Reading through the product description, it looks like a lot of exploring and text reading. I didn't see any dice on the pictures of the game contents. Any idea how conflicts are resolved?

Oh, I just saw on the box contents list: 1 Ten Sided Die.

shadowtag said:

I'd be willing to bet combat is going to be resolved via cards

Artemus Maximus said:

Maybe a mix of cards and dice?

causeitwasfunny said:

I hope the combat is more then just cards. I mix of cards and dice would be better then just cards in my opinion. Although with Corey K designing this game I wouldn't be surprised to see an all card combat game

Hope it's not all cards.

That being said, I have enough trust in FFG and enough interest in the game to buy it even if it is card based combat.

It is all about Corey Konieczka, ftw! Of course there will NOT be any dice involved here.

That would be a huge put-off for me.

Foligatto said:

Well, Product page lists components:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

(including 1 Ten-Sided die)

Hmmm, I am sure that lonely 1 ten-sided die is only for deciding who the first player is!

Seriously now, that's good news! Phew!

Foligatto said:

Or it's used to track turns !

Overall, I prefer a mix of dice and cards for combat. It allows a little bit of tactics as well as blind-luck. Sometimes it can be frustrating when a die-roll ruins an awesome card you throw down, but that's life occasionally. Try as hard as you can, but sometimes the x-factor overrules.

shadowtag said:

Cool. I friggan hate card-combat in boardgames. (I do enjoy CCGs though).

I like TOMB which is all cards, but it has boatloads of dice! rofl

I can't explain why, but I feel cheated everytime Corey throws out the dice for card combat in his games!

The 10-sided die is used for tests. I will quote from the previous diary (on char creation):

"Attributes are used to overcome all manner of challenges, but most often they are pertinent to Attribute Tests. When prompted to perform an attribute test, simply roll a ten-sided die and compare this value to your character’s applicable attribute. If the roll is equal to or less than the attribute, you pass! If a challenge looks too daunting, you can also opt (before the roll) to spend one of your Skill Point tokens. Doing so will add your luck value to whichever attribute you are about to test, and this represents a feat of particular resourcefulness on the part of your character."

I believe that combat will be some form of Attribute Test. Melee probably based on Strength and ranged based on Marksmanship.

Still I can't figure out wich kind of game is this. Is it a dungeon crawler? O something more like Android? Description is quite criptic to me. I am a great fan of Arkham Horror, and I'm really interested in this game, but all I can understand at the moment is that graphics looks great. And thats not a news, FFG games are always graphically cured.

Fingolfin80 said:

I would describe it as adventure game.

The investigators explore the mansion, search for clues, find new items, solve puzzles, fight the occasional monster and generally try to hinder the keeper at whichever evil plan he is up to.

el Igore said:

So yes - closer to Android than Descent.

I assume when you're asking about resolving conflicts, you mean like fighting a monster? I'll respond assuming that that's what you mean.

When you are fighting a monster, you can attack with a weapon that you currently possess... or you can pummel it with your fists if you so desire. There is a combat deck where cards are drawn until you get to a card that describes an attack that uses your type of weapon (ranged, sharp melee, blunt melee, no weapons/fists). You roll a 10-sided die to resolve a check against one of your stats (strength, marksmanship, etc.) and if you roll LOWER than your stat, you succeed against that check. Successes are typically pretty good, and failures usually result in a miss or grazing blow. There are similar mechanics for when a monster attacks you.

TL;DR version: it's a combination of a 10-sided die and cards.

i had the great pleasure of playing the prototype on a game convention in germany.

and combat works like codemonkey said ... you got card decks for different type of monsters (animal,human(like), monsters/ancient ones) and cards are drawn from them for player and monster attacks usually followed by rolling a die on one of your attributes.

the guy presenting it (and taking the part of the gamemaster) told us there are several different scenarios. we played one that seemd to be modelled after the lovecraft story "The case of Charles Dexter Ward" (which happens to be one of my personal favourites =) ) . The gamemaster plays vs the others players and gets some kind of tokens every round and on special events which he can use to play cards that e.g. spawn monsters (mostly zombies in our case) or change the environment by setting places on fire. The playing field is constructed at the beginning of the game with double sided tiles of different sizes (a bit like Zombies!!!!) so the board will be different for every scenario.The characters seemed to be the same as in Arkham Horror...i played Mike McGlen and a friend of mine Jenny Barnes. We had to choose from 2 different setups for our characters with slightly adjusted attributes and items (dynamite or tommy gun in my case). After that we rolled to decide (as the gamemaster called it) a "chosen one" . At first we didnt get what that actually ment but it became clear after we were introduced to a card deck that kept revealing the story over time with the chosen player as its centerpiece. In our case he inherited a mansion from his recently deceased uncle and the other characters joined him to check out his inheritance. Someone asked what our goal was and the gamemaster simply told us, "There isnt one....yet." (He had a scary smirk on his face when he said that and he enjoyied leaving us in the dark most of the game). So we went exploring the playing field. The mechanic was pretty simple : 2 movement, 1 action, usable in any combination and with the option to use the action as a third movement point. When someone investigated a lock we found out about another interesting feature of the game...puzzles. The gamemaster handed out a few small tiles to the player investigating the lock and placed them in a 2x3 pattern...the player could now use his intelligence points to rearrange the tiles by swapping two adjacent ones or by replacing one with a new tile drawn from the box. We encountered different kind of puzzles throughout the game with varying level of difficulty. The game started rather peaceful with our party running around trying to investigate the place but soon things got nasty and fire was everywhere and zombies kept popping out of the graveyard. I even got the chance to shot a Mi-Go in the face with my tommy gun (which was really satisfying after beeing chased by flames for 3 rounds ). Unfortunately we couldnt play the game to the end because the convention closed its doors and most people left already and the staff was cleaning up around us =)

My first impression of the game was really great. Im a huge fan of Arkham Horror and the gameplay immediately felt familiar and elaborate. I like the idea of having an evil mastermind playing vs the crew of investigators and it turned out great in our test game ( the guy introducing the game did a really great job in creating a nice atmosphere (lovecraft nice not cuddly nice ;P ) and he had to do it mostly in english because we had two guys from spain playing with us). In comparison to Arkham Horror the playing field and the range of things you can do felt smaller but the story and atmosphere felt much deeper and kept sucking us in (and we were sitting in a huge hall with hundreds of people passing by and playing on tables around us). I cant await the release to get my preordered copy =)

I hope i could present some interesting information on the gameplay but keep in mind that we were playing a prototype and they mightve changed stuff although the game already felt like a finished product. And please excuse my english...its not my first language so it might be a bit rubbish. we germans arent that good with english grammar

From everything I've gathered, this game looks like it throws in Arkham Horror , Descent , and Avalon Hill's Betrayal at the House on the Hill into a blender, and flips the "puree" switch.

I'm not going to lose my mind over card combat, as I'm actually a fan of games I have some control over. Card combat still has a random element (drawing a hand). I wouldn't mind either way, though.

Considering the fact that Marksmanship is a skill, I doubt combat would be card related.

Doc Belmont said:

It seems to me that combat has a chance to utilize both a card draw and a die roll. I think the Keeper draws a card until it matches the weapon the investigator is using (ranged, melee, etc). Then it'll state what the investigator needs to roll, as compared to their skill, and then results are tallied.

At least, that's my current understanding based on what comments have been made by those at Arkham Nights, Essen, and one of the previews on the site. Not sure how it'll affect flow of the game, but I'm interested to try it out.

It doesnt have a card driven combat mechanic. Causeitwsfunny is correct.

Also, thankfully, it has little relation to House on the Hill other than a group of people investigating a horror themed house.

Hellfury said:

LOL.

You don't care for Betrayal , I take it?

Its a fine game for what it is, I am just thankful that MoM is not simply a rehash using many elements from Betrayal.

MoM is more involved and what you do during the entire game matters instead of just running around blindly until the haunt is revealed.

That's all the more reason to eagerly anticipate its release!

Bleached Lizard said:

Hard to tell, I noticed threat tokens or counters for the Keeper, so I think game elements for Descent can be found in MoM. meaning that you shouldn't linger arround too much, else the GM will draw too many threat tokens.

A blend maybe?

anyway, It looks like an awsome game.