First of all, hello to everyone. Though I see, that this is a bit older topic, I still wanted to add some of my perspective. Not only about the characters abilities but also about the way the game is played with my groups here.

First of all, I agree with ronsen_04.

[QUOTE efidm=446652]
...In my opinion, part of what makes BSG such a great game, is that you can tackle the same overall theme of problems with a different "cast" each time. It's not just about picking a dream team and hoping the right characters flip at the right time. I personally enjoy to see what different players with different attitudes do with different characters and their strengths and weaknesses. It makes each game truly unique.

Yes, I also have my favorite characters...one of them being Apollo because he's so versatile. Nonetheless, I also enjoy playing "lower tier characters" as per your definition... A character's weaknesses as well as his not so super strengths make each and every character unique...and it calls for a unique approach to each character by each player. That's part of the game!

[/QUOTE]

Why I do agree is because you can choose a character from such a big variety. In the group I play (3-4 people play almost always and the other 1-3 vary) we choose the characters randomly on almost 99% of the games we play. Why? Because it gives you a bigger challenge. Challenge for yourself to find a way to win with maybe not the best character. We all do have our favourite characters (I like Helo, a friend likes Roslin), but if we would play only with the same characters, the way we play would almost always be the same. Yeah, luck with Crisis Cards or Loyalty Cards will change it, but there would be only two differences on how you play a character: human or cylon way. Yes, you can try different ways, but still, the character and the way you play him/he will stay the same.

For us, it isn't about the characters abilities or handy caps, as we call them, its about how you play them. Almost every character has something that is good for a human team or a cylon team. In certain situations, Tighs once per game can come really handy, when he and the President are cylons, or he is a human, and the President is a cylon. Thou it is true, that William Adamas Inspirational Leader only helps humans, but at the same time, he can't send anyone to the Brig location. Good and bad for everyone. The discussed Helena Cain Once-per-game ability can also come in handy for cylons, when population is low and she decides to jump. We did lose a game because Cain was a cylon and population was at 3 and we could have easily overcome the last 1-2 Crisis cards.

As I have understood, most of you want that the humans win. Why? Does it make the game more interesting? Me and my group go out to see, which team will win. Most in our group don't even want to be humans (thanks to Exodus, the human part has become a bit more challenging and therefore more fun), because you can't be sneaky and play a really good deceiving tactical game. As a human, you discuss everything openly. As a cylon, you mostly rely only on yourself, because revealing yourself too early can make it hard. To explain why we think so: most of our cylon tactics go to the point that one is revealed and one is not. One works from the inside and one from the outside (sometimes humans knows who the insider is, but it's no tactical use to execute him or send to the brig, since there are other more important problems). Not always, but I'd say most of the games are like that. One of the most epic games we had was about over a half a year ago, when a really even game was won by the cylons. We had 3 humans and 2 cylons. On cylon was revealed, the other not. And nobody knew who the other cylon was, until the game ended. Not even the revealed cylon. A cylon working from the inside can do a lot of harm in raising suspicion and paranoia. The paranoia and deceiving part is, what makes this game so interesting, not the humas winning. If it is good or bad probably depends on how you think of it. So for us it is more of a psychological tactics game then just tactics. You trust and don't trust at the same time. Whom will you believe?

About our win ratio, it's about 50/50 I'd say. Maybe 40/60 to the cylon side, but for us it mostly depends on who is playing against whom. We have some really strong players and some who have played only 3-4 times before or not at all. This brings me to the meta part of the discussion. I would say that the previous games do have a role in later games. Because you already know, who the really strong players are and what tactics they normally use. You know, whom you have to keep a special eye on.

Long story short: it is more challenging to try to win the game with not that strong characters, since then you have to try harder. That makes it fun. It's not that important if the humans or cylons win, it's about winning itself.

As for rating the characters...

Since almost from the start, we draw random characters, picking out the ones our group plays the most, is a bit difficult. But I'll give my best on describing why we like some characters (in no particular order):

• Laura Roslin: Although she has to discard Skill cards, she can choose between two Crisis Cards. That gives a good tactical position as a human and as a unrevealed cylon.
• Louanne "Kat" Katraine. She can use Skill cards instead of rolling. Also her Sacrifice has come in handy. Mostly used in pre-Exodus games.
• Karl "Helo" Agathon. The player can re-roll and change a choice made with a Crisis card. He will miss the first round from the board, but that isn't really a problem.
• "Chief" Galen Tyrol. After the repair, he can make another action. Which means, that after a repair, he can give someone else an Executive Order. So on one turn, you can have 3 actions.
• Lee "Apollo" Adama. Really important in the Exodus, since pilots are the only way on getting the Civilian ships off the board. Also he gets a variety of different Skill card, although he has to discard randomly.
• Callandra "Cally" Tyrol. Now she has some really great abilities. Especially the once-per-turn one. She also gets the biggest variety of Skill cards.
• Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. She does have a bad handy cap, but at the same time, her positive abilities are balancing it. Like Roslin, she has somewhat of a good tactical point with the Crisis cards.
• So... a bit different favourites as for most of players here.

Well Genky, I remember this thread dying. I was there. Now here it is back alive, which makes it a cylon. And I hate cylons.

Seriously though, I'm perplexed by your argument. You seem to on the one hand be arguing for playing thematically, and I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. But at the same time you inquire why players would play full human until revealing. You even say that most humans in your group want to be cylon. Your stated reasons for that are all mechanical; none of them are thematic. I trust you watched the show, so maybe you can understand the contradiction I'm pointing out. It seems to me that rule 1a for any group that claims to play thematically is that the humans sell out for their species, from character selection all the way up until they start hearing the strange music. "Do what we always do: fight 'em 'til we can't." Doesn't that ring bells? I swear, I get all tingly thinking about it.

genky said:

I think its interesting that you pick a lot of pilots and support characters and only one political leader and one military leader (who is a pilot).  I personally prefer characters who have a lot of individual power, are difficult to out as Cylons when played properly, and are not really "team players" - like Adama (OPG is amazing, OPT cannot be stopped, only forgotten by everyone not me and I wont have someone point out all of a sudden "hey, Cally hasn't used her OPT this whole game" and he has no real weakness) or Apollo (again, OPT is amazing, the only playerwho can get an action on another player's turn without being given that action, and has color variety).  And of course, Ellen Tigh, who looks like she is helping the team by passing out skill cards but really is only helping herself.

I have like, NO idea if this is according to the rules or not, but I think it is, it's the way we do it.. Roll the dice, highest score goes first then clockwise. First person get to pick whatever class he likes, when he decides to pick let's say military leader the next 3 may not pick military leader as there has to be a political a pilot and a supporter before the 5'th may  restart the picking. And thus may pick miltiary leader as well

 Andreas,

Yes, that's very close to how the rulebook says to do it. The only difference between what you're suggesting and the official method is that Support is not a proper class in the rulebook. In other words, you can only draw from the smallest stack of Political, Military or Pilot, but you can always choose Support if you don't like your options.

@HolyOutlaw

It seems to me that rule 1a for any group that claims to play thematically is that the humans sell out for their species, from character selection all the way up until they start hearing the strange music. "Do what we always do: fight 'em 'til we can't." Doesn't that ring bells? I swear, I get all tingly thinking about it.

...unless they're busy staging a mutiny (2). Or bedding possibly hostile Cylons (2). Or advocating/conspiring in/ordering the murder of fleet officers (7). Or cheating on their partners (2). Or getting addicted to Stims (1). Or not stopping at the stims and just taking everything nice in life's path (1). Or shooting the old man in the guts (1). Or being an amoral bitch (1).

Which would kinda leave Dualla as the only player character - and we all know how well Dee copes with bad news.

@genky

As I have understood, most of you want that the humans win.

I'd say most of us want to win, period. This can either happen on the human team (in which case the character abilities are a major ressource) or on the Cylon team (in which case character abilities are useful, but you can always take your combination close shave/bath). Since you're going to be human more often than Cylon, it makes sense to weigh the human side more heavily, though of course characters that can advance both sides are even better.

Cifer said:

Cifer!

If you're accusing the human race of being largely dysfunctional for most of the four seasons, you won't get an argument from me. But when I try to count all the humans I saw hedging their bets by, for example, stashing explosives in their locker just in case they turned cylon and needed to blow up some human ships post-haste, I don't get very far.

(Is that an fair analogy for keeping a handful of cards to potentially use against the fleet later? It's the best I could think of .,.)

The only example I can call to mind of a human who hedged bets, or who did anything but dread turning cylon, is Gaius Baltar circa 3.5. And that was really an issue of self-loathing. Guilt. He didn't want to be a cylon, he just wanted to be redeemed. The closest thing to that would be screwing up so royally at the table during loyalty that you want to turn cylon at sleeper just so you can fake like you had it all along to save face.

I remember the show. I watched it all the way through twice, and I've watched some episodes half a dozen times. I can state with confidence that humans didn't want to be cylons. Most *cylons* didn't want to be cylons. A case can be made for straddling the fence until sleeper, but purely a mechanical one. It's decidedly un-thematic.

(On another note, I like your second point. It strikes me as well-put and it pretty closely mirrors my own attitudes on individualism, winning, and leaning human.)

@Holy Outlaw

I think you took my attempt at a little humor more seriously than it was meant.

That said, the "play selfish" adage sounds quite appropriate at least for Ellen Tigh - there were a few times where she directly traded things that would benefit humanity for things that would benefit her, starting with Colonial Day and a certain assassin. Her motivation might have been different, but the action was quite the same.

Oh Cifer, you're reminding me how much I hate Ellen Tigh. My least favorite thing about season 4 was

*SPOILER ALERT* 

Ellen Tigh.

*equally spoileriffic*

I think it was mainly the combination of Saul and Ellen. Both were just fine when they were alone (and Ellen definitely got a massive sympathy boost for her understanding attitude post-bath), but just when they reunite, things go right back to what they were before, though Saul pretty much held on to the character strength he developed when listening to the pretty music.

Hi, I'd like to know whay , in the very first post in this thread it was said of Tori; " But she's a *monster*." And with Asterisks involved?

Just curious...
 

 LynchMob,

I just meant to say that she's really powerful. If you read ahead in the thread I think I argue that she's the second strongest character in the game behind Helena Cain. As for the asterisks, they're a throwback to old days with plain text scripts like DOS. You couldn't actually do boldfaced type or underscore, so you'd frame a work with asterisks for emphasis. 

OHhhh…
Well, just two days ago, I started playing my very first game, with two friends. This was to be a “experiment” game, since at first it looks like an intimidating game with all the cards and different steps (but, this is coming from someone who plays Advanced Squad Leader, so…What the Heck?). It’s real easy to play once one turn has a “go ‘round”.
Getting back to my point…I picked Tori based on just your one comment there…not knowing even really what you meant. I’m enjoying her as a character. Sadly, we only had about 2 hours to play and didn’t even get one “FTL Jump” yet (we had a card that gave us a set back one step, but then we recovered). I was really getting into it and then we had to stop! Crud! We left the game set up and sealed our Loyalty cards and skill cards in envelops for when we pick it up again.
I’m going to look forward to how this plays out, and comparing her to other characters in the game.
 

You know who I think has a lot of bitchin’ power? And that’s lowly little “Cally”. Like she can draw from 4 different skill groups, but her “Quick Fix” ability is pretty cool. And it’s not “once per game” she can do it every single skill check (on her turn). Plus, she outright kill another character in her area (once per game).
Huh. I don’t know, but I think she’s kind of powerful. Am I dumb here, or wot?
 

I like Cally quite a bit actually... but her weakness can really hurt given the wide variety of cards she draws, making it difficult to play helpful cards into skill checks sometimes.  Her OPG is very useful if you know who the Cylons are or if you are a Cylon that wants to, for example, kill Cain before she can use her OPG, but her ability is mostly useless once the Cylons have revealed.  She also has a hard time getting to Pilots who stay out in their Vipers, and she has no chance whatsoever of getting a title.