Unmatched covered on GftC this week.

Our game this week is Unmatched, which has generated some discussion here recently.

gamesfromthecellar.com/episodes/unmatched

Just stewing on it some more one of the things I've concluded is that the Pathfinder notation on the boards overpowers any artistic impression of the location, which is relatively thin to start. The underlying picture serves little purpose thematically, and may detract. I appreciate why they went big, but there was a cost for that, and I can envision other options that might have been better choices.

I'd be very curious to rehost this game on different maps, from Epic Duels or Heroscape to see how it changes.

I agree with everything about the maps. I would like to try Battle of Legends Volume Two and maybe one of the Marvel Sets, seems like there are things that make the maps more interesting.

I also have a few ideas for modular "points of interest" that might spice things up.

This was one of the rare few times that we disagreed on a game. It ended up being a pretty interesting conversation.

They have added points/mechanisms that do make the maps somewhat more interesting (doors, high ground, one-way paths, secret passages, etc.) but I have some question about just how much that adds to each game. You can do some fairly elaborate stuff with Invisible Man's cloud-movement along with the secret passages on the Cobble and Fog maps, but that's largely tied to that character. As I mentioned in the Played thread, the restrictions on the Raptor pen (six ways in, only one way out) did have an impact on our game between Bloody Mary and Yennenga, but the net result was a restriction on the melee character (Mary) and an advantage for the ranged character (Yennenga), so getting one map labeled as "Don't play this unless you're both melee or both ranged" was probably not the intent. And, yeah, the collection of circles completely overwhelms the visual design.

I haven't played any of the Marvel sets, as I was happy playing the game with largely non-IP-related characters (I haven't played the Buffy stuff or the Jurassic Park characters (just the map for the latter), either.), which is a direct contrast to Funkoverse. But I can't say I'm not tempted to return to old school Frank Miller (Daredevil, Bullseye, Elektra) and Bill Mantlo (Cloak and Dagger.)

I have some random questions for you - I was looking through some of the later sets and see that they include maps in the Tannhauser style.

How do they play? Are they easy enough to use? Do you have a preference for either style?

They tried that for a couple of maps on the reverse side, and I found them easy enough to use and definitely prefer this method. But they must have proven unpopular as they ditched that after two releases.

[Place Charlie's response here.]

I've never played Tannhauser, so I don't know how well they got it, but they aren't radically different from the way the original maps function. I don't have a particular preference. The maps in Unmatched are just this side of superfluous, which is something I'll go into some detail on.

I guess it wasn't a matter of function, but rather a matter of emersion.
I guess we just have to come to grips with the fact that the underlying map itself is, as you say, superfluous, and more a abstracted representation of proximity and not really a representation of setting.

Yeah, that's part of the nature of the game, I think. In Funkoverse, for example, the maps don't really have any special conditions. Those are included in whatever scenario you're playing. The difference is layout to layout, such that a couple of Harry Potter maps have huge statues in the middle that change the approach from what it would be in Halloween Town if you happened to be playing the Leaders scenario on either of those maps. But the art design is front-and-center in that game, which means that you know you're playing in Halloween Town if you're on that map, while it's definitely second place in Unmatched to the point where the background really doesn't tell you that you're playing in the Hanging Gardens. But there's some mechanical stuff going on in both games, too.

I just reread the rulebook for Epic Duels and now I'm fired up to play it again. Unmatched has significantly less in common with it than I remembered.

Unmatched seems to have removed the seat-of-your-pants parts of Epic Duels. Might be why Unmatched feels so much more procedural.

I picked up some generic Star Wars miniature maps (not sure for what game) at Gen Con one year that work great for Epic Duels. You have to make some judgement calls every now and then on if terrain is blocking, but it's not that hard to agree on. I really should break it out again...

one question Sag, do you type the transcripts by hand or do you use some kind of voice recognition program for it?

Erik Twice wrote: one question Sag, do you type the transcripts by hand or do you use some kind of voice recognition program for it?

I use Descript for the transcript - mainly because I can make the transcript youtube videos we've been testing out easily with it.
For our show notes, I use podium.page.

Cappster_ wrote:

Erik Twice wrote: one question Sag, do you type the transcripts by hand or do you use some kind of voice recognition program for it?

I use Descript for the transcript - mainly because I can make the transcript youtube videos we've been testing out easily with it.
For our show notes, I use podium.page.

As you can see, I'm just the pretty face. Capp does all the smart stuff.

Just played Epic Duels for the first time in ten years.