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I want all my friends to love Galaxy Trucker as much as I do.

Unfortunately if not enough pieces fall off your ship, the game isn't as fun. Then people don't want to play again. This is quite common in the base game; often I just happen to get a mostly planets/open space draw. Do people have more sophisticated methods for (pseudo-)randomizing the cards in order to make sure there's a generous collection of meteoric swarms and laser-blast-dealing cards.

After all, if no one's ship falls apart by the end of the first round, then what's the point?

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  • Are you sure this is why people don't want to play? Are they actually refusing to even go on to the second round? And are you using the predetermined set of cards for the first round that includes basically one of each thing?
    – Cascabel
    Nov 15, 2016 at 1:14
  • No, nobody is refusing anything yet. My board game group has a lot of people who don't like Galaxy Trucker for whatever reason and have been overly vocal about that sentiment, and so the newbies who haven't played it have an unfairly negative perception before even starting. I want to make sure to give them an unforgettable first game in order to overcome this initial bias.
    – dspyz
    Nov 15, 2016 at 1:19
  • Careful with your wishes. In my experience, it takes most people (not all) a little while to embrace the chaos. I've found that too much destruction will put a lot of new players off. They're happy with the ship they've made and they want to see it succeed. Losing a wing and making it anyway with a few credits is good, but having your ship blow up early and sitting out can put new players off.
    – Samthere
    Nov 15, 2016 at 9:27

1 Answer 1

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Since your question says "often I just happen to get a mostly planets/open space draw" I'm going to assume that you're not doing the first time setup that the rules say to do:

From the deck labeled “I”, take the eight cards marked with an asterisk in the lower left corner. Shuffle these eight cards and set them near the flight board.

You really should do that. It's basically one of every type of card, so that everyone sees how everything works. The goal is not to make it hard, it's to teach them how to play the game, so that they have some hope of building a ship that can do well in later rounds. The first round is deliberately short, and not terribly important in terms of your final score, so it's fine to use it as a teaching moment. There's plenty of opportunity for failure in later rounds, when people will have some idea of what they're doing.

I would definitely not recommend trying to make it more "turbulent". Sure, the point of the game is that things go wrong. But there's no need to take that to an extreme; if anything that's even worse for new players. Without any experience, they'll tend to have built ships that don't fare well, while you with your experience will tend to do better, so it's going to look like a really frustrating, punishing game, where they try to build a ship and the game destroys it and they end up with no points.

After all, if no one's ship falls apart by the end of the first round, then what's the point?

If you really think this is important, make it your ship that falls apart. Build something under-connected, stick important things on the exterior, don't put a laser in the center, and so on. But don't deliberately make the game punish new players.

In general, I'd say you should give the game a chance to do what it's meant to do. If people don't like the game, don't play it with them. If new players have preconceptions, encourage them to have an open mind, be friendly about the game, and don't pressure them to have exactly the experience you think they should have, just give them the opportunity to enjoy it.

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  • I didn't notice the first-time cards. Thanks. Also I like the idea of trying to build a ship that will fall apart. I'll do that. Additionally I'll make sure to try and stay in back rather than finishing first and charging out in front.
    – dspyz
    Nov 15, 2016 at 1:28
  • This is good advice. Give yourself rough roads cards (but not them) so that the other players can laugh as they shoot you in the back for overtaking them. Use the hard ship types from the expansions. Take time out of your building to give advice to the other players, and let them take back major mistakes in the first go.
    – Samthere
    Nov 15, 2016 at 9:29

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