Hi, I'm sure someone has already thought of this and mentioned it on the forum but I thought I would bring it up again. We have taken all the story cards we have from both the CCG and the LCG. We have put them into sleeves and shuffled them into one large deck (34 cards). When we get together to play we shuffle the deck and deal out 10 cards. With each successive game we carry over the unused story cards from the previous game and supplement it with enough new cards to bring the total back to 10. Using this method we can play all afternoon and rarely see the same story card twice.

Just a thought. For those of you that may have some of the old CCG story cards.

Yep, I do that. I've manged to get the two old promo stories as well (The Nameless City and Challenge from Beyond). When playing one one one, it makes for a much more interesting game.

The other way we often play (taking the two promo cards out) is to play the stories face down, and when you win, you MUST inact the effect regardless which also makes the game rather fun.

I hadn't thought of that. Playing the stories face down with a MUST activate could be very cool. We'll try that, thanks for sharing. Now I have to find the two promo story cards...arrrrrgh!

skipn50 said:

Good luck. It took me ages to get the two promo ones.

Yeah, I know what you mean. No big deal. If I can find them that will be great. In the meantime I intend to try your blind story card idea. That sounds like fun.

WHOAAAA DUDE! We tried the blind story deck idea in combination with the mega story deck and that was GREAT! It was really a lot of fun and really made for some very exciting games. Thanks for the tip!

No worries. Glad it worked for your group.

The Big Show always has cool methods for game play and creative tournament rules.

Yes, well we've been playing with the MEGA STORY deck, BLIND! as his suggestion and that's our preferred method of play. It certainly livens up the game!

I think we've got 34 or 40 stories in our deck which we dole out ten at a time, recylcing those that are not used, and we can play all afternoon without encountering the same story twice.

Playing with the story cards turned face down with the rule that you MUST actiivate the card when it is won is a lot of fun and certainly adds to the horror.

That should be an officially endorsed variat and FFG should produce MORE story cards just with that purpose in mind.

I agree with you. It would be a great format to officially recognise.

More horror, but less tactics.

Oh Johnny, I disagree. Suddenly cards that cancel story card effects have a new prominence. It also encourages the use of a tactical reserve. We much prefer playing with the "bottom-less" story deck and blind activation. It's like being a member of the bomb-squad, you never know when it's going to blow up in your face. But thanks for responding.

Even still, this is one of those cases where I think horror ought to take precedence over tactics. It's just a variant, after all. ^^

Exactly, it's a game of HORROR. I know, we all get competitive, but I think it adds a LOT of fun to the game. We had the greatest run last weekend. Winning hands were destroyed and losing hands were suddenly competitive and even turned into winning hands by the nameless horrors hidden in the blind MEGA deck. I was ready to pounce on my opponent and win three stories in a single sweep when the story card just won by my opponent forced me to turn my entire hand into resources...arrrrrrggggggh! It was a lot of fun. I havn't laughed that hard in a long time.

TRY IT, YOU'LL LIKE IT. (or not, it's a free world..for now....bwahahahahahaha)

We tried it for a dozen or so games. Face down, must resolve when won.

By the third game, we were tired of forced resolution as some games just drug on far too long beyond when the game should have been won thus making it often an unenjoyable variant in most games we played.

Its novel for a short while to distract you from what you might think to be the humdrum way that story deck works. I wouldn't recommend it be officially recognized or anything like that.

We just went back to how we always had done it since we started playing: All the CCG and LCG story cards in opaque backed sleeves forming a big deck.

James Hata noted how he thought it was an interesting way to play the game when he saw our board set up at the FFG event center back in April and when he sat down to play with us it didn't significantly change the game enough for him to think either positively of negatively regarding the large sum of story cards available. Its simply less predictable, which is the point of the larger card pool.

I am sure we wil play blind/forced story resolution again, but I think the forced resolution is really throwing us off what might otherwise be an enjoyable idea. Face down with optional resolution is enough for us as it adds the bit of mystery but doesn't take away from the strategy of the game.

Not trying to diss the idea, but for us it fell flat after many tries.

Hellfury said:

Could you please share an example of how this variant made a game continue "far too long?"

Facedown with optional resolution sounds like a happy middle ground for those who would like to keep the uncertainty, but remove the element of despair.

Having to resolve Dreamwalkers or The Well as your 2nd or 3rd won story comes to mind.

MarthWMaster said:

Easily.

I would first like to comment that even though you may have a larger story deck, you have only offerred a greater chance of redundant effects to take place since there are so many redundant story cards as many effects are always reprinted no matter which edition.

If every story card ever printed was made into one big deck, then well over 25% of the deck will have the following annoying examples. Now for the examples:

Dam's example is good so lets also add parable of the faceless one since its effect reflects the well. Thats a minimum of three story cards with this effect since the well was reprinted twice. (We just use every story card printed with no regard to duplicate names)

Next we have abysses of night and the terror out of dunwich (the last of which also reprinted so three examples of this effect in the story deck).

Voice of thunder and the thing at the gate. Again, at least three examples of which would be in the deck.

Shadows of nephren ka, or the slightly less annoying Change of plans.

If any of these are in play when Secrets of arkham is won, I just feel a meltdown about to occur due to really pointless delays. The horror of the past can also be a tad annoying as well but that one is just a "screw you" to the discard strategy of which is already a difficult win condition to pull off consitently and effectively.

Wth all that said, I think being facedown without forced resolution is even more pointless. It may as well be face up so people can atleast see what they may or may not choose to resolve should they win that story. It may seem like a creative idea but all it really does is just makes you blindly go after a story you have no idea of the outcome of. Face up offers strategy and urgency. Blind offers only chaos. Not a bad thing depending on what a particular person is trying to get out of the game.

Like I said, its a novel variant, but for us the fun quickly wears off when we are forced to discard our resources discard our hands, etc just as we are about to set up crucial plots. Especially when luck has it in store for us that this happens 4 games in a row.... If you think it is highly unlikely, then think about exactly how many cards in such a story deck could prolong the game and the redundancy involved and it becomes apparent that this fluke of probablity isnt such a far fetched possibility afterall.

But also again, it is only us and the people we play with that feels this way. Other people can and obviously do enjoy blind forced resolution. I am only offering why this variant failed for us.

EDIT: Nevermind, this post can go away.

Hellfury said:

I think it can be a cool variant for casual play when one of the players is very experienced and the other new to the game. I might try it in such a situation. Currently I prefer using random highlander decks (with a fixed ratio between characters and other cards) when playing against newbies.