buddha nature spirit island
this is a guide for hosting games of "buddha nature" spirit island, whatever that means (i will explain it). i will assume that you know how spirit island works before reading this.
what is "buddha nature"?
this is a term that i heard from et. the brief explanation is "playing board games without knowing the rules", but there's more depth to it.
because of how buddha naturing works, a player can buddha nature a board game at most once, because afterwards they will know the mechanics of the game.
mechanics of buddha naturing
so there's a "buddha master", someone who knows the game well. they do all the setup for the players.
gameplay happens by the players individually trying to interact with game components that they can see. for example, if there's a deck of cards somewhere, a player can point to the deck of cards and say "i interact with these", or "i try to move the top card onto this board". then, the buddha master will judge whether that is allowed (i.e. "has the buddha nature"). if it has the buddha nature, the player is now locked into having interacted with the game component, and can't reverse their decision. if it isn't allowed, the buddha master will tell the player that the action does not have the buddha nature, and gives the player a chance to try to interact with a different game component or take another action.
for this reason, it is often a good idea for players to try things that they would expect to not work, because it gives them slightly more information.
often, it will take a while for a player to figure out what they're allowed to do. you can let the players describe a list of objects or regions of the table to try to interact with, and what order to try things in. they would interact with the first thing or region that they are able to interact with.
if a player interacting with the game component requires or causes something specific to happen, the buddha master makes it happen. for example, if the player drawing a card involves them paying some amount of currency, then the buddha master will take away that much currency from the player's supply. or if the action of drawing a card necessarily draws 4 cards at a time, the buddha master will draw 4 cards and give them to the player.
if an action requires luck (e.g. has a chance to happen but isn't guaranteed) it doesn't have the buddha nature.
if an object is placed in a region, and it doesn't matter where in the region the object is placed, the buddha master should move it to a place that makes that fact obvious, such as in the center of the region.
if at some point, a player's next action requires them to interact with a game component, the buddha master can say that the player is holding that component, which signifies that they should try to do something with it.
often, not all players will be able to do something. this may be due to it being one individual player's turn, or that a player has exhausted all of their possible actions. the buddha master should be telling the players who has the ability to take actions and who doesn't.
similarly often, there will be actions that are optional, and a player may want to forego taking an action. the buddha master should recognize this, and if the ability to not take an action is important, they should give a prompt for skipping an action, such as saying "action or no action".
generally, if the game is turn-based, there should be an object that is not normally from the game used to denote whose turn it is. it may also be useful when turns are interweaved or simultaneous, like in worker placement games.
the buddha master does not give a name to any pieces or game concepts, and instead refers to most game pieces with generic terms like "pieces" or "objects". the players are supposed to come up with names for the pieces to describe them better, which is where the phrase "tall disc stack" to describe a sacred site comes from.
my experience with buddha naturing
in my experience and from what i've heard from friends at et, it is more fun for players to cooperate to understand the rules. for this reason, i believe that cooperative games are better for buddha naturing than competitive games. i don't think i'm very fast at figuring out mechanics of board games myself, partially because i don't play that many distinct board games. if the board game itself is cooperative, it's easier to pool together knowledge with the other players about how the game works.
for competitive games, there tends to be discussion about the game mechanics after the game ends. by that point, you no longer have an advantage over your opponents by being able to figure out more about the mechanics, so there isn't really any reasons to not share what you've discovered. also, since you know roughly how the game works, you can't buddha nature the game a second time, so you can also freely ask the buddha master about mechanics.
i have only been significantly involved in 5 buddha nature games in total. i played queenz, firefly, and atlantis rising, and i have buddha mastered spirit island twice, both of which were losses. after seeing the results of these games, i have several different ideas for ways and tips to organize buddha naturing spirit island. the tips in bold are especially recommended.
however, spirit island is a very complex game, so the more experienced the players are with buddha naturing, the better.
first, let me talk about the general mechanics of how buddha naturing spirit island works the two times i've done it, and discuss some modifications to make.
general mechanics of buddha nature spirit island
setup
take these out of the box and lay them out:
- explorers, towns, cities, and dahan (the players usually won't be able to interact with these outside of powers replacing pieces)
- energy tokens, but don't distinguish between 1-energy and 3-energy pieces
- major and minor decks, interacting with these decks is quite important as it gives an additional mechanic. there's also an option to use the power progression decks, which makes the game simpler but less interesting and is a lot more work for the buddha master.
- also, prepare some dice (2 per player should be enough) for yourself to keep track of defends. you can instead lay the dice out, since they can be placed on the board.
- prepare another special piece like an incarna as a prop for targeting powers.
set up the island and invader boards normally, without any adversaries, scenarios, blight cards, or expansions, and don't do the initial explore. you can use either the horizons board or the base game invader board, though keep in mind that the horizons board only allows for 3 players. skipping the initial explore decreases the difficulty of the game, which we want because buddha naturing a game generally makes it far harder.
give each player a choice of the horizons spirits. you may also include the low-complexity spirits from the base game as choices, but they don't synergize with each other or the horizons spirits nearly as well as the horizons spirits synergize with each other. the base game low complexities also are considered weaker than the horizons spirits, and i find them a lot more tricky to start to understand. in particular, if lightning tries to interact with any power card deck or river tries to interact with the energy pile, it forces them to reclaim. if shadows ends up being played, i would recommend using reach, since base is way too weak, and you can also prevent the player from actually interacting with the aspect card to not cause complications. you can also include a spread of rampant green, because despite being a moderate complexity spirit it is much stronger than any of the basegame spirits, and gift of proliferation might be overpowered enough to carry the game. if the power progressions are being used, then don't include both base game spirits and horizons spirits, because their power progressions overlap.
let the players each choose a color. place an action marker (e.g. defend/isolate token) on each player's innate (i will refer to that token as their innate token). choose a side to mean "can use this innate power this turn", and set the markers with that side down. make sure you're consistent with this throughout the entire game.
let the players choose a board, or choose a board for them. the setups of all horizons and low complexity spirits are predetermined, so it's fine to choose boards for them and make setting up happen uniquely.
ideally, you would give the players enough time to read their spirit panels to see what is going on. you can let the players tell you when they're done reading.
make sure the players have plenty of space around their spirit boards to put cards in hand, play, and discard in 3 visually separate areas. for example, you can budget space for cards in hand on the left, cards in play below, and cards in discard on the right.
gameplay
separate each turn into 4 main phases. spirit island normally doesn't have overlap between spirit, fast, invader, and slow phases, and keeping them separate makes it easier on both the buddha master and the players.
spirit phase
separate this into growth, gain energy, and play power cards. this makes it the simplest for the players.
growth
if a player tries to interact with the energy tokens during growth, this will
lock them into taking a growth option that gains energy, which generally isn't
a terrible problem, since every spirit except river has a growth option that
gains energy and adds presence. also, players are freely able to interact with
the power card decks, anything on the spirit board, and anything on the
island, and unless they're playing sunkitty, they can't really do anything
outside of gaining a power card, gaining energy, or adding a presence.
however, the rules do allow players to reposition presence with growth options
that add presence, so this gives an additional rule to impose so that players
can't accidentally sabotage themselves super easily:
require "add a presence" to add from the spirit board (unless their
presence tracks are empty).
when a player gains a power card, give them 4 cards from the deck they interact with, and tell them they are holding those cards. wait for them to interact with one of those 4 cards, that is the one they gain. if they gain a major power, then you will need them to be holding all of their cards and then choose one to forget. this gives players a way to interact with power cards in their hands before the play cards phase, which means you should also impose the rule of prevent players from interacting with power cards in their hand during growth. if they try to interact with a power card in their discard, they would reclaim it, which would probably make them reclaim all.
gain energy and play power cards
after everyone finishes growth, give them the energy from their presence tracks, and make everyone be holding the power cards in hand that they can afford. at this point, when they interact with a card, they play it, and pay for it, and if they stop being able to afford a card after paying for one, remove it from their hand. then once the players run out of card plays, they stop holding anything. when a card is in play, make sure it is in the "cards in play" area.
when the cards that someone plays have enough elements to activate an innate, flip their innate token over.
another option for the organization of the spirit phase is to combine growth and gaining energy, so interacting with the energy pieces won't lock spirits into taking an energy-gaining growth option, but this would essentially make interacting with the energy pieces useless. you could also distinguish between 1 and 3 energy pieces, and then taking a 3-energy piece may lock spirits out of certain growths, but this would likely make the game harder to understand for the players.
fast phase
(slow phase should work the same way)
use a prop to target powers. in spirit island, one power can't interrupt the use of another power. therefore, only one prop is needed.
here is the entire process to use a power:
- a player interacts with a power card or the innate token. make sure that power is the correct speed.
- have them hold the targeting prop. they have to place it somewhere.
- if the power they interacted with is a land-targeting power, they would need to place it in a land that the power can target. if the power is a spirit-targeting power, they would need to place it on the spirit board of a spirit that can be targeted. if they place it close enough to one spirit board to make it obviously targeting that spirit, you can snap it to a location on the spirit board.
-
if the power is land-targeting, the player then resolves the card's effects
in the land targeted. this often gives them choices:
push effects need the player to choose the pieces that are being pushed, and choose the land they push to.
gather effects are simpler and only need the player to choose the pieces that are being gathered, since they have to be gathered into the target land.
damage effects may need the player to choose the damage allocation. i recommend dealing 1 damage at a time, if the damage doesn't wipe the land, so the players learn how damage works a bit better. similarly, destroy effects may need the player to choose what to destroy.
other effects, like defend, fear, blight removal, or adding anything won't generally have a choice. however, for defend effects, it is useful to mark the amount of defend in that land, possibly using dice. if the power causes an ongoing effect that is not defend, mark the land with a defend token of the player's color. - if the power is spirit-targeting, the targeted player and the targeting player both make any choices the card gives them.
- after a power card is resolved, turn it 90 degrees. after an innate is resolved, flip the token over. this includes if the power card has been used before and was given a repeat somehow, then the card would be turned 180 degrees.
of course, the process can get shortcutted very easily, such as by spirits attempting to interact with an object on the island board, or interact with the fear pool. sometimes actions are only possible by a different player doing something specific, those actions should not have the buddha nature.
as in the normal game, players also have the option to not use a power despite having played it. a good way to signal this to players is to tell them that they can end their turn early by saying so. so if someone has played land of haunts and embers and doesn't want to use it, they don't need to.
invader phase
since no blight cards, adversaries or expansions are being used, the only times when players have choices are fear cards and ravages.fear cards
first, resolve any fear cards that they have. "each spirit" and "each board" effects will just give 1 action per player, while global effects should happen uniquely, so you can resolve them yourself.
invader actions
for ravages, damage to dahan happens uniquely, though do make sure to actually turn over damaged dahan. you can decide on counterattack damage allocation for the players, or you can consider each counterattack an action for the player that started on that board. build and explore both happen uniquely.
slow phase
the slow phase happens the same way as the fast phase, except with slow powers.
time passes
when time passes, everything heals, all ongoing effects like defends wear off, and all cards in play go to their spirits' discards. all of this happens uniquely, so you can resolve all of this yourself.
other play options
spirit island is complex enough that it is very difficult for the players to grasp rules before the blight runs out, especially if they are inexperienced with buddha naturing board games. therefore, there are ways to reduce complexity, difficulty, or some combination thereof.
decreasing difficulty even further during setup
there are ways to artificially decrease the difficulty even further during setup, though these aren't officially supported:
- add 1 or 2 blight per player to the blight pool
- remove some of the invaders during setup
- remove a fear token per player from the fear pool
- remove a fear card from the top of the fear deck
- add back the 4th stage 1 card to the beginning of the invader deck
you can also come up with your own.
officially supported complexity/difficulty decreases
i've discussed both of these already, but using power progression can decrease complexity even further, while giving spirits the extra growth at the beginning decreases difficulty even further.
you can also use the guard the isle's heart scenario, which is generally regarded as a decrease in difficulty due to the really large buffs at the beginning of the game.
playing a spirit yourself
finally, you can play with the buddha naturers. this can change the game from "figure out how to win" to "survive long enough for you to win for them". the two spirits i have thought about doing this with and want to recommend are snek and downpour.
snek
snek is quite strong. snek also has mostly support and defense powers, which i consider ideal for this. absorb and flowing power can both deal with energy or element problems. primordial deeps can deal with not having power cards in hand, and aegis is just a very good defend. i would recommend playing the normal opening and possibly reclaim looping absorb and aegis.
downpour
downpour is also very strong, and very good at stalling. i would recommend doing the g2 spam meme build to stall games until you notice the players actually struggling. then you gain a major as a big hammer and repeat it many times to win.
others
there are other spirits that could be played, such as memory, starlight, or even due, and each have their own benefits to you playing them.
however, to make the buddha nature as authentic as possible, you need to make sure to not take actions until the other players have taken similar actions previously, so they would need to figure out how things work. this is why i especially recommend downpour, as you will be doing g2 spam so the only action you will be taking is adding and maybee moving presence.
conclusion
and there you have it, a guide for letting people play spirit island without knowing the rules. try it out and see how it goes, i guess?