Hi all,

I am starting work on a new player aid to help newcomers and groups select which investigators they want to play. Essentially, it is a menu for choosing investigators.

I wanted to solicit some helpful ideas about what would be ideal information to include for each investigator. I am not necessarily interested in just copying everything on their investigator cards, because players can just look at those. More like Pros, Cons, the roles each investigator can fill in a group (Fighter, Healer, Tank, Support, etc.). Stuff like that.

Here is an example of what it looks like currently (still a work in progress).

https://i.imgur.com/NtJ2Ekx.jpg

The design resembles my other player aid: My Visual Checklist of Released Content

So, for a new player, what additional information/structure might be helpful in order to help convey how each investigator plays?

I'm open to any and all ideas to help make this beneficial for players!

Thanks for the help!

I think a complexity level would be valuable to new players. Investigators like Lola, Wendy, Sefina, and Calvin can be quite difficult to play as. While fun, they require a better working knowledge of the game to use. Wendy's token redraw make her easier to use in some ways, but the way her amulet interacts with her deck and discard pile might be difficult for some newer players to wrap their head around.

The roles would be good to list.

This is a difficult question, because like you've said, a lot of the info that I would look at to choose an investigator is already on the investigator card. When you get down to subtleties like playing one guardian over another, it mostly comes down to deck building options and abilities. So for Roland, you could say he's good at picking up clues while killing monsters (but that's obvious from his card ability).

It could be useful to list the investigators most favored card type if they have one (For example, Minh should probably be running a lot of skill cards, though she doesn't have to). Zooey and other guardian will almost always be favoring Assets. Sefina relies heavily on having a large portion of her deck as event cards (if you don't include many events with Sefina, her ability and signature are useless).

I hope that helps. I'm not sure how I would lay this out if I were trying. I know I'd get too wordy and they they might as well look at the Investigator cards.

28 minutes ago, Soakman said:

I think a complexity level would be valuable to new players.

I agree that this would be very helpful, some investigators are definitely more challenging to use effectively than others.

29 minutes ago, Soakman said:

It could be useful to list the investigators most favored card type if they have one.

This is another good suggestion. It could even be more specific, e.g. Zoey favours Assets which increase/deal damage or Rex favours Assets which increase Intellect.

Other than that, Pros and Cons for each sound good. Role as well if you don't think it is adequately covered by the Pros section.

Alternatively/additionally, how about entries for "dealing with monsters" and "gathering clues" since these are core to most games? e.g. for Wendy: "Dealing with monsters: evade, event cards (e.g. Backstab). Gathering clues: asset cards (e.g. Flashlight, Lockpicks), survivor events".

Thanks for the ideas so far. I really like the complexity level. I would probably go with a Low, Medium, High measurement for that. Here are some ideas for the investigators (some of these are guesses, like the FA investigators, along with some current ones I have not tried yet). Feel free to disagree or provide some alternative levels!

Roland: Low
Zoey: Low
Mark: Medium
Leo: Low
Carolyn: Medium

Daisy: Low
Rex: Low
Minh: Low
Ursula: Low
Norman: Medium

Skids: Low
Jenny: Low
Sefina: High
Finn: Medium

Agnes: Medium
Jim: Medium
Akachi: Low
Mateo: Medium
Marie: Medium

Wendy: Low
Pete: Low
Yorrick: Medium
Calvin: High
Silas: Medium

Lola: High

I would start with a definition of the classes. This way when you say Mark is almost pure guardian, you can say a lot with very few words.

Here would be my example:

• Guardians fight enemies, protect and aid their allies. They tend to struggle with resources and horror.
• Seekers are the best at finding clues. They also have lots of card draw and some movement abilities. They are the worst fighters.
• etc

Roland is a solid Guardian but is also a secondary Seeker. (see how easy that is when you define above)

Zoey is more of a pure Guardian. She has abilities that make resources and horror less of a concern on her. She is a good protector.

Mark is also a pure Guardian. He does have a health management mini game making him slightly more complex.

Carolyn is unusual. She focuses on support and emphasizes the aid and protect side of the guardians. She focuses on healing horror. She is also good at getting clues. She is bad at fighting enemies.

3 hours ago, Wyndam said:

Thanks for the ideas so far. I really like the complexity level. I would probably go with a Low, Medium, High measurement for that.

Low, medium and high is exactly what I had in mind. I don't think any more levels than that are necessary.

Ignoring the Forgotten Age and Arkham Fiction investigators, who I don't have any experience with, I agree with all your ratings except for Wendy (I think her amulet and event recursion makes her at least a medium) and maybe Yorrick (I'd probably say low for him).

I can't comment on the forgotten Age investigators or silas, so I can't rank them. I added a starter level for first timers. I teach the game on Standard and play the game in groups on hard, so these are the observations I made during the meetups. I can go in depth if needed, but it would be a wall of text. ?

Guardian

Roland: Starter

Zoey: Medium

Mark: Low

Carolyn: High(why? Because she doesn't do exactly what you expect a guardian to do)

Seeker

Daisy: Starter

Rex: Low

Minh: Medium

Norman: High

Rogue

Skids: Low

Jenny: Starter

Sefina: High

Mystic

Agnes: Low

Jim Culver: Medium

Akechi: Starter

Marie: High

Survivor

Wendy: Starter

Pete: Medium

Yorick: Low

Neutral

Lola: High(arguably the highest right now)

Thanks for the additional comments everyone. I have started a document where I plan on accumulating ideas to add to the Investigator Overview. Please feel free to take a look and comment on things you might add, change, remove or rework altogether. I am definitely interested in fleshing out the Pros/Cons sections beyond stats investigators are high/low on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LdV6K_NMcOmuZdXQoZ72EwpKr-DupTPEarnuWW-0A8k/edit?usp=sharing

23 hours ago, Assussanni said:

Low, medium and high is exactly what I had in mind. I don't think any more levels than that are necessary.

Ignoring the Forgotten Age and Arkham Fiction investigators, who I don't have any experience with, I agree with all your ratings except for Wendy (I think her amulet and event recursion makes her at least a medium) and maybe Yorrick (I'd probably say low for him).

I think Starter level for Wendy is right. To take full advantage of her Amulet, maybe you need more skill, but to support my judgement I have two points: She's considered by FFG to be one of the two recommended starter investigators and while her amulet and event recursion may take a little more skill to take full advantage of, her basic special ability as an investigator is very powerful and straightforward. Remember since there's only one, you can't rely on getting her amulet out to begin with.

1 hour ago, mwmcintyre said:

I think Starter level for Wendy is right. To take full advantage of her Amulet, maybe you need more skill, but to support my judgement I have two points: She's considered by FFG to be one of the two recommended starter investigators and while her amulet and event recursion may take a little more skill to take full advantage of, her basic special ability as an investigator is very powerful and straightforward. Remember since there's only one, you can't rely on getting her amulet out to begin with.

This is true. I would still mention that she has additional room for strategy and complexity if desired, but does not require a ton of skill to play.

Wendy can be developed in so many different ways that there is no right or wrong way to build her up through a campaign. She is strong out of the core set(2 cores preferred). Her ability doesn't force you to go in a certain direction. Sure, here physical is one of the worst in the game, but there are so many ways to mitigate it now. She is also a character that forgives beginner errors.