Dragon Rider

[vaselcaseras]

Hi everyone! I often play Carcassonne with various expansions, and I particularly enjoy the expansion involving the dragon.

I've always felt that volcano tiles were somewhat frustrating since you can't place a meeple on them. I wanted to fix this and diversify the use of these tiles. Additionally, during four-player games, we often encounter situations where someone sympathizes with another player and refrains from eating their meeple during the dragon’s flight (due to male or female solidarity or simply pity), even though the meeple was on the dragon’s path. I decided to add extra motivation for players to ensure they consume meeples during the dragon’s flight.

Enough talking—here’s the essence of my new additional rule:

- Each time a player draws a volcano tile, they may (but are not required to) become a dragon rider. To do this, the player moves the dragon to the volcano following normal rules and places their meeple from the supply onto the dragon’s back. The player’s turn then immediately ends.

- If someone initiates the dragon’s flight by playing a dragon tile, the dragon moves across six tiles according to standard rules, carrying the dragon rider with it. However, every time the dragon consumes a meeple, the player whose meeple is riding the dragon gains an additional +2 points. Once the dragon finishes its flight, the dragon rider meeple is returned to its player's supply. A player may thus only be the dragon rider during the dragon's first flight after it is placed onto a volcano tile.

FAQ

    If I become a dragon rider after placing a volcano tile, and the next player immediately draws another volcano tile, what happens?
    In this case, the first rider returns their meeple to their supply, and the second player may become the new dragon rider if desired. If the second player chooses not to ride, the dragon remains without a rider. In any scenario, the first player must remove their rider from the dragon back to their supply without ever completing a flight.

I believe this new rule further motivates players to devour opponents' meeples without hesitation or sympathy , while maintaining the game's balance.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=6836.0

[Matisek]

I like this idea of ​​yours.  
I give credit...

Well, I would also like the idea. When one volcano comes after another.
1. The rider is still on the dragon
2. A second volcano comes
3. The dragon moves with the rider.
4. The player who placed the volcano may or may not replace the rider on the dragon
It gives more options for what to choose
fairy, rider, or scoring abbot (or something else, a rook, for example)


Thanks for the idea. I will try this rule.

[djiksvampir]

This one was great, I'm loving it, I'm definitely playing this on my next game 

[kothmann]

Fun idea!  +1 from me.

Also this might be of interest:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/18662/dragon-riders-and-slayers

[Meepledrone]

Love the idea!

+1 merit from me.

I was thinking if there should be any compnsation for the eaten meeples, so there is also some additional dilemma:
* If you ride a dragon, you get the points
* If you skip riding the dragon (you decide not to or you don't have a meeple to do it  ), the meeples eaten by the dragon get the points.

Some options to spice things up :
* A more cut-throat approach: meeples don't get the +2 points, but the points the feature occupied by the meeple is worh at that point.
* Mixed approach: The dragon raider triggers a scoring of the feature visited including the meeple raider. So, the players with the majority get the points the feature is worth at this point. So the dragon raider may get points or not... No meeples involved in the scoring are removed from the feature except the meeples eaten by the dragon after this immediate scoring.