Review of Crime & Punishment

Blurb from the publisher: 'Crime & Punishment: the greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Gettin' the Job done just got more interesting. 40 new Misbehave cards add even more criminal exploits. 10 new Alert cards add new challenges. New setup and story cards have even more tales to tell. Watch your back, lest you end up in a heap of trouble.'

What you get: Your EUR 12 or USD 15 or GBP 10 will buy you Big Money, an expansion focusing on illegal activities for the Firefly: The Game line.

In addition to the rules in English that can be found on the publisher's website free of charge, the product also contains the following: 2 Story cards, 2 Setup cards, 6 Warrant Issued/Goal tokens, 24 Wanted tokens, 10 Alliance Alert cards and 40 Aim to Misbehave cards.

Gameplay: Crime & Punishment introduces a new type of cards to the game. Alliance Alert cards alter the rules for eveybody when they come in play. Your whole crew may become disgruntled because you botched a job, cargo may become non-sellable etc. Alliance Alerts come in play via the Story or Setup cards, through two of the new Misbehave cards, as well as every time the Alliance Cruiser Nav Card is drawn.

The Wanted tokens are also a new mechanic. Certain Misbehave cards make every member of your crew wanted, with all the repercussions this has.

Crew may now be returned to the ship during a mission via a Misbehave card. That crew member and their equipment cannot be used for the remainder of that job. Crew can now be split in teams, and you'd better have enough crew to do so. Other Misbehave cards can be dispensed off easily if you have the right person with you. If not, you will have to draw an additional Misbehave card and also fulfill its requirements in order to finish the job. Other new Misbehave cards on the other hand have two steps instead of two options; things are getting tougher by the minute. Finally, some Misbehave cards call for seizing particular types of equipment. If you have it, tough luck. It is confiscated, removed from the game, and cannot be repurchased.

The strong points: Just in case it wasn't clear up to now, Crime & Punishment is oriented towards those who are actively aiming towards Misbehaving. Options abound, both when it wants to the story as well as the setup cards. I particularly enjoyed some of the options like the way the Nav Deck is handled in 'Clearer Skies, Better Days' (namely, with less card draws, a variant the game started to desperately need), or have all players start with one Warrant already active. Depending on what you choose your game time will be increased or decreased, even though the trend is definitely towards making a game longer and slightly more complex.

The Alliance Alerts are a clever addition in that they temporarily alter the way people behave. They are however short-lived, and can be gamed out of the way with relative ease.

The new Misbehave cards mean serious business. To start with, they double the Misbehave deck. Secondly, some of them are hard to resolve. Never before did one have to worry about splitting a team or not having personnel available. Now this becomes a real danger that may cause a handful of botched missions. If these are the longer ones out there, you really want to be careful. The more these things start adding up, the more the game demands prudence and clever management. Who would have thunk, that to be a good outlaw you would need to be very careful?

The art and production values are fully in line with the original game and its expansions. Seeing how you own at least the former already, there is not much for me to write.

The weak points: As well as becoming more interesting and diverse, by definition the game becomes longer and harder. Those who knew the Misbehave deck by card, prepare for a steep readjustment. It now holds plus 40 cards, most of them harder or more unpredictable than the ones in the basic game.

The new Wanted tokens add an extra level of fiddliness, which is however easy to cope with. If misbehaving wasn't your group's thing, you might also find limited use to this expansion. I must say however that for its price it offers quite the diversity and new rules.

I honestly can't see anything outright wrong with the new mechanics or cards. The first time you introduce the expansion to your players however, you might want to inform them about the increased difficulty that is linked to misbehaving, and how doing things the legal way might actually make more sense in the future.

Conclusion: I am very satisfied with the additions that Crime & Punishment brought to my Firefly game. The expansion isn't just about more of the same, but also about new mechanisms which mesh well with the existing game, and create a new framework to consider. If you mostly run outlaw business and your game got a bit stagnant through the constant recycling of the same cards, you definitely want to give this a try.

For more info on Gale Force Nine and Firefly, visit the websites http://www.fireflythegame.com and www.gf9.com. 

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