Grand Master Therion

Most people think Nyarlathotep is a push over as an Ancient One. So, I have turned him into a Herald that puts Mask Monsters in the Cup anyways, and forces players to try a different tactic then to "Shop" for Elder Signs or "Prepare" for the Final Battle.

dkw said:

It's interesting and entertaining, but it's still a pushover. I thought the false summoning idea was very cool (very Nyarlathotepy) and I liked the random monster manifestation.

Two major problems with this herald. Start the game with two extra clue tokens per investigator for the price of skipping the first turn? YES PLEASE! Not only will 3 clue token investigators all be ready to seal gates on turn 2, you're getting no risk two clue tokens per player (I'll say it again just in case you don't fully realize how great that is). Also... Being able to dump three trophies for a success roll to lower the doom tokens makes the game soooooo easy. All you do is have all the characters but one doing this, while one character gathers clues and seals gates. A few hours later. Game over, you win.

Here are my Nyarlathotep rules, you might want to integrate them with some of yours for a more challenging Nyarlathotep game. Heh... Swapping out Nyarl for the final battle *would* solve the problem of people stocking up for fighting him ;'D [if you don't take my ideas, I might take yours, at least the final battle swap, I think that's just a great idea— it gives a very strong incentive for people to go for a sealing victory].

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At the beginning of the game, do not put the masks in the cup. Random masks spawn when new gates open instead of the normal monster, after they're defeated the first time, they go into the monster cup for random selection afterwards. Masks do not effect the monster limit. They can be temporarily removed by gate closings or feds raid arkham type cards. This variant is particularly fun if you have all the box expansions (and have the tougher masks from Dunwich and Kingsport). The Beast, The Skinless One, and The God of the Bloody Tongue make town navigation quite a challenge, along with the lesser masks that will at the very least jam you up in the streets ::laughter:: and once you get a gate surge or two, the town gets really flooded. In the meanwhile, the guy who destroys clue tokens (not his actual name) gives you a little minigame to play as you try to kill him. Add to this challenge :'D throw in Tulzscha as the herald, and then you'll also have elusive cultists destroying elder signs while being defended by the masks, while the elusive mask is destroying clues. Yeah, you might still be able to stockpile enough clues and items to take Nyarl down, but maybe not. Not if the endless(ly annoying) cultists and masks slow you down or take you out. Anyways, it should still be possible to beat Nyarl in direct combat, but I think it will be considerably more difficult.

Also, change Nyarl's attack effect to a loss of two or three clue tokens (depending on how easy you think it is). I would give you an exact number, but I've never tried this with the Herald before (I'll try it Saturday night probably— while going for a combat victory). [with your final battle swap idea, I would just dump this entirely]

G'luck :')

Thanks for the input about it. It helps to see what you have done wrong or right, and what could work better.

How does this sound in relation to the Clue Tokens? Start Delayed and Fight 1 Mask Monster, If the Investigator Wins, Gain 1 Clue Token?

Also, how does this sound: (I will help you, just this once) If a 1 or 2 is rolled, raise the Terror Level by 1?

I don't quite understand what you are saying about a final battle with Nyalathotep and changing his ability.

You're welcome.

"How does this sound in relation to the Clue Tokens? Start Delayed and Fight 1 Mask Monster, If the Investigator Wins, Gain 1 Clue Token?"

The problem with that it is doesn't give enough incentive. It's not worth losing a turn (especially the first one) just for a clue token while having to fight a random monster (let alone a random mask). It's just like asking to get knocked unconscious... Perhaps if you made it two clue tokens again, and took away the delay (errr, allowed them to move despite fighting that turn), or both.

"Also, how does this sound: (I will help you, just this once) If a 1 or 2 is rolled, raise the Terror Level by 1?"

This is also very exploitable... I'd gladly trade three terror for three less doom tokens (and I wouldn't mind doing more later in the game). When you make it 33% odds of terror, those are even sweeter. Maybe make it so the terror rises on a failure, or just make it rise whenever you use that ability, or make it so that it always rises when doom goes down, whereas you roll a die for a 1 or 2 on a failure. ::Shrug:: I think a mandatory terror rise when doom goes down would probably be the best option, that way you could have some ability to slow down the game, but you can't exploit it terribly or the terror track will break (and at ten, rises in terror give doom tokens anyways).

"I don't quite understand what you are saying about a final battle with Nyalathotep and changing his ability."

Nyarlhotep's attack does one clue token worth of damage (or devours you) if you fail the check. Make it two or three and he'll be considerably tougher. (People can kill him easily just by slowly beating him to death over a long number of turns by hording clue tokens).

As for Nyarlathotep's Final Battle Ability, I didn't try to change it because you would have to fight Nyarlathotep AFTER having beaten the Ancient One that was switched by False Summoning.

The thought was, some players just gear up for the final battle, gathering the best weapons that are the most effective against that Ancient One. Suddenly, the Ancient One changes right as the Final Battle Starts, resulting in a Different Combat Modifier, DIfferent Battle Ability, Different Number of Doom Tokens. Having prepared for Ancient One X, you are now fighting Ancient One Y making your battle preperations less effective. After having expended many Clue Tokens, One Time Use Items, etc. Nyarlathotep steps in as a last ditch effort for his plan to succeed. In essence, you have to fight 2 Ancient One Battles one right after the other even though Nyarlathotep is rather weak.

This is what you suggest, correct?

Fight a Random Mask Monster and gain 2 Clue Tokens at Start of Game.

Arkham Movement Phase: Spend 3 Trophies to Return 1 Monster at same Location to the Monster Cup, roll 1 Die and increase Terror Track by 1, on a 5 or 6 Remove 1 Doom Token.

dkw said:

Yeah. Everything you said, except I would change it to on a success remove a doom token rather than a five or six ;') hey, give some credit for getting a blessing.

Nyarlathotep as a Herald revised. I have incorporated your suggestions, and modified some of the abilities that were affected by other abilities. What do you think of this version?

change start of game text to "During the mythos phase that begins the game investigators who have not yet traded may fight a random mask monster to gain 2 clue tokens."

This will take care of the "can I pick the mask" questions, and it will also avoid timing and trading question.

Also, do you want the two token gain to be if they win, or just if they fight? As it is now, they get it whether they win or not. I'd say give it to them just for fighting, because some of those monsters are pretty tough and I think three or four of them can devour the investigator ;') not that that'd be a huge loss on the first turn, but still, it *is* a loss of the first turn for whoever gets eaten (and with some players house rules, there is one doom token penalty for devoured characters).

For This Will Not Help You "Start of Game" should probably read "Game Setup"

For I Will Help You Just This Once you could use this text "This ability has no limits on its use: An investigator can spend 3 Trophies (Gate and/or Monster) to send 1 Monster at the same location back to the Monster Cup. The investigator rolls a die and on a success Removes 1 Doom Token from the Doom Track. Raise the Terror level by 1." Particularly the way the last two sentences are phrased should help prevent confusion about what is being rolled for what, and who the roll is being applied to, putting the terror level (which is independent of the roll results) after the doom roll should add to this effect.

For Let's See If You Can Handle this: Two main problems. First, change the text to "randomly draw 1 mask." By the way Is this designed so that each player must fight one mask? Or can one player theoretically fight multiple masks if multiple characters are on the same space (because currently that could happen happen)? Also, when you say the investigators must fight the masks, do you mean that they can't retreat? How long do they need to fight them? If you mean to say that no player can retreat, just say, "A random mask Ambushes each investigator, these remain on the board even if the investigators are defeated."

Second, what do you mean by Masks Ignore Monster Limits? Is this only when this ability is in effect, or the entire game? If the latter, you might just want to say, "Masks are considered Spawn Monsters in considerations of monster limits." Unfortunately, there is no in game jargon for Ignoring Monster Limits (Spawn Monster is probably the closest). If the former... Um... "In these occasions, place the masks even if they go above the Monster Limit." Maybe.

HOLY ****! For I Will Not Let It End Like This! That modification you made is *crazy*! I like it :'D because investigators need to hold on to tokens for fear of Shub, Yog, or Abhoth. But on the other hand ;') Nyarl becomes very difficult if you have a bunch of trophies. Nice. Even more to play into the anxiety of the random.

More Semantics: You don't really need to italicize mays :') it means what it means, italicized or not. May doesn't mean must.

Anyways, I'm really excited :') I think I'm going to print out your herald (I've never printed out a custom herald before). I think he'll make fighting Nyarl a hell of alot more fun :'D

I thought give the 2 Clue Tokens just for fighting. I should add Fight Random Mask Monster.

The change to It Will Not End Like This is related to Let's See If You Can Handle This. By spending your trophies to send Monsters you don't want to fight away, you weaken Nyarlathotep at the expense of Terror with the chance to remove a Doom Token. But, you risk being caught with almost no trophies in a Final Battle when you could need them. Also, it makes you think if spending those trophies to get Money or Clues at various locations is a good idea without knowing if you will really need them when everything hits the fan. Also, increasing Terror by sending away monsters can cause the Investigators to fight Masks out of nowhere.

The Fight with the Masks because of Terror increase is Nyarlathotep sending minions to deal with the Investigators. The thought was, you can't retreat, kill or be killed. If you think that is too powerful/dangerous, then we could change it to Can't Run Away First Round Of Combat. It is, Each Investigator Fights 1 Mask , regardless of how many Investigators are at the same location. Of course, Other World Fights result in the Mask leaving the board because they can't actually "stay" at the Other World location.

I Italicize things because, in my experience with games of all kinds, important words like May, Must, Could, etc. get missed quite often. I have officiated many types of hobby game tournements, as well as local, recreational, and minor league professional sports, and little words in rulebooks cause great confusion, which is why in such books they are bold or italicized.

Symantics are always a problem, which is why I like to discuss things like this with the community at large. For the most part, my initial attempts are just, "I think this sounds fun/cool/interesting. What do you think?" kind of writings.

Nyarlathotep really needed an overhaul, and the Elder God really acts more like a Herald then as an Ancient One, especially as he is one of the few who remained awake while all the others went to sleep.

Well, it isn't just my Herald anymore. You contributed a decent bit to its creation. So you could say this Herald is also yours as well. And, it is for the community at large as well.

By the way, what is your opinion of Master Therion? Millmaster helped me work on that Herald on the old forums, and I have made only a few minor changes since then, to make it a little easier to play with and a little nicer towards the players.

I believe I have solved the Symantics problems, and put everything in a decent order on how it plays out. Don't forget, with this Herald, the Library is closed.

A couple problems. You can't call the masks "Spawn Monsters" because Spawn Monsters don't go to the cup when defeated (that's why I used a wierd sounding circumlocution), " Actually, you might be better off recycling "A random mask Ambushes each investigator, these remain on the board even if the investigators are defeated."

Do you want masks to ignore monster limits the entire game, even if they're drawn from the cup for something like a monster surge?

Also, gaining 2 clue tokens "after combat is resolved" (does this mean that if the character is hospitalized or goes insane they really only get 1 clue token)? The timing of combat resolution is unclear. I can understand why you might not want to give them the clues as soon as they begin combat (they'll have a better chance of winning by spending them, but so what, if they need to use clues to stay alive, then they won't be gaining anything anyways).

Heh. No, I think Ambush is more fun than Surprise :') deadlier.

I appreciate why you italicize words like may, although as an ex-English major I find it offensive, albeit completely understandible :')

Thanks for the co-credit, but I still think it's primarily your GOO, some of the basic ideas were very creative (I was blown away by the random GOO idea, and I think the waves of mask attacks is also very interesting— I also like how the game dynamics all interact with eachother to some extent so you need to balance things), I love how you've really given Nyarl some heavy bite :'D I might print this out at Kinkos with color once it's done (along with the official heralds which I currently only have in B&W). It's also great how you can "play against Nyarlathotep" without actually using him as as the GOO, it's exciting to combine masks with other GOOs.

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Eh... I don't really want to comment on Therion, I'm not really crazy about it (I'm hard to please). I liked the R'lyeh texts idea :') but if you wanted to make it even nastier, make it so that all other worlds have red in them, and manifest the R'lyeh effects first (that alone would make for a scary game).

Also, the terror track almost never hits ten, so unless you have some sort of ability on the herald that is encouraging the terror track to rise, it seems like kindof a throw away paragraph.

One last thing :') can't you get a color picture? Color looks so nice :'D or you could just take this picture and invert the colors on photoshop ;'D that'd probably be an interesting effect.

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Anyways, thanks for designing the herald, now I'm going to have something for fun Nyarlathotep games in addition to my Tzulscha variant ::laughter:: but I'm actually more excited about trying yours— I wonder what GOO would compliment it best.

I'm thinking about going for your scenario with Cthulhu— it should make the pre-final battle more fun :') especially the mask fights. Heh... Actually, I'll probably just go for a random draw. Something like Yig would be really tough though. ::Laughter:: or Atlach Natcha ;'D

You are welcome and enjoy. I thought Nyarlathotep really needed a make-over in the game, and when the ideas of Heralds came out, I thought Nyarlathotep would work so much better as a Herald then as an Ancient One.

I was thinking after fighting, and maybe losing, the clues were discovered when the fighting finished. Try it out both ways, and see which seems to work better.

If you notice, the original "My Name? You May Call Me Nya." had "Place Masks In Monster Cup." while the current version doesn't, and only has Masks poping up either at the beginning or when shops start closing. So, the idea is was, that after the Masks defeat the Investigators, they remain causing trouble in Arkham even if monsters are filling the streets, since the idea is that Nyarlathotep is actually in Arkham causing trouble and misleading the Investigators.

Millmaster provided the picture for Master Therion, and I haven't tried looking for another picture.

Well, King in Yellow had only just come out when I designed the first Master Therion and Nyarlathotep Heralds, so people were ending up with high Terror because they had yet to find ways to fight back effectively. At the time, on the old boards, people actually thought "I Control Arkham," while being a rare instance, was a good idea. If you think about it, by playing to win before the Ancient One awakens, you avoid having to deal with the Nyarlathotep Herald's last two abilities if you pull it off, there by creating 2 paragraphs worth of game material that does not get used.

The original R'lyeh Texts ability was: All Gates Lead To R'lyeh; but that just didn't work. In the current one, all Otherworlds gain Red while keeping their original colors. Adding a line that says "Red Events Must Be Resolved," would make it more dangerous.

The whole thing probably still needs work anyways.

dkw said:

:') but the difference is there are many games in which one the terror doesn't hit ten (almost all of them actually), whereas an AO awakening is far more common (especially with a game dynamics such as the ambushing masks, I would imagine).

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Err, for the text of R'lyeh. You could use something like, "All gates also count as red and additionally lead to R'lyeh. R'lyeh encounters take precedence over any other encounters." Heh... There would be no escaping the Cthulhu card now ;'D I would rather see that game dynamic attached to a herald that is more linked to Cthulhu though.

What is this, number four revision? Maybe the real Nyarlathotep is secertly manipulating his game version?

Supposed Final Version, Creator DKW, Thanks To Avi_dreader.

Woah, the mask monsters on the first turn *stay*? That's pretty tough. You should raise the clue token reward to three then, because if investigators screw up they're going to leave behind a mess (and with the two board expansions, you have several really nasty masks that can come out). The three clue tokens might incentivize players who start with low amounts of clues to take the fight (expecting to lose) just to get the clues— it would be an interesting trade (starting a game with insanity or madness for three clues and a mask on the board). Hoom... ::laughter:: I don't think that'd be asking for too much (especially since there are no elder signs).

Heh... The problem is without the expansions two clue tokens would be balanced, but with, it would have to be three because the risk is much higher.

Also: First mythos phase,

"and are ambushed" (you left out "are")

G'night :')

-Avi

::Laughter:: this herald would go awesomely with Hastur!

**** symantics, and I used to be really good with such things.

How about this: 1 Board 2 Clues, 2 or more Boards 3 Clues for the fight with the Mask at the Beginning?

I try to make things playable with only the base game so that anyone could pick it up and use it, instead of having to go and buy Expansion X just to use it.

dkw said:

I think 2 clues is good. I love the doubts "2 clues and fight with Mask monster" and "remove a monstrer, but raise Terror"

I translate this Heralds to Spain . I hope you do not bother

dkw said:

If you have room for the extra text, go ahead and put it :')

[email protected] said:

Heh... Look at the previous discussion on game balance to see why one might want three clues for a beginning mask fight. Otherwise it's disincentivized too much when you add in the ones that devour or will just knock unconscious.

[email protected] said:

Heh... Look at the previous discussion on game balance to see why one might want three clues for a beginning mask fight. Otherwise it's disincentivized too much when you add in the ones that devour or will just knock unconscious and start running around the board screwing up other players.

::Sigh:: because I view it primarily as a problem of people not really paying attention to the meaning of may. That is to say, may *means* may. It's annoying when people miss it or don't listen to mays carefully because it's such a basic and important word (if a reader or listener doesn't pay close attention to the use of may they will often grossly misconstrue meanings— and yes, I'm aware that people do this all the time). ::Laughter:: I didn't say I didn't understand why he was doing it ;')

P.S. DKW, I'm looking forward to you posting the final version of the herald. I wannnt to priiiint iiiit.

Avi_dreader said:

I didn't say that you didn't understand why he was doing it. In fact I pointed out the opposite. Actually what I found curious was (a) that you seemed to be suggesting that emphasizing a word might change (or be seen to change) its meaning and (b) that you are applying a double standard. Now, if I understand you, you are saying that some readers have the mistaken idea that italicizing something can fundamentally change its meaning. If that is the case, you seem to be getting offended by the wrong group of people.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to elaborate.

Cheers,
Chris

Who said I was offended? I was just faux-offended— hence the smiley face at the end of the sentence ;') you shouldn't've removed that from the quotation. Don't assume I have a double standard. If you assume I have *any* standards, you are making a mistake :')