I noticed that with 5 players the characters have access to much more stress during the game for assists, plethora of high actions and more downtime actions for beating down stress. On the other hand, there is less coin to share. Are there some options to scale the game for 5 players?
You can just go harder on the consequences, use multiple consequences, take initiative with NPCs, make sure Resistance never (or almost never) entirely negates Harm or other consequences… be harder on the entanglements… or simply make more rolls.
Also, since beating stress during downtime is an individual action in BitD, having more players does not help for that.
Got it - I can make things harder. I was looking for concrete, practical examples of how thing could be scaled.
For example, if I make a very simple score and it still grants two down time actions, the crew can very easily reduce the heat as a result. If they don’t take too much stress, with total of 10 downtime actions they can zero out the heat.
Yeah, some scores will be simple and sometimes they will have nice dice rolls at all the important moments. And then sometimes consequences will snowball and it will be hell on earth.
I think you shouldn’t worry too much about it ; the important thing is that your players should be aware from the beginning that, by default and by design , the whole game is supposed to be difficult for the PCs (not for the players), so they won’t feel cheated when doom and despair finally ring the bell.