Oh, also, Find Gate was intended to be an easily kept item (since you could just get it as a fixed item by Norman Withers and pass it on while he'd start off with another one the next scenario).

Aaaand, of course :') glad you're trying it again. Good luck.

@Julia

Werenun... ::Facepalm:: Good grief Charlie Brown!

In fact, the last gate was sealed by one who casted "Find Gate" to come back earlier. So it would have been difficult to trade. Doesn't matter, I'll do without it. In fact, the reason why I let the couple alone, was because I didn't want another "discard some stuff"... But I realized that, from the moment they are in the streets, they become nightmarish...

I had a good laugh when I drew a mummy. I had the Environment which grants +1 to undead and I then I drew a Mythos Card which closed for one turn one location. That was a 8-strength mummy. I wisely decided to avoid it for some turn... In fact, till the end of the game But juste having a 8-strength monster on the board was kind of a record for me.

::laughter:: then wait to see Scenario5. All undead monsters have their toughness modified heavily. Myabe you can beat this! Or, even better, three 7 toughness Cultists blocking the streets in Scenario 7. Some of the things happening in this League are completely insane, but the most insane thing of all is that actually there is a way to beat them ::rofling::

Julia said:

The insanity paradox ;') But bicycle boy knows that you can overcome. IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! Sorry... I love posting this video :'D

Hugues said:

Oh... Well... One of the tricks to dealing with Glaaki is consolidating equipment by type on characters (i.e. not making all your investigators well equipped at all times, this makes it so that if the terror level does pop up, only one or two characters will have to lose items, not all of them (well, except the clue servitor, but, even still, if you only have one investigator with clues... On the other hand, if there's an item you really want an investigator to keep (and nothing else), it's a good idea to keep a spare item of the same type on the investigator... Just in case ;')

Y'know... If you were able to take out the mummy, you would have nearly had enough resources to trade for an ally :')

Avi_dreader said:

You were so cute!

Avi_dreader said:

::backstabbing:: ::rofling::

SCENARIO 17 - ALL THE PRETTY LITTLE CULTISTS

Dunwich and Innsmouth boards in play

Investigators: Agnes, Norman, Ursula, Mary, Gloria

After a long reflection and a repetition of Scenario 13 with a modified setup, I decided to cut off the Kingsport board and scale down to a 5 investigator party just to play the Scenarios in the "hard way". Or, at least, as they were planned to be played. Plus, I added the Lurker gates, for some more variety and danger (I really like the double gates, and the moving ones; hope this is ok for you, Avi). The Scenario required attenction to the details, and so I chose very carefully the investigators. Agnes, because she was compulsory (and it's not that bad, after all). Ursula, because of her starting clues (it's kind of a free seal playing her). Norman, for the Find Gate, which was a vital spell considering the Slumber ability of the Ancient One. Two slots still free. The winner were Gloria (having the chance to read two OW encounters instead of one was a real breather, and a good way to avoid futile delays) and Mary, because of her ability to carry over a gate trophy, which means a free Blessing for another investigator at the beginning of Scenario 18. The set-up was kinda meh, except for two investigators: Ursula, starting with Eltdown Shards and an Elder Sign, and Sister Mary, starting with another Find Gate. Plus Norm, able to carry in his pockets both the Sword of Glory and an Elephant Gun (this should teach us to treat with respect elderly people!)

So, Mythos zero: a gate opened at Whateley Farm and a Cultist said "Hello" to this world. Lovable, no interest in dealing with him, just hoping he'd go quickly into a vortex and out of my life. First round just a happy-go-round, with Gloria leaving her money to Agnes and going at Hibb's, while Ursula and Gloria headed for the Curiosity Shoppe. Norm went for a clue at the Science Building, and Mary went for a clue at the Graveyard. Agnes bought the Warding of the Yellow Sign, and put it at Devil's Reef (just to avoid any risk), while Ursula got the Map of the Mind. The *great* thing was the gate opening under Mary's feet! Lovable! Direct to R'lyeh. First encounter: a viscious monster appeared. And it turned out to be a Zombie. He was burned with the Cross (that's kinda weird.. a gate opening in a graveyard and producing a zombie ::laughter: and claimed as trophy.
Mythos one: monster surge at the Graveyard! What were the odds? Anyway, for the Dunwich gate a Lloigor and a Tcho-tcho, for the Graveyard a Ghost and another Tcho-tcho. Plus a Nightgaunt appearing in the Downtown streets and a Leng Spider at the Miskatonic University streets.

The boards started being overcrowded, and this Scenario wasn't properly the most indicated for cruent fights. But anyway, in the coming rounds, everything was kept under control. The party managed to clean the streets and allow Ursula to bring Mary the Elder Sign for sealing R'lyeh. Agnes casted the Eltdawn Shards, so basically after 3 Mythos, the doom track was freezed at one, and I had three seals on the board (Mary + ES at the Graveyard, Gloria sealing the Black Cave gate to Another Time, and Agnes sealing the double gate Another Time + Lost Carcosa at the Science Building. The Agnes one was particularly well though: she entered the gate when the doom track had been forced back at two. The encounter in Another Time required her to pass a Luck check, she failed, but she discarded Map of the Mind to avoid being delayed. +1 doomer during the Mythos Phase. New turn, she casted Find gate, gently rented from Norman, to return there. With her lore maximized, closing and then sealing the -3 double gate wasn't too much problematic)

There was another big trouble to fix: the two cultists appearing at Agnes location when the clock hits 4 doomers. So, during the turn Agnes entered the OW, I had Norman meeting Mary at the Silver Twilight Lodge. Mary gave him the King in Yellow, and he successfully read it, bumping his clues pool to six. Then he had an encounter at the Lodge, meeting Carl Sanford, who tried to blank his mind, forcing him to discard all the clues. But professor Withers is not a man easy to mock, he passed the check and gained 3 extra clues. In the meantime, Mary went to the South Church to buy him a Blessing.

So, here we go: 4th doomer added, two cultists coming for Agnes. She killed them with ease (5 dice to score 2 successes, twice? yeah, she is good, isnt' she?), and they respawned at the STL, were a Blessed Norm was waiting for them. He didn't go for the fight, anyway: with 9 clues, he preferred spending two of them to evade the cultist and run away from teh Lodge. In the meantime, Mary passed her Find Gate to Ursula. Ursula used the Nightgaunt to take a ride directly into the gate open at Independence Square. Another one (I cannot remember who, sorry guys) entered the gate at the Woods. Gloria went to the Station, met Bill Washington and moved to Dunwhich to gater the last two clues at Wizard's Hill. She disturbed something big, and evil, bt she was lucky enough not to add any token to the DH track.

(please, note: at this moment of the game the starting Cultist was still standing on his starting gate. No crescent was ever shown on any Mythos card. Sigh. So I had to wait a little more to enter that gate)

Ursula returned, killed the monster on the gate at Independence Square. Fourth seal. Gloria entered Carcosa from a gate at Devil's Hopyard. The crescent moved, but still nothing bad happened. A couple of gate bouncing on ES later, and I was able to put on the board the 5th seal (Woods) and the 6th one (Devil's Hopeyard).

10 Mythos, 6 seals, 5 doomers for the poor AO!

Some commentaries on the Scenario: the game was pretty intense, despite of the final result. I had to think and overthink, the wrong move could have caused big troubles. it was the first time ever I entered combat with 0 Fight, too scared of losing a Horror Check and suffer the nefarious consequences (Avi, I've interpreted correctly the rules, failing a Horror Check means combat over, right? You got both the Sanity and the Stamina damage as per failed combat check, triggering twice the abilities of the Arbiter, and then you are not allowed to do a combat check. That's the way I played, at least. Correct me if I'm wrong). The penalty for a failed Horror Check in some way limits the way the AO's worshippers power can be exploited (since it kinda acts like all monsters are Nightgaunts). No problems with the OW stuff, with two Find Gates (even having only one would have been ok, I won with enough clues for other two seals) and Gloria (2 gates sealed for her), able to surf in the OWs with ease (I've always liked Gloria a lot, and she was good even this time). The doom track is very long. Even if being devoured could fasten the pace the AO awakes, it gives you anyway enough time for completing the quest without too much pressure. Plus, the Scenario is constructed around the cultists; if I may, I'd suggest that if a Cultist enters a gate, the Terror should rise by +2 *and* the Cultist immediately respawn at the STL. In this way all loopholes around Cultists should be fixed (otherwise you can teleport them in some ways to expansion boards and drop them into vortices or similar).

Items to be carried over:

Norman: Sword of Glory
Mary: Find Gate
Ursula: Healing Stone
Gloria: Alchemical process

Ok, here we go! Report done!

Well… A few changes that’ll probably be made, the doom track and terror track will start at two and if a cultist enters a vortex it will then go to Silver Twilight Lodge.

Also, just wanted to make it clear, the cultists only have 1 toughness vs. Agnes. Just making %100 sure that was clear.

Yeah, basically all monsters become horror check based nightgaunts that hit you with their combat damage as well if they teleport you. You played it right (Arbiter stuff too).

Well, I hope you enjoy the next scenario ;') Give me a few days to post it, but I'll have it up by next weekend.

Avi_dreader said:

::laughter:: I misplayed Cultists vs Agnes obviously! But anyway, I ruled she had to score two successes (actually, your wording was clear, I just wrote than wrongly my notes)

As for the next Scenario... really, no rush ;-) It's a pleasure playing, and it should be a pleasure writing the scenarios, don't kill yourself if it's a hectic period, ok?

So, will you ban my four items? ::laughter::

Julia said:

;') That is a very interesting theory...

Hey guys....duty compels me to report that I took another shot at playing Scenario 2 last night. About all I can say after the experience is...Descent, anyone?

I'll try to keep this relatively short, which shouldn't be difficult because it was a quick game. But speaking of Descent, it would be great if a solo play module of the game could be invented. Arkham Horror works perfectly in solo play mode, and last night's game had me wishing that Descent did as well. Maybe after Descent 2.0 comes out a discussion about that can take place.

Anyway, on the game's first mythos card, the terror level increased by one. So I just treated it like a rumor card being drawn and discarded it. At the same time, I vowed that this would be my final attempt at Scenario 2, win or lose. If pulling one simple card like that can scuttle the whole operation, something isn't quite right. On the next card, the terror level went up by one again. So again I "re-started" the game...The third card was an actual rumor card. Finally the game started for real on the fourth card drawn, with a team of Sister Mary, Jacqueline Fine, Wendy Adams, William Yorick and Carolyn Fern. Mary carried over her Alchemical Process spell and Jackie carried over Livre D' Ivon, which she (as first player) quickly used to draw the Find Gate spell. It never got used.

On the first turn, Crescent monsters moved. So that meant that the Servant/Cultist pair at Ma's Boarding House blocked William and Mary's path, and the pair at Darke's Carnival moved to within one of a vortex. Not a good start.

Also on the first turn, Carolyn, Jacqueline and Wendy all met at the Curiosity Shoppe to exchange items and prepare for the Servant of Glaaki effects that were sure to come. The choice there was to either do that or dive straight into the game and thereby run the risk of losing Elder Signs and any other valued unique or common items. So I opted to protect items and put off dealing with the Servant/Cultist pair at the edge of the vortex until next turn. That turned out to be a luxury that I couldn't afford, since on the next turn, the pair did move into the vortex and the terror level advanced to five.

I'm not saying the game didn't have its moments, such as Carolyn Fern getting Blessed at Harney Jones' Shack and also gaining an Ally there (Ali Kafour). Those are the sorts of things I like about Arkham Horror, but that you don't actually have time to do in Scenario 2. Sorry if I sound bitter. I told you it was time for me to move on, past this scenario. I do appreciate your posting these scenarios, as a challenge to play, Avi. I'm trying to balance that appreciation against the frustration of the experience of playing this scenario.

Anyway, on turns three and four (after gates had opened at the Witch House and Gardner's Place on turns one and two), monster surges occurred. With just two open gates and five investigators, that meant that five monsters had to be distributed between the two gates on each of these turns. That had the net effect of leaving the investigators fewer options of gates to enter and making the existing open gates virtually impenetrable, as, for example, Gardner's Place was now guarded by a Star Vampire, Shogguth, Proto-Shogguth, Yithian and Goat Spawn. At the Witch House, a Dark Young, two Formless Spawns and a Dagon Priest awaited. It was necessary to dispatch Wendy to the Blasted Heath to kill a Deep One who was sitting one move away from a vortex, but then she had to join Carolyn at Harney's shack to restore some sanity, being down to one.

On the following turn, she attempted to evade the monsters at Gardner's Place, with Sneak maxed out. She got past everything but the final test, the Star Vampire, which knocked her unconscious. Meanwhile, down in Arkham, investigators were locked out of the Witch House and their movements greatly hindered by roving teams of Servants/Cultists, already toughened by the increased terror level.

I should add that Jackie drew an Elder Sign on her first turn at the Curiosity Shoppe, but neither her's or Wendy's ever even got used. In fact the only Other World that was even touched the entire game was by Mary, and that as a result of an encounter at Silver Twilight Lodge (she became a member), when she went there as a test, as opposed to entering through a gate.

After a few ineffectual turns, The Innsmouth Plague mythos rumor card was drawn (it was the second mythos draw after Jackie had used Precognition for the only time to block a card that would have caused a Servant/Cultist team to enter a vortex). Ironically, it wasn't even the rumor effect itself (which would have been bad enough) or the fact that two gates opened simultaneously that made this one the killing blow. The fatal effect was that every single monster type moved. That included a Servant/Cultist team, the Star Vampire and Shogguth all rushing into vortices...Four servants were called to the board at once, but there were only two in the pool, so, game over... Of course I didn't bother with the final battle. It was more of a relief to be done with it!

So I'll move on to Scenario Three, and look forward to that (although no items carry over), although it will probably be a while. And as the Shah of Iran once said when removed from his post, "I am in need of rest, much rest."

Schmiegel,

thanks for posting and having tried again this nefarious Scenario. Honestly, when I played it for the first time, I was seriously thinking about quitting the whole League. Man, it's frustrating. It's frustrating especially because it screws you from the beginning, forcing you to play with your biggest guns unable to fire. I'm not saying it's unbeatable, I'm just saying it's not so much fun. I totally understand your desire for moving to the next Scenario. Just ask Avi if you may carry over to Scenario 3 the items you carried to Scenario 2

As for the rest... Soloing Descent shouldn't be that difficult. I mean, I soloed Doom a couple of times, and the rules are more or less the same. The main problem is... the game. It's way broken. I've spent a lot of time while rebalancing the Scenarios of the core set. I really hope the Descent 2.0 will be better balanced (being Fatigue the main problem of the game)

Let us know how it goes Scenario 3 (after a long, long rest, of course :-))

Julia,

Thank you for your response to my latest post, detailing the most recent experience I had with scenario 2. Your comments are consistently interesting and insightful, here and elsewhere on these forums. Also, you have highly advanced powers of empathy, it seems to me, and that is another thing I very much appreciate. I don't really want or deserve any breaks from Avi in terms of carrying over items to Scenario 3, although that was a good thought nonetheless. But there is no need to bend the rules, I try not to do that. Not that you do either, I realize that was just a suggestion to mitigate the frustration factor.

I'm looking forward to Descent 2.0 as well, and hope it's better balanced. Did you ever try Antistone's Enduring Evil? It's a pretty good answer to some of the balance problems. Although I'm assuming you are probably referencing Road to Legend when you mention the balance issues caused by fatigue. I know the Rapid Fire skill, for example, can be abused by stockpiling fatigue along with using items like Gauntlet of Power, I believe it is (the item that generates fatigue by rolling surges..). Perhaps it's not appropriate to use this thread for talk about Descent...in which case I'm guilty as charged. Or maybe hardly anyone is reading this thread anyway...

Speaking of going off-topic, I also noticed you mentioned playing Mansions of Madness. Is that a game you like? Probably so. I think I'm getting it for Christmas. I saw the message posted by Christian Petersen apologizing for all the errors in Forbidden Alchemy. It must be pretty bad for him to go public with an apology like that. I'm hoping it doesn't also affect the core game. He stated that it did, but it wasn't clear exactly how. Maybe he was referring more to how the Forbidden Alchemy expansion interacts with the core game in this instance, at least I hope so. Have you found Mansions of Madness to be flawed?

Anyway, thanks for listening and of course I will post in regard to what happens with Scenario 3, as soon as I take a shot at that one. That could be any day now that I've had a chance to bask in the healing energy rays of Christmas, and have distanced myself by the sheer passage of time from that latest "loathsome" encounter with the nefarious Scenario 2. (That's a good word, nefarious. And English isn't even your first language).

Schmiegel,

thank you for your words ::blushing:: Yeah, you're right, I didn't suggest you to bend the rules in your favour, but to compensate in some way what happened in Scenario 2. It's a point of honour for you if you want to play in the toughest (and straightest) way possible. My last point on Scenario 2 (and then I won't add a line unless asked, otherwise Avi says I'm complaining, and I don't want to ::laughter: . The main problem is the penalty for the first three Servants of Glaaki in play. If you want to have fun and give it another try, you could possibly consider to enter the Servants in play without applying the penalties linked to their appearance (or maybe apply two penalties out of three, being forced basically to choose among clues or skills to keep). So you still have some chaos on the board, one of the most problematic AOs to face ever, and a nasty Herald to fight against, but it's more or less a "normal" Glaaki game. Obviously, this can be done off-league, just for fun, and strategic exercise!

As for your other questions (if you prefer, we can chat about this via e-mail, in case drop me your e-mail address via private message and we can talk forever ::smiling: ... let's go with order (a la Tibs):

1) Descent. Even if I've gathered through the years all the expansions, at the moment I was able to play only base Descent. And it's completely broken. I finished most of the Scenarios without having any of my heroes being killed, trampling over the Overlord and its minions and finding the game pretty boring. The main problem is the Fatigue. Fatigue allows you extra movements + extra actions done with movement. Thus a character with a starting speed of 4, and a starting fatigue of 5 can move a maximum of 4 (speed) + 4 (fatigue) + 5 (after drinking a vitality potion) = 13 spaces. Enough for entering any room, activating a glyph and returning to the Town in case the situation down there it's too nasty. Plus there are tons of cards enhancing a lot movement, Fatigue and the ability of players to do extra attacks, and there are no cards in the Overlord deck allowing the OL to attack heroes during their turn. Most of the rooms have a limited number of monsters; a party of 4 can easily make 8 attacks in a round (sometimes even more), using Fatigue as a proxy for their movement points, and thus killing almost everything + having free movements to cover Line of Sight or running to the Town. Besides, the number of monsters in the dungeon is constant regardless of the number of heroes: this means it's not scaled according to the number of attacks. And even if monsters are stronger, they are anyway easily killable in just one blow, thus not scaling the number of monsters against the number of heroes is a huge advantage for the players. Plus, treasure chests give treasures to ALL players, which is insane, especially when you find gold chests. The stun effects are too unbalanced in favour of the players, again. At the moment, I played all the Scenarios of the base game, and I beat them on the first try all but number 4, which was really interesting because of the many Undying monsters and the very long corridors that were difficult to cover. But as soon as I managed to split my party in two groups, I beat it, again quite easily. I played them all even as Overlord, and I lost some of them too, as soon as my pals got how to move properly into the dungeons. And please, don't see this as being unmodest, but it's very rare that I lose a game. Another bothering factor of core Descent is that the "final boss" generally is more of a janitor (with all respect for the category) rather than the invicible overlord of the dungeon: the final room allows you *every time* to enter and directly fire on the final boss, so it usually goes down during the first series of attacks, and it's game over, since you don't have to find your exit from the dungeon, thus you can ignore all other figures in the room and focus on the boss. Hence, we have two major designing flaws: one in the rules, that are broken, and one in the dungeon, that are designed to allow an instant death of the most ferocious monsters. Thus, no fun at all. After revising the system a little, and modifying the Scenarios, then, yeah, the game's worth its value. I'm also considering introducing a strong variant allowing enemy figures to choose their tactics according to the heroes actions: battle, run or advance. This should drastically change the equilibrium of the game and push quicker players to a good strategic gaming, otherwise they should all be dead in an eyeblick. But I haven't playtested it yet, so I cannot say. As for now, the fixes for the game I'm using are:

a) Overlord starts the game with threat = number of heroes
b) copper / silver / gold treasures founded in chests are given only to the hero opening the chest
c) stun does not affect master monsters and affects partially normal monsters
d) after defeating the final boss, heroes need to find a glyph to return to the town, otherwise the game is even (both sides lose it)

plus a complete redisign of most of the Scenarios. This grants me and my party a lot of fun while playing.

2) Mansions of Madness. Mansions is a *great* game. I love it. But I don't play it that often. Let me explain you why. Basically, it's a great thematic game. Probably the best I've ever played. Great flavour text. Magnificent decaying landscapes of madness created through good story plots. Some good ideas taken from some other games (we have threat tokens as per Descent, and Injuries and Madnesses a la Arkahm). Puzzles, that are always fun to solve (and the mechanics generating thema re various enough to prove a new challenge every time). But. You need to be in the right mood. And as the game goes on, you notice some of the cards repeating themselves. Thus, the "you see two red eyes, floating in the dark, approaching you" card, amazes you at first, then it seems something less scaring at its second passage, and finally you think "ah, ok, I have to check Will otherwise I'll take 1 horror". I won't play ten times in a row Mansions because I think the sensations induced by the game tend to repeat constantly. So, once / month it's a lot of fun, twice it's ok, but playing it on a weekly basis for a couple of months... no thanks. Arkham is much more various (and other FFG boardgames are even better, being Twilight Imperium, A Game of Thrones or Doom on the tippy top of the A-list) and fun and challenging. But sometimes, Mansions is great. As for your question regarding Forbidden Alchemy... well,. Mansions had some major flaws. The text on some cards was wrong (not typos, but rules consistency issues), plus some flaws on the maps and on the items starting disposal made the game impossible to win (for loopholes). But don't worry, since only the first edition of the core games was affected by these issues: all later reprints had replacement cards and instructions on which to use. So, if you buy now the core set, you won't have any problem at all.

3) Nefarious ::laughter:: yeah, English is not my first language, but I try to work on it as hard as possible. Fortunately, Avi is so sweet and helps me a lot with hints on how to improve grammar and vocabulary :-) And I try to watch as many movies / tv series in English as possible. But anyway, nefarious it's easy because there is a dr. Nefaria (IIRC) in the X-Men comics (the Claremont Uncanny X-Men series) I read a lot of time ago (man, how I like Bendis or Brubaker stories much more than those written by Claremont)!

Ok, that's for now! And Merry Christmas!

JULIA

Schmiegel said:

The correct risk mitigation response to that would be moving Wendy to their spot to prevent them from being able to move into a vortex (33% odds of basically losing the game on the next turn, not a risk one ought to take).

Anyhow, I admire your determination at giving scenario two so many shots :') onward to scenario three! Perhaps later you'll give scenario 2 another shot (write down which items you had for that dark and horrid day).

Ehhh... Don't carry over items to the next scenario ;') there should be *some* sort of penalty after all. On the other hand, let all investigators draw and discard one extra random item of a type of your choice (that they'd normally draw). (Like Monterey or Dexter or Bob would). Don't penalize yourself *totally* is basically what I'm saying ;')

Avi,

Yes, I know that would have been the correct move (moving Wendy to their spot to lock them down), on an intellectual level, anyway. On the emotional side, I didn't want to risk losing unique items, in particular, if a Mythos card was drawn that caused the terror level to advance. So my first choice was to protect against the loss of valued unique (and common) items. I particularly hate losing Elder signs, for example, in that manner....especially Wendy's Elder sign. On a strictly intellectual level, I knew that the move you are recommending was the correct one even then, so I suppose I play the game too emotionally, but what can I say..? At the end of the day, you are certainly correct on that point, and I wouldn't argue that. I didn't actually realize there was a 33% chance of the Crescent coming up, I had never calibrated that. From a scenario design point of view, I can see why you would have (or even from a player's point of view). Everybody is different with their style and approach. For me, the game has a certain magic that might be compromised if I had analyzed it in such detail.

I agree that I should not carry forward those items into Scenario 3. I feel that if I didn't properly "earn" that privelege, it shouldn't just be granted to me...That's too cheap. As for your other suggestion, about a Monterey Jack/Bob Jenkins style re-draw...well I appreciate it. From a purist point of view, I don't really embrace it, but on the other side of the coin, it's not fun for the game to be so difficult that it becomes more frustrating than fun, as I have seen in playing Scenario 2. I might try #3 tomorrow (Tuesday) night. I'm still working on preparing the custom components. (I use Strange Eons to re-create your custom entities as I'm not sure how to size them properly for printing after saving the images as JPEGs.) Duh.

Brown Jenkin kind of creeps me out just to look at him and consider him. This is probably a stupid question....but are you just making this stuff up out of your own imagination or are these coming from specific Lovecraft stories that I haven't yet read...? I'm guessing he must be a Rat-Thing of some sort, but he wasn't in Rats in the Walls, for example, I'm sure of that.

I've been impressed with the writing and imagination that goes into your scenarios, as well as the various game mechanics. It's awesome. I don't mean to be bitter when whining about how it went for me in playing Scenario 2. What trumps everything is appreciation for the fact that you created these and posted them!

On another subject, I have an odd question for you...Last night I was watching the Packer-Bears NFL football game on NBC. During some commercial (I can't even remember what it was..) there was a short clip of a kid on a bike wearing a helmet and I would have sworn it was the same video clip you had posted of you as a kid, on your bike. Maybe it was just a coincidence as I suppose many videos could be similar in appearance to that one....but by any chance, could that have been you?

Well, thanks again. I'll let you know how Scenario 3 goes. I'm leaning against that re-draw suggestion...I'll probably play it straight up and try to earn any upgrades.

Schmiegel said:

All images on Avi's photobucked should be of the proper size for printing, IIRC. But anyway, if you convert them in pdf, you can compare the image of the printed part to the ones you need before actually printing anything.

The Brown Jenkins is one of the most nightmarish creatures ever imagined by HPL. You can read a good story (man, actually, a terrific story) starring him if you read the "Dreams in the Witch-House" short story. Be ready for some nightmares, at the moment it's still the HPL story that scares me the most. As for the Rats in the Walls, you can find them by reading some encounters at the Unnamable (and you will enjoy a horde of rat things when you'll be playing Scenario 08 of this very League)

I'm very glad you like Avi's creations so much (/and certainly Avi will be even happier). In fact, if you spend some time surfing through the different Custom Heralds, AOs, Guardians and Insitutions thread (or just follow the links in some of our forumites signatures), you'll find a lot of *good* stuff. It's a common thought (at least, both of Avi and me) that some of the custom content is superior to most of the official Heralds created by FFG (simply because people creating custom material play the game much more than the staff creating official expansions. This is especially true if you consider that FFG asked three people regularly writing on this forum to help them with the FAQ). You'll see. Play something like the first 10 Scenarios of this League. And then return to normal Arkham. You'll notice the difference :-)

Schmiegel said:

Again, I'm glad you're enjoying the scenarios :') As for the Wendy movement, let me explain it a bit more thoroughly. All movements exist in equal number in the cards. This means that there is a 1 in 3 chance of a movement type coming up (and a 1 in 6 of it being white or black). Technically it's a bit different from 33% because a few cards cause all monsters to move. But. It's close enough for the purposes of calculation. So basically, think of it this way, there's a 33% chance of the terror rising from movement, and there's a less than 10% chance of the terror rising from drawing a mythos card (I don't know the exact numbers here, but it might even be less than 5%). Basically, by trying to maximize potential efficiency you are raising the level of risk. From my perspective, much of Arkham is about risk management. To really be successful at the game, you need to be somewhat risk averse *except* (and this is key), when you *need* to take risks. You basically need to calculate (or guess) what sort of risks are necessary, and what sort of risks are "fun" (because taking enough of the "fun" risks will kill you every time, unless you're incredibly lucky). Basically you need to know the difference between want and need. Taking risks in Arkham is a bad idea unless you need what you're getting from them. The only time you should take major risks is if you have nothing significant to lose from failing at them (or you are probably going to lose if you don't take them).

I once had a player take a 20% risk of devouring for a blessing while holding almost all the equipment of the team (including 5 clue tokens, an elder sign, and a press pass). Needless to say I was unhappy, and far less happy when she did in fact get devoured and lose the game...

Spending time to significantly reduce risk pays off in the long run, even if it's not as flashy and impressive as when luck is on your side.

:') I understand that it looks different from a RPer point of view, and I wish you the best of luck playing these scenarios with that ;') (if they turn out too hard with those kinds of uncalculating methods, I'll make a few suggestions to further soften the scenarios for you, I do want you to enjoy them, and if your preference is for roleplaying over strategy, it wouldn't be too difficult for me to give a modified difficulty rule for RPers).

And yes, I am all helmeted children in the world riding bikes. They call me Avithotep. Except in real life... Where I actually do not know how to ride a bike. Clearly when I was young, I did not believe in myself. And since I'm living in one of the most sprawling major cities of the world, I don't think I'll be learning bike riding any time soon.

Oh, and a lot of this is from my imagination, although I do try to familiarize myself with the way the official content was dealt with in stories, so I'm not completely going off into my own Arkham Universe ;')

I played Scenario #3, "Rivalries of the Gods", last night, and all I can say is "Wow"! Well that's not all I can say, but it's one thing anyway. I really think it's brilliant...genius, a master work. Congratulations, Avi! It's just an absolutely fabulous enhancement to the play experience of Arkham Horror. It was just great fun to play. You really have a flair for this. It was difficult, but there was a sense that it could be possible to win. Did I win? No, of course not....what else is new. But it didn't really matter, it's ok with me to lose, as long as the experience is as fun as this. (I must say this is in contrast to Scenario #2.) Not to darken the mood by recalling that monstrosity...

Before I go further, I did have a couple of questions, and I think I know the correct answer...but it can't hurt to confirm. I presume the effect from a gate opening at the Witch House (two doom tokens, etc.) does activate on the FIRST gate of the game. Actually, that's a stupid question, because that whole effect was a huge part of setting the stage properly for the scenario, what with the investigators having to deal with the "magnetic pull" of Yuggoth and consequent Will test and the effects of the witch when investigators move adjacent to her, or she to them. The 3 Corruption card mechanic when only one success was rolled against The Black Man was interesting....a subtle nuance that I appreciated. At first I couldn't figure out what you were talking about, then it dawned on me that all Luck checks essentially have a "toughness of 2", due to Hecate's "Dreams in the Witch House" special ability. That's good designing work.

Not to mention the tension between Luck/Lore (particularly as the First Player responsibility approaches) and Will/Fight (especially when the gate to Yuggoth remained open, which became another good reason to get it closed). There was a lot of good stuff here. I can't get over how well done this is, it just blows me away.

And one other question, actually two... The Black Man: I've never run into him before, the monster that is. It says "before making a Horror check", I believe, make a Luck (-1) check (with 2 toughness due to Hecate's special ability, of course). The wording there (on the Black Man token) implies a "horror check" forthcoming, does it not? But there actually is no horror check, correct? And no combat check either..? It's all about the Luck check. (Which is enough, mind you.)

And then the scenario ability wherein an investigator passing adjacent to the Witch draws a corruption card, or a red corruption card if getting into combat with a Witch. What if an investigator actually moves INTO THE SAME SPACE as a witch, but does not get into combat but instead evades..? As I read it, this does not require a corruption card of any kind to be drawn. (It seemed slightly odd to play it that way, but that was the wording of the scenario.) i mean, moving into the same space is not moving adjacent, that (adjacent) would be one space away.. I think any other questions I had resolved along the way, and I'm pretty sure I played everything correctly.

Anyway, the party was comprised of Sister Mary, Jacqueline Fine, Norman Withers, Wendy Adams and Dexter Drake. It was a very entertaining game. Norman closed the Yuggoth gate at The Witch House in about the third or fourth turn. He had five clues and actually intended to go to The Woods to close and seal the gate there, but when he was pulled toward the Yuggoth gate on his first two movements after failing the Will check, I figured why fight it, just let him close that gate and get it out of the way. That wouldn't be a bad thing, after all.

Things seemed promising enough at the time, although I would have preferred sealing a gate. Oddly, through some kind of weird buzzard's luck, that would be the only gate he closed.

Meanwhile, Wendy trekked to Innsmouth, and to the gate at Devil's Reef. She had five clues also, and when she came back from other world exploration elected to use the clues to close and seal the gate and save the Elder Sign.

That would be the only gate sealed in the game, and she would never use the Elder Sign. I've fallen into that particular snare a couple of times now with Wendy. When she returned to Devil's Reef and sealed the gate, there was nobody else in Innsmouth to come to her assistance and send a boat for her.

Three or four turns earlier, Wendy was on the verge of sending a boat for Norman, to have him come and close and seal the Devil's Reef gate while she took care of one at Marsh Refinery...There was a weather environment card in play "The Streets are Flooded" which turned every street area into an aquatic location, and Norman happened to be in a street location (in the French Hill neighborhood, actually, sharing the street with a witch that he had evaded..). But in a near miss, that card went away on the turn prior to when she was going to send for Norman. (The prior mythos card had been blocked by Jacqueline's "Precognition" since it would have included a terror level increase.) So, in a pivotal turn of events, Wendy had to handle Devil's Reef herself.

Once returned from Another Dimension and having sealed the gate, Wendy grew increasingly uncomfortable when turns continued to go by with nobody sending a boat for her...and a feeling of foreboding hung in the air. On Y'han'thlei (forgive the spelling..), she had to go through drawing an Innsmouth Look card...still no boat.

By now she was down to one stamina. For most of the game, I had been lucky with the "Night Nuzzling" (love it) roll. A "1" was rolled on the game's first turn, but I think that had been it....including a couple of awkward times when investigators were in the French Hill neighborhood at the wrong time (wait, I guess it's always the wrong time to be there..).

Finally, with her stamina at one, a dreaded "1" came up on the die for the Night Nuzzling roll.....no boat ever came for her (but an Infestation of Rats? did, ugh). The "Whipporwills of Dunwich" was the environment card. Surely I wouldn't follow the Night Nuzzling roll of a "1" with another "1" on the Whipporwill card (which causes the investigator to be devoured when the whipporwills catch her soul.). Sure enough, another "1". That was a harsh moment. The precious Wendy devoured, overrun by rats and her soul caught by the whipporwills, at that...

That also came with the additional kicker of advance the terror track by one. (Rightly so..). That meant that (first player)Jacqueline had an appointment with The Black Man, who had "taken an interest". Ironically, Jacqueline had just started advancing her Lore to be ready for closing a gate, and only had two dice (and no clue tokens) for the Black Man luck roll. With Wendy devoured and her resolve consequently weakened, Jacqueline was also devoured.

On the ensuing mythos card (after Zoey and Carolyn Fern were welcomed to the team), gate #8 opened (at the Witch House, appropriately). The investigators made an attempt at final battle but when zero successes were rolled on the first series of attacks (not zero doom tokens removed - zero successes), the writing was on the wall and they saw no further point to it.

But it (the loss) didn't matter. It was Arkham Horror at its best, even though it was lacking the drama of a high-tension finish, and this was due to the genius of the design of the scenario. Because I can just do it again.....which I will. Just not sure when.

Thank you!

P.S. Avi, thanks for the offer of softening a given scenario for role playing mode, but that's ok, I can also appreciate the strategic mode. So there's no need for you to do that, although I appreciate the thought.

Schmiegel,

glad to hear you tried the Scenario and had a great time while playing it! I'm sorry you didn't manage to win, but anyway, as you said, it's important the quality of time spent playing more than the result. And you'll see, this is actually much easier than the previous Scenatio, you'll pass it! As for your quesitons:

- all gates opening at the Witch House induce 2 doomers to be added to the doom track. Considering the fact that you cannot seal them, and it's a high frequency location, a good tactic could be closing the Yuggoth one (to avoid investigators keep on moving towards the House instead of going for other gates) and then, in case another one opens, leave it open. It's better a +1 doomer to the doom track for a surge rather than keep on losing turns trying to close gates that will keep on opening. Consider Hecate as having an 11 doomer doom track (2 doomers penalty for closing the Yuggoth gate and that's it)

- yeah, the Black man basically forces you to pass a Luck check or be devoured (thus, no Horror and no Combat check are really required, the wording implies you have to test Luck before the "normal" combat begins and then resolve the text on the back of the mosnter's chit). 2 successes, you gain 2 clues and you return him to the Herald sheet. 1 success, you gain 0 clues and you return him to the Herald sheet but you have to take 3 corruptions (good luck with that!). 0 successes means you're devoured.

- as for the corruptions, you shouldn't be penalize for evading the witch (I think. Avi will answer certainly better than myself at this regard; I'd say that if you pass by a witch, you have to move in an adjacent space - corruption - enter her space and evade her - good luck with that - and move to another adjacent space - another corruption. Kinda nasty anyway)

- as for the game: there are a couple of things you could possibly work on in order to have a better chance of defeating this Scenario. You're basically too slow (sorry, I don't want to sound rude) and the movement of your investigators seem to be not so well cohordinated. If you send somebody to Devil Reef, you need to have somebody else picking your investigator back from DR as soon as s/he returns to Arkham. If you rely only on encounters, you can have that character stuck there for the whole eternity, and it's a pity, especially if s/he has an Elder Sign! Norman should have closed the gate at the Witch house by turn 2 (turn one: he enters the gate. turn two: he casts find gate and returns to Arkham). Or you should have many characters with Will maximized so they can resist the obnoxious Yuggoth call. May I ask you about your starting equipment? Was it good? You picked up Dexter to exploit Jacqueline's Visions? Otherwise maybe Carolyn could have been a better choice. Wendy's a game winner and a must have character, you can use her to freeze the Witch.

Generally speaking, the Scenario isn't that difficult. There is nothing penalizing you for acquiring clues, you start the game with 20 clues on the board (which means 4 seals) and Wendy's ES (fifth seal) plus you should have enough clues splitted among the characters to have at least a 6th potential seal. The only thing you need to do is moving moving moving. Thus, close the Yuggoth gate, work on expansion boards for gathering clues / closing and sealing gates when the first witch moves through Arkham and you should be done in more or less a 10 Mythos time

Break a leg with your next try!

@Schmiegel

First of all, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I thought your first paragraph was very funny (I'm at work, so I had to try very hard to suppress laughter). I'm glad someone else besides Julia is playing it (when I designed it I thought lots of people from the forums would want to try it, but unfortunately, as far as I know, only Julia's been able to get through scenario two) ;') Perhaps I should make it easier... But... Sigh ;.( it was supposed to be hard! (Maybe not quite *that* hard, but still). Anyhoo... I think most of the scenarios are fun. Although I still have a bit of PTSD from scenario two ;') (Not joking, the thought of having to ever play it again makes me anxious). Scenario three is one of my favorites (I was so excited about getting people to play with a new corruption distribution mechanic, alas, only Julia and you). I'm really happy you liked it too.

I haven't seen scenario 3 for quite a while (over a year?), but yes, without looking at it, I'd presume that you played that part correctly. (I'd be 99% sure of it based on how you described it). Heh... There are a lot of extra rules to keep track of for that scenario, but it's really fun to go through I think. I got through it playtesting it, by immediately killing the witch and getting lucky enough to get the red corruption that curses the investigator with it, but blesses everyone else, or something like that (so I was able to bless almost my entire team immediately). That game went relatively easy for me ;') I may want to play it again one of these days.

Luck check with two difficulty, not "toughness." Toughness only refers to number of successes in combat checks, difficulty is the same way, but it's for all other checks. I realize how that can be a bit confusing, but that's the jargon. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what you meant because of it ;')

I suppose it's theoretically possible to have a horror check against The Black Man if something gave him a horror rating and sanity damage, and it'd be relevant if he got nightmarish? But, yeah, generally, no, no real horror check or combat check (at least I've never made one against him in 5 years), only the luck check.

Isn't it great when Arkham only has a 1 out of 36 chance of screwing you, but still does? ;'D Once I drew the worst mythos card in the game two games in a row on the second turn both games... I don't even know how dreadful those odds are, but, it happened. Fun ;') Immediate forfeit the second time despite the amusement (actually I don't remember what I did, I might've played it through, but I definitely remember losing twice).

Very interesting and amusing story (especially the part how two investigators got eaten in a row).

Schmiegel said:

And Julia said a lot of what could be said ;') I should always take care to read her replies before replying. The only thing I somewhat disagree with is the necessity of using Wendy to kill the witch. It's possible to assassinate her very early in the game and coordinate this with Norman Withers to get rid of the red corruption before it screws up your team much ;'D Just saying. There are alternate ways of dealing with her. (Plus this way you won't have to walk around her all the time for fear of drawing corruptions). You don't want this roadblock in *addition* to the pull of Yuggoth. Also, I generally try to not send 3 speed investigators off to another board... Their movement is limited, so it tends to be very inefficient in terms of moving... Sometimes one has to, but, generally, I keep them on the main board. They're just too slow.

Avi_dreader said:

A very good point indeed :-) Actually, this makes the Witch not as a big problem as it could seem. But anyway, my fave tactic is always the same: use the Mi-go brain case to teleport the gal somewhere else ::laughter:: I can still remember Avi so vaguely obsessed by my teleporting monsters mania that as soon as I played Scenario 6 (new pool of investigators) he posted a comment like "did you get ANOTHER Mi-go brain case? AGAIN?" ::laughter::