| Strangeness and Perversity INWO variants collected by Steve Hatherley The following collection of INWO Variants was originally part of the UFAQ (unofficial faq). Agents of Ennui (Ralph Melton) In addition to the normal uses of agents cards, you may play an agents card for a group to cancel one action or special ability use of the group for which the card is an agent. Campaign INWO (Robert A. Dubisch) After you play an INWO game, write down any groups that were destroyed or devastated, any destroyed unique resources, and any changes of status in any of the above. Also record which NWOs and Nevermored cards are in play at the end of the game. Play the next game with the final status of the groups and resources from the last game. Any NWOs (and Nevermore and its plots) in play at the end of the last game are in play at the beginning of this one. Any groups that were destroyed in the previous game are still destroyed. Plots linked to groups in the last game are still linked in this one. If a newly taken-over group is linked to a plot that would not normally be legal, then that plot is discarded. Demolition Derby (aka Cthulhu Rises) (Aaron Curtis) 1. Nobody may play the Servants of Cthulhu. 2. In addition to their regular Illuminati special ability, everyone gets Cthulhu's special ability, except for Instant attacks: +4 on any direct attack to destroy (except instants) and you may draw a plot card whenever you destroy a group. 3. For all the 'control X, destroy Y' goals, reduce the number of groups needed to be controlled by one. Yes, this means you can win by destroying six groups of the appropriate type. 4. Nobody may win by *any* method until they have destroyed at least one group directly. Note: Parts 3 and 4 were designed to strongly encourage making attacks to destroy in order to win. However, the following may be better for this: 3. Cthulhu's Special Goal is now the Basic Goal. Each group you destroy directly (or Illuminati you destroy by removing their last group) reduces the number of groups you need to control by one, and if you destroy 8 groups, you win. (Note that this means that NWO Interesting Times does not invalidate this goal.) I recommend playing to at least 12 groups, and possibly more. Caveat: This has not been playtested. But doesn't it sound like fun? Homebrew Cards (Lynette Cowper) Have games where each player brings two homebrew cards with them-- one Plot and one Group. Each player builds their deck with 43 cards. Game set-up is as normal, except that they draw one fewer Group and Plot initially. The homebrew cards are sorted into Groups and Plots, shuffled, and dealt randomly to the players - one of each to each. These go into their *hand*, which means they're more likely to be played. Play normally. At the end of the game, review the homebrew cards for balance and usefulness. Those that are good are added to the official cards for use by anyone in the game. Those that need work are discussed and may be returned after editing for further testing. You might even have a sort of card design prize--the winner doesn't have to pay for his pizza, or whatever you deem appropriate--to encourage good, balanced card design. INWO for Newbies (Steve Hatherley) World Conquest 101 (The INWO Book p. 26) is a good way to teach newbies the fine art of Illuminati. However world domination is a complex business so here are a few ideas for simplifying the game. 1: Ignore the Secret attribute. The Secret groups are good fun to play with, but Secrecy itself is best left until later. 2: Most of the New World Orders affect groups' Power. As one of the biggest complaints by newbies is about the amount of mathematics required during an attack, ease their pain by removing the NWOs. When you do introduce NWOs, make them slightly simpler by prohibiting their use during attacks. 3: Goal cards are subtle and devious. They also unfairly penalise newbies who have no idea of what to expect when faced with a collection of Crminal Violent groups. Lose them. 4: Some cards are wordy (Immortality Serum, Partition, Sieze the Time!) or unfairly penalise newbies (Rosicrucians, Crop Circles, The Great Pyramid). Remove them. I have used this to teach INWO to new players - I have also successfully used another method for introducing new players to INWO. Lunchtime INWO (Bruce McLaren) Can you play INWO in your lunch hour? Of course you can! Here are guidelines for 60 minute INWO. 1. Play to ten groups, including Illuminati. Use the standard Tournament rules. 2. No more than four players are permitted. 3. The game is over *exactly* 60 minutes after it starts, unless it has already ended. Any attack that has begun at this time may be completed, as can any immediate responses to that attack (Murphy's Law or some such). No further attacks are permitted. The winner will be determined by percentage of goals achieved, as explained in the Tournament rules. 4. One player should provide an egg timer. Any player who feels that dawdling is taking place may start the timer: as soon as the timer runs out the dice are rolled for the current attack. If no attack is in progress than play passes immediately to the next player. (So don't spend ten minutes adding up your bonuses!) 5. Lunches that do not need microwaving are recommended! I have played 60-Minute INWO several times, and it is a lot of fun - I recommend it for a change of pace. The Metronome Solution (Mad Chris) The following is a simple way of solving any problems you may be experiencing with speed play. First, you must learn to recognise the rhythm of each INWO game. Everytime you play there is a pace at work: sometimes it is the gentle rhythm of the Blue Danube, sometimes the psychotic beat of Fortuna Imperitrix Mundi. Once you have recognised this rhythm, you are ready to employ the Metronome solution to speed play. The basis of the Metronome solution is that after playing each card you should wait for one bar before you do anything else. Many games of INWO are in 4:4, so you play the card and count 2...3...4... and then do anything consequent afterwards. The remaining 3 beats of the bar are an opportunity for people to make an appropriate response, or to shout "Wait!" and decide if they want to do anything in response. After the bar has played itself out, the game resumes and the symphony continues. It should be noted that some gaming groups prefer 2:2, in which you only give one beat before playing your cards. These tend to be very frantic, exciting games and not recommended to those whose senses are blurred with alcohol, or whose sense of the passage of time has been eroded by prozac. Non-Isolationist INWO INWO is occasionally criticised for being isolationist, for producing games where the players do not interact. To counter this, try any of the following (unplaytested) suggestions:
Note - I have had much fun in games where you have to take control of a rival's group in order to win and I thoroughly recommend it. The game becomes much less of a race, which it is at present. It even makes Goals like Blinded by Science more interesting. See my discussion on isolationism for more on the subject. NWO Madness (Steve Hatherley) Before play starts, set aside a pile of random New World Orders. One of each will probably do. Before the first player starts his turn, turn over the top NWO and bring it straight into play. That NWO is treated exactly as if it has just been played by one of the players - it can only be removed by a plot card or if another NWO of the same colour is played. Then, just before that same player takes his next turn, bring the next NWO into play. This then continues for the rest of the game. In the unlikely event that you run out of NWOs, reshuffle the discards and continue. Players may still play NWOs as normal. I play this one fairly often. It works well with a random-deck style I often play (I have a pile of cards that are dealt out randomly so you never know what you are playing with). Piglet INWO (Glen Barnett) Each player makes a deck of 30 cards total, minimum of 10 cards each of groups and plots. At the same time have a central plot and group deck. Whenever you're entitled to draw a card, you can draw from your deck, or draw 2 cards from the central deck, discarding one. These "discarded" groups from the central deck are placed face up in the uncontrolled area. If the central plot deck is exhausted, the discards are turned over and reshuffled to form a new one. Initial group draw is 3. All plot and group discards to power cards must be from your own deck, not from the central decks Most of the rule changes required for OBD games are ignored. The Resource Factory (Steve Hatherley) I like Resources. Especially the strange, rarely used ones like X-Ray Specs and Power Satellite. Sadly there's never enough room for all the fun cards - so this is where the Resource Factory comes in. Make a seperate deck of those Resources rarely used by your players. In my group's case it would include Xanadu, Earthquake Projector, The Frog God, Killer Satellite, Loch Ness Monster, Hallucinations and so on. It's also a good place to introduce a few homegrown Resources as well. At the start of the game, reveal the top three Resources in the Factory. On your turn, you may use your automatic takeover (or spend an Illuminati action) to play one of the Resources. You may not use a card ability (such as Evil Geniuses, Flying Saucer or Supernova). If the Resource duplicates one already in play, discard it and draw another - the Resource Factory is only used for strange and offbeat Resources. After a Resource has been brought into play, reveal the next card in the Factory. I've not actually tried this . . . UFOs Classic (Ralph Melton) When the UFOs are revealed as the Illuminati at the beginning of the game, before Plot cards are drawn, the player of the UFOs may choose one Goal card from his deck to put underneath the UFOs. This Goal card does not count against the limit of Plot cards the UFOs may hold, and it may not be exposed, or stolen by any means. The UFOs may place that Goal card into their hand at any time, but may not replace the card under the UFOs once they do so. Under this variation, the UFOs do no have the ability to hold multiple Goal cards in their hand. Commentary: This is a lot like the classic UFOs goal condition. It would make the UFO's Goal much safer than an ordinary goal card. This variation doesn't define what would happen if you Unmasked as the UFOs, though; this is not a big problem, however, because Unmasking as the UFOs is pretty rare anyway. Uncontrolled Groups (Peter Gleeson) When building your decks, add an extra 5 cards (usually groups). Once you have delcared your Illuminati's and lead puppets, take 5 cards at random out of your group deck. One of these is flipped over immediately, and put in the "uncontrolled group" area of the table. The remaining 4 groups from each player are shuffled together, and placed in the "uncontrolled deck" pile. At the start of each players' turn (except everyone's first turn), add a new card from the uncontrolled deck to the uncontrolled area. Groups in that area may be attacked by anyone, but any group destroyed while uncontrolled does not count towards goals for any purposes. Uncontrolled groups may _not_ be attacked in the first round. This is to allow everyone else to interfere (if they wish) in any attacks on uncontrolled groups, and not give the first players a bigger advantage over the others. Groups that are normally "discarded" also go into the uncontrolled area. That includes groups you attack to control from your hand and fail (except for Hermes), Upheavaled groups, and so on. (One comment - groups in the Uncontrolled Area are considered "in-play" except for Shangri-La's goal.) four letters at random - games - tales of terror - freeforms - friends |