[ShannonA]

I have seen killer moves in Shadows, they're just cooperative moves rather than singleton moves.

Last week we had a game where (suspected traitor) Mike B. had been mucking with Excalibur most of the game. He'd gotten it somwhat near the shore at a time where I realized that lots of us were somewhat free. Hey, I said, how about if Chris A. moves to Excalibur and drops a card, then Brody moves to Excalibur and drops a card, then I do the same and capture the sword. Mike B. had recently had clairvoyance as well, so that we knew the next couple of cards were free of Excalibur moves.

This gave us the opportunity to quickly grab Excalibur before it could move away again, and also allowed us to keep it out of the hands of Mike B. who was playing very suspiciously (and we didn't come up with the plan until *after* his turn, so he couldn't mess it up).

Ironically, the one other player, Mike A., turned out to be the traitor, but he was sitting between me and Mike B., so he couldn't do anything either.

Going from Excalibur being far away to suddenly having it in my possession was definitely a killer move.

...

In any case, I do agree with you that the pure mechanics in ShoC are pretty dry. I think the game has two major points going for it which help it rise above this.

The first is the socialization, which is an aspect you often don't find in German style games. This is the working together to make the game work, the figuring out how to balance (not entirely known) resources, and the whole question of trying to discover and out the traitor.

The second is the tension, becuase you're not just trying to succeed at a single quest, but also figure out how to keep on top of all the rest. So you're having to think a couple of turns ahead at any time, and worry about a number of different problems.

If you think about the individual unit of play not as a turn ("play a card") but instead a round of play ("the players work together to do some stuff"), it becomes more obvious why it's fun.

Shannon