take their turns and the dinosaur can catch up before I’ve finished my Buy, which is embarrassing. That’s why each deck plus discard lives in a separate card holder, so that they can be passed round the table.

The Nav Card Player will also want to fly, so “whoever’s nearest” can also work well.

1 Like

Only just saw your offer to run but I’d be up for both of those.

1 Like

Keep 'em peeled then for when I make recruitment posts. Hopefully one night soon I’ll test some of the Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks dice roll dilemmas here to see how feasible it would be to run that - which would be especially nice as I see that Gale Force 9 have advertised a new print or at least new look of the game featuring the 13th Doctor in the core game on some upcoming slacker project called “AwShux” I think …

If it doesn’t seem practical with all of its rerolls and dice face changes, then it’ll be A Touch of Evil again - either the base game again or maybe adding in the Something Wicked expansion board and one of those Villains. Whatever it is, it won’t start until that first week of May as I’m away that first weekend in May.

2 Likes