Wizards of the Coast recently shipped a clever little beer & pretzel game called Inn-Fighting. It's about. . . people who fight in bars.
References: Boardgame Geek Review, Funagain Games
Inn-Fighting features a lot of dice rolling, token swapping, card reading, and unfortunately, rule puzzling. For alas, the rules for this game qualify as some of the most obfuscatory and incomplete that I've read in a long time. And I read a lot of rules.
As I work to puzzle out some of the finer points of how it works, I thought I'd put a FAQ together based on questions and answers I've discovered out there on the Intrawebs.
I'll be happy to add to this if anyone is interested. For now, it's here for my convenience and that of my "gaming friends". You know who you are.
Inn-Fighting Q&A
Answers care of WotC Staffers (source)
re: Rulebook page 18
Heading: Hit Points and Victory Points
Sub-Headings: Damage and VP, Bystander Knockout & Adventurer Knockout
Q1. Does all damage that you do to opponent's Bystanders go into your Victory Point pile? Does all damage done by Bystanders go into your Victory Point pile?
A1: You do gain Victory Points directly from Hit Points when damaging Bystanders. In fact, all damage that your characters (Adventurers and Bystanders alike) do to other characters (Adventurers and Bystanders) goes into your Victory Points pile.
Q2. What if you only damaged a Bystander but did not knock the Bystander out, where do those
Hit Points go?
A2. You gain the HP in VP even if you do not knock out the Bystander.
Q3. If you knock out an Adventurer, but the knocked out Adventurer's player does not have enough Victory Points to pay the Knockout Bonus listed on the character's card, does the player scoring the knockout supplement the difference from the bank or just get what is available, possibly nothing?
A3. If your Adventurer is knocked out and you do not have enough VP to pay the knockout bonus, you pay as much as you can, possibly zero.
re: Xxyzzt Card Questions
Adventurer Card for Xxyzzt, Beholder Barfly
Power attack: Eye Ray Extravaganza
(3 or 5 damage. High: Make another identical attack against any other target.)
Q4. Does Xxyzzt's player continue making Power attacks as long as he continues to roll High damage or does he only get one extra Power attack each turn?
A4. The Eye Ray will continue to attack as long as high results are rolled. (comment - wow)
Q5. Where the card says any other target, does this mean of any player or merely any character of the initial valid target (namely the player with the most Victory Points)?
A5. The secondary Eye Ray attacks can be directed any any target, not just the one with the highest VPs.
Q6. Does identical attack mean that each time Xxyzzt's player rolls his extra Power attack he includes the same bonus from dice showing the Power attack symbol?
A6. These secondary attacks will use the same bonus as the first.
re: Rulebook page 17
Sub-heading: Ale Action
Q7. If your Adventurer is at full Hit Points and you roll an Ale action can you take one?
Q8. If so, do you just remove Victory Points from the player with the most in an amount equal to the number of dice showing Ale and put them in the bank?
A7,8. You can take an Ale action at full hit points, you opponent still loses VP equal to the number of mugs showing, but you do not gain any hit points.
Q9. If so, and you are the player with the most Victory Points and your adventurer is unhurt can you take the Ale action to prevent the next player from getting a certain Ale action?
A9. If you are the player with the highest VPs when an ale action come up, you can take it, but any VP's not used to heal you will go to the bank.
re: Rulebook page 14
Power attack options
Q10. If you are the player with the most Victory Points can you ever make a Power attack?
Q11. If so, is it against the opponent with the most Victory Points?
A10,11. Since you cannot attack yourself, you can still make a power attack against the opponent with the next highest VP total, choosing in case of ties.
Question re: Red Die
Q: I roll the dice to attack and say I get 4 punches and 1 mug on the gold dice and 1 luck roll on the red dice. I have no bystanders to worry about as the opponent to my left has none, and I roll above my skill doing 4 points of damage to the Adventurer. So what happens with the red die? I think the defense roll action has me a bit stymied, in respect for what's kept for passing the dice.
A: You always roll the red die for defense, no matter what it's showing.
Question on Damage from Defense Action
Q: When you cause damage from your defense action (like the wizards fireball or the barkeeps crossbow) do you get those lost HP as VP? Or do they simply go back to the bank?
A: When you damage an opponent's Adventurer, remove that many Hit Point tokens from the character and place them in your Victory Point pile."
KNOWN TYPOS
The action card Second Swing has a typo. It shouldn’t be talking about re-rolling the Brawl Dice you used for the attack; it should say “Reroll the d20 you used to make the attack.” In other words, you play Second Swing when you’ve rolled a 1 on your attack roll, or rolled low damage when what you need is to roll high. (source [requires registration])
9 comments:
Here's another one:
The adventurer to my left has been knocked out and not yet replaced, and it's my turn. My dice contain only fists, luck and ale, and not enough luck or ale for an action. I can only attack left, but there's no one there to hit (except maybe a bystander, but I'm prohibited from targeting him too). Do I hit the next person to the left, skipping the empty spot? Or do I pass? There doesn't seem to be any other circumstance in the game that would call for passing.
First of all, I can't possibly imagine anyone having difficulty with these rules. I mean, do we all have to have our hands held through life? My God...the slightest bit of education has provided me with enough critical thinking skills to fumble my way through a game designed for players aged 12 and up. That being said, my 13 year-old son caught on to the rules very quickly, and we were playing delightfully within 10 minutes of opening the box. If a set of rules this elementary is giving you so much trouble, please do us all a favor and never go into the medical or law field. Perhaps a rousing game of Go-Fish would better suit you. It's players like you that ruined Magic: The Gathering and many, many other wonderful games due to the rulebooks growing and growing to satisfy the dull-minded masses that can't tie their own shoes without assistance.
I am sure a number of people enjoyed the same "out of the box" experience that you did. Good for them, and good for you. Inn Fighting is a clever, fast game and I was able to enjoy a good game with only a few minutes of instruction.
But for those of us for whom clarity and correctness are important, FAQs have value. After a few games of Inn Fighting we encountered rules questions that weren't resolved quickly by the rules. This is why I collected and published the FAQ.
I would be happy to engage you in a more substantive conversation on the topic of writing rules. Feel free to drop me an email - the link is on the main page.
I hold games whose rulesets grow by design - such as MtG - to different standards than those whose rules are static - such as Divine Right and Cosmic Encounter. I expect static rulesets to be fully workable out of the box. I can't hold dynamic rules to that same standard, since the introduction of every new card (as in MtG) runs the risk of "breaking" an earlier convention. I think that's what you're thinking about when you say that "rules lawyers killed MtG". It's one reason I don't play MtG - it's just too hard to stay current on the rules. Even the MtG people have acknowledged this by making certain cards "verboten" from time to time, and by utterly banning others that are too problematic.
One ruleset which suffers from "creeping FAQitis" is the Games Workshop Warhammer 40k (WH40K), which is appended and revised with great regularity. Despite this, it remains very popular - one could argue that it is this dynamism which makes the game especially attractive to players.
I am a particular fan of games like Battlelore that grow progressively more complex without a lot of confusion - visit http://www.battlelore.com to see for yourself.
Thanks for your comment.
Here's a question for you, when damage has a special effect is it applied no matter whether you got hi or low damage?
The card/s read Low or Hi pts damage (comma) special effect.
Some in my group read this as Low or Hi damage AND special effect, others read it as Low damage (ONLY)or Hi damage PLUS special effect.
One comment that I have about the rules, something that everybody seems to be doing wrong. You even have it wrong on here. The rules for Ale actions in the rulebook are: "Take VP tokens from that player equal to the number of dice showing Ale you rolled." It doesn't say "the number of dice showing Ale." You only heal for the number of Ale that you rolled yourself. You use all of the Ale dice to determine if you are allowed to do an Ale action, but the ones you roll are what you heal. For this purpose, we put any Ale we roll on our Adventurer cards to show who rolled each one.
Forgive my ignorance, but I've played this game three times now - but with the same people. None of us understand how you handle rolling your defense die first, along with brawl dice. How do you defend first?
I don't mean to make it too difficult, but I have adapted the rules a bit regarding this one dice. I'd like to play correctly, but we just haven't figured it out. I don't know anyone else who plays it, so you are my hope! Any or all comments would be appreciated :0)
Forgive my ignorance, but I've played this game three times now - but with the same people. None of us understand how you handle rolling your defense die first, along with brawl dice. How do you defend first?
I don't mean to make it too difficult, but I have adapted the rules a bit regarding this one dice. I'd like to play correctly, but we just haven't figured it out. I don't know anyone else who plays it, so you are my hope! Any or all comments would be appreciated :0)
Quote, "The adventurer to my left has been knocked out and not yet replaced, and it's my turn. My dice contain only fists, luck and ale, and not enough luck or ale for an action. I can only attack left, but there's no one there to hit (except maybe a bystander, but I'm prohibited from targeting him too). Do I hit the next person to the left, skipping the empty spot? Or do I pass? There doesn't seem to be any other circumstance in the game that would call for passing."
I called Wizards of the Coast, "Yes you MISS (aka you must pass) your turn to fight"
My group and I have had some issues with the understanding the defense ruling for Stahdya, Human Warlock. One reads it as being able to chose the same target twice, while the rest say it is two separate targets. Just wanted some clarification. Thank you in advance.
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