Is this game going to get any attention at all from FFG?

Is it too late for any necromancer to raise this corpse in our retailers?

0_O

It sure looks like MoM is a "dead" game. It's truly a nice game with much potential. There is a fan base but apparently FFG finds it too small. Maybe they let it go for now and are already thinking about a 2nd edition of the game.

When arkham nights went by without any MoM news I thought it was a dead game.

The good news is that the game has many great components and is great for developing addtional fan-content. There are quite a few out there already, and I have wanted to make more myself, but with so many good games (and hobbies), it is difficult for me.

I'd suggest giving it a whirl though or trying to plug into a community that can keep the ball rolling. As long as the game is being played SOMEWHERE, it isn't dead. Expansions aren't the only thing that can keep a game alive.

Well put out another expansion FFG and i'll buy it.

That is not dead wich can eternal lie

and with strange aeons even death may die.

The problem with Mansions of Madness is that it requires a huge amount of setup and a person who is willing to forgo thier own fun to run the game. That's why it loses next to Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror, both of which require less effort and don't leave a person hanging.

Mansions of Madness would make a great computer game, if FoF were willing to make it into one, but as a physical game requiring almost an hour to setup and intensive unfun GMing, it is generally not worth it for most people.

Could not disagree more with the above. I have never played Mom as a player character and have always been the 'keeper'.
Long story short: I really, really enjoy setting the game up, learning the objectives, knowing where all the clues are and thinking up strategies to have my player team have a good time. This does include helping them out a bit here and there (without them noticing it, preferably) because the game does seem to favour the keeper a bit in certain scenarios but to me this game is all about atmosphere and having a great evening. Not about winning.

I wholeheartedly agree with kris. I absolutely love playing the keeper. Played the game a couple of times as an investigator and it's not half the fun as playing the keeper.

But then again, I also liked the seeding of cards in specific places and I hate it the way they did in in CotW. Placing everything random everywhere makes less sense to me.

question:

Does being the "keeper" run like playing the imperials in imperial assault (or the dungeon master guy in descent)?

In those games, you have active figures that are engaged in what goes on with the game.

I have been eyeing picking this up, but not sure. The common complaints Ive seen is that the rule book isn't clear in some areas, long set up times, and some rules are fiddly without adding much to the overall experience to make them worth their fiddly trouble.

thoughts?

The keeper has monsters to control but less than in descent and frequently no monsters on the board. Hero's have more to do than the keeper.

The keeper is more of a storyteller than a competitive opponent.

There is a lot of setup that can only be done by the keeper.

If you like being an overlord and also like to GM you will probably enjoy being a keeper.

I think it's a great game.

Thanks for the reply!

Have you bought any expansions? How good are they compared to the base game.

I have all the expansions, I think this is a great game.

The game is a series of seperate stories, expansions just add more stories but with different rules and settings.

You don't add expansion monsters into core set stories like in descent.

It's not like playing descent/imperial assault, it's like a Scooby doo adventure where the hero's don't know the aim of the mission until they uncover the mystery. Each monster and attack is unique and forms part of a greater story.

An example from my first game:

A group of investigators enter an abandoned mansion, they decide to split up so they can search quicker. The professor wanders down a corridor and enters the darkened room, the light switch doesn't work but he can see the problem is caused by some damaged wiring and he attempts to repair it. Suddenly a maniac lunges out of the darkness swinging an axe wildly, nearly taking the top of the professors head off. He survives by throwing himself backwards but lands heavily and wrenched his back, the maniac scoops up the scalp as a trophy and flees down the corridor leaving the prof lying helpless in the darkness.

The keeper sets up the map with a pile of cards in each room and when the professor entered the room the top card plunged the room into darkness, making the professor vulnerable, and a wiring puzzle had to be completed to bring the lights on.

The puzzle was a bunch of tiles with different coloured wires, by moving/rotating/swapping tiles the professor had to complete a circuit to get the lights on. An investigator can make a number of moves equal to his intelligence each turn, unfortunately the professor was unable to solve it in one turn.

While the lights were off the keeper placed a maniac in the room, combat is done by drawing cards that describe the attacks. In this case it was a wild axe swing that caught the top of the professor's head. When an investigator loses health/sanity the keeper can play injury/madness cards, this attack inflicted a bad back on the prof. The player decided the professor threw himself backwards to avoid decapitation and landed awkwardly.

The keeper decided to take a sample and collected the scalp, not the most competitive move but the one that fitted the story the best.

It's a very unique story driven game, even if you find its not for you the components can be used for other games. You get plastic investigator models that can be used for for arkham horror, eldrich horror or elder sign. The monsters work with the arkham horror monster tokens. The tiles are great for rpg games.

Thanks for the great write up.

I think I'll be picking up a copy from cool stuff soon!

The game is dead only if you decide it is. IMO it already have enough expansions to make it playable for a long while, especially with Call of the Wild with the randomised mission.

The game is dead only if you decide it is. IMO it already have enough expansions to make it playable for a long while, especially with Call of the Wild with the randomised mission.

You are so right. There are so many fans of the game, that it was translated into many languages (all of it in Russian, for example), many of fun-made scenarios are so great to play. This is the game I love most and It will be best for me many years to come. Of course, it will be a great step forward for FFG making the second edition of the game. FFG, just shut up, make more expansions and take my money!

It is not ! I just bought the Main Game and the Forbidden Alchemy Expansions and the first game I'll run is yet to come. Hope there are more people out there who still play it or just have started. It is just too nice to have community for this game. All the expansions, mods and so on .. what a great resource! Hope FFG won't do a 2nd edition too soon since I just bought the game Don't want to rebuy it.

I wondered why community interest for MoM has decreased so much and for Arkham Horror for example not. That game is even older !

As has already been said, this game has the potential to be great but it has a few major short comings.

The biggest problem is the huge set up time. This is coming from someone who has no problem with the long set up times in games such as Arkham Horror and Twilight Imperium. The real issue is the long set up time combined with that the set up must be performed exactly right. It's possible to believe you have set up the game correctly, only to realize half way through playing you made a mistake which breaks the scenario completely.

Next, it requires a lot of effort on the part of the GM. The scenarios in the box need a bit of fleshing out story wise to help it make sense and help increase immersion. Thankfully there are plenty of fan-made supplements that help you do just that. It's also a typical FFG dungeon crawler game in that it's designed to be a one versus many game, but in reality the GM can easily thrash the players if he played without handicapping himself. Therefore the game needs to be played more like an RPG to which a lot of people quite correctly ask, why not just play the CoC RPG instead?

Despite these short comings, it is a fun game. I've always had fun when I've played with it but as I usually play as the GM, I always pull my punches and only go in for the kill towards the end of the scenario when enough fun has been had but ultimately, the fun-to-effort ratio for me is badly out of whack and as such, I don't think this game will ever hit the table again. It's fallen into the category of 'I can't bring myself to sell it because I badly want to like it but I know it will disappoint me'.

I really want this type of game in the Arkham Files section of games to work. If FFG decided to make a 2nd edition and fix the short comings with the game I would buy it instantly.

Edit: this is purely going off the base game. If the big box expansions fixed the above issue, that's great but the game play out of the box certainly didn't make me want to spend money on expansions.

Not dead, just resurrected. 2nd edition was announced today!

Wow, that announcement came out of nowhere.

I've been avoiding the app-required games but my limited willpower won't be able to resist this.

It seems very similar to how the descent road to legend app works, which has done wonders for the popularity of that game. I see a few improvements in this version though.

I'm surprised it's not a gencon reveal, same with the new armada campaign, maybe they've got something bigger to announce.

Wow, that announcement came out of nowhere.

I've been avoiding the app-required games but my limited willpower won't be able to resist this.

It seems very similar to how the descent road to legend app works, which has done wonders for the popularity of that game. I see a few improvements in this version though.

I'm surprised it's not a gencon reveal, same with the new armada campaign, maybe they've got something bigger to announce.

It'll be available for purchase at GenCon, so, they had to announce it earlier to draw enough attention on the product, I believe

It will be available to purchase EVERYWHERE on August 4th. Although as of this AM, the online retailers are still listing it as "NOT AVAILABLE"

Wow, that announcement came out of nowhere.

I've been avoiding the app-required games but my limited willpower won't be able to resist this.

It seems very similar to how the descent road to legend app works, which has done wonders for the popularity of that game. I see a few improvements in this version though.

I'm surprised it's not a gencon reveal, same with the new armada campaign, maybe they've got something bigger to announce.

It'll be available for purchase at GenCon, so, they had to announce it earlier to draw enough attention on the product, I believe

I assumed it was to do with the app component, apps are released to IOS on Thursdays which is why we have a release date of the 4th. I'm not sure how easy it is for 3rd parties to notice the app going through the release process but I figure that FFG thought it wouldn't remain a secret and decided to do an early reveal.

Well this straight out sucks! I still need to get the Call of the wild expansion. So now with the 2nd edition coming out they won't bother making new orders of the old expansions?

This has already been debated a lot on the MoM 2nd edition board. You may want to look at those threads.

In any case, the app is supposed to work with both 1st and 2nd, so, why bothering creating something that could work with 1st if they intend to let the line die? I'm confident everything will be reprinted