Friday Night Shots – Expansions Revisited

I know I’ve talked about expansions before on Friday Night Shots (both ones you won’t play again and whether or not you even like them to begin with), but a recent post on Boardgame Geek prompted another thought that I wanted to explore.

Somebody in the Final Girl forums was asking about the various feature film expansions, and Final Girl co-designer A.J. Porfirio weighed in on it, and how the expansions in Final Girl are so much different than expansions for regular games.

“I think an important factor regarding the solo vs multi factor when it comes to expansions is that very frequently with multi-player games the expansions are additive meaning you keep stacking more and more expansions on top of each other and it quickly gets unwieldy. However with FG the playset is confined to the same elements (for the most part) each time, i.e. Killer, Location, FG, and go. This means there is an accessibility element that is key in terms of the level of friction required to play. Just think of that game we all have with 7 expansions and how you want to play with all of them but the thought of relearning everything stops you before you ever really start. With FG sure you might have to relearn the special rules for whatever killer or location you are playing, but the lift is generally manageable for most people.”

This made me sit up and take notice a little bit, though it might be because of all the Canadian Club I had consumed (this is Friday Night Shots, you know).

A couple of minor thoughts from that.

For regular games where expansions are just heaped on top of each other, when is it too much?

And what is the difference between heaped expansions and expansions that are so modular that you never have to play with all of them at the same time?

(I have talked about modular expansions before, but this goes a bit beyond what I said there)

Two very distinct questions, but two things to keep in mind when talking about expansions.

The Final Girl expansions (feature films) are a textbook way to do expansions, because (as A.J. says), you are just using one or two aspects of them every time you play.

The Final Girls themselves don’t add any new rules (it’s just their effects), but you either have the location rules or the killer rules, and the mix-and-match aspect of the system means you don’t have a lot of overhead.

Of course, when you’re working your way through them to review them, like I am, you’re learning both the location and killer rules, but when you start mixing and matching, there is none of that!

Instead, you’re relearning (or remembering) one killer’s rule sheet and one location’s rule sheet, and that’s it.

It’s easy.

You get the same thing with games that have modular expansions, where one expansion might have six different modules, and you can add one of them or all of them.

The major expansions for Teotihuacan do that, where the Expansion Period expansion (for example, as there are two major ones) add multiple modules with rules for incorporating one or more of them at the same time).

The Empire module is just one of the ways you can expand the game.

Some of the modules can also be used with multiple other modules, like the Obsidian module, which adds another resource (obsidian) that’s wild and can be used for any other resource.

Another set of modular expansions, most of which I haven’t played yet, is in one of my favourite games right now, Grand Austria Hotel.

The Let’s Waltz expansion adds dancing and champagne with new ways of scoring and to seat guests when you don’t have rooms open for them, but the expansion also adds a bunch more.

There are Celebrities (which I haven’t played with yet) which three coloured dice replacing three of the white dice that are normally used.

Or one of the modules is just an alternate way to determine turn order, with turns just going around the table rather than snaking (1-2-3-3-2-1), with a way that you can gain first player status for yourself (while getting a small bonus).

These modular expansions are actually pretty cool, because you can incorporate as many of them in a game as you wish, and often (though not always), they are complementary.

If you want to use them all, you can!

Other games have modules where you need to use one or another but not both.

With stuff like this, it’s easy to pile expansion onto expansion and people can just pick and choose what they want to incorporate.

Some games just keep adding expansions and they add to the bloat.

When that’s the case, what’s the optimum number of expansions?

Garphill Games has done a good job of limiting their expansions, meaning that there are a maximum of two for each game (and many times there aren’t any).

Viscounts of the West Kingdom has two expansions, and I love adding both of them to the mix.

Chests from Keeper of Keys and Outsiders from Gates of Gold, they both add so much great stuff, and I have taught both expansions to new players with minimal problems.

The South Tigris games only have one expansion, and that seems perfect for those.

Other games, like 7 Wonders, have multiple expansions and you can incorporate all of them together (I have played Leaders and Cities, but none of the other ones.

I assume you can play all of them together, but is that good?

Leaders is amazing but I don’t remember what Cities brings to the table.

It’s been a while!

For me, I think two is probably the maximum number of expansions that I would like to incorporate when they all stack on top of each other.

Adding more than that and you start getting diminishing returns, where so much of the gameplay of the base game has been changed that you almost don’t feel like you’re playing it anymore.

You really can’t introduce new people to them like you can when there are just one or two expansions.

Getting back to Final Girl, though, there’s another aspect of expansions that I haven’t really talked about.

While Final Girl isn’t a campaign, what about campaigns and their expansions, which kind of follow the same principle?

When you start a campaign game (I’ve never played one, so this is all supposition), I assume you decide at that point which expansions you want to incorporate into your game.

Or, with games like Arkham Horror: the Card Game, the expansions are the new campaign.

You’re not getting an “expansion.”

You’re getting a new campaign, along with cards (investigators and other cards) that you can use in any campaign you desire).

That’s pretty cool too, if you have enough time and the players to actually play the campaigns.

Overall, my preference is for one, maybe two expansions to help improve a game (like SETI: Space Agencies drastically improves that game) or modular expansions where you can pick and choose what you want to incorporate.

Sometimes, though, games don’t need expansions because they are already awesome.

The Prodigals Club, for instance, doesn’t need any expansions at all.

It’s almost perfect the way it is.

Its predecessor, Last Will did get an expansion with Get Sacked, which gave you jobs where you had to try and get fired.

It was ok, but not really necessary.

Some games don’t need expansions, but they benefit from having additional scenarios and the like.

Combat Commander (of course), had expansions that added new nationalities or aspects of the game (Resistance, adding partisans with their rules), but the biggest things about those expansions were the new scenarios that incorporated them.

Tactical, scenario-driven wargames are a bit different when talking about expansions, because often the expansions are basically adding new opportunities for playing.

Not many new rules (other than maybe nationality differences or whatever).

What’s your ideal expansion count? Or is it zero?

Do you like modular expansions where you can pick and choose?

Let me know in the comments.