Musings on… For Sale (#26)

Edited By David Fair
February 1, 2006

Ted Cheatham:

I will start this one. It seems we all have a tendency to like what we saw first. Like music....I like Dobie Gray’s version of “Drift Away� much more than the new version. But, when I said to my kids, “hey, you guys need to hear the original!�, they were not nearly as impressed. And, this has happened on several songs. So, I am hoping my comments are not just the same on board games. I always hear people saying “I really prefer the original�. Anyway, back to the task at hand. Pure and simple, I think the bidding system of “meet the prior bid� is much better in the original version. People tend to stay in longer and the game of “chicken� has many more players involved and the tension is higher. It is only two to stay in with the old version but, three to stay in with the new. As that accelerates, it becomes and easier decision for a person that is 4 players away. In the old game, a lot more people stay in.

Also, the addition of the 6th player has made the span of cards much farther apart making for much wider swings in scoring.

Paul Sauberer:

I loved the original For Sale. I rated it a 9 with the comment that it “is my favorite multi-player filler.� I made my own copy using clip art for the houses and punching out circles from oak tag before I found a used copy to purchase. I was looking forward to the reissue, especially since it added room for a sixth player and we often have six at the table. It was a “must buy� even though I have a copy of the original.

Once I got the new game, though, I wasn’t sure whether I liked the changes in it. As I see it, there are four major changes between the editions.

1. The card mix. Instead of having 20 houses numbered 1-20 and 20 checks numbered 0-20 (with no 1 or 2) the new version had 30 houses numbered 1-30 and 30 checks with 2 each of 0-15 (no 1).

2. The starting money. In the old edition, each player had $15 to work with, regardless of the number of players playing. The new version has variable starting cash depending on the number of players. With 5 or 6 (our most common numbers of players) each only had $14 to work with.

3. The bidding. In the old version, a player could merely equal the previous bid in order to stay alive in the round. In the new rules a player is required to raise the previous bid, or must drop out and take the lowest value house on the table.

4. Paying for bids. In the old version, players paid half their bid rounded down for their houses (except for the last bidder, who paid their full bid). The new rules change that to paying half the bid rounded up.

How did these changes affect the game? I’ll admit that I wasn’t really sure for the first few times we played, but I had a feeling that I wasn’t comfortable with them. Then a couple of weeks ago our group played the game back-to-back, first by the new bidding rules and then with the old. There wasn’t much we could do with the card mix and starting money. This experience crystallized my opinion and I now definitely prefer to play with the new rules, after reflecting on this and what I had seen in earlier plays.
I have to somewhat disagree with Ted about the card mix. Although there is a greater spread in the numbers on the houses, the spread on checks is narrower and so I think that it actually makes the game slightly tighter. Overall, though, I didn’t really notice that much of a different feel.

The other three changes had a combined effect that really diminishes the game for me. Between the lowered starting stake, the need to up the bid, and paying an extra dollar on odd bids, money got sucked out of the game very quickly from certain players and left them with much less control than in the old version. Seating order became much more important. If the player to your left started the game, the bid was almost always very high when it got to you for the first time. Almost no one dropped out immediately, especially when the spread between first and last house was usually great. The first round often ended with a bid of 7 or 8 being paid out by the “winner.� That effectively ended their participation in most of the remaining auctions as they paid out half or more of their stake for the first building. Once a couple of buildings had been auctioned, those who had already bought were often at the mercy of which opponent won subsequent auctions. If it was the player to your left, often there was a decent building there when your turn came around and others had already dropped. If it was a player a place or two to your right, you had to take the lowest value building because you didn’t have enough cash to raise the bid when it got to you.

Under the old rules, there were more decisions to make and more control over your situation. Instead of just making a rote raise of one, which often happened with the new rules, just about every player had the option to call or raise. If you raised, that put you on the hook if the bid came back around to you. It effectively allowed for a change in starting player position during the bidding, as the player who had the option of raising floated around the table. Also, by having more cash to work with due to not paying as much for winning bids or when dropping out, players were not as often priced out of auctions before they had a chance to bid. This doesn’t even take into account the effects of having (with 5 players) $15 to cover 4 auctions as opposed to having $14 to cover 6 auctions (or 5 auctions with 6 players) with the new rules.

It seems that the more I play with the new rules the more I like the original version.

Larry Levy:

Ted’s right about the prejudice that most people have toward the thing we experience first (although how anyone could prefer another version of Drift Away to Dobie Gray’s is beyond me!). That being said, I still have to cast my vote for the original For Sale. I’ve only played the new version once, and that was before the Uberplay copy came out! But, while the game still worked, I didn’t care for it as much as with the Ravensburger rules. The bidding gets ratcheted up so quickly for the players going later in the turn that you feel you’re never given a proper shot at what’s being offered.

Even more problematic to me, the early players in the order can make small, low risk bids and still get the benefit of putting pressure on the later players, either forcing them out (yielding better cards for the low bidder) or forcing them to bid high (so that you still have the option of dropping out at low cost). Besides, I think the “poker-style bidding� of the original works very well and gives the game a nice edge of tension. I can’t comment on the other changes Uberplay instituted, because we didn’t use them, but the change in the bidding is enough to keep me playing the way we first learned it. I wouldn’t mind giving the Uberplay version another shot (or, to be more accurate, a first shot), just to verify my preferences, but I’ll be surprised if I wind up changing my mind.

By the way, there’s a possibility that the Uberplay rules were Dorra’s original ones and that the “original� bidding rules were put in by Ravensburger during development. Well before the Uberplay game came out, we found an alternate translation for the game on the Game Cabinet that used the Uberplay bidding rules (that translation is no longer there, by the way). That, combined with the fact that Jeremy Young said that Uberplay simply used what Dorra sent them makes me think that the “new� version is, in some way, actually the “original� version after all. Not that this makes any difference to me; I tend to prefer the developed version of a rules set over the designer’s original when there’s a conflict. Most developers are very good at their craft and their changes are usually (although not always) for the better.

Jason Little:

Far prefer the original (or, if that’s open to debate, the “olderâ€?) version. The poker-esque matching bids help keep everyone involved, without giving too much power to the lead bidder. The tighter range of players and gaps on the spread of payouts keeps the game more tense and active. That version rates a perfect 10 for me… The best filler game I’ve come across, one I am always willing to play. The new version has better production quality (aside from the ridiculous inclusion of $2 chips, providing no benefit while adding another thing to separate), but the rules create an experience which, while pretty solid on its own merits, feels a tad watered down compared to the previous version. I’d rate the newer version a 9—still a very good game, but not as great as it could be.

Morgan Dontanville:

I had a homemade copy of For Sale until the new version came out. I liked the old rules, but I feel that the new rules, while having less control, works better for non-gamers. Otherwise the game goes like this:

A: “I’ll bid, uh, two.�
B: “Ok, I’ll bid two�
C: “Yeah, two�
D: “Two sounds good�
E: “Two�
A: “Fine, I guess I have to bid three�
B: “Then I bid three.�
C: “Three�
D: “Three�
E: “Three�
A: “Argh, Four�
B: “Four�
C: “Four�
D: “Four�
E: “Four�
A: “FIVE!�
B: “If I stay in, but later get to pass I get half rounded up right? That makes three back?�
A: “Yes.�
B: “Five�
C: “Five�
D: “Five�
E: “I pass�
D: “Crap!�
A: “Dammit! Pass.�
B: “Pass, tell me about it�
C: “Pass, sweet!�
D: “heh, heh�
E: “sob. Well, let’s hope this gets me something�

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the old way. It didn’t always work out that way, but you needed to force the auctions for it not to. The new version is quicker, and moves along at a choppier pace. You need to commit more in the new version. You have to want to be in. I feel like there is a lot of all or nothing feeling to the auctions, high risks, knowing when to attack. I like the timing aspects. This game has all of the fun of the tile draws in Ra, so after you’ve spent the majority of your change you root for the card to come out high or low. I find the new version is louder.

I have no preference between the card values of either game.

My two real gripes with the new version are that there should be an animal on every card, a space shuttle just doesn’t cut it. Also, there should be an exclamation mark at the end of For Sale.

For Sale!
See.
Nice, hunh?

David Fair:

I had never tried For Sale the “old’ way, so I vowed to try it before writing this. That turned out to be harder than I thought it would. I printed up the original rules from the Geek, and suggested to my gaming buddies that we give it a try the original way. No one was amenable.

A few days later, with a different group, I tried again. Same result. Everyone liked the rules to the Uberplay version, and saw no need to change. The next weekend I tried one last time. I begged, I pleaded, I threatened. They finally relented.

We gave it a try, and the game dragged on forever. Morgan’s analysis is, if anything, too short. It took forever to get a bid raised to the point where dropping out felt like a real option. This game is supposed to be a 15-minute filler, but with those rules, it was dragging way past that.

Now, I know that the saying goes that the hills are greenest where our young feet first trod, and maybe that is why the groups I play with all prefer the new version, but honestly, I felt little tension playing under the old rules, and saw a great 15-minute game dragged out into a mediocre 40-minute game. No thank you.

I also like the use of the ‘2’ coin in the new version, and find it makes for interesting strategic bidding. Since in the Uberplay version you pull back half of the coins bid, not half of the amount bid, the “2� coins become great fuel for raising the bid and paying little. The problem of course is that you can raise it too high, and lose them.
The use of the “2� coins together with the correct form of the “pay-half� rule gives another layer of decision making to the game. I have seen people playing with the new version who misunderstood the new “pay-half� rule, then complained that the “2� coin was useless.

One reviewer at BGG even said his group changed the “pay-half� rule to be half the value bid, but then found the “2’ coins useless, and lambasted Uberplay for including them. Of course they are useless if you take out the rule they were designed to work with!

Paul Sauberer:

Dave, Maybe the number of players makes a difference. I’m not sure how many you’ve been playing with, but I’ve only tried the new rules with 5 and 6. Tension was sucked out of the game very rapidly. The first auction is about the only one that possesses it, as there is a decision about whether to spend a large amount of money on the best card of the lot. Whoever does that is essentially done for the first round, as they are at the mercy of turn order from then on, thanks to the drain on cash (having probably paid around half their stake with 4 or 5 auctions to go). Turn order also plays a huge factor for the other players as the rapidly decreasing amount of cash robs players of the option of whether to raise the bid or not, as they don’t have the cash to do so if they are late in the bid order. In general, it seems as if everyone gets a good shot at winning one auction and then waits to see who wins the others and ends up taking whatever the situation dictates to them.

Perhaps the experience is different with 3 or 4 players. To be honest, I didn’t like the old version with 3 players and wouldn’t want to try it with the new. With the old rules, 4 players was still fun. I’m not sure how I would take to the new rules with that number.
I’m also somewhat surprised at how long it took you to play with the old rules. I haven’t found it lasts much longer at all, although I could understand some because there are more decisions to make. Still, they shouldn’t be very time consuming as the bidding comes around quickly and players should already have an idea of whether they are going to call or raise. Dropping is usually decided long before the turn comes around again, if it’s going to be done.

I also hate to burst your bubble, but it has been confirmed by Jeremy Young that half of the value is paid when dropping out, not half of the physical chips.

Larry Levy:

That’s...amazing. I have NEVER played a game of For Sale that took longer than 15 minutes and 10 minute games aren’t unusual. I assume you’re talking about a single game and not three in a row (which I believe the rules suggest). But to take 40 minutes to play one game, you’d have to be taking FOREVER with the bidding. Most of the bids are formalities and take less than a second. Keep playing the way you’re playing, since you enjoy it that way, but the only time I’ve heard complaints about For Sale’s duration was that people thought it might be too *short*!

And, as Paul says, they meant to say half the value, not half the coins in the new rules. But that shouldn’t stop you from using a house rule, since you like the game that way (and you won’t be alone, since I’ve heard of several other groups who interpreted the rules that way also).

David Fair:

Well, 40 minutes is what I have in my journal, though that may have included a rules explanation, I cannot recall. As to Jeremy clarifying the rule regarding the coins, I can only say, “What is he thinking?�! That ruins some of the dynamics of the bidding. I cannot imagine that the game is made anything but worse for removing that rule. I will continue to play the way I have. As, I expect, will almost everyone else.

© 2006 Rick Thornquist

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I haven’t played the previous edition, but love For Sale as it can be taught to new gamers so easily.  Contrary to a 60min+ game, it can be played a couple times in a row to give players a feeling of gaining competancy and knowledge.  Meanwhile, the game has a significant “different” feel about it to players who haven’t tried designer games before. My initial plays were mistakenly played with bids rounded _down_.  I have continued to play that way and like the game that way.  I would think it would significantly address the money-sink problems mentioned above.  I have to admit to falling prey to the “first experience” syndrome here.  I just can’t get my head around what a game would look like where everyone can bid what I bid… In the previous edition it seems to me that the first bidder has the worst position since everyone can match it, whereas the first bidder in the new version has the greatest advantage as they can start the bid high enough to make sure some drop out before it comes back around.  Since whoever wins a bid starts the next round, I’d prefer that to be a reward, not a penalty. Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 2, 2006 at 07:49 PM | #

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