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Tips & Strategies (19)

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8
Canada
El Dorado
Professional Advisor
Senior
16 of 16 gamers found this helpful
“Solo Variant Enconter Deck”

When playing the solo variant each time I draw encounter cards I alternate with the time token

first draw of 2 cards : morning
second draw of 2 cards : noon
third draw of 2 cards : Night ……and so on

I gives a better sense on time passing by during the adventure

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3
Rated 25 Games
26 of 27 gamers found this helpful
“day cycle”

We usually play that you roll the -/+/blank die to determine the time of day for the round (each player gets the same time of day) instead of relying on the deck to run out, which it never does. We have found that it adds variety to the game and stories rarely repeat that way.
Thanks

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8
Canada
El Dorado
Professional Advisor
Senior
15 of 15 gamers found this helpful
“Solo variant NPC”

When playing the solo variant I add 3 NPC on the board (Africa, Asia and Europe) in order to be able to use the status cards that requires other player

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2
37 of 39 gamers found this helpful
“Make a role-playing session out of the game!”

Find the right type of players for a session of this game – it dramatically improves the enjoyment of it! By “right type”, I mean players that are willing and able to get into the roleplaying aspects of Tales. When you are the storyteller, involve other players, especially the ones that aren’t directly affected by the story. Encourage everyone to make sounds, voices for characters and even antics and movements while you tell the story! Try to remember events and characters involved in every story you tell, and use them again to link stories together, thereby forging a continous, epic tale, instead of random tidbits here and there. That disguised beggar you just met? He’s the same person you attacked and wounded last turn, AND he happens to be the father of the girl you wanted to woe. Now he’s out for revenge!

If everyone does this, there’s virtually no downtime and all the players become involved in every story!

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7
USA
14 of 14 gamers found this helpful
“Destiny & Story ”

We do this for a quicker game; first player to hit either 10 story or 10 destiny and returns to Baghdad wins. This really helps when you are playing with a full complement of players.

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1
I'm a Real Person
25 of 27 gamers found this helpful
“Four or more players...”

4+ players:
Give the chart to the second player to the active player’s right.
6 players:
Give the book to the second player to the active player’s left.

This will limit the down time of the non-active players and it also gives the player to the immediate right of the active player time to figure out what they new toys they just received without annoying everyone else.

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8
I play purple
Football Fan
Movie Lover
22 of 24 gamers found this helpful
“For a shorter game”

Great game, but it can go a bit long especially with a larger group. We use these rules to keep it less than 2 hours with 4 players.

1) pick a combo of points that add up to 12 or 15 instead of 20
2) Give everyone an additional skill (or two) at the beginning
3) An obvious one, but if it’s your turn, stick with the game (ie. no other conversations, bathroom breaks, etc, until it’s not your turn). This one gets enforced by everyone.
4) Either have a dedicated reader or follow Foomer’s advice and ensure that the person with the book is on the left (2 spaces if more players) then the person with the grid. This keeps things moving and everyone involved, but most importantly hopefully little down time between turns. Never have someone who ended a turn have to be responsible for something as they’re usually reading their new cards/stuff or taking that needed bio break. 🙂

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8
Canada
El Dorado
Professional Advisor
Senior
15 of 16 gamers found this helpful
“Status cards”

the thing that we have most problem with is the status cards because there is no maximum and you can end up easily with more than 10 cards in your hands. There is a lot of thext on these cards and it become really hard to keep track of every thing.

So we decided to put a maximum of 4 active status cards. (we can keep more if it’s a passive status like sex-change or Beast

We have to keep the 5th card and discard the one that have less effect on the game/adventure

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2
26 of 29 gamers found this helpful
“Pre-determined Goals”

When I play this game with my gaming group, we always set every character goal to 10 Destiny and 10 Story. It never made much sense for us to hide the goals from each other. In this way, everyone knows who is in the lead at all times, and there is more tension.

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4
Follow a Local Game Store
14 of 15 gamers found this helpful
“Status and Time of Day”

Try splitting the encounter deck into Three equal stacks and placing the time of day token in front of each one. Start with morning and when that runs out then move to noon. Also the biggest problem, in my opinion with this game is status effects. Some run way too long and hamper game enjoyment. Limit the ones that make sense to do so to an agreeable number of turns before expiring. No one wants to spend a life imprison for a minor crime. Right? So maybe you’re only lost or imprisoned for three turns max.

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10
Gamer - Level 8
Explorer - Level 5
Critic - Level 3
Junior
30 of 34 gamers found this helpful
“Do not care (too much) about winning”

TotAN is best enjoyed when you do not care too much about winning. Instead, just sit back and enjoy the experience, the adventure and situations that will arise. When explaning the rules I will make this point more then once.
Some more experiences I have:

– play with at most 4
– don’t be afraid to bend the rules (sitting in jail for too many turns, several unwinnable statuses will take some fun of it)
– don’t be afraid to use less then 20 points.

I still remember with joy my last game a few years ago, Aladdin was the one discovering a lamp and Ali Baba (or Ali Babina at the time) ended up in the desert witnessing about 40 riders entering a mountain.

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8
Canada
El Dorado
Professional Advisor
Senior
13 of 14 gamers found this helpful
“Solo variant”

If you want to adventure alone, ZMan Games has an official solo variant for the game

http://zmangames.com/product-details.php?id=949

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3
Rated 25 Games
23 of 26 gamers found this helpful
“points”

We often play that the first player to reach any combination of story/destiny points that total 20 and makes it back to Baghdad wins. This speeds that game up a little.

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9
My First Heart
My First Wish!
My First Favorite!
Gave My First Grade
22 of 25 gamers found this helpful
“Buy a Special Tray”

This game is wonderful, probably my favorite story game, but there are a ton of little bits that you’re going to need throughout the game. Buy a tray with a lot of little segments to it so that you can keep everything sorted and easy to get at.

The friend who first showed me the game used a tray made for holding deviled eggs and what I’ll be using it one of those trays that provide a bunch of small paint reservoirs that miniatures painters use. It really is a very useful thing to have.

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6
I'm Completely Obsessed
Viscount / Viscountess
Champion
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
18 of 21 gamers found this helpful
“My, what Courtly Graces you have..”

Although the skills can be useful, in general what situations require seems to be more random than anything. Some, however, tend to show up much more than others. Courtly Graces, Enduring Hardship, and Piety are all good choices for starting skills. Navigation is always good if you plan to travel by sea, because it is a guaranteed effect, unlike the others which are hit or miss.

Oh, and never, EVER “honor” the strange customs.

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1
I Own a Game!
28 of 34 gamers found this helpful
“Have a dedicated GM”

Whenever we play this, especially with a group of 4 or more of us, we try to have a dedicated Games Master who takes control of the books and deals with the running of the game. This can speed up the running of the game and also avoids any confusion as the books and sheets are passed between people to take care of.

This person should be familiar with the rules and able to answer people’s questions and queries about them.

If you don’t enjoy seeing the adventures of other people play out then it isn’t a role for you, but it can be a lot of fun just being along for the ride and seeing where people’s stories end up.

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2
Gamer - Level 1
19 of 26 gamers found this helpful
“One Status at a Time”

When playing with my family, we usually limit players to one or two status effects at a time, with the newer one received replacing the old. Getting a big stack of bogus statuses on you can really lessen the enjoyment of the game.

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2
Gamer - Level 1
16 of 22 gamers found this helpful
“Time of Day”

We change the time of day after character encounter is drawn, rather than waiting until the deck runs out.

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1
I'm a Real Person
11 of 22 gamers found this helpful
“Player Count”

I wouldn’t play this with more than 3 players…it simply runs too long.

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