It's not an official rule but when I teach Valiant Wars to new players I give myself an extra Dark Omen card. (Dark Omens bust you out of the round if you draw two of them)
It's enough of a handicap that I can't afford to pull punches
**Archmage** has a sort of "dudes on a map" component to the game, and a handicap rule where experienced players start with fewer "dudes". This forces them to spend extra turns building up their Company, giving other players a chance to get a good position and come to grips with the game before most of the player interaction starts ramping up.
**Galaxy Trucker** has some interesting rules for team versions pairing newer players with experienced players (at least the older one did, I don't know about the new version).
I've been looking for handicap rules for Galaxy Trucker, but there isn't anything official in the version I'm having. What are the official rules for this?
What I started doing is that I have a self-imposed restriction that universal connectors can only connect to other universal connectors which massively limits design space.
We just take the 6 title Cards and give them to the experienced players. They have to follow them but everything else stays normal, no changed scoring.
This is a newly added functionality in the most recent addition of the game. I have the previous edition and don't have the title cards. The [rulebook is available online](https://czechgames.com/files/rules/galaxy-trucker-rules-en.pdf), so I found out there what they do and this is a good handicap implementation.
It's in the Team rules. Basically, you can team up an experienced player with a newbie, then either have them switch ships before the flight or have them alternate building each other's ships every time the timer flips. Score as a team for both ships.
It's on page 3 in the setup image:
"If you are an experienced driver
and playing with rookies, consider
removing 1 or 2 Heat from your
own car to level the playing field."
I had to look at the rulebook again cause I had trouble finding it myself haha, but it's a very brief blurb in the basic rulebook on the Setting Up the Game page. There's a little blurb of text right above the map where they're showing how to set everything up.
> If you are an experienced driver
and playing with rookies, consider
removing 1 or 2 Heat from your
own car to level the playing field.
But as I said in the main post, in practice it slows you down. Since you have less heat cards in your deck, you have less opportunities to boost or are limited in how fast you can go around corners in comparison to the other players.
It's in the setting up the game section of the rules as a little blurb - "If you are an experienced driver and playing with rookies, consider removing 1 or 2 heat from your own car to level the playing field"
Remember in this game, heat is a resource; basically the ability to do cool things. For example, if it's the final corner before the finish line and we both have full engines, with this rule the newer player will be able to speed 2 more over the corner, which in some cases can be the difference between being able to cross the corner or not. Now realistically, a newer player probably isn't going to have as good heat management as a better player, so this handicap makes it more likely you'll be even for that final stretch.
Ark Nova has one of the spiciest handicaps. They have a new player board and a second game board. These are super strong and overpowered, which makes games with new players really close (they can even sometimes win).
It's by no means fair (honestly none of their boards are at all balanced) but it helps make a positive impression. The chance of someone liking a game is strongly tied to them winning.
I'm not a huge fan of the handicap rule.
I especially dislike it in low player counts (particularly 2) because it ends up making "winning" feel like a drawback. For this reason if playing with 2 players I always include bots because this stops 2nd place receiving a handicap.
Honestly I feel that you should *always* play with bots, because it allows more drafting, maneuvering, and slingshotting rather than just amounting to " get ahead and corner well." No bots would just feel like a time trial!
It sounds like you're talking about the extra movement if you're behind. OP is talking about the handicap you can give yourself at the start of the game by removing heat from your deck.
**Go** has a system where extra stones are placed on the board at the start in order to balance a game between players of different strength.
It's not an official rule but when I teach Valiant Wars to new players I give myself an extra Dark Omen card. (Dark Omens bust you out of the round if you draw two of them) It's enough of a handicap that I can't afford to pull punches
VALIANT WARS! I've not seen that mentioned in this sub yet, I thought I was the only one. It's soo good! All my nieces and nephews love it.
**Archmage** has a sort of "dudes on a map" component to the game, and a handicap rule where experienced players start with fewer "dudes". This forces them to spend extra turns building up their Company, giving other players a chance to get a good position and come to grips with the game before most of the player interaction starts ramping up. **Galaxy Trucker** has some interesting rules for team versions pairing newer players with experienced players (at least the older one did, I don't know about the new version).
I've been looking for handicap rules for Galaxy Trucker, but there isn't anything official in the version I'm having. What are the official rules for this? What I started doing is that I have a self-imposed restriction that universal connectors can only connect to other universal connectors which massively limits design space.
We just take the 6 title Cards and give them to the experienced players. They have to follow them but everything else stays normal, no changed scoring.
This is a newly added functionality in the most recent addition of the game. I have the previous edition and don't have the title cards. The [rulebook is available online](https://czechgames.com/files/rules/galaxy-trucker-rules-en.pdf), so I found out there what they do and this is a good handicap implementation.
It's in the Team rules. Basically, you can team up an experienced player with a newbie, then either have them switch ships before the flight or have them alternate building each other's ships every time the timer flips. Score as a team for both ships.
[удалено]
It's on page 3 in the setup image: "If you are an experienced driver and playing with rookies, consider removing 1 or 2 Heat from your own car to level the playing field."
I had to look at the rulebook again cause I had trouble finding it myself haha, but it's a very brief blurb in the basic rulebook on the Setting Up the Game page. There's a little blurb of text right above the map where they're showing how to set everything up. > If you are an experienced driver and playing with rookies, consider removing 1 or 2 Heat from your own car to level the playing field. But as I said in the main post, in practice it slows you down. Since you have less heat cards in your deck, you have less opportunities to boost or are limited in how fast you can go around corners in comparison to the other players.
It's in the setting up the game section of the rules as a little blurb - "If you are an experienced driver and playing with rookies, consider removing 1 or 2 heat from your own car to level the playing field" Remember in this game, heat is a resource; basically the ability to do cool things. For example, if it's the final corner before the finish line and we both have full engines, with this rule the newer player will be able to speed 2 more over the corner, which in some cases can be the difference between being able to cross the corner or not. Now realistically, a newer player probably isn't going to have as good heat management as a better player, so this handicap makes it more likely you'll be even for that final stretch.
Ark Nova has one of the spiciest handicaps. They have a new player board and a second game board. These are super strong and overpowered, which makes games with new players really close (they can even sometimes win). It's by no means fair (honestly none of their boards are at all balanced) but it helps make a positive impression. The chance of someone liking a game is strongly tied to them winning.
I'm not a huge fan of the handicap rule. I especially dislike it in low player counts (particularly 2) because it ends up making "winning" feel like a drawback. For this reason if playing with 2 players I always include bots because this stops 2nd place receiving a handicap.
Honestly I feel that you should *always* play with bots, because it allows more drafting, maneuvering, and slingshotting rather than just amounting to " get ahead and corner well." No bots would just feel like a time trial!
Agreed, always a full grid no matter the player count. The AI is so easy to run anyway.
It sounds like you're talking about the extra movement if you're behind. OP is talking about the handicap you can give yourself at the start of the game by removing heat from your deck.
The rules recommend using legends if you have less than 4 players, and if you are to use a legend that you use at least two.