by mfaulk80
It encourages you to use new characters. We're now through July though, and we only have two relationships at all. Actually, there are a number of things that the game encourages that we mostly ignore...and we're still doing pretty well.
I also think using all of the relationships up front will hurt a bit later on...without getting into details.
The game already encourages you to try the new characters as they appear by having objectives tied to their abilities (ie a new character tends to appear alongside an objective that their ability would do well with). The relationships aren't needed for extra encouragement.Sometimes, yes. IMO, however, that alone isn't very strong. Actually, even with the relationships, we haven't felt a strong pull to create new characters more than twice. Since there is always an option on which objectivesobjectives to accomplish (at least early on), we've just ignored many new objectives.
And you wouldn't use all the relationships up front either way. At most you use two pairs in February if you play with four characters that month. It's also worth noting that even under the normal rules you can atart with two pairs of relationships. For example, if you play a three player game in January then you start with at least two unused characters in Feb. If you first use both those characters in Feb and play with four players that month then you can have each of the new characters related to an old character and use two pairs of relationships. So even if you misread the rules you aren't necessarilly even gaining an extra pair of relationships.
It still plays out differently. For one, relationships would never exist between characters used in that first play. I know we would have set up something with those characters had we been able to. You would also have to pick specific characters in order to get all of those relationships established if you were to attempt to go the route you described. Those match ups may or may not be optimal. The difference is you didn't have to work for it. Lastly, as a negative, you won't have the option of using those exact relationships on new characters, and new characters may feel like they belong to a different group...like an outsider.
Again, I'm not saying it's OP. I'm saying it definitely affects how the game plays out for both good and bad. It's not ideal IMO, but I don't think it knocks the game out of balance either...
