1 hour ago, Eldan985 said:

Now if we could just get a European character. Far too many Americans in there.

Actually, my head cannon for Ursula is that she's British. I think it's the "proper young lady" bit in her story. Stereotypical.

No idea whether any of her previous lore contradicts or confirms it.

47 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

Actually, my head cannon for Ursula is that she's British. I think it's the "proper young lady" bit in her story. Stereotypical.

No idea whether any of her previous lore contradicts or confirms it.

I can't even begin to imagine what would have led you to Croft... er... craft... that narrative. 🙂

Oh hey, Stella is also trans. From the back of her investigator card:

"... she knew two things with certainty. First, her parents made a mistake when they called her their son and gave her a boy's name."

Keep it up FFG; you're doing god's work.

Also yeah, we have a Nigerian investigator, but no Brits? Wild.

11 hours ago, CSerpent said:

Actually, my head cannon for Ursula is that she's British. I think it's the "proper young lady" bit in her story. Stereotypical.

No idea whether any of her previous lore contradicts or confirms it.

In Eldritch Horror it's mentioned that she studied in Boston.

Which, you know, doesn't necessarily mean that she's American, but you'd think if she was meant to be British, she'd have studied at Oxford or something.

Although they have already come a long way!
I was looking at main characters from Lovecrafts stories the other day for some reason, counting how many female main characters he wrote and found three. One of which was the crazy mother of a half breed that nearly destroyed Dunwich and another the Matriarch of a scary Innsmouth clan.
And now look! In the Arkham universe, some of the best investigators in the game are female. (As it should be).
The nice thing about being set in Arkham USA in the early 20th century, is the country’s melting pot population. So even historically speaking, there is a case to be made for pretty much anyone to be there. For example, there was a large population of Asians in the US in the 1920’s, so there is no reason to suppose someone from Korea couldn’t have ended up in Arkham.
And what a boon to bring the influx of different cultures in the game and to its storylines. Does it not stand to reason that if anywhere on the globe, people would have handed down legends and origin stories regarding the Ancient Ones, it would be in cultures with ancient roots like the Orient?

And to add my two cents to the discussion of stereotypes. Maybe there is a little trap in the game here. If you think about it, this game’s five investigator classes kind of are stereotypes. So some investigators and their backgrounds just slip right into the mold, especially in their class. That being said, some cultural backgrounds could seem stereotypical in multiple ways, because the classes lend themselves so easily to it. If I were go with the Irish example above, with the proviso that obviously stereotypes aren’t reality, I would defiantly agree that an Irish Mobster or Gun Running Rogue is stereotypical. But I can also see a stereotype in an Irish storyteller Seeker, a superstitious Irish Mystic, an Irish freedom fighter Guardian, or charismatic Irish Survivor, if you catch my drift. But then, I can also see some of those same Stereotypes with say, a Romanian or Middle Eastern background. So maybe the takeaway is that we are more alike than we are different.

And finally to the initial question. I am really excited about Cho. He actually came as a big class surprise for me. Boxing doesn’t immediately conjure up Korean hand fighting (to me anyway) and I envisioned a boxer to be a Survivor before a Guardian, so he doesn’t seem pigeonholed to me at all. But he is an interesting twist to the class.

Lots of obvious excitement here about the new starter decks...but that's a whole future cycle's worth.

My worry is that this means less investigators for new cycles and therefore - dare I suggest it - the reduction of the life time of the game.

How many more established Arkham investigators remain? Do you think FFG would create new ones to keep new cycles coming when the established characters run out?

2 hours ago, Janaka said:

Lots of obvious excitement here about the new starter decks...but that's a whole future cycle's worth.

My worry is that this means less investigators for new cycles and therefore - dare I suggest it - the reduction of the life time of the game.

How many more established Arkham investigators remain? Do you think FFG would create new ones to keep new cycles coming when the established characters run out?

Matt Newman has said that he knows what the plan is for when they run out. They only used two from the stockpile for the standalone packs. I count 21 unused (including Dexter, Norman, and Silas, whom we can still expect in a cycle), enough for four cycles with no new characters.

Maybe expect something mind blowing for the tenth cycle?

3 hours ago, Janaka said:

Lots of obvious excitement here about the new starter decks...but that's a whole future cycle's worth.

My worry is that this means less investigators for new cycles and therefore - dare I suggest it - the reduction of the life time of the game.

How many more established Arkham investigators remain? Do you think FFG would create new ones to keep new cycles coming when the established characters run out?

Well, considering they said they recently sat down and created 12 new investigators with the Arkham Files team (and then combined and/or eliminated a few) they obviously have no issue creating new investigators.

It's pretty apparent they're looking to ensure that each new release has at least a bit of diversity in its characters, as evidenced by the fact they're already putting brand new ones in AH3E (Stella has been confirmed for the new expansion) and that game is still very new, relatively, with only 17 Investigators so far (24 after the new expansion).

The life of this game will be determined by the only thing that matters... sales. As long as the game keeps selling well (and as far as I know, it's one of FFG's top sellers), they will keep pumping out cycles for us to spend our cash on.

2 hours ago, CSerpent said:

Matt Newman has said that he knows what the plan is for when they run out. They only used two from the stockpile for the standalone packs. I count 21 unused (including Dexter, Norman, and Silas, whom we can still expect in a cycle), enough for four cycles with no new characters.

Maybe expect something mind blowing for the tenth cycle?

I was somewhat surprised that the announcement of the starter packs didn't also include an announcement that future cycles would NOT include new investigators. For me, not being a long-time Arkham Horror fan, I am happy with the current choices of investigators to choose from (except of course, I want Monterey Jack! 🙂 ). What I crave is more content, i.e. campaigns and scenarios to experience.

1 hour ago, KBlumhardt said:

Well, considering they said they recently sat down and created 12 new investigators with the Arkham Files team (and then combined and/or eliminated a few) they obviously have no issue creating new investigators.

They combined/eliminated Arkham Files investigators?

Which ones?

1 hour ago, KennerHugh said:

I was somewhat surprised that the announcement of the starter packs didn't also include an announcement that future cycles would NOT include new investigators. For me, not being a long-time Arkham Horror fan, I am happy with the current choices of investigators to choose from (except of course, I want Monterey Jack! 🙂 ). What I crave is more content, i.e. campaigns and scenarios to experience.

I saw that idea floated. Part of the model is that you can jump in with any cycle. Not having investigators wouldn't negate that, but it would be far less appealing if you only had the core gators to play your new cycle with.

1 hour ago, KennerHugh said:

I was somewhat surprised that the announcement of the starter packs didn't also include an announcement that future cycles would NOT include new investigators. For me, not being a long-time Arkham Horror fan, I am happy with the current choices of investigators to choose from (except of course, I want Monterey Jack! 🙂 ). What I crave is more content, i.e. campaigns and scenarios to experience.

Why change a model that works, though (deluxe expansion with new investigators, 6 mythos packs, eventual 'Return to...')? The Starter packs were created to solve a problem of barrier to entry and to give players who don't do a full buy-in some agency... I think it's very smart of them to not fix what ain't broken.

Besides, removing the new investigators from the deluxe expansions almost certainly wouldn't lead to more 'campaigns and scenarios'. It's not like they would start releasing more than one scenario a month. You'd maybe get a couple more scenarios in the deluxe expansions, but I bet the sales of those deluxe expansions would decrease (since players not interested in the campaign wouldn't pick them up for the new player cards and investigators) and lower sales would shorten the life of the game overall.

Also, as a fellow long-time Arkham fan... I'm NOT happy with the current choices of investigators. I want ALL of them!!! 🙂

On 3/28/2020 at 12:45 AM, Mimi61 said:

And now look! In the Arkham universe, some of the best investigators in the game are female. (As it should be).

Why do you think that? The last part specifically.

<plays Premonition>

...This is going to end badly.

<plays Recall the Future>

...This is going to end VERY badly.

<plays Elusive>

On 3/27/2020 at 1:15 PM, CSerpent said:

It's not that the athlete is black and the priest is Hispanic -- it's that the black character is an athlete and the Hispanic character is a priest. Those are the stereotypes.

It would be different if there was a black PI or a Hispanic professor or an Indian artist in the mix. That's the point here. With these new characters, no one is saying, "Oh great, yet another Native American aviatrix".

And old white guy professor is just as much a stereotype, I agree. But as a white-and-getting-older myself, I at least have Leo.

While it's a very fine line, I think much of what we're dealing with in the game's investigators is the use of archetypes , not necessarily stereotypes . Archetypes are typical/common examples of something (often roles or professions), whereas stereotypes are oversimplified, most often negative images or ideas of something (often negative perceived aspects of races or genders). Considering the primary defining trait of each investigator is their profession (it's the first thing under their name in every game, and could be used almost interchangeably with their names), it's not surprising many of the characters are archetypes (with their backstories often putting a unique twist on said archetype).

For example, let's look at a modern example. If you were going to make a character who was a modern-day NBA player, the first picture in your mind would likely be a young, tall, athletic, black man. There is nothing negative about this. Roughly 75% of the players in the NBA are African-American and 100% of them are tall, athletic men. So, that is the archetype. (In Arkham, Jim is a good example of this. Jazz is an art form that is culturally American-American in origin, so having a black jazz musician is in no way negative and would be EXTREMELY typical for the time... Jim is an archetype)

On the flipside, if you're making a black character and you jump straight to making them poor, uneducated, and violent (and probably a gang member), those are stereotypes.

Where the line gets very, very thin is examples like my previous post mentioning Michael McGlen. The fact remains that the Irish Mob was a very real part of American history in the 1920s, but being a gangster/criminal is a fairly negative thing so in my opinion Mike straddles the razor thin line a bit.

Rita is an interesting case, though. Nowadays, we may think of the archetypal runner in track and field as black, but it wasn't until the mid-1930s that Jesse Owens broke out and opened doors for African-American athletes in track. However, there were certainly people of color in track prior to that (they were just more rare and not shattering records like he did), so she's not necessarily anachronistic.

13 hours ago, Hyperjayman said:

Why do you think that? The last part specifically.

The last part was meant to be a joke. A juxtaposition to the pretty much complete lack of female characters in HP’s writings, who have the opportunity to help overcome the troubles. (Quite the opposite, in fact)

And now there are many, which is as it should be.

4 hours ago, KBlumhardt said:

While it's a very fine line, I think much of what we're dealing with in the game's investigators is the use of archetypes , not necessarily stereotypes . Archetypes are typical/common examples of something (often roles or professions), whereas stereotypes are oversimplified, most often negative images or ideas of something (often negative perceived aspects of races or genders). Considering the primary defining trait of each investigator is their profession (it's the first thing under their name in every game, and could be used almost interchangeably with their names), it's not surprising many of the characters are archetypes (with their backstories often putting a unique twist on said archetype).

For example, let's look at a modern example. If you were going to make a character who was a modern-day NBA player, the first picture in your mind would likely be a young, tall, athletic, black man. There is nothing negative about this. Roughly 75% of the players in the NBA are African-American and 100% of them are tall, athletic men. So, that is the archetype. (In Arkham, Jim is a good example of this. Jazz is an art form that is culturally American-American in origin, so having a black jazz musician is in no way negative and would be EXTREMELY typical for the time... Jim is an archetype)

On the flipside, if you're making a black character and you jump straight to making them poor, uneducated, and violent (and probably a gang member), those are stereotypes.

Where the line gets very, very thin is examples like my previous post mentioning Michael McGlen. The fact remains that the Irish Mob was a very real part of American history in the 1920s, but being a gangster/criminal is a fairly negative thing so in my opinion Mike straddles the razor thin line a bit.

Rita is an interesting case, though. Nowadays, we may think of the archetypal runner in track and field as black, but it wasn't until the mid-1930s that Jesse Owens broke out and opened doors for African-American athletes in track. However, there were certainly people of color in track prior to that (they were just more rare and not shattering records like he did), so she's not necessarily anachronistic.

It's not the job or characteristic that necessarily makes a stereotype a negative thing -- who wouldn't want to be great at basketball or music or math? But when all your characters only fit archetypes, it becomes a negative thing. If I wanted to play a black character prior to Stella, I had four very stereotypical characters -- an athlete (probably based on Jesse Owens), two jazz musicians, and a shaman. That's where the problem lies, when there's nothing but stereotypes (and aside from the professions, three of them are Mystics, a whole other category of problematic).

Sure, we have an Irish mobster. But we also have Skids O'Toole, arguably Irish, who's just a guy scraping by for his mother and intent on saving the world.

To be clear, I think they've done really well with representation. I'm just glad to see they're doing even better now.

1 hour ago, CSerpent said:

It's not the job or characteristic that necessarily makes a stereotype a negative thing -- who wouldn't want to be great at basketball or music or math? But when all your characters only fit archetypes, it becomes a negative thing. If I wanted to play a black character prior to Stella, I had four very stereotypical characters -- an athlete (probably based on Jesse Owens), two jazz musicians, and a shaman. That's where the problem lies, when there's nothing but stereotypes (and aside from the professions, three of them are Mystics, a whole other category of problematic).

Sure, we have an Irish mobster. But we also have Skids O'Toole, arguably Irish, who's just a guy scraping by for his mother and intent on saving the world.

To be clear, I think they've done really well with representation. I'm just glad to see they're doing even better now.

What about Calvin? and isn't Luke black? Also Daniela is coming. None of them are stereotypes.

1 hour ago, Villefere said:

What about Calvin? and isn't Luke black? Also Daniela is coming. None of them are stereotypes.

Luke is always in weird lighting, but his FFG figure is pretty light. Because Joao is a Portugese name, I've assumed Calvin was Brazilian. Daniela -- true, and she's also fairly new (Eldritch Horror, late 2017-early 2018).. But my point was investigators up this point.

I mean, Calvin might be Brazilian, but that would still make him a Black Brazilian.

I guess one reason they are a bit behind on racial diversity is that they have a backlog that goes all the way back to Arkham Horror first edition, which had four white men and four white women.

So they are still catching up. Still... I always got the impression Arkham was a pretty small town, and for a small New England town in the 20s, majority white isn't unusual. They only started going to other locations much later, with Eldritch Horror.

11 hours ago, Eldan985 said:

They have come a long way with the artistic element. too!

Is anyone else looking at their current player card storage solution and thinking...this is not going to work? The number of new player cards that come out with these new starter investigators is going to max out my storage far quicker then I had planned.

I think I probably manage these decks, then run out of space in my current solution during Innsmouth.

3 hours ago, Dr Dee said:

Is anyone else looking at their current player card storage solution and thinking...this is not going to work? The number of new player cards that come out with these new starter investigators is going to max out my storage far quicker then I had planned.

Thankfully, my storage for player cards is in 3-ring binders using 9-pocket pages, so I can just add more pages to the binders to make more room. Another project to undertake during isolation mode!

@Dr Dee Amusingly, I have designed a solution that I think will keep me in good condition for quite a while (barring high-cadence release of investigator decks), but due to the current pandemic I haven't been able to get my design appraised for an approximate cost.

The idea is one box for 'gator cards: two vertical columns of three drawers each, side by side, with a wide drawer on the bottom for campaign guides and sundries. A second (and third, and fourth...) box for campaigns, including returns: two columns of two drawers, with a drawer below for further sundries. The second box I'll need to keep making as we get more expansions; each one only holds 4 right now.

I've got it all drawn up, but I haven't been able to go out and get the 1/8th" basswood, and I don't have a laser cut printer I can use. I was planning to share it when I was done, but this is a relevant thread.