Your Favorite Oddball Rules

I'm not sure if this counts, but I've always loved the lasgun+shield explosion in Dune. It happened like twice in the five games I've played, but it's just such a great thematic touch.

Most of the mutations in Shadows of Brimstone are nothing but oddball rules and most of them are great and/or hilarious. If you have the Second Head mutation and roll a 6 to move, your heads argue about where to go and you lose your Activation completely, but you're +1 Initiative and can now wear two Hat Items. Some mutations prohibit you from using certain items (Horns mutation prohibits Hat Items, Hand Growth prohibits Glove Items, Fused Fingers rule out Gun Items unless it's an Artifact, etc.) or give you an unexpected benefit (Prehensile Tale means you can tri-wield weapons, Eye Stalks give your crits +1 damage, etc.).

Two of the weirdest that are my favorites are Chest Portal and Child of the Void. You have to roll for your Chest Portal to see what comes out of it every time an 11 or 12 is rolled on the Hold Back the Darkness roll. It might be monsters, an artifact or nothing at all.

Child of the Void is a little conjoined twin - top half only - growing out of your lower abdomen, like Kuato in the original Total Recall. It gives you a couple minor stat boosts but my favorite part about it as that the rules say you have to name it.

Winning 10$ in a beauty contest is my #1 favorite oddball rule, if card rules count.

Making out with an old lady in Five Finger Severance is my #2 favorite, again, if cards count.

The crazy insanities you get in Strange Aeons, which is my #3.

I love that in the player aid for 1989: Dawn of Freedom, this is step 5 of the turn:



(It makes sense in context.)

Dogmatix wrote:
Anyway, I've been entertained more than once by the plastic paradrop in the Sainte-Mere-Eglise Memoir '44 scenario. The American player holds, I think, four infantry figures above the board a foot or so and then drops them. If they land in an unoccupied hex, he adds a unit there; if they go off the board or land in another unit's hex, they're removed.

I'd swear this is actually a straight theft from an 80s hex & chit game--maybe one of Jack Radey's [?] People's Wargames titles...[/quote]

Black Sea Black Death.

My favorite oddball rule is from ANGOLA. At the end of each turn, each of the four players ( Its a 2P vs 2P game ) blindly bid for foreign aid in the form of reinforecements , AT/AA missiles, and mines. When the bids are revealed, whichever PLAYER bid highest causes the opposing faction to gain a VP point. So if one player bids 5 and his partner bids 2, the other side gets a VP even if both partners in their faction bid 4 each. Sure, they got more stuff, but they didn't have the single highest bid. And VP in that game are significant - in a game with only 10 turns max and auto victory at 10 VP it can make a difference.

Whenever we introduce it to new players, that phase is aptly described " 30 second of pure terror ) .

Legomancer wrote: I love that in the player aid for 1989: Dawn of Freedom, this is step 5 of the turn:

(It makes sense in context.)

You forgot the best part - the card that puts New Years Eve into effect has David Hasselhoff on it .

GW are the best at the really obnoxious, highly specific rules...roll a 1, something awesome, stupid, awesomely stupid or stupidly awesome happens. And then they put some kind of hoo-doo in there so it happens all the time. I don't think I've ever used a Helblaster Volley Cannon that didn't blow itself up.

The original Filch flare in Cosmic is one of the best. It lets you steal cards off the table unless you get caught. One time I filched almost the entire deck.

Train Raider's Hail Mary option is a masterpiece...if you are in last place, you can stake the entire game on one delivery run for a huge payout. If you make it, you are in first place. If you fail, your company is disgraced and you are eliminated.

Not rules really, but the critical failure tables in the old ICE RPG books were splendid.

Dungeon Crawl Classics. All of it.

I used to have a Dark Elf fleet for Man O War and moving the Black Arch was an absolute blast. You just slid it across the table, and if done at the correct moment, you could really wreck havoc. However, it didn't seem overpowered, but maybe we were just too young and dumb to understand the deeper strategic layers.

Michael Barnes wrote: The original Filch flare in Cosmic is one of the best. It lets you steal cards off the table unless you get caught. One time I filched almost the entire deck.

Yeah, I love this one too. It's fun when you just grab a handful of cards for defensive rewards, and people eventually get like, "where did all the cards go?"

Michael Barnes wrote: I don't think I've ever used a Helblaster Volley Cannon that didn't blow itself up.

It had 9 chances to blow (or misfire), so highly likely. But I've also seen it eradicate entire units (and the look on the receiving player's face is priceless). Blowing up on the ninth barrel is still way worth it.