Cost: $30 From: Sports Dynasty Inc, (800) 656-4263 Players: 2-6 Playing Time: 60 minutes Type of game: Family Complexity: 4 Skill level: 2 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 3.1, Winter 1994
At last year's Gathering of Friends, Mark Danna, one of the editors at Games Magazine, was earnestly trying to attract people to play this game. He met with little success. "It's called Sports Dynasty, but it really doesn't have anything to do with sports," he claimed. Nobody was buying it. But when a copy showed up for review, it seemed time to give it a spin. I try not to approach a new game with preconceptions. It's unfair to the game and often leads to disappointment. Still, I fully expected to dislike Sports Dynasty. How delightful to find my expectations wrong.
Mark was right— Sports Dynasty really doesn't have much to do with sports. It might just as easily have been called Fast Food Dynasty, Music Dynasty, or Used Car Lot Dynasty with minor alterations. The designers decided to target sports fans with the game, and so gave it sports-related window dressing. So don't dismiss the game just because you're not a sports fan.
In Sports Dynasty, players own teams in four sports: football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. By try to improve their teams by acquiring superstars, hoping to win money and the season championship trophy. Win three trophies in the same sport, or two trophies in each of two sports, and you win the game.
Everyone starts the game with a $8.2 million and seven superstars. Each superstar represents a top (fictional) star from one of the four sports, and no superstar is better than another.
The game focuses on one sports season at a time, from football season to hockey to basketball to baseball. The bank puts $700,000 into a prize pool, and everyone contributes a payroll of $300,000 per superstar they own in that sport. This pot will be claimed by the season's champion.
A turn consists of rolling the dice and moving your token around board, following the instructions of the space you land on. Spaces might let you buy a new superstar from the bank, put a new one up for auction to the highest bidder, turn an opponent's superstar into a free agent who defects to the highest bidder, lose a superstar to a career-ending injury, etc. Some spaces may require you to draw a Lucky Break card (generating a positive effect which might occur immediately or be saved for use later) or a Tough Luck card (when bad things happen to good people).
Landing on Regular Season Competition instigates a contest between two players in the current sport. Each player rolls one die for each superstar they own in that sport. High total wins the competition and collects money from the loser.
Rolling doubles or landing on a Championship Trophy space starts the season playoffs. All players owning at least one superstar in the current sport may compete. Players compete against each other as described above, with the player with the most superstars battling the one with the least, the 2nd most against the 2nd least, etc. Winners face off against each other until only one is left. That player wins the prize pool and a trophy in the current sport. The next sport's season begins with the bank contributing another $700,000 to the prize pool and players forking out their payroll. This continues until someone acquires a winning combination of trophies.
Sports Dynasty surprised me. In my first game, I lost. No, I was slaughtered. I've never seen such lousy die-rolling— If I needed to roll a three or more, I rolled a two. And despite this pummeling, I really enjoyed the game. My problem was that I fell behind in the trophy race early on. And since that also meant I wasn't winning any prize pools, I found myself running low on cash while my opponents' coffers swelled. Larger bankrolls meant they could outbid me for superstars, and more stars meant better scores in competition. The difficulty of coming back from behind is the game's biggest problem.
Since someone wins a trophy each playoff, it's only a matter of time before someone wins the game. This makes it difficult to prevent someone else from winning, so players are better served focusing on winning themselves.
Sports Dynasty is a family game in the classic tradition. Nothing fancy, nothing very original, nothing too complicated. But the elements combine nicely into an entertaining lightweight game.