To date I have played four games using the expansion - two three-player games, and two five-player. In actual play the expansion seems to work quite well, although I have one small reservation. “Games without frontiers, war without tears” - Peter Gabriel The effect of this seems to increase the value of Gigs, since Contracts are harder to come by, and thus it’s harder to get Hit Singles into play. Interestingly, Backstage Pass does not include any new contract cards, although it does provide 4 more Gigs - one of them signed - and 5 Hit Singles. But if your gaming group is mostly made up of men, don’t worry - the Androgynous card can be played on your Me card to allow you to form an all “female” band. And then there’s The Donnette, a 1-point band member whose value jumps to 4 if in an all-girl band. Gender Specific is a potentially vicious card: it forces the target band to discard all band members whose gender is not the same as the Me card. The gender of band members becomes an issue due to a couple of new cards. This can be used to devastate an opponent who has the edge in Gigs. Or all three! For instance, the Smash All Instruments card evokes the classic punk era, giving the band a big 6 during a Gig - but at the end of that Gig they must discard all of their instruments. Some are hilarious, some are powerful, and some draw on fine old music business tradition. The rest of the cards, the cards that players will be drawing and playing in the course of the game, are just great. However, this one victory point is rarely difficult to get anyway, so it’s not a big issue. Each of them can apparently match either of two instrument types to get that bonus Superstar Point. The two new Me cards have a very slight edge over the standard Me cards. “He deals the cards to find the answer.” - Sting
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The rules section also includes some explanation of how to use specific cards (Ace, Prodigy, Gender Specific, and Encore), some House Rules, and a short FAQ. This makes things simpler and also increases the usefulness of Instruments. Instruments can now be used as Monkey Wrenches by any band member without an instrument during a Gig, rather than being restricted to Guest Stars.
This was confusing, to say the least, since it was counter-intuitive that someone who didn’t show up to a gig might win it. The original rules also made reference to the possibility that the winner of a gig could have “no Band Members able to participate due to certain Monkey Wrenches in play”, in which case the Gig would be discarded. This is a good rules change, as it makes sure that someone receives the Gig card, and its points count towards their chance of victory. However, tied Gigs are now won by the person who played the Gig, regardless of whether they were one of the bands tied for first place. The rules for the game remain mostly the same. Cards from the original set do not have these marks, but it’s actually easy to tell the gender of just about all the band members anyway. (* is for neuter, such as that wacky percussionist K’tulu) This is becomes relevant when a few new cards are played. In addition, the front of cards have a musical note symbol in the lower left corner, which provides a way to easily separate the expansion set from the original.īand member cards also now have an M, F, or * in the upper right corner, to indicate their gender. (It’s difficult to tell, because the game’s stack of 160 cards is about two inches thick, and difficult to shuffle in any case.) According to the designer, the next printing of the main game will match these new cards. I didn’t find this terribly problematic, although it might be interfering a bit with shuffling. As a result, the cards for Backstage Pass are slightly different in size and shape - maybe a millimeter smaller, and with more rounded corners. First, Third World Games seems to have switched manufacturers for the cards. The cards themselves are much the same as those in Battle of the Bands, with a few changes. The expansion contains a revised set of rules for the game on a larger sheet of paper, as well as some specific rules related to the new cards. “What you get’s what you see.” - Colin Jamesīackstage Pass contains 60 new cards for Battle of the Bands, including two additional Me cards, which allows the game to be played with up to 6 people.
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Since it is an expansion, I will not be reviewing the basic mechanics of the game there are several reviews of the original card game in the rpg.net review database that you can look up.ĭisclaimer: while I did not receive a free copy of the expansion, the circumstances of my purchase of it probably warrant an explanation of my possible biases, which I will explain in a separate comment to the forum. Backstage Pass is an expansion for the Battle of the Bands card game, designed and illustrated by Dan Smith.