Sleeping Gods

Any day now. The ships made port in UK in December. But UK and European backers have been waiting for shipping to start.

UK apparently started this week, so I should have it soon. Everyone I’ve heard of who got to try it says it’s fantastic, challenging and you want to dive back in as soon as you finish your first campaign. So I’m very hopeful.

For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a storytelling game about a ship getting lost in mysterious waters.

Ooh, interesting! That does seem like it could make for quite an entertaining AAR.

You might want to try Near and Far (or Sleeping Gods!). I haven’t played it loads and it’s probably not a top-in-class design, but it’s significantly better than Above and Below from what I’ve played of both, and in particular, the storybook elements that were the selling point for both games for me are much better integrated in Near and Far. TBH, Above and Below felt like faffing around Below was actively detrimental more than helpful.

I have Sleeping Gods also but I haven’t unwrapped it. No table space due to my ongoing solo Dice Throne Adventures campaign and nobody to play with.

I got my copy last week, finally. The US ships came in around the new year, too, and they took a maddeningly long time to ship as well. It does look like fun, and the pieces are gorgeous.

I’ve said before- I find Laukat games passable mechanically. The systems all work, they seem balanced after several plays, but are absolutely nothing special. This is saying a lot, because I’ve played more than a few games designed by folks that are primarily artists, and they shoehorn a game I to showcase their art, and the games are invariably terrible. Laukat is better that that.

That said, A&B, N&F are the standouts because of the paragraph books, which I am fond of. For Sleeping Gods, he built that as the primary point of the game, so that suits me just fine. I’m planning on seeing if my girlfriend and her kids (13 and 15) want to do the campaign.

I’d be interested in hearing impressions. I got my shipping notice last week, so non-spoilery thoughts on this are certainly welcome.

A full AAR might get too spoilerish though.

Got my copy Monday and was hoping to play the initial “learn to play” scenario today but work intervened.

Maybe tomorrow!

But the components are really nicely done.

Ok unboxing and initial walkthrough complete. First impression…this thing takes up a ton of table space!


I don’t think it would be that bad if you didn’t have to use all nine(!) characters even for solo play. I’m guessing the game is balanced for all nine crewmembers to always be in play but this seems a little much. It’s not as bad as having to keep track of say, 4 characters in Arkham Horror or Marvel Champions but was there really no way to trim this down for just one player?

Other than that the components and artwork are all (as expected) really nice. I haven’t actually played a scenario yet so i can’t comment on the rules or how it plays, maybe tonight.

My FEELING (from MINIMAL examination) is that the 9 characters are not, like, a full on RPG party of 9 people in terms of complexity, and that it’s fairly MANAGEABLE (brain-wise) for 1 person. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty god-darned overwhelming TABLE-WISE.

Also, just from the perspective of “Am I going to give a shit about all these characters,” from like a storytelling perspective (especially if I’m filling in the blanks of the story), the answer simply has to be no.

But I’m hoping that mechanically, it’s not insane.

Actualy, Tom Vasel did a short family review (no mechanics summary) with his daughters. They mentioned that the characters have different personalities and have speaking parts during the stories (3’ 50" in). So you might end up knowing and caring about them more than you guess. I can’t say for sure though. I haven’t played yet.

Yall notice that the “Starting Adventure Cards” are actually Starting Market Cards? You might have to go through all the Adventure Cards before you think to start looking in other decks. Which is exactly what the rule book tells you not to do. Sigh.

It’s probably covered in the Errata, but I kinda hate looking at Errata before I start playing, because those can be spoilery too.

Yep, for whatever reason I spotted that right away. I think maybe from one of the rules videos I watched.

Here’s my question: the max on ability cards a player can hold is 3. If you go over 3, you have to immediately discard your ability cards down to 3 again.

Does that not make this game a little tougher to win solitaire? There’s no reason for a group of 2-3 players to withhold playing their ability cards if they’re needed, so presumably if a person can help a challenge with an ability card, they’d do it, right?

So…playing solitaire, I’ve got a max of 3 ability cards I can play. But if I have a 2nd player or third, I have up to 6 or 9 ability cards perhaps.

Most “per player” rules like that assume people aren’t playing solo or multi-handed. I haven’t opened Sleeping Gods yet to read the rules, so I don’t know if that’s the case here or not.

The issue here is that usually when you’re playing solitaire and going multihanded with extra characters, you can make rules for that: 1 player = 1 character. But in Sleeping Gods, there’s a clear split between characters and players in the rules. You always have 9 “characters” (the crew and captain). And they’re split up amongst the players.

It’s a minor thing, for sure. I played the game for about 2-3 hours today, and honestly, I’m just loving it so far.

Yep. The Watch It Played rules video mentioned where to find them and it is indeed in the errata. See page 3. You will not get spoiled as the role errata are separated from the adventure and story book ones (you will need to avoid looking at the bottom right of page 3 though).

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/218115/sleeping-gods-1st-printing-errata-and-faq-version

It also comes with useful survival tips on page 2.

I spent yesterday evening punching and sorting out the game. I’ve watched the rules video but not read the rule book yet. But I feel I’m ready to start playing with my wife today.

Looking forward to it. The game looks awesome.

By the way, the Watch It Played video already mentions elements from the FAQ and errata. So definitely worth a watch it you are learning the game and do not mind partly learning from a video:

Ah, so I won’t get spoiled as long as I don’t look at the spoilers? Got it. ;)

(I appreciate your help but this is why I avoid errata, unfortunately.)

For a game like this I try to learn from the rules. I’m going to be referencing the rules at some point, might as well spend that 37 minutes familiarizing myself with where things are. (If it’s a game like Cartographers, though, I’ll definitely put on a 15-minute video, since I’ll probably never have to look at the rules again.)

There is seriously no way the errata will spoil it unless you specifically look at and read the sections clearly marked adventure cards (3 entries at the bottom of that page) or storybook (all in the next page).

Up to you, of course. But I found it useful.

Edit: to be more helpful, here is the errata sans spoilers.

Haha aww, that’s really nice of you! Thanks!

I did peek at the errata earlier and I also didn’t want to see those “helpful tips” (which you have helpfully removed). I generally want to figure out my own helpful tips unless I need some help! I didn’t read them, though.

I’m also the guy who avoids reading the “Here’s how to solve the first few puzzles” page in old adventure game manuals.

Happy to help. The helpful tips were added because some players complained that the game was too hard. But I agree it’s also fun to figure this out for ourselves. Good luck on your campaign!