step right up everyone and try a shot at winning this challenge.

Prize!! I will personally dub you "king of all creators"!!!!!

surprise!! no one will know you are a traitor until you are poping gates with Samuel!! hahahaha

pittplayer, can you please stop posting tenths of posts one after another? it's really annoying, and I'm pretty sure against the rules.

thecorinthian, I disagree with your lack of faith for Nacaal Key. even a single use can cause immense damage. First, and extra gate and extra doom tokens is really hurtful for the investigators. Second, you can open it at places like Science Bulding to prevent people from buying clues or even at places like the Asylum.

By the way, I don't understand why people enjoy the idea of a traitor. This is a co-operative game, and form of treachery just ruins the game. That's why I hate JtWT. This is not the way the game was meant to be played.

Here is my personal attempt at the traitor character:

I also love the idea of having challenges for people on these boards. I can't wait to see the next one!

kroen said:

Maybe I didn't make my point very well - I love the Naacal Key. I think it's ace, and it is a great idea for a one-off item. But it's not a very useful power to give to a traitor character. It isn't enough by itself to make a traitor into a 'credible threat' - the traitor still needs some on-going ability once the Key is used up. And if you give the traitor the ability to use the Key more than once (by not discarding it, or by getting it back) it rapidly becomes TOO powerful.

For the record: I also think that traitor characters aren't a particularly good idea either, but pittplayer seemed keen and it seemed like an interesting card-design exercise.

Having said that, I don't think any of us have made it work yet. Samuel von Junzt simply isn't going to work. His abilities that hurt other investigators just aren't good enough, and his ability to move through the Black Cave is sufficiently useful to the "good guys" that he might as well not be a traitor. Clayton Marsh is a bit more like it - but the balance issues relating to items apply to him. If he gets the Massa di Requiem per Shuggay or Call Ancient One, it's in his best interests to use it immediately, which makes for a bit of a frustrating game.

And yeah, pittplayer, stop posting a load of pointless enthusiasm. I couldn't care less who gets to be "king of the potato people" or whatever is it. I'm much more interested in seeing if this traitor idea can actually be made to do something.

What we might need is a small deck of 'motivation' cards - eight cards of which one only is a 'Traitor' card. Each investigator gets one card at the start of the game. They keep it face-down. The cards work as 'missions', of a sort; you can reveal them at certain points to get certain bonuses, but it won't be immediately obvious whether a person is trying to get a friendly bonus or is trying to commit treason.

dark jco! my man! Thanks for the support to try to have some fun with the forums. Love your character, walk around unsealing the board!! Nasty, I hope we get some more people to make characters cause i want to have a fun voting sess on Saturday. Any one else with ideas or if any one wants to make more characters please do and support the message board. How about some female traitors?

If this challenge goes well you will see one Sunday!

thecorinthian: i dont understand the negative attitude? First of all this thread has a specific purpose, we are not trying to rewrite the rules, just provide characters people can use for their own house rules if they want to use the traitor idea. If you dont like this idea this isnt the thread for you. And in regards to the criticism of my character, he is meant to be used both ways, plus why make him over powered? He can sneak up on people and ping them, if you catch people at the right time when they are weak he could devour them. AND he can open a gate on someone!! Not powerfull enough? Traitor mechanic not working? HUH? Again not the purpose to rewrite the rules like you seem to be obsessing about, we are just having fun. Critic my characters all you want that is why they are there but dont be negative saying we are not making it work!

Here is another try at it. Is anyone kind enough to aeon this into a printable character?

Dark Priest Of Eibon

Corrupt Wizard

Special abilities:

BRINGER OF PESTILENCE:

When dpe would draw a ally, instead but a blight card into play.

BRINGER OF DARKNESS;

If dpe is lost in time and space all investigators are cursed, when dpe returns all curses gained because of dpe are discarded.

Starting equip:

1 spell (steal life) 1 unique ( dhol chants), member of 1000 cult.

random equip:

2 common item, 1 skill, 1 spell, $4, 4 clue

high lore, low fight, good focus

thecorinthian said:

I agree.

Clayton Marsh: Apparently there's no way to stop him from doing his unsealing thing. So his early function is the grab up all the clues he can, denying them to the investigators.

He's essentially just another Atlach, is he not. Just don't go for the sealing victory, since the investigators will not have enough clues anyway and if they do attempt to seal the traitor will simply unseal them. Why is unsealing almost as easy and sealing and more rewarding than sealing? Even the Old Ones cannot unseal a gate that easily.

What else can he do? He searches for and uses the traitor cards that the corinithian laid out. What am I missing?

Why is he not devourable? theme?

Victory conditions: What if every investigator is devoured during the game, but comes back as another investigator?

I currently use a traitor function in ALL my games. He's hidden. I have card for each AO. Each player draws a card. If the card and AO match, the AO MAY be the traitor. The goal of the traitor is to bring out the Ancient One and help the ancient one win the final battle*. Whether he survives or not is immaterial.

*But I do have a major rule change. Investigators can fight each other. They can also evade each other. Even (especially) during the final battle. Once exposed, the traitor no longer counts as an investigator so the final battle is easier in that respect, but now he's probably attacking the investigators during the final battle. Or he can choose to pretend to be fighting the old one until the last minute.

Being a traitor is strictly voluntary, but accidently showing the traitor card to anyone brings on a madness card for owner of the card and a doom token unless s/he actually is the traitor.

A player has chosen to be the traitor twice. Both times, s/he was thwarted. Both times it was from guests and not from our regular group.

I have an idea for a traitor type investigator, but unfortunately Strange Eons seems to only want to give a black picture for the front of the card and I'm not sure what to do about it.

put your idea on the board someone may make it for you

Apparently rebooting is the way to go...

Now I just have to figure out how to embed the stupid thing...

Okay is kind of join the winning team-esque. But more doable and not as problematic for investigators if completed.

I dunno, maybe he's too powerful, but I wanted to make him easy to get devoured too, so the investigators possibly can have some advantages...

There still isn't a lot of interaction between the investigator and Damien though.

pittplayer said:

Ah c'mon, no-one has engaged with this idea more than I have. I started a whole new thread about it, for pete's sake! (although in retrospect that was kinda pointless).

I'm not dismissing anyone else's input. But the challenge I enjoy is trying to make cards which work with the existing card sets and are balanced in any possible game situation. There a lot of diverse playing styles on this board and so to some extent I like custom content to be "gamer-proof". I don't get much satisfaction out of designing custom content which only works if the players ignore certain rules conflicts and exploitable abilities.

In some cases it's easy to design gamer-proof content, and in other cases (like this one) it's damned difficult. There's been lots of fun stuff so far, but I personally wouldn't use any of it - the ideas are great but there are big big problems. Making a traitor character may ultimately defeat me, but I haven't given up just yet.

Partly my attitude just comes from my experience of usually playing AH with other pedantic min/maxing power-gaming pillocks like myself, who will exploit any tiny loophole they can find...

hahaha love him, the eclipse is a great card! evil kids!! some of his special abilites are lacking but theme wise i think he is clever. the anti slumber ability is kind of clunky. but thanks for helping with this thread, we vote sat, so i hope we get some more characters!! I have my favorites, i hope you all do to! If this goes well we will have a new one on sun.

lol i get you corinthian! i am more of a theme, atmosphere kind of guy just trying to have fun. I think we are doing good stuff here though. And i would bet money FF will intro a traitor mechanic in a future expansion! why else the waking goo cards and summoning monster cards? they are paving the way and i hope they look at this stuff when they make it.

pittplayer said:

Really?

I thought his special abilities might have been a bit too much. With 7 Will, it's pretty easy to evade almost anything if necessary. Since his goal is to finish Evil Eclipse (obviously) he needs to get two more allies, which I made kind of easy with his second ability. This is why I started him with no money. I mean with a buck, he just needs to head to Kingsport and have encounters there until he gets Allies, because they're extremely easy to find. I also didn't want to make Evil Eclipse a game winning thing, just to make it much harder for the investigators. I decided to balance that with low sanity and stamina to make it harder for Damien to accomplish his goal, and if he gets devoured, well it's actually benefical to the investigators.

And his third ability? Ignoring any slumbering ability? That could be extremely useful depending on the Ancient One.

does the charm ability give him an ally i thought it meant he could get allies that were removed from the game by having an encounter with them, not sure why he would get an ally?

No it means that he can get any ally he comes across, he's not just limited to the 11 in the game.

ummm how does this help get allies? he wants to sac them to elipse right?? so having more allies to choose from really doesnt help with the getting MORE allies right?

Um, it doesn't GIVE him more allies, but it gives him the opportunity to find more allies in encounters...

johnwatersfan said:

Jonwatersfan is right about that. And also, in the event that the Terror level gets very high and the ally deck is being stripped bare, Damien can still gain more allies than he could possibly want. It also makes sure that the other investigators can't stop him by (for example) buying all the allies so he can't get any.

However...

Whenever Kroen used to post a custom investigator with even one 3-6 skill track, I would usually complain because I don't like 'extreme' characters. So in order to not be a hypocrite I am now forced to complain here.

Your creepy little Omen kid has effectively got two skill tracks that run from 4-7. I know that the 3 san/stam cancels it out somewhat, but it's a bit of a 'sledgehammer' way of doing it, and it's going to push the character to the extremes of gameplay. He'll spend half the game in the hospitals, OR he will completely pwn everything he meets. He also doesn't have any explicit incentive to work against the other investigators. I'd seriously consider taking him and just using him as an 'honest' investigator. I'd purposefully get him devoured near the end of the game. And the Naacal Key can be used for good as well as for evil, remember. That's the point of it. I know you already acknowledged some of this, but I just thought you'd like to know that I agree.

Ignoring 'slumbering' abilities is also tricky. Some of these abilities (Glaaki and Abhoth for instance) take the form of spawning monsters. How do you ignore them? In most cases it's quite easy to find a solution, but an ability like "ignore this category of abilities" isn't very future-proof, if you see what I mean.

I know I thought about some of that.

I thought 7 was a bit much, maybe 6 might be better. I don't know. I kind of didn't have room in the text to write the assumption that if the Ancient One wins, then you win (ala the traitor route) and if the investigators win, you lose. I suppose I could have tried to fit that in.

And yes, I know that spawn monsters are a bit tricky. I just wanted it to be that you didn't get the san/stam loss with Chthulu. Although with the Glaaki spawn monsters, I think it's fair to say that if a Servent of Glaaki arrives, that Damien doesn't have to discard a skill/spell/item/whatever. I suppose it's a bit tough, because some of the things are worshipper, and some are slumber. I guess the concept is that the evil powers of the ancient one don't affect Damien.

I can try fiddling with it. I did like the idea that the traitor isn't doing something to cause the game to end and the ancient one to end, just make it more difficult for the investigators to win.

It's just that the stupid box is too small to fit everything someone would need, you know?

I suppose that there could be another rule that if Damien chooses to fight the Ancient One, his last ability is negated and he is affected by the ancient one's abilities.... That way one isn't forced to use him for evil.

johnwatersfan said:

Yeah, that's pretty much the problem I'm having.

We could just say "screw it", though. The trick to making these traitors work might simply be to ignore the motivation issue altogether. Don't give them any incentive to 'lose', except that they can try to do it if they want, and I suppose the player can roleplay and cackle a bit or something. It's up to the player to decide that they think losing is better than winning. To quote Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars : "Your 'evil' is my 'good'!"

That means ignoring the problem that a 'traitor' could just use the Massi di Requiem per Shuggay on turn 3 and spoil the game somewhat - but that problem does exist anyway, even if traitor characters aren't officially recognized by the rules. And having a rule that identifies one player as the traitor isn't going to directly solve the problem, especially since I haven't been able to work out what the rule should be, how it should be phrased, or what herald or guardian or card or investigator it should be on.

I will start thinking about a few traitor investigators who can interfere with the game in particular ways:

- One who destroys seals and opens new gates

- One who spawns monsters and controls them

- A pickpocket who steals other investigators' stuff.

If I can come up with an elegant enough ability in each case and a reasonable set of fixed/random items which support it, I might be able to find space on the investigator sheet for a specific 'passive' ability which other investigators can use to fight back against the traitor. The method of fighting back will have to be different in each case, but it might be easier this way than trying to actually adjust the rules of AH itself.

So it is Saturday and I am posting my vote but first a run down of each of the characters (I am not listing my creation because I think that voting for your own creations is selfish and accomplishes nothing).

Harriman Nash: Originality 5 - not the most original investigator ever but not bad. Flavor 9 - in flavor all the way! Function 6 - he needs a bit of work on his abilities. Total Score - 20

Joseph Smith: Originality 7 - You made this guy before the thread even opened. Flavor 4 - his abilities just seem to be function oriented and he seems to only want to succeed at. JtWT Function 7 - His abilities are all geared towards making him a great traitor. Total Score - 16

Samuel Von Junzt: Originality 6 - A hermit character is really cool. Flavor 7 - his abilites seem to make perfect sense for this character and for a traitor. Function 7 - his abilites work great and each strive towords the overall goal. Total Score - 20

Dark Priest of Ebon ........ sorry not as good as your first one and I will only rate one per person

Damien: Originality 4- Making this kid isn't the most original idea... cool but not original. Flavor 10 - This kid is so evil it makes me want to cry. all of his abilities are oozing with movie flavor. Function 5 - I'm not completely convinced he makes a great traitor but he is awesome. Total Score - 18

Okey so we have a tie.... I'll give my vote to the more flavorful of the two and the first person to step up to the plate Harriman Nash!

I can't wait to see how other people vote!

i will be posting my votes tonight, even though i am prob mostly going to agree with you, you have some great points