Bought the starter box over a year ago (maybe even more than 2 years ago, now that I think about it)

Really, really struggled with the rules for ages, but thanks to the helpful people on this site, reckon I've finally got them sorted out now.

I'm purchasing the Dunwich Legacy cycle to play thru - I've managed to get all of the packs except Blood on the Altar, and that's on back order so hopefully it's not too far away.

Have also purchased the stand alone packs for The Blob that ate everything (there's no way I could resist purchasing something with that name!), Carnevale of Horrors, Guardians of the Abyss and Murder at the Excelsior Hotel.

Have played Night of the Zealot solo (running 2 characters) as well as with another (noobie) player a few times with varying levels of success.

Have played The Blob & Carnevale of Horrors a couple of times solo (lost every time, but had great fun doing so).

In a couple of weeks, I've got some of my regular gaming group coming over for a 4-player session. Going to do Night of the Zealot, and if everyone enjoys it, will look at running the full Dunwich legacy campaign with them once I've managed to get all the packs for it.

On 10/12/2020 at 6:49 AM, Magnito said:

Currently doing a run of Return to Dunwich with Trish and Mateo. Good start, so far, but we are only two scenarios in. Trish seems strong. I like the Rogue/Seeker combo. Lola Santiago is her new best friend.

Finally had a scenario not go well (there's always at least one). Trish went down in Blood on the Alter. Two Rotting Remains and an Eager for Death and she was done for. Sometimes the encounter deck decides that you aren't making it out.

Mateo managed to pull off a win still by Azure Flaming Silas Bishop to death, but Trish leaves with a mental trauma she is none too happy about.

14 hours ago, Allonym said:

I've just finished Boundary Beyond in RttFA, playing as Winifred alongside Ursula and having a blast (though I don't think she makes it into my top 10 investigators). Have just purchased some bigger guns from my arms dealer in Mexico City before we head to Return to the Heart of the Elders Part 2.

I'm also playing a Dunwich campaign over OCTGN introducing a friend of mine to the game - with Jenny and Agnes, we're about to head into the final scenario!

do you mean Wini or Ursula? i know a lot of people like Ursula, especially for that expansion. I haven't made a Seeker deck yet, so she is one of the characters i'm contemplating.

4 hours ago, petszk said:

Bought the starter box over a year ago (maybe even more than 2 years ago, now that I think about it)

Really, really struggled with the rules for ages, but thanks to the helpful people on this site, reckon I've finally got them sorted out now.

I'm purchasing the Dunwich Legacy cycle to play thru - I've managed to get all of the packs except Blood on the Altar, and that's on back order so hopefully it's not too far away.

Have also purchased the stand alone packs for The Blob that ate everything (there's no way I could resist purchasing something with that name!), Carnevale of Horrors, Guardians of the Abyss and Murder at the Excelsior Hotel.

Have played Night of the Zealot solo (running 2 characters) as well as with another (noobie) player a few times with varying levels of success.

Have played The Blob & Carnevale of Horrors a couple of times solo (lost every time, but had great fun doing so).

In a couple of weeks, I've got some of my regular gaming group coming over for a 4-player session. Going to do Night of the Zealot, and if everyone enjoys it, will look at running the full Dunwich legacy campaign with them once I've managed to get all the packs for it.

glad to hear you stuck with it! i had a similar experience, letting it sit a long time between my initial unboxing and now; there was a while i was thinking maybe i was too dumb for the game because i was really having a hard time wrapping my mind around the mechanics. never thought then to ask on a forum, but the youtube playthroughs and how to play videos really helped! good luck with the gaming group! hope they get sucked in! : D

2 hours ago, Magnito said:

Finally had a scenario not go well (there's always at least one). Trish went down in Blood on the Alter. Two Rotting Remains and an Eager for Death and she was done for. Sometimes the encounter deck decides that you aren't making it out.

Mateo managed to pull off a win still by Azure Flaming Silas Bishop to death, but Trish leaves with a mental trauma she is none too happy about.

i already don't remember what i used to put Seth Bishop down (was also playing Father Mat); sorry to hear about poor Trish!

there's some scenarios where even when you make it out alive--even when you win --you get dealt trauma in the Resolution. that's one of those rules i tend to, uh, skim past. XD

5 hours ago, petszk said:

Bought the starter box over a year ago (maybe even more than 2 years ago, now that I think about it)

Really, really struggled with the rules for ages, but thanks to the helpful people on this site, reckon I've finally got them sorted out now.

Yeah I'm not gonna pretend that the FFG LCGs have easy rule sets. They don't though the intent is learn once and then play for years, which has been my experience. Also once you learned one rule set I find they have a very similar design across LCGs. So it's easier to float between their games once you've been indoctrinated.

The nice thing for players now is we have the intro investigator decks and alot of pretty cool standalone scenarios. So after you get that core set there's much better options fro more bite sized buys rather than having a new player commit to an entire cycle's campaign. That said the campaign is still the strongest experience for the game.

I finally got to play through the Dream-Eaters two-handed solo. I had Patrice and Sefina playing through part A, despite people's warnings about Patrice's compability with the A part of the campaign. I built her using a lot of Stella cards like Mysterious Raven and Old Key-ring and used the arcane slots for Mind's Eye. It worked really well, although I did lack a little damage output in retrospect. Sefina tried out Winni's best friend Chuck and when she drew him she did fantastic. When she did not find her resources nor Chuck, well, drawing a lot of Hyades stars did not help, she struggled to say the least.

For the B part, I used Tony, going for succeed by-tactics with Sawed-off shotgun. The new Mausers from Winnifred were fantastic, too. I guessed, quite rightly, that there would be something to put a huge hole into. I paired him with Parallel Daisy, parallel front side, original back side. I really wanted her to have the new Necronomicon and despite getting it after two scenarios, never saw it. I guess she should not have upgraded the Researchers into Docents, they apparently get lazy when promoted. Despite her ability being less valuable than original Daisy, I did use it at clutch moments to see them through the first two scenarios. My only question is whether those clutch plays would have been needed with regular Daisy.

In the end, all four were driven insane, but I loved both campaigns.

Now, I am setting up a fan-made Idol Thoughts campaign with Jenny and Jim.

17 hours ago, Fredmans74 said:

In the end, all four were driven insane, but I loved both campaigns.

hahaha ~ this is the best!

Stella has some good cards; i'm looking forward to getting her some xp so she can upgrade. haven't played with either Patrice or Sefina yet.

Im playing the core set campaign with Roland. I found it Very interesting. I'm playing it solo since noone around here wanna join the cause yet it's exciting and fun. Didn't expect it to be good at solo mode. I have lost couple of times yet im back for more. Soon i think i will get some new collections, it's nice to theory craft a deck.

Doing true solo in Core with Roland is the most forgiving since he's the most well rounded of the investigators in the box. That test-less clue ability is a real good one. I suspect the only reason he's seen a slow down in deck builds in recent times is because we have so much to explore now and Roland has been around since the beginning. I'm certainly guilty of ignoring him now that we have all these shiny new investigators. Taking him through Innsmouth might be fun thematically considering he's a federal agent.

20 hours ago, phillos said:

Doing true solo in Core with Roland is the most forgiving since he's the most well rounded of the investigators in the box. That test-less clue ability is a real good one. I suspect the only reason he's seen a slow down in deck builds in recent times is because we have so much to explore now and Roland has been around since the beginning. I'm certainly guilty of ignoring him now that we have all these shiny new investigators. Taking him through Innsmouth might be fun thematically considering he's a federal agent.

this is true. after i got him killed for the fifth time in the final NotZ scenario, i decided to permanently retire him to go play with all the new characters instead.

and there's so many to play with now i'm not sure i'll ever bring him back.

Recently got a core set and one of the other card/board game players I live with played enough that I decided to teach another of the people here and find a second core set.

I'm on kind of a hiatus. I have a few virtual games going with friends that we only get to once a month or so, and I'm part way through a playtest of the Dark Matter fan campaign. But I've been busy with other things lately.

I'm sitting out the Innsmouth campaign -- the Blurse mechanic looks too fiddly for me, and that's way too many player cards to sit in the binder.

Playing through both halves of The Dream Eaters at present - completed the first scenario for each side, though we ran out of time to do the first interlude on Friday night, due to sheer volume of flavour text.

In campaign A, I'm running Akachi , alongside Tony, Preston and Mandy

In campaign B, I'm running Patrice , alongside Dexter, Trish and Tommy - Dexter nearly had problems in a Staircase during the scenario, and it took some careful play to ensure he didn't get killed (multiple infestation tests in one turn meant he gained three enemies, including a 3-strong Swarm - which a DoN Improvised Weapon from Patrice took out. I maintain it was a copy of The Sunday Times, with all the supplements). Looking forwards to my next XP spend with Patrice - I've played her at 9XP for Arkham Nights and other one-offs before now, but not at 0XP (oh, how I missed Cornered at times), nor with more XP available, so upgrading should be interesting from here on out.

What a great topic, I’m really enjoying reading about other folks experiences with this great game!

I bought it when it first came out including the entire Dunwich campaign. I primarily played it when I was on travel in my hotel room at night but never got all the way through NoZ (let alone even start Dunwich). I kept starting and re-starting or having unfinished scenarios that I would restart- a hot mess.

Finally, with the release of the new investigators (and limitations due to this pandemic), I got back in with all the new starters. I bought Murder at the Excelsior Hotel as I thought that might be better than trying to start and stop the campaign.

For those that haven’t played that Scenario, I’m telling you it is an incredible, replay-able experience. I played with Nathaniel, Winifred, Stella, and Harvey. They’re all asymmetric decks which work well together. So much fun!

Anyway, it got me re-hooked and now I have all the stuff for Forgotten Age and Circle Undone, I’m one out-of-print pack for Path to Carcosa. I’ve got my weekly group that likes co-op games all spun up for this now that we finished our Descent campaign. We’re going to run through NoZ and take it from there.

Separately, I’m playing the Dunwich campaign with only cards from the Core + Dunwich to keep it simple. Just finished the Dunwich Express and narrowly avoided having everyone killed (I don’t want to spoil anything). I’m using 4 investigators myself to get a better feel for the game. It’s challenging keeping all 4 characters going, but again, I’m getting to see the range of dynamics so I can help my less experienced friends this week.

This is such a good game and I feel like I’ve been on another planet for the last 3 years with it, but no longer- Cthulhu lives!!!

11 hours ago, sarumanthewhite said:

What a great topic, I’m really enjoying reading about other folks experiences with this great game!

I bought it when it first came out including the entire Dunwich campaign. I primarily played it when I was on travel in my hotel room at night but never got all the way through NoZ (let alone even start Dunwich). I kept starting and re-starting or having unfinished scenarios that I would restart- a hot mess.

Finally, with the release of the new investigators (and limitations due to this pandemic), I got back in with all the new starters. I bought Murder at the Excelsior Hotel as I thought that might be better than trying to start and stop the campaign.

For those that haven’t played that Scenario, I’m telling you it is an incredible, replay-able experience. I played with Nathaniel, Winifred, Stella, and Harvey. They’re all asymmetric decks which work well together. So much fun!

Anyway, it got me re-hooked and now I have all the stuff for Forgotten Age and Circle Undone, I’m one out-of-print pack for Path to Carcosa. I’ve got my weekly group that likes co-op games all spun up for this now that we finished our Descent campaign. We’re going to run through NoZ and take it from there.

Separately, I’m playing the Dunwich campaign with only cards from the Core + Dunwich to keep it simple. Just finished the Dunwich Express and narrowly avoided having everyone killed (I don’t want to spoil anything). I’m using 4 investigators myself to get a better feel for the game. It’s challenging keeping all 4 characters going, but again, I’m getting to see the range of dynamics so I can help my less experienced friends this week.

This is such a good game and I feel like I’ve been on another planet for the last 3 years with it, but no longer- Cthulhu lives!!!

what a great story! looking forward to Murder at the Excelsior Hotel and would love to do it like you did, with a full complement of characters. i am still working my way up to a four-player team. Father Mat, Stella, and Wini are definitely in but so far my first outing with Nathaniel was a huge whiff, and Akachi is doing so poorly in Path to Carcosa, i might have to switch her out. I guess I don't need to two mystics on my team anyway. I'm thinking either Carolyn or Mandy might be my rounders but i haven't played with either of them yet. i definitely need a Seeker!

i didn't pick up Harvey; how do you find he compares to the other Seekers?

~ * ~

i'm now three scenarios in with Path to Carcosa and while Dunwich had its moments of stressing and freaking me out, Carcosa is a whole 'nother level of anxiety; i'm not squeamish, but found myself actually not wanting to look at some of the pictures! i'm also starting to get really nervous about Forgotten Age and Dream Eaters based on some comments i've read about nightmarish scenarios in those. i love the Lovecraft theme, monsters, don't bother me, but i think i might need something to play on the side that's more thematically fluffy. XD

also, as mentioned above, i'm not doing well with Akachi, can't seem to get her going, which is a shame. if she fumbles this next scenario i might have to tag Father Mat back in.

the other thing i'm doing totally out of the rules is playing Duke as a third investigator (just to get a sense of whether i can handle three). he has no cards, and i'm only giving him one action per round, not using him to buffer damage/horror like an ally. he's found a few clues, killed some cockroaches, but honestly hasn't helped much beyond that so far, and was totally useless when i got swarmed at the end of Echoes of the Past! on the bright side, nobody's died yet (technically), so i'll keep him for the moment.

We took it on the chin in Return to the City of Archives. Wini was just too fragile with all of her prior trauma, and she was defeated just before we completed the second act. Father Mat made a brave go of it, but some abysmal token draws had him buried under multiple hunter enemies. *sad trombone*

We're looking forward to trying a 9-XP Sister Mary and a 19-XP Trish Scarborough in The Blob next time, and then it's on to The Circle Undone with Preston and Luke.

14 hours ago, happy_ythogtha said:

what a great story! looking forward to Murder at the Excelsior Hotel and would love to do it like you did, with a full complement of characters. i am still working my way up to a four-player team. Father Mat, Stella, and Wini are definitely in but so far my first outing with Nathaniel was a huge whiff, and Akachi is doing so poorly in Path to Carcosa, i might have to switch her out. I guess I don't need to two mystics on my team anyway. I'm thinking either Carolyn or Mandy might be my rounders but i haven't played with either of them yet. i definitely need a Seeker!

i didn't pick up Harvey; how do you find he compares to the other Seekers?

~ * ~

i'm now three scenarios in with Path to Carcosa and while Dunwich had its moments of stressing and freaking me out, Carcosa is a whole 'nother level of anxiety; i'm not squeamish, but found myself actually not wanting to look at some of the pictures! i'm also starting to get really nervous about Forgotten Age and Dream Eaters based on some comments i've read about nightmarish scenarios in those. i love the Lovecraft theme, monsters, don't bother me, but i think i might need something to play on the side that's more thematically fluffy. XD

also, as mentioned above, i'm not doing well with Akachi, can't seem to get her going, which is a shame. if she fumbles this next scenario i might have to tag Father Mat back in.

the other thing i'm doing totally out of the rules is playing Duke as a third investigator (just to get a sense of whether i can handle three). he has no cards, and i'm only giving him one action per round, not using him to buffer damage/horror like an ally. he's found a few clues, killed some cockroaches, but honestly hasn't helped much beyond that so far, and was totally useless when i got swarmed at the end of Echoes of the Past! on the bright side, nobody's died yet (technically), so i'll keep him for the moment.

I found Harvey to be all about having a lot of cards in hand. He picks up clues quite well and the deck “out of the box” is pretty good at that. The other Seeker’s I’ve played are Rex and Daisy. I’m using Rex with his errata (that ability is broken). Both Daisy and Harvey like lots of tomes. I found his ability to allow other investigators at his location to draw a card for free to be very helpful. Nathaniel Cho is a very good character but uses lots of cards for extra damage, etc. Harvey can help him replenish that.

Without spoiling Excelsior, at setup, you have one character waking up at the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in their hand and the rest of the investigators start downstairs in the lobby. Do you cover up the crime scene, search for clues, explore the building, gear up, etc.? So many choices that lead to different experiences. Heck, the rooms all have unique, cool abilities and their importance is different in each replay (don’t want to spoil anything here). it such an intelligently designed scenario- $20 is a bargain.

We tried it once with the new starters as is. It was very rough, we narrowly won. We then played a second time with some upgrades (like 8-9 XP) to hopefully allow us to explore a bit more. It was still remarkably close but even more entertaining. It’s a bit long though as compared to the “normal” scenarios in the campaigns. That’s fine by me, but some folks may not like that...

My fascination with Dunwich dates back to the 2nd edition Arkham Horror expansion and this campaign doesn’t skimp. It’s a very thematic experience (I don’t want to spoil anything), but you’re searching for your NPC friends, traveling to Arkham, stomping around the town, etc. A real experience...

Innsmouth is one of my favorite HP Lovecraft stories but I’m holding off on the campaign until I can run through all of it without waiting for parts to be released.

Take care and stay safe.... 😷

8 hours ago, sarumanthewhite said:

I found Harvey to be all about having a lot of cards in hand. He picks up clues quite well and the deck “out of the box” is pretty good at that. The other Seeker’s I’ve played are Rex and Daisy. I’m using Rex with his errata (that ability is broken). Both Daisy and Harvey like lots of tomes. I found his ability to allow other investigators at his location to draw a card for free to be very helpful. Nathaniel Cho is a very good character but uses lots of cards for extra damage, etc. Harvey can help him replenish that.

Without spoiling Excelsior, at setup, you have one character waking up at the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in their hand and the rest of the investigators start downstairs in the lobby. Do you cover up the crime scene, search for clues, explore the building, gear up, etc.? So many choices that lead to different experiences. Heck, the rooms all have unique, cool abilities and their importance is different in each replay (don’t want to spoil anything here). it such an intelligently designed scenario- $20 is a bargain.

We tried it once with the new starters as is. It was very rough, we narrowly won. We then played a second time with some upgrades (like 8-9 XP) to hopefully allow us to explore a bit more. It was still remarkably close but even more entertaining. It’s a bit long though as compared to the “normal” scenarios in the campaigns. That’s fine by me, but some folks may not like that...

My fascination with Dunwich dates back to the 2nd edition Arkham Horror expansion and this campaign doesn’t skimp. It’s a very thematic experience (I don’t want to spoil anything), but you’re searching for your NPC friends, traveling to Arkham, stomping around the town, etc. A real experience...

Innsmouth is one of my favorite HP Lovecraft stories but I’m holding off on the campaign until I can run through all of it without waiting for parts to be released.

Take care and stay safe.... 😷

good point about the balance of Harvey and Nathaniel. Nathaniel has been the first character i've really burned through the deck (and not at all efficiently, either!). i played Daisy early on with NotZ but couldn't figure out how best to use her skills and assets. but that was so early on when i first bought the game and i was struggling with the rules. i'm hoping when i get a deck together for Mandy i'll understand better what i'm doing ~ ha!

Excelsior sounds awesome! i definitely want to have Carcosa and another cycle under my belt before i attempt it, especially since i want to make sure my team is really solid. and i don't mind long at all! sometimes i see a short act or agenda deck and think: oh nooo, this is going to be over too quick! : D

I love reading about all of your experiences as you are playing through things! I remember how much fun it was learning it (although, I don’t think you ever stop learning it). We jumped into AHCG a couple of years ago, while it was just gaining popularity, coming from the board game and MoM. For a while were playing 3-4 times a week. We’re down to about twice a week, but it is addictive.

I don’t think Excelsior is so hard that you couldn’t tackle it, even if you are still relatively new to the game.

There are so many ways you can vary play. These are a couple of things we have tried, waiting for a campaign to finish releasing and during shut down.
One was playing two investigators each and creating a “campaign” out of the Standalones in order of release. We started the first Standalone with 0 XP. The idea was to get through all of them, using the same investigators and keeping whatever XP and goodies we earned plus any trauma we may have accrued. We were pretty beat up by the end, but had also traveled all over the globe to keep the world safe and had some pretty cool stuff to put on our Knickknack shelf!
Another diversion we created for ourselves during shut down, was to play our favorite scenario from each campaign with different investigators each time. To spice it up, we couldn’t choose our own investigators. We chose them for each other. We were allowed to exile one each from the pool. (I chose Calvin and my husband chose Lola). It was actually kind of fun, because we didn’t know going in who we would end up playing for that scenario and since we have a tendency to get locked into one or two classes, it made us branch out with investigators we would normally shun. It also improved our deck building skills. It’s where my husband discovered the joy of playing Sefina and I discovered the joy of playing William.

@Mimi61 I love your idea of playing the standalone’s as a sort of mini-campaign. Reminds me a bit of Eldritch Horror where you’re running across the globe battling the forces of evil. I’ve heard Blob is real good (a friend of mine played it at GenCon the year it was released), but very challenging.

I've also done the linked standalones as a mini campaign (this was back in 2019, so no Excelsior or Blob yet). Carolyn and Rita started off down in the Bayou and by the end it was just Rita against the madman running the labyrinth (Carolyn having been taken by the abyss while in Egypt). The plan was for Rita to run through all three variations (chosen in random order) but she never made it past the first (option B).

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'll definitely do it again, likely starting off with Excelsior for thematic reasons: after completing it whoever I use will need to leave town for a while.

13 hours ago, sarumanthewhite said:

@Mimi61 I love your idea of playing the standalone’s as a sort of mini-campaign. Reminds me a bit of Eldritch Horror where you’re running across the globe battling the forces of evil. I’ve heard Blob is real good (a friend of mine played it at GenCon the year it was released), but very challenging.

Blob is possibly my favorite standalone, or at least tied with Guardians of the Abyss. It’s is challenging, but can also be pretty hilarious. It’s very re-playable. Guaranteed not to have the same experience twice!

2 hours ago, ricedwlit said:

I've also done the linked standalones as a mini campaign (this was back in 2019, so no Excelsior or Blob yet). Carolyn and Rita started off down in the Bayou and by the end it was just Rita against the madman running the labyrinth (Carolyn having been taken by the abyss while in Egypt). The plan was for Rita to run through all three variations (chosen in random order) but she never made it past the first (option B).

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'll definitely do it again, likely starting off with Excelsior for thematic reasons: after completing it whoever I use will need to leave town for a while.

Maybe Carolyn can be rescued by the Dreamers in Dream Eaters. The Search for Kadath could easily have her hanging out in Ulthar and you could just invite her along! 😉
Poor Rita. The first time we played Labyrinths it was with 2 of us and we payed all three variations, but it was a snooze fest because they are just too similar. That one really is better with enough people to each have one and play it simultaneously. It doesn’t scale well to 2-4 investigators, unless you just play one variation. Not my fave!

There is a pretty good fan made standalone, Called by the Wendigo, which we will probably substitute for Labyrinths next time we do this. It takes place in Canada, to keep the idea of globetrotting in tact.
Using Excelsior to get the heck out of dodge, is a great thematic idea! I think it would be fun to write a few interludes to connect the standalones together in different ways and create a campaign log.

19 hours ago, Mimi61 said:

Blob is possibly my favorite standalone, or at least tied with Guardians of the Abyss. It’s is challenging, but can also be pretty hilarious. It’s very re-playable. Guaranteed not to have the same experience twice!

For me, Blob is pretty much tied with Hotel, although I adore the theme of Guardians of the Abyss. You can really see the curve of improvement in the standalone scenarios; I'm very much looking forward to War of the Outer Gods.

On 10/22/2020 at 9:06 AM, Carthoris said:

For me, Blob is pretty much tied with Hotel, although I adore the theme of Guardians of the Abyss. You can really see the curve of improvement in the standalone scenarios; I'm very much looking forward to War of the Outer Gods.

Same! I’m very much looking forward to Outer Gods. I hope it scales to a small group as well as Blob does.
Ah, Guardians! It’s such a classic Lovecraftian storyline. It’s got so many cool elements. A little Forgotten Age, with an exploration deck, some cultists, interesting Egyptian locations, both in Cairo and beyond, Cultists stalking your every move, some alarming ancient Egyptian undead unexpectedly popping up, a good solid level of difficulty and of course, doing it all while racing against the clock. I can’t wait for Monterey Jack to finally be released, because this feels like his Standalone!
Excelsior feels a like a Hitchcock movie to me. A little “Film Noir”, with those unexpected twists.

i just finished playing the long-sought "A Phantom of Truth" in the Carcosa cycle; what a mind-bender it was! time and again my bacon was saved by so many weird things happening!

• my Stella deck now has 37 cards and, sleeved, i can barely hold it in my hand (i have small hands). she also now has four weaknesses ~ it's completely out of control.
• Akachi has played much better the last two scenarios, but her Angered Spirits card is killing me. she has three trauma at this point and i will probably have to retire her soon. : o (

random question: when you pick up an ally in one scenario, you keep them through the campaign, right? if they are "defeated" they get discarded and at the end of the scenario just go back into the deck, right? or am i doing this wrong?