Im interested in hearing peoples creative ideas with these. I thought of one just now -

Investigators who fail their personal stories may not use clue tokens in final combat.

I wouldn't mind everyone getting a second option to their Personal Stories, something to make them random. No need to change any titles or flavor text, just provide another card that (a) changes the conditions of the Pass/Fail, or (b) changes the green/red Pass/Fail results. Something so that I don't have to keep hearing about Tommy nobly driving off a cliff, or how saving Jenny's sister "isn't worth it".

The personal stories mechanic is I think one of the best add-ons to the game. I never play without them.But I agree that some of the stories fit right in, while others feel fairly tacked on. Randomizing them in some way could've been a nice addition indeed.

f) Personal stories: Cultist monster trophy requirements can also be satisfied by a Maniac monster trophy. Personal stories that cannot be passed due to special rules on the Ancient One or Herald are discarded.

not personal story-specific but they were the reason why i added this: l) Ghouls are Undead.

jgt7771 said:

I am in the process of working up something like this. You can expect my exhaustively detailed analysis here and on Board Game Geek (where the criticisms can be compiled into a nice little Geeklist). I don't think I can create a balanced second story for everybody, but I think the community as a whole can look forward to hashing something out.

We would also be able to use all of the bits and pieces from all the sets that are awesome but don't see enough play. I'm thinking of Psychic, Visions, Coded Messages, Darke's Blessing, Corruption, and Changed, for starters.

A relationship that allows investigators to co-operate over their personal stories came to mind today. Id definately like to see some random element, too, as well as some full balancing applied to them. Its hard to quantify them though.

Most of the personal stories are on the lines of "collect/have #(number) of x before %event happens", where %event is usually the terror level or doom level (or did I get that wrong?) reaching a certain number. Then if you pass, there is a bonus, if you fail, you either get a permanent deduction from some numbered value or you get restricted with regard to certain game effects.

Just off the top of my head, it might be possible to randomize the condition (what to do and by when, let's call it the Achievement and the Threshold) as well as the outcomes, e.g. the pass and fail results. If you just dissect the existing personal stories and write each element on a slip of paper, you could end up with four cups from which to draw a vast number of different personal stories. I'm not saying that all of them will be balanced or fair, mind. Some of the effects may need adjustment to achieve a balance between the condition and the pass/fail results.

But that could indeed make the P.S. more fun. And if you put in different threshold values, you might end up with random personal stories that might be easy or very difficult indeed. You might get stories that are easy to pass, but not worth the bother, or worse, ones that are hard to pass and give no desirable bonus but which have such penalties attached that you just don't dare fail them. Might be fun. Maybe I'll try that.

If you want to be very hard on investigators, you could draw the achievement and the threshold first and leave the pass/fail results unless the required condition is met so players don't know what they will get out of their story or what will happen if they fail. That might add an extra level of excitement that can even make a basic Azathoth game interesting.

What do you think?

Well, some investigators have pass or fail results that reference their special abilities, they are not all so easy to apply to other investigator cards.

Then maybe I wasn't quite clear. I didn't mean just shuffling the ones we have. Just some generic effects on the pass/fail side. You wouldn't have the colour elements of the story, though you could make up a story to match the cards you drew, but you would end up with a random game effect close to the way a personal story works.

sounds like a strange eons kind of idea

when will FFG release a mini card printing machine?

bluepirate said:

I do this anyway. It doesn't work on ME so much anymore because I've just seen all the results so many times, but when I play with others, all they get is the "Achievement/Threshold" card. They have to decide for themselves what they want to do. (It's really fun when I have to keep repeating, "Remember, Tommy getting devoured is the PASS Condition.")

I like your idea. I think we'd uncover some unpredictable flaws if we tried it, but it's a very well-defined idea. Nice thinkin'.

After playing the game for a few months and coming to truly enjoy it, I picked up Dark Pharaoh, Dunwich and Innsmouth. Personal Stories are one of my favorite additions to the game. I agree that alternative Personal Stories are a great idea! I'm especially taken by the notion of using Personal Stories to get some of the lesser used elements into play. I'm especially interested in getting the Benefits and Conditions from Curse of the Dark Pharaoh into play more often. You could use those 8 "rewards" as the basis for a generic personal story that could be drawn randomly instead of the Investigators "official" personal story.

I'd agree if people felt that "Velma's Gratitude" or "Rare Book Collection" might seem a little weak as a reward but its still neat to create a way to get those cards into play more.

Here's a quick (and not very good) example of how a Velma's Gratitude P.S. could go.

Story side: Some quick text about how Velma is your cousin or something and you want to make sure she gets through the current crisis intact.

Conditions side: PASS: When you defeat a Monster on the Easttown street or locations place a marker on this card. Discard 4 markers from this card to Pass

FAIL: If there are ever 4 or more monster in the Easttown streets or Locations you fail.

Pass side: Place Velma's Gratitude in play and gain 1 Clue token and $2.

Fail side: Take the Barred from Easttown Card. Do not discard this Card even if the Terror Level rises. Other investigators make not take this card from you even if they are Barred from Easttown.

Thats a nice idea, thanks. I have played regularly for years and have still only seen one of the conditions, and since I dont read cards until I come across them in play, I still have no clue what they do. Which is great by me, as there are times when I get stung by nasty new mythos cards, or discover awesome new items, even today. So I wont use this for that reason, but its still a cool idea

Condition cards are rare. I think I had the Rare Book collection faceup once or twice. I'm yet to come across many of the special cards in the game. The Cult Membership, for one.

On a somewhat related note, do membership cards count as retainers, or are they regular items?

dj2.0 said:

I get what you are saying and for the most part I don't study new cards either so they keep suprising me, which I really like. When I read this thread I realized I had yet to see a Condition pop up in my games, so I looked a little closer at what it takes to trigger one.

*Spoiler example*:

Rare Book Collection can be triggered by only on 1 Arkham Encounter card. While you are in the Library and you have the Necronomicon and you chose to discard it. Pretty darn slim odds that those 3 conditions line up: Right location, Right card and you already possess the right Item.

Ok, fair enough. And keeping it that rare of an occurance is totally reasonable! However, I think a randomized alternative Personal Story deck that the investigators can chose to draw from in order to cause some of these rare special cards to come in to play is a good idea. It would still pretty rare that the Conditions would take effect: You'd have to decide to draw from the alternate Personal Story deck rather than use your standard P.S. Then you'd have to draw the right P.S. card connected to the Condition in question and finally you'd have pass the conditions to trigger it. So it still wouldn't be happening that often, but it does offer a reasonable alternative and a 2nd way of getting that particular card into play.

miles601 said:

the idea is nice, but i think it sounds more like a rumor.

Rumors usually have more vicious failure results. But a personal story is a rumor of sorts. in both structure and function