Just thought I'd ask around how people are playing with/without them. As a veteran player of the game, I still only have managed to complete a couple of missions ever, and a number of tasks, which are quite straightforward (and can be quite rewarding). I have never quite liked them, (especially the missions), guess due to their difficulty to complete, and the one-player-takes-it-all-nature of some of them. And since in most of the games we have our hands already full with just trying to seal and survive, it has seemed to be waste of time and effort to try and complete them. I remember a couple of games from the past, when one player has focused on a mission and ignored others co-operative efforts. Not fun. Not to mention a mission takes up your precious Unique item...

Recently, we've regularly re-drawn missions and tasks, when all players have agreed on this. So, What are your pros and cons considering mission/tasks, and do they contribute to the game enough to warrant the use them?

The ones from the commom item deck I usually ignore. They aren't worth the effort mostly, except in very large games. The ones from the unique deck are often very strong and I almost always complete them.

In any case I love the tasks and missions. It saddens me that the mechanic was not continued in later expansions as these cards appear much too rarely right now.

I allowed them to be redrawn when taken as starting items.

Just a couple of weeks ago I took them out of the decks altogether.

I like the idea behind them, but it nevre appealed to me in actual play, particularly missions. I suspect they would be bettre in a game with many players, but on the whole I think Personal Stories is a much better way of giving the players sub-stories to deal with.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

"You drew it, you play it", that's my bottom line ('cos Stone Cold said so ). Applies to investigators as well as items. Now, there is no "must" on whether you choose to attempt/complete a Task/Mission, you just don't get a re-draw. It's tough noogies. Early on, I like to send someone doing a Task or Mission if the reward is worthwile (Sacrifices to Make comes to mind). If nothing else, they are the perfect Rat-Thing bait . IMO they are necessary for the dilution of the UI and CI decks, drawing kick-ass weapons/Elder Signs every turn is boring.

I like them and done them all except for the Greater Good and Join the Winning Team. Almost finished JtWT once never ever even try to start Greater Good. Missions/ Task are a good way to buff your score too.

Since you aren't obligated to complete them (and as pointed out, you can use them for the Rat-thing), view them as "Personal Stories Lite": there is no fail condition hanging over you if you don't act. In the right circumstances they can be quite useful, especially the ones that pay off in cash or clues.

As for using them: almost all of my games are solo (playing 4 investigators), and like as not if an investigator gets a task on startup they will usually try to complete it.

MrsGamura said:

JtWT is kick-ass. Completed it once (as many know). Still hope to do For the Greater Good one day. Even if that net's you +/- 0 for you score (IIRC you're devoured as a result) .

Dam said:

You are a Cylon.

We use them, but we've hacked them considerably. For Tasks, we use Ophyron's Arkham Inquiries variant. You take the task cards out of the Common Items deck. There is a separate Task deck, which has about thirty different tasks. Three tasks are always available, and you pick them up at the location listed last on the task card. It works quite well. It encourages people to visit obscure locations, like River Docks and Velma's Diner. Unfortunately, it looks like the Arkham Inquiries website isn't around anymore.

We also take the eight missions out of the Unique Items deck and use them in a separate Mission deck. Three missions are always available, and you can pick one up at the Library each turn after making a Lore check. Also, certain missions can be done progressively. For example, for The Light of Reason, you get three clue tokens at each location instead of receiving ten at the end. This mechanic works okay, but not as well as the Task deck.

A big advantage of this approach is that you don't get a Task or a Mission unless you actually want it.

I don't know if tasks and missions are necessary to dilute the CI/UI decks. It's not like there's that many of them, and there's plenty of other undesirable common items and unique items.

pahapasi said:

Wouldn't know it, no BSG for me . My gaming in mainly 2-player only (or solo).

Regarding the JtWT, difficulty-wise, it's up there as a win condition. FtGG is harder, but probably nothing else. Well, maybe seal-win against Atlach-Nacha, there are what 3 JtWTs recorded and 2 seal wins against A-N?

avec said:

Hey, there are 8 Missions and only 4 Elder Signs (5 for those with KH). I likes those numbers .

The main reason I took them out was because my daughter has started wanting to play again, and I kept redrawing them in games with her.

But I do play they don't need to be taken as start up items even if my daughter isn't playing.

After playing for a while with all the small cards mixed in regardless of set up, I decided to get rid of a bunch of cards. With the exception of tasks and missions, I made myself do this by taking out every type of card for an expansion rather than picking and chosing. I didn't want to just get rid of "weak" cards and imbalance the decks, but tehre some spells in particualr I was glad to see the back of. I think I still have everything from DH & KH in but I got rid of two or three card sets from the little boxes.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

BTW I like having extra jobs for the investigators to deal with, but I tend to do this by playing a lot of scenarios where you have to look for hidden things or find villans etc rather than by completing missions and tasks.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

I like them a lot and actually want to see more of them as well, maybe not as hard as Join the Winning.. and Greater good but it can really help an Investigator who is stuck without nothing special to do at the board and also make sure some less frequent locations get to see some action.

We keep them in the deck, and the tasks - especially the one that gets an ally - might get done if there's time to spare. The missions generally seem to be too much effort for the reward, though, so they're rarely attempted.

We rarely do tasks, but usually do the missions which remove all rumours and reduce the AO's attack rating, since they are too not hard. To be honest, as much as we roll our eyes when a task or mission is drawn for an item, I'd rather start with Sacrifices to Make than unique items such as the stationary st/san trading posts, Milk of Shub-Niggurath (unless playing with Kingsport) and the like. Even things like food are less useful, often, than many of the tasks, which can provide a nice boost if completed early on.

The Common tasks are often quite worth doing if you get them early enough. If there aren't many gates open, and there aren't many monsters, then it's often easy to get to the locations, and you can often pick up clue tokens along the way. "Patrolling the Streets" is probably only worth it if you can do some monster-hunting while you're out there.

The unique missions are mostly worthless. The only one I routinely attempt is "Sealing the Beast's Power" because against some AOs, it's a life-saver.

pretty situational. Sealing The Beasts Power is great, so is Sacrifices to Make. Patrolling the streets is pretty easy to complete, Minerology Report is tough, but a nice payoff if you complete it.

Gotten occasional use of Wave of Destruction, but usually not. The Light of Reason is actually a really good deal, monster-toughness to clue wise (far better than say, the science building), and I've completed that once or twcie. I keep in Purifying the Town, just cause it's helpful sometimes, but in general probably not worth it. Join the Winning team is lame and ruins a cooperative game, so I take it out. Not because it's hard, but because IMO it goes against the spirit of the game. I keep For the Greater Good in the deck, but have never completed it.

My group and I like Tasks & Mission.

we just removed the most difficult (well, I'd say impossible) ones- they're so frustrating or pointless that we consider them like a "blank card drawing".

I'm talking about missions like "joining the winning team", "the light of reason" and a few more...

Like Marianna, I play that they can be redrawn if received as a starting item. Tasks frequently get attempted and completed. We almost never even attempt a mission. The other night we had an exception when an encounter at the Inner Sanctum said th=o take the first mission from the deck, but the Lodge is helping, so you get to start with a clue on it and skip the first location. We ended up with Sacrifices to Make and decided to try for it. Ended up failing to coplete it, but in that case we thought it was worth trying.

If Darrell "Task/Mission Master" Simmons is in the game, I'm actually hoping to draw one (esp. Tasks, but also Sacrifices to Make as far as Missions go) during pre-game. He's fast and with his ability he'll most likely stick around the location for the needed duration.

I like them, and for the most part, my cult digs them. I wish a few more had been made, and if FFG is ever planning to make an expansion that mixes cards relating to all the expansions together, I really hope for a couple of multiple-town ones. "Shipwreck Rescue: Kingsport Lighthouse - Innsmouth Devil's Reef - Arkham Hospital: Gain 1 Ally, Clues, $$$, etc."

My cult is mostly misplaced roleplayers who can make time for a board game easier than for some RP campaign. We love Arkham Encounters, and Tasks and Missions often provided a good excuse to go somewhere for a new experience when your Investigator had a spare turn or was searching for Clues or something. Tasks are usually accomplished if it's the beginning of the game, but usually ignored during the endgame. Missions are rarely accomplished, but almost always attempted. (Usually, the desired sacrifices dry up, and then there's just no time.)

I have removed Join the Winning Team, For the Greater Good, Wave of Destruction, and Walking the Ley Lines from play completely, by general cult consensus that they suck. Very rarely do we draw cards that make us frown, even if it's a crappy Spell that can't be used, but these four Missions just kept pissing everyone off. We play very socially, so JtWT goes against everything we feel Arkham Horror is supposed to be. FtGG is too impossible to even attempt. Wave of Destruction is just stupid: to remove a mere THREE monsters, you have to sacrifice THREE Unique Items that you could probably use to just KILL the monsters!!! Even for a monster surge at Devil's Reef, that is economically insane. Walking the Ley Lines is more trouble than its worth: by sacrificing four Gate Trophies, you can instantly allow every unstable Location to add more doom tokens to the doom track and wake the Ancient One, because I'm pretty sure you won't be claiming a Closing Victory after giving away all your Gate Trophies!

But now Personal Stories have generously added another 48 Tasks/Missions (of a sort), and they're tailored to each Investigator, so we're all happy as clams.

Wave od Destruction comes in handy. Dhole, Servetor of the Outter God, God of the Bloody Tongue and his friends! plus use JtWT and Walking the Waylines to sac to it!

MrsGamura said:

Bah, last two times I've gotten the "surprised by God of the Bloody Tongue" OW encounter (Yellow Other no less ), I've whipped his beeehind. First time with Patrice, today with Ashcan.

I always thought that Join The WInning Team was a sort of 'trick' card - it seems tempting to try to do it, but usually it will just waste all the traitor's time and he won't pass it before the AO wakes up anyway. You have to get really lucky in order to pass it, and even then, it seems like a bit of a cop-out.