Re: "Inferior", was Re: Just wondering.....

On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Sure. Of course, once I figure out roughly how badly overpriced they
are, 
> I'll adjust their costs downwards for use in friendly games.

But then you'd be playing an unsanctioned, unofficial house variant :-)

Sadly, for certain games/gamers, this is a major point. 

Even with less anal retentive gamers, it tends to destroy playability
with
strangers. If I could get a dime for every time I tried to play Car Wars

only to find out halfway through the game that the opponent had either
 - used house rules without telling me
 - seriously misunderstood basic rules (14,000lb. lux cars! hello? 
reality check?)
 - never heard of the current errata...

> expensive (in game points terms). In that way you can maintain some
sort 
> of balance. 

I don't know... if it's powerful but overpriced, people will play it a
few
times to see the xyzzygun in play, but sooner or later they will realize
the stuff is not worth the cost and either stop using it or change the
costs. 

If it's weak and still overpriced, you might not even get to the testing

phase unless the stuff is especially colorful/different. Who wants to
try 
out "mini-laser: exactly as pulse laser, but half damage"?

> Of course, if it _is_ correctly priced/sized, it isn't 
> "superior" any longer :)

Exactly.

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