[RodericDay]

I only played the vanilla version of Pandemic, but I found it extremely vulnerable to "quarterbacking" (a board game term for a cooperative game where the optimal strategy is to let the best player tell everyone else what to do). Do any of the expansions alleviate this?

Also, if anyone is curious how this can be mitigated, Hanabi is an excellent example.

[Sniffnoy]

Space Alert is another good example. (And IMO much more fun than Hanabi. :) )

Note that both these solve not only the problem of quarterbacking but also the opposite problem, where each move is just discussed endlessly by all the players.

[wingerlang]

You could see it as teaching the others, brining the collective knowledge up faster and eventually you can play together on harder difficulties.

I've been introduced to some games where the "quarterbacking" was happening, but eventually people start chiming in with ".. or we could do this because X, Y and Z".

Could you explain the Hanabi thing though?

[ipsi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanabi_(card_game)

Overall, it's fairly straightforward. Each player gets 4 or 5 cards (dependant on player numbers), but they do not look at their own cards - only the other players can see them.

Cards are numbered 1 - 5, and in five suites (Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, White).

On each players turn, that player can do one of the following:

* Tell another player which cards in their hand are a given colour

* Tell another player which cards in their hand are a given number

* Play a card

* Discard a card

If you play or discard, you draw a new card immediately (but still don't get to look at it).

Telling a player something requires a clue. Discarding a card grants a clue.

Making a play that isn't valid (e.g. playing the white 3 when the top card of the white stack is anything except a two) costs a life.

Lives are shared, and the game is over when they're gone. The game ends when the deck is empty (roughly), or if you manage to play all five "5" cards.

This mitigates quarterbacking because the player is missing some information - they can suggest the best play based on what they can see, but it's possible that, based on what's in their hand, there is a better play to be made, which the rest of the team has to decide on.

Given enough time playing the game with the same group, a skilled quarterback could probably figure out what's in their hand based on how the group reacts and thus end up dominating anyway, but I doubt that's an issue in 99% of cases.

[thaumasiotes]

The Hanabi rules restrict players' communication with each other.

[yincrash]

It feels like it's essentially a one player game but with multiple people theoretically playing.