Last week in class, we were having a debate about what's better. Hazard tiles, or hazard tokens. Hazards in the original Up Ship Creek game were important and added some risk into the play. For the hex based game, we currently have the token system in place, yet there are a couple of people who want the hazards to be tiles. Here's a run down the the 2 systems:
Hazard Tokens
Every round the 3rd player draws a token or anytime during gameplay, a player can draw a token for 1 AP. The token is then placed on any adjacent tile around the player and can be used when the player enters that hex. A hazard token though, triggers instantly when the player enters the hex (just like the hazard rooms in Up Ship Creek). They draw a hazard card and once that is done, the token gets discarded.
Hazard Tiles
Hazard tiles are mixed in with both the environmental hex deck, and the ship deck (i'm not 100% sure on that though), and have a chance of being drawn when a player draws a hex from the deck. A hazard tile is a permanent hazard zone that will be tied to the hex, so if a player enters the hex, a hazard card will be drawn.
2 systems, each come around differently, and change the experience of the game. I for one was on the side of the hazard tokens when this debate occurred. Why? Well hear out my reasoning.
With hazard tokens, you take a risk (picking a token) and if it's not good, you are forced to place it down. Whereas with the tiles, if you draw a hazard token, yes you took a risk, but you don't have to place it. You can keep it in your hand for the entire game and if at the point where you need to place it, it's not that bad. You can choose where to place it. So if there's a corner of the map you don't go, just slap it on there. Pile up your hazard tiles over there and never worry about them. With the tokens though, you need to place them, and adjacent to you, so it will most likely be in an active area.
The tiles to me just seem like an inconvenience, whereas the tokens seem like a threat. In the end though, the final outcome was that there were going to be the hazard tokens, but they're permanent. This creates the risky nature of the tokens, with the permanency of the tiles.