For anyone interested, a similar discussion came up on BGG yesterday (and unsurprisingly ended up in the same "FFG should make a 'player cards only' pack" place):

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1754301/4-players-after-dunwich-concludes/page/1

In answer to the original question: I believe with one Core + one of all Dunwich products you will end up with about 130 level 0 player cards, which is enough for four legal characters. I had a go at building decks for a Zoey/Rex/Jenny/Agnes team using the currently available card pool and, while they won't be as powerful or consistent as with two Core Sets, I think they would be fine to play on Easy or Standard.

Now that I've got 1 of each, and I have constructed the decks, I see what everything is talking about when they believe 2 cores is "required".

I've got an easier time constructing for 3 players, than for the other forum-goers here looking for 4, but I managed to construct the default decks for Roland and Agnes. I used Jenny as the 3rd deck, because she can use 5 cards from outside her cycle. I also added a lot of the "extra" neutral cards from the expansions into Jenny's deck. I'd say without optimizing, everything is "okay".

I'd say Roland and Agnes are fine, but Jenny's "leftover" deck could use a bit of "help". I think that by shuffling a few of her neutrals from the expansions to the Roland/Agnes decks in exchange for a few meat and potatoes cards (like one knife/flashlight), it spreads the wealth and evens things out. Then I've got 3 pretty good decks. Not great, but pretty good. I haven't looked at upgrades yet (and I know that might be the next issue), but I've got enough to play the beginning of the Night of the Zealot, and get my folks hooked.

Once they taste the Kool-Aid and ask to play again, then I can Sigh and say "but, you know... if you want to build a great deck for the character, you're going to need....", etc.

I was also wondering about this. I dont mind having to buy a second core for a full playset, but I was hoping the game could support any investigatior combination after the first cycle before fully committing into it. Right now, that doesnt seem likely, and the info leaked about the second DE puts even more pressure into the level 0 cards from the core set.

The fact that they priorized fun but uterly useless cards over good level 0 ones in the mythos packs didnt help at all.

I've always wanted these LCG developers to simply offer a "deluxe" or "base+" set which takes the core set up to a full play set of everything without duplicates of cards or tokens that go completely unused. It's a waste of paper. I wonder why they don't...

On 24/03/2017 at 6:12 AM, Daft Blazer said:

If your playing all that with 4 players, 13 scenarios in total, it,s not unreasonable to ask your buddies to chip in and pay for an additional core set?

Like AleksDJ already mention, a lot of non-gamers dont see the point of buying the game if you already provide said game.

1 hour ago, vilainn6 said:

Like AleksDJ already mention, a lot of non-gamers dont see the point of buying the game if you already provide said game.

Have you tried explaining the situation to them? If they understand that someone getting another core set will enable everyone to have a more enjoyable game, they might decide it's worth it?

13 minutes ago, General Zodd said:

Have you tried explaining the situation to them? If they understand that someone getting another core set will enable everyone to have a more enjoyable game, they might decide it's worth it?

I play all types of games. video games, board games, lcg and ccg, both cooperative and pvp.

Most ccg are pvp competitive games and in these games it is fully accepted that everyone must buy their own cards. This is well accepted because each person is responsible for their own deck building experience.

Board games are typically owned by 1 person who brings it out to share with others to play, whether it is competitive or cooperative. Board games are typically completely encapsulated, where even expansions are designed so that 1 expansion purchase covers all players for the game.

LCG occupy an interesting crossroads here. Competitive LCG will typically have each player buying their own card pool. The LCG release method allows competitive players to also selectively skip sets they have no interest in, or to co-buy with other players to divide the cards contained within the set based on their play preferences.

From my experience - cooperative LCG are more on the board game design. A single person will typically buy the game and expansions, and bring it out to share with others. This is easily facilitated by the LCG release method where you can easily acquire all cards needed for any style of play. This doesn't typically cause a person to deviate from supporting their own preferred method of play, as the releases are balanced between the player types. There isn't much incentive to split purchases, as the game is considered much more a "single set" that you buy in total, rather than focusing on a single faction in another game.

The only thing that really deviates from this in cooperative lcg is that you are required to buy multiple cores. This is still okay in competitive LCG because you want a core set to be representative of all play styles to get a player in, but then it is acceptable that they will buy the cards to optimize their style, and can split purchase with other players who want a different style... but I think they really need to consider making cooperative lcg a single core set release with full playsets and a higher price tag. There are board games that sell for $80+, so I feel a cooperative LCG could just move up the price tag and become a more inclusive first purchase.

I totally get it, and I can understand the perception of this like a board game where one set should be enough. And to be fair, for 2 players, it is. It's not the optimum experience, but it's still a good game like that. What you want to do is play with more players than the core set is designed to support, so it's a little unfair to complain it doesn't do what it's not designed or marketed to do.

I agree that it would be great to have a 'core set plus' with double player cards in it, but that's not available, and you seemed to be asking for suggestions about what to do now. That's why I suggested speaking to them, unless you've already tried? Otherwise this is just going to devolve into another thread about the FFG business model for LCGs, and there are literally dozens of those already. I doubt any of us will be bringing anything fresh to that particular argument!

@General Zodd I don't think the poster above you was complaining so much as giving reasons why there's a perception that the model is that a "group buys one copy".

I think to some extent the idea of that perception is accurate. You'll use only one set of tokens and act/agenda/encounter cards, no matter what the player count. So, the crossover piece is limited to a portion of the core box - just the character cards. That looks a bit odd to someone new to LCGs.

The best solution seems to be how FFG packages this up. To your point, though - FFG just didn't make this kind of core set plus solution available. So, nothing we can do. If we want to only use 1 core, we must get out the bubble gum and duct tape and make sub-optimal decks.

I mean, I understand it offends some people's sensibilities, but the quickest solution is to sleeve up your character deck,print some proxies (at whatever quality you want), and play.

If the experience is enjoyable, keep playing. If the proxies are off putting, it's a great place to jump in with "maybe we can pool for another box". Use the extra encounter cards as backing for fan created scenarios.

15 hours ago, HansZiegler said:

I mean, I understand it offends some people's sensibilities, but the quickest solution is to sleeve up your character deck,print some proxies (at whatever quality you want), and play.

If the experience is enjoyable, keep playing. If the proxies are off putting, it's a great place to jump in with "maybe we can pool for another box". Use the extra encounter cards as backing for fan created scenarios.

Yes. This is a good alternative. Allows me to give the group a chance to play and enjoy the game before asking them to dive into it with me.