Let's Talk About Root

www.twitch.tv/videos/889112238

The other faction coming up in their kickstarter, the badgers. I think this one looks way cooler than the warlord, but it's because I'm not a huge FIGHT EM IN EVERY CORNER dudes on a map person. This one looks cool.

Glad they're focusing on 2p, actually, I think it's a game that is *just* missing something to make a good 2p. Apparently the minor factions are a big add to help 2p work better, so I'll be fascinated to see how those are when the kickstarter comes up next month or so.

www.twitch.tv/videos/898385041

I'm actually most excited about the minor factions. They look incredible. Their description starts around 30 minutes in after the idea behind the two new factions is done.

Much more excited about this expansion now, the badgers look like my jam and the minor factions are huge flavor and character (and catch-up mechanism).

There's a fuckin bear minor faction.

New kickstarter for warlord, badgers, minor factions, etc. is February 23rd, btw.

Yeah, I've been following the threads as they've been introducing the Lord of the Hundreds (rats, otherwise known as the Warlord) and the Stone Seekers (badgers; soon to be known as something else, as someone brought up the potential offense of a faction known as the "SS"...)

They sound really interesting. I'm a little more sanguine about the rats, since they have a direct function and also get the items more involved, even if you don't have a Vagabond. The badgers... Eh. I like a lot of the concepts around them, but they're in an earlier stage of development than the rats and I think there are still some clunky parts to them.

I also like the advanced setup rules that they've been discussing, mostly because it frees up the choice of starting positions for the various factions and brings aspects of them into play that are often difficult. For example, the Lizards start with two Acolytes. I've played entire games with the Lizards where I barely got to two Acolytes because no one will fight you, which gives you more freedom, but also makes it feel like you're playing with a gimped faction unless someone will actually engage with you. One of the coolest parts about the Lizards are their conspiracies, so it will be nice to have earlier access to them (or access at all.)

I am most excited about the Badgers, interestingly, though I agree they appear to be earlier in development. I really like the bank heist vibe where you can threaten their assets till they get off their board. Fun dynamic.

I get the strong impression that the other reason they did the advanced setup besides their most stated reason of the system wasn't built to accomodate so many faction setups, is that it gives them a chance to rebalance the factions using setup. I look forward to that pretty enthusiastically, honestly.

www.twitch.tv/videos/912621736

This is probably the best game of Root I've ever seen (most exciting), with reasonably skilled players. Well worth a watch if you do that sort of thing.

Literally going to go home and get my boxes out and play a bot because of it.

Jackwraith wrote: Yeah, I've been following the threads as they've been introducing the Lord of the Hundreds (rats, otherwise known as the Warlord) and the Stone Seekers (badgers; soon to be known as something else, as someone brought up the potential offense of a faction known as the "SS"...)

Society of Badgers gets my vote. I'm down with playing the SOBs.

I got my Root bots out to do some therapeutic meeple pushing. Had to glue a bird back together that split in half with some wood glue! Wish the cat bot was as good as the eyrie bot, which isn't bad at all.

I watched a stream of the badger and rat warlord from the expansion kickstartering next week playing a 2p game. It wasn't especially well played or anything but I hadn't seen them in action before. The rat warlord feels like it represents a real hard kick in the nuts for the vagabond, since it is another player competing to take the ruins *and* the warlord is trying to get crafted items to enhance its powers.

I'm pretty meh on the vagabond in terms of its power and especially its effect on the game state, so anything that is organically incentivized to try to beat it down rather than having the players at the table negotiate to punch the Vagabond one to two times early in the game is good.

Agreed. I recognize the role of the Vagabond as kind of both a walking clock on the game state so that the military factions don't turn a 2-hour game into a 3-hour game with a stalemate or turtling AND as the counterpoint to a great item card draw, such that someone is enabled to win just by sitting in a corner and crafting. Do that too often and the Vagabond will steal the game from you.

However, I think the incentives to be the opportunist and, indeed, steal the game from the other players are a significant flaw in the design. In short, too often it's simply too easy to win as the Vagabond, mostly because you both lack many of the restraints of the other factions and are specifically tuned to take advantage of their normal paths to victory. I've seen one too many Vagabond victories and almost none of them have been satisfying for the other players involved. We often left him out in our more recent pre-pandemic ventures in the Woodland.

Edit: This is the Oath thread, BTW.

Argh, let me move these posts. I have a feeble mind these days.

Jackwraith wrote: I've seen one too many Vagabond victories and almost none of them have been satisfying for the other players involved. We often left him out in our more recent pre-pandemic ventures in the Woodland.

Having watched a good amount of streamed Root, I agree with this. In particular, there are a few of the versions of the vagabond which are quite powerful. The Harrier, for example, is savage if it gets a few swords. The Tinker has always been good too. The one that can step into fight with other characters I've seen used to good effect too (named the arbiter maybe?). The sheer ability of the Vagabond to, with ease, cleave through large stacks of warriors (for victory points!!!) is almost greater than any other faction besides maybe a well played Eyrie. Which really does not feel like what they were going for. You'd have to be a complete fool to ever engage the quest mechanic.

I’ve seen Tinkers quest to good effect, but I admit that our Vagabonds often trend towards the passive. I like the riverfolk more for a card delivery system to other players.

www.twitch.tv/spacecatspeaceturtles/video/922074740

The SCPT finals game was VERY good as well, well worth a watch if you don't mind SCPT hosts. I find them mostly fine.

Root expansions up tomorrow on Kickstarter.

Gary Sax wrote: www.twitch.tv/spacecatspeaceturtles/video/922074740

The SCPT finals game was VERY good as well, well worth a watch if you don't mind SCPT hosts. I find them mostly fine.

Root expansions up tomorrow on Kickstarter.

Watched it.



As cool as the expansion sounds, I'm not sure if I'll back it. I'll see how I feel about Root when it hits retail I think and see if the world is more normal by then.