Teotihuacan: Late Preclassic Period

We tried it with a mix of newcomers and veterans, using modules 1 and 3 only. It did not win me over. The expansion adds options and gives experienced Teotihuacan players fresh ground to cover, but it also stretches a game that was never especially interested in travelling light.

With these modules, the familiar core remains intact for returning players, while newcomers simply have more to absorb. The gods arrive as extra forces in the game, shifting what players value from moment to moment; you are no longer following the established shape of a session alone, but also deciding how to exploit, or avoid, those effects.

The trouble is that this interaction is not consistently elegant. Most of the gods, in the right circumstances, either look rather broken or distort play so thoroughly that the session becomes about managing their damage rather than making its own decisions. It is more content, certainly. So is a drawer full of tangled cables.

For people who love Teotihuacan, Late Preclassic Period supplies enough fresh energy to earn several more plays. For me, someone who will play Teotihuacan without particularly loving it, the verdict is Chernobyl: not great, not terrible.