That time I tried a 4-player game of Twilight Struggle and it was a total mess

I brought Twilight Struggle to game night last Friday thinking we could tweak the rules for four people. We split into two teams of two, each controlling one superpower. It took us 3 hours to finish just the first turn because nobody could agree on card plays. I learned that some games are just meant for two players and forcing a twist ruins the fun. Has anyone else tried adapting a strict 2-player game for a bigger group and regretted it?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas631mo ago

Last time I tried to do a 4 player game of Diplomacy we just split into teams and it was a complete disaster too. Took over an hour just to get past the first turn because everyone wanted to negotiate their own secret deals. Those games are balanced so tightly for exactly two players that adding more people breaks the whole scoring system. I'd rather just play a game built for four people than try to jury-rig something that clearly wasn't designed for it. You end up spending more time arguing about house rules than actually playing the game.

harper_wells1mo ago

I hear what you're saying @lucas63 but I see it a little different... I've run Diplomacy with 4 players a handful of times and yeah, the first turn is chaos but that's kinda the whole point of the game. The scoring can be tweaked if you're not married to the official rules, and honestly the arguments about house rules can be more fun than the game itself sometimes. It's not for everyone but I think the mess is part of the charm.