Today I was weighing the positives and negatives of the following rule variant: hand size and inventory limits are based not on number of explorers in the game, but rather number of explorers on the same terrain tile.
Advantages: gives four player groups something to do
May encourage use of less commonly built items/less commonly used skill cards
Disadvantages: less efficient movement
May encourage hyper specialization, which in turn could lead to characters languishing in a corner of the map somewhere as they wait for an opportunity to use their specialized equipment
Could lead to complicated item juggling if one group wants to transfer items to another group
Some areas don't have enough terrain to effectively split the group
May create thematic dissonance (I'll eat so that you guys a mile away have the energy to keep exploring!)
"Sudden item collapse" when groups merge may be used to game the inventory system(?)
As you can see, my list of disadvantages is longer than my list of advantages. But the first advantage is I think a big one: right now there's little reason to play with more than two players, as there just isn't enough for the third and fourth person to do.
Discuss, cogitate, critique, improve/reject.
(Post repeated from BGG)
