Guild Master

chchobbitstar5,2

Guild Master has some neat ideas but the execution was not very exciting. It seems to want you to collaborate but there's very little incentive to do so since the quests don't present enough of a challenge that you couldn't complete them fairly easily on your own. There was very little contention going on as well and it wasn't due to any active efforts to avoid it. The length also seems a bit off. We played the short version (6 rounds vs 9) and by round 4 we were already completing the legendary quests. 3 extra rounds seem excessive given that we'd effectively peaked half way through a regular length game. Having said that, the game length felt right at 6. Even though there is a lot of variety in the cards you get and the benefits of the different quests you can pursue, the upgrade path feels fairly static, with each upgrade having a seemingly deterministic best sequence to follow. Art is great and the visual design works well. The rulebook is pretty rough and there are labelling inconsistencies with the player screens. Some rules seem pointless, for example, what's the point of hiding your gold if you have to announce how much you have each round? Guild Master was enjoyable but a bit tepid and not very tight. I'd play it again, but I don't think I need to keep it.