No, but what I mean is that there are mechanics that are a bit traitorish. There's also I'm Outta Here or You Handle This One. And Dark Pact, where you literally stab other investigators in the back. We could definitely have something like that. How about a set of Hidden weaknesses "Innsmouth Look", which forces you to do things, like not attack Deep Ones, or add doom to the agenda. That would have most of the flavour of secretly being a deep one, without having to play against the rest of the group. You have the blood, you hear the call, but you are fighting it. Like Silas.

2 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

No, but what I mean is that there are mechanics that are a bit traitorish. There's also I'm Outta Here or You Handle This One. And Dark Pact, where you literally stab other investigators in the back. We could definitely have something like that. How about a set of Hidden weaknesses "Innsmouth Look", which forces you to do things, like not attack Deep Ones, or add doom to the agenda. That would have most of the flavour of secretly being a deep one, without having to play against the rest of the group. You have the blood, you hear the call, but you are fighting it. Like Silas.

Sure, such things could exist.

But the discussion here is based on the statement by the designers that "Innsmouth is going to change everything". Hence the speculation about the possibility for PvP play. Reviving the Hidden mechanic doesn't really fit that radical mould, especially since it's already been revisited in the Dream-Eaters.

14 minutes ago, Allonym said:

It didn't, though. There were Hidden cards, which forced you to play suboptimally and counterintuitively and reduced the ability to communicate with the team; there was a scenario resolution where it was possible to leave players behind and have them permanently eliminated; and the Epilogue has a story element where an investigator turns bad. But none of that has any relation to (for instance) the possibility of becoming a secret antagonist where you win when the players lose.

And while I don't want it to become a hidden traitor style game, the only thing that having hidden traitor mechanics in Mansions means to me (whether it worked well or not) is that FFG seems to find trying this type of thing of interest. I guess mansions already had 'insanity' motives prior to the deep one scenario though. IF it's done, I just hope it's done well enough and does not disrupt solo play. But I would think that if they're going to try, it would be in the Innsmouth cycle.

Cards like Flare and You Owe Me one become quite dangerous in the hands of someone who may have ulterior motives. I also don't foresee them forcing non-solo games, so if you do fly solo, even if there are hidden/traitory mechanics, there would have to be other stakes at play.

48 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

So, at first, I was pretty flabbergasted by this. The Arctic hints were so strong. How do you even tie Ikiaq and Dendromorphosis into Cthulhu.

Given how far ahead they work it could be that the cycle after Innsmouth is set in the Arctic. Or that (one of?) the mystery new product(s) is based in the Arctic.

It could be, but they have been very regular with the council-designed cards. And they had a lot of ice-themed artwork in the Dream-eaters cycle, while I can't think of anything except Tony's Quarry that's Innsmouth-themed.

I don't give much credence to the idea that a few bits of card art and the Card Council cards (which the designers did not have direct control over, after all) would give much indication of the next cycle. Tony Morgan with his Innsmouth connections was probably a much better indicator, like Carolyn Fern for the Dreamlands, but even then that's a losing bet since the vast majority of investigators don't presage the campaign after their release.

After all, it's not like the Lightning Gun in Dunwich meant that Yithians were up next.

When we don't know what's coming next, speculating and seizing on all available hints is great fun, but let's not mistake that for any actual facts.

The designers absolutely had control over the council cards. They presented the art (explicitely featuring an Inuit woman) and a general theme (nature vs. corruption) to the council.

And Matt has confirmed there's always a few player cards that hint at the next cycle.

I'm putting my money on Monterey Jack and Charlie Kane

The way they talked about mountains of madness made it sound like they haven’t touched it (or a snowy setting) yet. Suggesting they start it when winter comes around etc. That would imply that it would not follow Innsmouth as that cycle is in theory what they’re working on now since Innsmouth is complete. But who knows.

49 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

And Matt has confirmed there's always a few player cards that hint at the next cycle.

If anyone is curious, this episode of Drawn to the Flame has the quote.

Quote

13:50

It's funny that you bring that (Alter Fate foreshadowing the Tarot slot) up because people have long suspected that there's always some kind of card that's, like, foretelling the next cycle, and that is 100% true but they also, they...I don't know if everyone has gotten it right every time, so that's interesting.

I suspected Innsmouth the moment I saw Tony's Quarry

12 hours ago, Allonym said:

OK here's my hot takes with minimal reasoning:

Seeker: Amanda the Student. Pretty obvious. Maybe even only has 3 intellect to shake things up.

Mystic: Jacqueline the Psychic. Cthulhu, psychic emanations, you know.

Survivor: Silas Marsh obviously.

Guardian: George Barnaby the Lawyer. It just feels right. Like Carolyn, he's a guardian but not a fighter.

Rogue: Daniela Reyes, with a Carolyn-style weird deckbuilding, like Rogue 0-3, up to 15 0-1 Survivor and/or Guardian, Upgrade cards 0-5.

Bonus Survivor: Darrell Simmons the Photographer, as our first 4-intellect Survivor to leverage Newspaper, Lantern, Fortuitous Discovery, etc.

That'd be a great selection

12 hours ago, Allonym said:

Bonus Survivor: Darrell Simmons the Photographer, as our first 4-intellect Survivor to leverage Newspaper, Lantern, Fortuitous Discovery, etc.

And Sharp Vision.

Probably worth distinguishing between 'player cards that depict places not in the current cycle' and 'player cards that are actual hints of what's next to come'. In TFA, Alter Fate was the only Tarot-related card, so could be considered a hint, but there were plenty of other cards hinting at places and things we've not yet seen. Which is exactly to say it's fun to theorise. Matt is a fan of red herrings!

What if the “Innsmouth is going to change everything” just relates to you discovering you are all Deep ones and then getting to decide if you fight the Mythos or join it. In effect maybe each scenerio could have two win conditions depending on your choices and one of those choices is raising Cthulhu in the last scenerio and ending the world .

I still think a Deep Ones cycle will probably have the following investigators due to theme:

Trish Scarbough - Guardian

Amanda Sharpe - Seeker

Mike Mcglen - Rogue

Silas Marsh - Survivor

??? - Mystic

There's no obvious thematic pick that I can think of for Mystic. That said no box have had a thematic connection for all investigators. Clearly other considerations go into the pick. I'm gonna vote for Harvey Walters because he was always a favorite of mine. Also maybe Gloria Goldberg if she gets painted as a mystic in this game.

I like the idea of George Barnaby as the Guardian in this one....a spin on the traditional Guardian as Carolyn was and hopefully Vincent will be, plus he was introduced in AH2e's Innsmouth expansion....and I'm sure there's going to be a jail cell in this cycle as well. Someone needs to bail out the slowpokes!

Since Silas is 99% likely to be in here, he fills at least one monster hunter slot.

42 minutes ago, Siphon said:

What if the “Innsmouth is going to change everything” just relates to you discovering you are all Deep ones and then getting to decide if you fight the Mythos or join it. In effect maybe each scenerio could have two win conditions depending on your choices and one of those choices is raising Cthulhu in the last scenerio and ending the world .

This, right here, would be a cool way to make the switched allegiances work.

You know, I’m also really wondering if they would completely switch to the Marvel model as the new product type coming out. As in new character packs going forward with new player cards and the campaign packs only contain scenario cards. This would allow for the scenarios to become bigger with more options.

Here's a different type of speculation: What mechanics, if any, do we think might be repeated from previous cycles? In the AMA livestream, Matt mentioned that they want to reuse mechanics as appropriate to avoid ending up with hundreds of keywords clogging up the rules, but not overuse them so there's still a good amount of variety.

We saw this in Dream-Eaters with the re-emergence of the Hidden mechanic, for instance, but I don't think it's as simple as a three-cycle lag for re-use of a core mechanic - if nothing else, the Exploration mechanic from TFA probably won't be that appropriate for Innsmouth (though who knows, we might end up exploring uncharted islands by the end of the cycle); it seems far more appropriate for a (tweaked) Exploration mechanic to appear when exploring the Arctic/Antarctic, or the Heart of Africa, or the Australian Outback or whatever. My money is on the re-emergence of Seal mechanics in player cards, and maybe Haunted, since Innsmouth has a strong theme of the sins of centuries past and their consequences for today (possibly less ghostly and more "physical" haunting effects, like a location that you need to carefully investigate because patrolling deep ones will jump you if you fail the investigation). I think we're unlikely to see Vengeance make a comeback since it's explicitly tied to Yig/Yig's Fury, even in the rules description of the keyword, though I guess we could see something else similar where cards can enter the victory display and advance a counter in the campaign log for story purposes, like how much evidence has been created to encourage the Feds to mount a raid on Innsmouth, or how much the investigators are embracing the Call of the Sea.

42 minutes ago, Allonym said:

This, right here, would be a cool way to make the switched allegiances work.

It's certainly in line with pretty much every cycle since Carcosa. There have always been (essentially) two major paths to follow. The choice has grown more overt with each new cycle. Maybe this one asks you right up front to decide, are you with the Deep Ones or against them?

1 hour ago, Allonym said:

Here's a different type of speculation: What mechanics, if any, do we think might be repeated from previous cycles?

Not sure if this qualifies as a mechanic, but I think we might see some more multi class cards in this cycle. They were so quick to say yes when asked if there would be more, rather than just saying it was something they want to do more of in future.

Re: Investigators:

Don't forget that we're due another 6-investigator pack now! We could very well have both Amanda and Darrel (though I'm still holding out hope for neutral Charlie).

1 hour ago, CSerpent said:

It's certainly in line with pretty much every cycle since Carcosa. There have always been (essentially) two major paths to follow. The choice has grown more overt with each new cycle. Maybe this one asks you right up front to decide, are you with the Deep Ones or against them?

I wouldn't expect it to be right up front, but they have been experimenting more with the "two scenarios in one pack" idea. For the Greater Good is the big one, since it completely changes the scenario rather than just swapping out some encounter sets; we might even end up with a Heart of the Elders sort of pack with two very different scenarios that you play depending on which route you're on.

Of course, we'll know more once the deluxe comes out and we get to see whether there's a "Federal Agents" encounter set (though even that's not definitive, seeing as it's called "The Innsmouth Conspiracy" ).

If we get a 6th investigator, I anticipate it being Trish or maybe even Silas with there being 2 survivors because Silas is such a given.

Trish could be almost any faction and neutral would be fitting as well if they do something really weird with her.

I was wondering if they may do a neutral investigator. And if more multi class cards were to come out in this cycle, a neutral investigator could make sense. I think we are due for a 6 investigator cycle.
What about Doubt and Conviction coming back?