Personal Stories, Character Death And New Characters

By mad-halfling, in General Discussion

I was wondering about the Personal Stories and the inevitable demise of characters. Reading the RAW, it seems that you keep the Mission and Reward/Consequence of your starting characters throughout the game, but it doesn't say, either way, what happens if your character dies and you draw a new one.

Taking the RAW it seems that the cards will carry over to the new characters, but this creates a bit of story-telling dissonance as they will then apply to a different character.

I can see, from a mechanics POV that it makes sense to keep them, as a new character could well have their fail-state already achieved when they enter the game, if it's related to board-state rather than their own character board (I'm pre-setting up the game for tonight, and this applies to the character I selected), so that doesn't seem to be a great mechanic to put in, however as they're personal to each character, and this is quite a story-telling game, it also seems odd to carry both a Mission or a Reward/Consequence over to a new character. Plus, assuming you do keep them, it would have been nice to have this clarified in the rules.

Edited by mad-halfling

The wording in the Campaign section may have confused you but the reward/consequence only remains with the investigator that gained it. A replacement investigator begins with their own personal story card which may later end with a success or failure.

I'm not, at all, looking at the Campaign Rules section of the rulebook, just the basic rules for them:-

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Personal Missions
There is a unique Personal Mission card for each investigator. During step 4 of setup (“Receive Starting Possessions, Health, and Sanity”), you receive the Personal Mission card that corresponds to your chosen investigator , placing it near your Investigator sheet with your possessions. Your Personal Mission includes additional narrative text as well as an effect that causes you to gain your Reward or Consequence. The Personal Mission indicates what you must accomplish to gain your Reward or avoid your Consequence.

Rewards and Consequences
There is a unique double-sided Reward/Consequence card for each investigator. You gain your Reward or Consequence as instructed on your Personal Mission, placing it near your Investigator sheet with your possessions. You can gain your Reward or Consequence, but not both.
Once you gain your Reward or Consequence, you keep it until the end of the game . Personal Missions, Rewards, and Consequences cannot be discarded by other game effects.
Although Reward/Consequence cards act similarly to Assets or Conditions, they are not possessions or Conditions and are not affected by effects that affect other card types.

These rules seem to be at odds with one another - the Choosing A New Investigator says to go through the steps 3 and 4 of setup, so that implies that you get the new investigator's ones, however the 2nd bold section above seems to categorically contradict this. I do rather agree with you about drawing the new ones, however in the back of my mind there's that wording plus the issue of auto-failure - the investigator that I was prepping has a fail condition of 3 cultists on the board, so if they were selected or randomly drawn (we always randomly select ours) you come in having failed the mission, before even having the vaguest chance to do anything about it.

For the record, I've had an official answer from FFG by e-mail:-

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The mission, reward, or consequence is lost with the investigator it belongs to. The new investigator will enter the game with their respective personal mission card.