Fantasy Business
# 7 on my "Top Ten Underrated Games" list
The Blue Box Series, as Castle, Dragon’s Gold, Democrazy, and Draco and Co. are some of my favorite short, fun games. I’m also a sucker for any game with a fantasy theme, so it seemed natural for me to pick up Fantasy Business, especially when I heard it was about negotiation – a favorite game mechanic of mine.
So is Fantasy Business (Eurogames Descartes, Christopher Boelinger – 2002) a worthwhile game? The short answer is that while an interesting game of negotiation, it has such a “nasty” feel to it that it takes a certain group to make it work. It’s a good game, but can easily bomb with the wrong people. Now, for the longer answer….
First, a short description of game play…
Two decks of cards, a deck of 24 special cards and a deck of 48 item cards are shuffled together. The backs of the cards are different, so it is easy to tell which deck a card is from – but it doesn’t matter. Each player takes 10 crowns (in coins), a price fixing sheet and a pencil. The youngest player becomes the first buyer and takes a special card denoting this fact. Each player then becomes the “first buyer” on subsequent turns in a clockwise order. There are 10 rounds in the game (8 rounds if 7-8 players are playing.)
Each round consists of the “first buyer” taking as many cards as there are players and placing them face-up in the center of the table – except special cards, which are left face-down. The item cards are healing herbs (value: 2), spell components (3), bows & arrows (3), swords (4), armor (5), horses (5), spell scrolls (6), and magic potions (6). The first buyer then picks one of the cards and bids an amount of crowns on it. All bidding starts at the value of the card, special cards have a value of “1”. Each player, in clockwise order, raises the bid or passes. Once all players but one pass, the item is sold to the highest bidder, who pays to the bank the amount they bid. The player takes the card, putting items face-up in front of them, and special cards in their hand. Once a player has bought a card, they are out of the bidding for the other cards for the remainder of that round, ensuring that each player will get one card.
After all cards are bought, players fix the sales prices for all items they own. They do this by writing down on their sheet the price they wish to sell the item for. They must sell the item for at least it’s value – but can go as high as double the value of the item. Players who are selling the same type of item may discuss the prices they will set – but all actual pricing is done secretly. After everyone has written their sell prices, the sheets are revealed. Each item on the sheet is gone through in order. Each player who has at least one of that item calls out their price. The player(s) who have the lowest price receive that price for each card they have, +2 crowns bonus for card. For example, if I have 2 “swords” cards, and have written down 5 as my price (and am the lowest), I would receive 14 crowns – 7 for each card. The player(s) who wrote the highest price gets nothing, and anyone who wrote prices in between the highest and lowest prices gets the amount they wrote for each card of that type that they own. Players take coins in accordance with the amount of crowns they receive, and the next round occurs.
Special cards can be played when stated on the game, and can add a bit of chaos to the game (stealing items, canceling income, looking at other player’s price sheets, etc.) Once 10 (8) rounds are over, the game is over. Players total up their crowns, and whoever has the highest amount is the winner!
Some comments on the game….
1). Components: The box is, as all Blue Boxes, nice, compact, and sturdy. The artwork on the box and cards is good – very fantasy stylish, but small occult symbols may turn off some people. The cards themselves are of decent quality – but I’m not sure how long they would last if the game is played heavily. The price fixing sheets are nice (no pencils included with the game). There is enough included with the game for several games, and more can easily be printed off the internet and/or copied easily. The coins are plastic tiddly winks of different shapes and colors. A little card comes with the game that shows the values of the five different coins. I wasn’t very pleased with the cards for two reasons. One, I know that it saves money, but it would have been very nice to have the values printed on the coins. It’s a pain to have to continually look at the reference card and remember which color/size is what denomination. Also, and this is an American problem, because the coins aren’t marked, we found ourselves assuming that the “10” coin was the “5” and vice versa. This is due to the American nickel being larger than the dime. This sounds silly, but because the values weren’t printed, we found ourselves reverting to using size as a base. The coins are good quality – and the plastic is nice. (Just try to keep players from playing a side game of Tiddly-winks with the coins). All the components fit well in the box.
2). Rules: The rules are well written on four pages, with many examples (including a very detailed scoring example) and pictures. There is a list of components, and two variants included. One variant allows prices to be set below the set value of the items. We played with this variant, and it changes the game quite a bit – but not necessarily for the better. The other variant only gives a +2 crown bonus to the lowest price if only ONE player has the lowest price. This is an interesting variant, but seems to promote the nastiness in the game more.
3). Nasty and Evil people: The game is fun, with a lot of negotiation included. For many people, this can be annoying as the negotiation in this game can also be called “lying through your teeth every turn of the game.” Some people we played lied every turn, and others never did. What usually happened was that everyone just set the lowest price possible for each good. Anyone who tried to set a higher price was usually lied to and burned. It was fun to play, but some people did not enjoy being lied to all the time, and others enjoyed it a bit too much. And, once somebody lied, they usually lost everyone’s trust for the entire game. I know this tactic is prevalent in many games, most notably Diplomacy – but it is slightly out of place in a short game like this.
4). Fun Factor: The theme is certainly very thin in this game. The objects being sold could be cars, jets, books, etc. – it wouldn’t change the game at all. The game was fun, however – and I enjoyed playing it. But I didn’t enjoy playing it always – especially when I played with a chronic liar. The game then degenerated into just everyone setting the lowest price possible. The bidding was fun and interesting, but wasn’t enough to hold the game. I have fun playing the game, but need to play with the right people (no extremely evil people and no whiners).
5). Special cards: A saving factor for the game, for me at least, is the special cards. They help break up people’s monopolies on items, and keep the game from becoming too predictable and boring. They add more chaos and randomness to the game, to be sure, but it’s certainly necessary.
So overall, I enjoy the game – with the right crowd. Some people can’t handle other’s being evil towards them, and others can’t handle being evil. It’s a pure negotiation game, but I prefer Dragon’s Gold much more. If you like games like Diplomacy or Ciao Ciao, where lying is common and even encouraged – then you would probably like this game. Otherwise, pass it up and try a different game in the Blue Box series.
Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
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