SCYTHE AT WBC 2018
Event Report
The Game Master of Scythe at the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC) in 2018 took advantage of the opportunity to try out his new variant. The games’ winners were determined according to the normal rules, with no changes. But, unlike the standard game, in which second and third place are determined by the scores when a sixth star is placed, the rule modifications given in the tournament preview at “http://keniiii.com/scythe_wbc_2018.html#rule_change” were used. (There is an example of how the variant is played at “http://keniiii.com/scythe_not_immediate_ending_example.html”.)
Why did the Game Master believe that this was a better way to determine second and third place? Visit “http://keniiii.com/scythe_not_immediate_ending.html” to read his argument.
Some people expressed concerns that this variant would take too long to play. However, only 2 of the 21 games had to be halted early, and in both cases, only second and third place might have been affected. Others felt that it was wrong to modify the rules of the game at WBC, arguing that the game should be played by the rules the designer wanted. It is not known how the game designer feels about the creation of a variant of Scythe and its use in a WBC tournament.
However, one possible problem emerged that nobody had anticipated in advance. It seems that an important characteristic of the game of Scythe is that people don’t know what the players’ scores are until the game is finally over (even though anybody who wants to expend the time and effort can calculate the scores at any time). By revealing the scores before the games ended, some players realized that their situation was hopeless, and yet, they were required to continue playing. Their only motivation was to end the game as soon as they could, just to get it over with, because they didn’t want to play anymore. It is not known if anybody did this.
So what was the conclusion of this experiment? That will have to be decided by the players on the BoardGameGeek Scythe forum entitled “Scythe variant at WBC 2018” at “https://boardgamegeek.com/article/29677074#29677074”.
Contact me: ken69samuel@hotmail.com