Killed!!!! Holy moly. I'll wear the brown trousers then.

This game just keeps that tension cranking up. Next will be 'draw a chaos token from one of two glasses of clear liquid. One is acid the other is scalding hot water'

Ditto. Caroyln, Leo, Akachi out.

The Bell Tolls isn't a Basic Weakness. You need to resolve Doomed (which is a basic weakness) and Accursed Fate (which isn't) twice each before putting The Bell Tolls in your deck. Still, our group never liked the concept (being directly killed by a weakness, not switching a basic weakness for another weakness) and we're going to remove Doomed for the Basic Weakness deck.

I like it. I think it's great how the game has become more lethal, what with (spoilers: Carcosa), the Obol, the Doomed weakness cycle, and (further spoilers). I was really irritated when it first happened in Dunwich, but now that we've gotten acclimated, I like what it does for the narrative.

6 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

The Bell Tolls isn't a Basic Weakness. You need to resolve Doomed (which is a basic weakness) and Accursed Fate (which isn't) twice each before putting The Bell Tolls in your deck. Still, our group never liked the concept (being directly killed by a weakness, not switching a basic weakness for another weakness) and we're going to remove Doomed for the Basic Weakness deck.

Oops, haha. My comment was not about that weakness specifically. I thought this was just a topic about the difficulty ramp of this campaign so far, lol. My bad!

Yeah, I looked at those 2 weakness (Dark Pact & Doomed) and decided not to include them.

Admittedly, I did not realize that Doomed and Accused Fate had to each be resolved twice before advancing, but I still don't want a thing that is completely (OK, there are a few cards that let you scry and sundry) beyond my control to end my campaign. I prefer to be beaten up for my inability to play the game well or draw when I need to.

A few of us recently played Behind Closed Doors, one of the two most recent scenarios in Mansions of Madness. Light spoiler about that mission:

With Doomed, it looks like the minimum number of scenarios is 3. To do this, in addition to being amazingly unlucky, you'd have to draw Doomed in the first mission. Then, in the second mission, you'd have to draw Doomed again, which causes you to place Accursed Fate on the bottom of your deck. If you draw your last card, or shuffle your deck and draw it earlier, Accursed Fate then triggers once. Third mission, you draw Accursed Fate and it triggers adding The Bell Tolls to your deck, and you repeat your luck in the second mission and are dead before supper. Incredibly unlikely and impressively unlucky, but it's possible. This spoiler pertains to the outcome of the second scenario in The Forgotten Age:

Conversely, when we next set up for a full campaign, I may try to slip Dark Pact into my deck. That sort of thing looks hilarious for our group. Conclusion: The game backstabbing us, not cool, Bro; us backstabbing us, hilarious.

Bare in mind, this is the same group that, while playing the first scenario in Night of the Zealot, Jenny went around using Burglary solely while in my (the lead investigator and therefore owner of the home) presence. After imploring me to light my house on fire and suffering a mental trauma, Jenny offered me a candelabra she'd pilfered.

Lastly, Dark Pact should never be taken if you're playing solo. You could do it, and could even survive it, but you'd never have a choice about it because the alternate condition could never be met. I also wouldn't recommend it with only 2 players.

18 hours ago, NPAW said:

Killed!!!! Holy moly. I'll wear the brown trousers then.

Do you actually run it, or just read it? Me, I'm too chicken (see above).

Haven't started this yet, but it does bring up a question? How do you all choose basic weaknesses? Do you use them from all the sets you possess (in which case the odds of getting Doomed are getting progressively lower) or some other system. We were thinking of choosing from Forgotten Age + Core Set weaknesses only, but haven't actually decided yet.

My group puts them all together, shuffles, and then the investigator to the left cuts the deck. The top card after that is the weakness we get.(because Indebted is shuffled face up because its permanent).

I will be playing with Doomed and Dark Pact in my weakness deck, because why not? Its not like its kills you in the first scenario, and if anything it takes 5 scenarios to manifest. Some games you won't even draw it.

12 minutes ago, C2K said:

I will be playing with Doomed and Dark Pact in my weakness deck, because why not? Its not like its kills you in the first scenario, and if anything it takes 5 scenarios to manifest. Some games you won't even draw it.

It could potentially happen in 3.

The thing I actually love about it is that the ways you'd try to avoid it become a very bad idea once it advances - things like Scrying, Old Book of Lore, etc will help. But once one of them goes off and the next one is on the bottom of your deck, reshuffling becomes a VERY bad idea. It's a very clever bit of design.

This is what we've been doing, but

32 minutes ago, C2K said:

My group puts them all together, shuffles, and then the investigator to the left cuts the deck. The top card after that is the weakness we get.(because Indebted is shuffled face up because its permanent).

This is what we've been doing before TFA. I like the idea of faceup Indebted. But now I think I won't be adding Doomed.

18 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

The thing I actually love about it is that the ways you'd try to avoid it become a very bad idea once it advances - things like Scrying, Old Book of Lore, etc will help. But once one of them goes off and the next one is on the bottom of your deck, reshuffling becomes a VERY bad idea. It's a very clever bit of design.

This does seem pretty neat, and the paranoia of it would make me make suboptimal choices that might endanger my team the further in a campaign I got. That is the only thing that makes me consider adding it.

For casual games (not that you can really play this competitively but you know (well, unless you're play 3 party Labyrinths of Lunacy)), I will reduce the pool of random weaknesses. For less experienced players, I may choose the weakness outright. And, as I mentioned above, for one of my groups I may just slip in Dark Pact for shenanigans.

I think people are looking at the ultimate impact of the Doomed chain without considering the intermediate. Taking one or two horror is actually pretty forgiving for a basic weakness. It's also one that you can actively play around a lot more than some others. Everyone can play their own game, of course, but it's not really an overly brutal weakness and I think removing it misses out on some very interesting gameplay.

20 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

I think people are looking at the ultimate impact of the Doomed chain without considering the intermediate. Taking one or two horror is actually pretty forgiving for a basic weakness. It's also one that you can actively play around a lot more than some others. Everyone can play their own game, of course, but it's not really an overly brutal weakness and I think removing it misses out on some very interesting gameplay.

Right, while it could potentially go off in three, from experience I'd expect to get to the eighth scenario before having the final card in my deck.

2 hours ago, agarrett said:

Haven't started this yet, but it does bring up a question? How do you all choose basic weaknesses? Do you use them from all the sets you possess (in which case the odds of getting Doomed are getting progressively lower) or some other system. We were thinking of choosing from Forgotten Age + Core Set weaknesses only, but haven't actually decided yet.

This is the official way to do it, as explained in the FAQ (you only use 1 copy of each box you have). You can do whatever suits your group, though.

@Duciris Dark Pact can be used to hurt yourself, since it doesn't specify "another investigator".

@Buhallin Doomed would kill Mark for sure in 3 scenarios, because he will draw his whole deck each scenario.

7 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

@Buhallin Doomed would kill Mark for sure in 3 scenarios, because he will draw his whole deck each scenario.

There are definitely some that would be worse than others, but I think this overstates it. You would definitely have to adapt your playstyle if you had it with Mark, but the same can be said for any number of weakness/investigator combinations.

And isn't that kind of the point of weaknesses? They're supposed to be more than niggling speed bumps. Refusing to play with Doomed because Mark might draw it - or just re-drawing it if you're building him and pull it - doesn't seem any different to me than saying "Rex needs his cards so I'm not going to let him have Amnesia", or "My Dark Horse Duke will be even better with Indebted, so I'll just pick that one."

I don't know why you would want to draw your whole deck to begin with. You theoretically just want to draw until you get your setup and then you want to finish the mission as fast as possible. If I learned anything playing through the Dunwich Legacy campaign, going through your whole deck is bad.

58 minutes ago, C2K said:

I don't know why you would want to draw your whole deck to begin with. You theoretically just want to draw until you get your setup and then you want to finish the mission as fast as possible. If I learned anything playing through the Dunwich Legacy campaign, going through your whole deck is bad.

I wonder how many people don't realize reactions are optional?

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

Refusing to play with Doomed because Mark might draw it - or just re-drawing it if you're building him and pull it - doesn't seem any different to me than saying "Rex needs his cards so I'm not going to let him have Amnesia", or "My Dark Horse Duke will be even better with Indebted, so I'll just pick that one."

Permanent elimination goes beyond being a serious nuisance. And I do know that reactions are optional, but you need cards beyond your setup to finish a scenario (especially when you play in the higher difficulties).

4 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

Permanent elimination goes beyond being a serious nuisance. And I do know that reactions are optional, but you need cards beyond your setup to finish a scenario (especially when you play in the higher difficulties).

You do need cards, but do you need your entire deck? Unless you're drawing through everything or reshuffling, you're not going to be at risk until the 5th scenario.

Honestly, it sounds like it's built specifically to limit the sort of mass-draw that you're talking about doing. I really don't see it as being any different than just removing Beyond the Veil from the game because it punishes the same thing.

Well, I mean, Quantum Flux before you draw it?

I don't think I view elimination the same way other people do. If you are playing in a group, and the xp you've earned has helped you at all to get to where you are by the time you're eliminated, you've made use of that xp. Having a new investigator start at the tail end of a campaign doesn't mean you're going to lose. It means that you have been crippled. I don't know. It's a VERY mild weakness if you mange to not draw it in a couple scenarios in a campaign. And to be honest, I've not drawn my basic weakness multiple times before in a campaign. It's very possible if you aren't overdrawing.

*shrug* I like it.

Keep in mind that MULTIPLE campaigns have branches where you can have an investigator killed before the end of the campaign (sometimes multiple, or ALL of them!). Whether or not this ends the game, or you particularly decide to retcon it and redo the scenario, is irrelevant. Death and being killed are going to continue occurring in the game. I think this is the desingers kind of telling us to 'get used to it.'

I mean, you can feel free to ignore it if you don't want to ever face the reality of having your investigator die, but that's not the design.

14 minutes ago, Soakman said:

Keep in mind that MULTIPLE campaigns have branches where you can have an investigator killed before the end of the campaign (sometimes multiple, or ALL of them!).

Actually, it's not that common for campaign branches to kill investigators or drive them insane without ending the campaign altogether at the same time. Off the top of my head, there's only The Gathering in NotZ and The Unspeakable Oath in Carcosa. Where Doom Awaits and Black Stars Rise do eliminate investigators, but they also end the campaign; they're also the second to last scenarios in their respective campaigns.

2 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

Actually, it's not that common for campaign branches to kill investigators or drive them insane without ending the campaign altogether at the same time. Off the top of my head, there's only The Gathering in NotZ and The Unspeakable Oath in Carcosa. Where Doom Awaits and Black Stars Rise do eliminate investigators, but they also end the campaign; they're also the second to last scenarios in their respective campaigns.

Does it happen all over the place? No. But it happens enough to realize that it may happen at least once in each campaign. Whether it ends the game or not, it's still an equal loss of both time and xp. Just not universally if it doesn't end the game.

In my opinion, you sort of just need to accept it unless you want to houserule death in general.

There's also the Obol and the Crazed Shoggoth, both of which can perma-kill a single investigator.

And we have Calvin's weakness -- it's just trauma, but it could potentially perma-kill him in fewer draws than the Doomed cycle.

The core and most of Dunwich conditioned us to feel like perma-death only came from trauma. I was quite upset after my first go at Where Doom Awaits. Now, I expect and try to prepare for it, and I've come to like it, occasionally, from a story standpoint, especially if the campaign incorporates the aftermath to some degree.

On 5/14/2018 at 5:37 PM, Soakman said:

Death and being killed are going to continue occurring in the game. I think this is the desingers kind of telling us to 'get used to it.'

100% this. The thing I like best about Doomed is that it is instructive: Investigators die. That is a core tenet of the game. We shouldn't be afraid of our perfectly curated, 100xp decks getting eliminated, we should be excited to find a new deck that can continue the campaign from nothing.

At least that's how I feel. I love Doomed.