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Love letter was a surprise hit in my group. Everybody enjoys the fast pace and player interaction. It's just a shame that it only allows up to 4 players, because it seems like it would be better for say six players. I would have no problem buying a second copy of the game to shuffle the two decks of cards together, but I'm wondering if it would work in theory.

Has anybody got any suggestions as to how to try and increase the player limit?

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  • If you've not already, I'd suggest looking at other similar games. Coup in particular takes six and has a somewhat similar feel.
    – xorsyst
    May 13, 2016 at 16:31

7 Answers 7

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If you're really up to it, you might want to buy the Love Letter Premium Edition which lets you play with up to eight players. It might be a bit different from the Love Letter you're used to though as it comes with new characters like the Assassin (which eliminates an opponent if that opponent forces you to reveal it).

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It's an official game though so I you can rest assured that it's been playtested and was intended to be played with more players. I hope that helps :)

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    Don't invent it if it already exists and available for purchase. This should be the accepted answer.
    – Deo
    Jan 11, 2017 at 12:49
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    To be fair, the Premium Edition wasn't out yet when the question was asked but I do think the OP can't do better than buy this now that it's out ;-)
    – R.K.
    Jan 12, 2017 at 12:20
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    Ah, right, I didn't catch it was an old question. Well in that case - Lost Legacy. Same point.
    – Deo
    Jan 12, 2017 at 15:56
  • Yup. I agree. No reason not to buy this now.
    – R.K.
    Jan 13, 2017 at 6:17
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One way that I use lets you accommodate up to eight players. You will need two decks of Love Letter cards, and two tokens distinctly different from the tokens of affection. Remove one Princess, and give each player two tokens. Play normally, but when someone would be out, have them discard their card and draw a new one. Then they get rid of one of the tokens. When they have no more tokens left, they are out.

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If you read the design diary of Lost Legacy (a game designed to be in the same system, from a games mechanics perspective, as Love Letter) you'll note it's pretty similar. It also has explicit rules on how to incorporate more players (because it's a series of games and there are more)

The Lost Legacy "MegaMix Set"

This variant allows up to six players to play the game. Use the following guidelines to create a set of 31 cards:

  1. Use all the cards in this set (16 cards) and one expansion set (16 cards again. Expansions for Lost Legacy are essentialy stand alone games. Each it's own variation on the Love Letter formula)
  2. Remove one of the Lost Legacy cards (Princess would be the closest analogy)

If players with, it's perfectly possible to play with a Megamix Set even with only 2-4 players.

Lost Legacy Rulesbook Page 10

For Love Letter you could simply combine two decks and remove the extra princess and you should be able to fit six players comfortably. If you enjoy Love Letter might I suggest the only SLIGHTLY more advanced Love Legacy series. It takes the same mechanics of Love Letter and makes the game a little less repetitive plus it also also expansions that add even more spice to the game beyond mere cosmetic changes as we see so often in Love Letter sets.

Love Letter is at the end of the day a micro game that probably shouldn't expand the player count because a lot of what makes the game works is the 4 player cap. With more players the tension in target selection is changed. The despiration to knock out a player can get replaced with the hopelessnes of knowing there are too many players to knock them out. It's a very tight and very well designed microgame.

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  • +1, good points: - Expanding Love Letter as it is is going to harm the game - There are options in this family specifically designed for more players: Lost Legacy and Love Letter Premium - Love Legacy would be an interesting game to play :)
    – Deo
    Jan 11, 2017 at 12:44
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We've recently been playing with 5 and 6 players, first to 3 favours.

For a 5 player game, add a Guard, a Priest and a Baron just to pad the deck a bit. This seemed to work seamlessly.

For a 6 player game, on top of the above, also add another Guard, a King and a Countess. This worked well, but we found that the strategies started to change. The Countess is more confusing because you discard it if you have one of 2 Princes, 2 Kings, the other Countess or the Princess.

We found that 7 and 8 players games became simultaneously more random and more deadly. Strategies started to break down and the Baron became a liability.

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Look in the Variant subforum on BGG, there are quite a few ideas.

For example: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1094976/2-8-players-queen-jester

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Having played quite a bit of Love Letter in all sorts of places, I can say it isn't too rough to play the game as written with up to seven people. It can be a little more chaotic and random, yes. The trick to playing with larger groups is just to manage your expectations. It's not going to be quite as tactical and tricky, but it can still be plenty of fun.

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Having more than four players seems like it would be a lot more chaotic, cause they probably play tested the game and chose that number for that reason, I played a game called 7 wonders with a group of friends, and we had 7 people and the game is a 2 to 7 player game, and I will never have 7 people play it again, was supposed to be half an hour at most, it took us 1 to 2 hours, so, adding more players to Love letter might be more chaotic than you want, but give it a try, it doesn't hurt.

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    Either those people were all new or you weren't playing it correctly. 7 Wonders is often touted as a game that doesn't change in length based on the player count.
    – Matt R
    Oct 24, 2014 at 19:40
  • 7 Wonders should only require you to look at the player to your left, and the player to your right. And all turns are simultaneous. Someone two spots away is utterly irrelevant to a novice game. (If you're playing card-denial against some opponents, then you might pay attention to them, but for the most part you should only care about your neighbors.) Oct 24, 2014 at 22:35
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    This is not answering the question of how to do it. Board Games SE is a Q&A site, not a forum - please see our tour to understand how this site works. Answers need to answer the question, and aren't for discussion. Oct 26, 2014 at 0:23
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    Welcome to B&CG, Cody!
    – Pat Ludwig
    Oct 26, 2014 at 1:40
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    Seems like this answer is saying "there is no good way to do this." That might or might not be true, and it's certainly not what the OP was hoping for, but it does address the question.
    – Cascabel
    Jan 11, 2017 at 17:27

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