tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post4888400110983187167..comments2024-02-12T05:31:05.189-08:00Comments on Illuminating Games: Tales of the Arabian NightsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12654412977759874403noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post-35121050748174926122009-11-26T08:47:59.677-08:002009-11-26T08:47:59.677-08:00Maxo says...
Tales of the Arabian Night has a prob...Maxo says...<br />Tales of the Arabian Night has a problem (which is okay if you go with it).<br /><br />Courting the princess *rarely or never* seems to use courtly graces or beguilement. Instead, attacking or robbing is the best option. The game is perverse. There is not a lot of logic to which skill works in which situation.<br /><br />It's humorous once you get used to it but it drove my son in law to fits the first time he played it. "Why not just roll a dice and decide who wins!?!?! It would have saved three hours of my life!?!?!!"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post-58669644185763973112009-10-07T08:13:08.827-07:002009-10-07T08:13:08.827-07:00Agree that there is actually some thinking behind ...Agree that there is actually some thinking behind what action to choose based on your skills although it doesn't always work out to your advantage. <br /><br />On the Destiny/Story Points issue, I think the spread should not be more than +-3 and while not an exact science, your initial quest may help you make a better decision, i.e., if it awards more Destiny, then skew towards Destiny. And yea, Scorned is bad (don't keep it).Elijah Launoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post-67680731824286714702009-09-16T09:20:20.393-07:002009-09-16T09:20:20.393-07:00OK, I have to revise my destiny/story point advice...OK, I have to revise my destiny/story point advice ... we played again last night and we were awash in Destiny but Story seemed hard to come by (we all went with somewhere between a 12/8 and 14/6 split Story/Destiny split, so the game didn't end until I had like 14 Story and 16 Destiny). But, we all were Scorned at one point and opted to get rid of it right away instead of using the time to beef up our Story point counts. Scorned has some other nasty side-effect though (like, I think you can't gain new skills).<br /><br />So, I dunno. Maybe the 50/50-ish split is the way to go. I feel like there is some method to the Story/Destiny awards, but I can't quite figure it out. On our last game, my frequent use of Piety and Wisdom seemed to bring more Destiny, points, while a player who went with Stealth and Stealing and Quick Thinking seemed biased more towards Story. That would make sense, but on the other hand, it could have been just a one-game anomaly.<br /><br />Couple other notes:<br /><br />Our last game we played starting with 4 skills instead of 3. It seemed to work quite well. I think starting with 5 would definitely be too many though.<br /><br />Also, note that there is some fairly major map errata, available on Z-Man's site. If you don't play with it, the southern tip of India becomes insanely difficult to navigate around. How that got connection got dropped, I'm not sure.<br /><br />Last thing, there are some pretty nasty statuses in the game. Most of them (Insane, Accursed, Scorned) I'm OK with, but one we ran into was particularly egregious: Sex-Changed. The problem is that you can't win while Sex-Changed, and there seems no clear route to getting rid of it. We might house-rule that one.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12654412977759874403noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post-51043504978962022062009-09-13T17:13:20.883-07:002009-09-13T17:13:20.883-07:00I do agree that the game is quite random, and maki...I do agree that the game is quite random, and making smart choices certainly does not guarantee success - a lot of the time the required skills do seem to come out of nowhere, and you can get slapped with nasty statuses for no good reason. But I think if you persevere in making good choices, it makes it a lot more likely you'll get the couple breaks you need to win, and more likely you'll get good story hooks. On the flipside, making random choices makes getting those breaks pretty hard.<br /><br />This is one reason the master-level skills are so valuable. I cheated a little bit and picked half-a-dozen reaction matrix entries at random to see what skills were useful. Almost always in the three relevant paragraphs there were a range of skills that were about what you would expect, but that might mean 5 different skills (so for Court, as mentioned above, the three paragraphs might cover Seduction, Courtly Graces, Beguiling, Acting, or Appearance). Obviously, a master level skill, where you can hone in on the relevant paragraph, makes getting your skill into play a lot easier.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12654412977759874403noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-914191259119493058.post-89806576043664913942009-09-13T15:30:04.834-07:002009-09-13T15:30:04.834-07:00Chris, I've played this once, and had a blast,...Chris, I've played this once, and had a blast, but I had the opposite conclusion about whether the game actually takes your skills into account. It felt to me that making choices based on my strengths didn't matter -- the paragraph would test some seemingly random skill. Although fun and interesting, I was disappointed that I couldn't in fact make at least vaguely strategic choices. I hope you're right and I'm wrong though -- I'll have to play again to see.Bayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11879084546351997960noreply@blogger.com