I dont think the base game cards will be Arkham gate locations. That would run against the theme of the box.

dj2.0 said:

ok! well in that case... hooray for life!

Julia said:

Change the zoom level of your browser to 400% - or just save the picture and enlarge it with any picture viewer. Its blurred but you can just about read the text.

Shub-Niggurath said:

Or you can right-click on the image, choose "open image" and then increase the zoom.

Organized Crime institution - because crime does pay.

Arag said:

I've always wondered about the whole "crime doesn't pay" saying, when it so obviously does...

More Blight cards, who's left in Arkham to go off the deep end? Besides Carl Sanford and Deputy Dingby

Perhaps people from Kingsport and Dunwich will have taken trips into Arkham to see the (in)famous play...

Sanford's a scumbag anyway. Dingby could be a little comic relief - **** we've got to draw a Blight card. Phew! It's just dingby. +1 to all your Combat checks guys!

There's a whole bunch in Kingsport like Jonas Rigg though.

Skills: the missing holes for me are +1 Max Stamina (Body Building? ), +1 Max Sanity (Concentration) and +1 Focus (Bureaucracy?) Biology (Exhaust for 2 Tougness worth of monsters) from SE, might be a nice touch.

Julia said:

Here's the original size, which is pretty legible:

OMG, Avi will just break the game even more with Organized Crime. Retainers for all at setup ???

Steve-O said:

Erm, that's not what I said. I was hoping it would be a stand-alone expansion as in a new base set. This is just an 'expansion' to tie all the expansions together for those who like to play with multiple expansions, which I do not (at most play with one big box and one small box like a lot of people). None of the expansions to date are stand-alone they all require the base game, so don't know what you mean there.

Stand-alone expansion sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Thanks to everybody for their suggestion (I thought I had missed a hyperlink or something like that), and to Brine for posting a readable image. Honestly, I think the Organized crime is pretty horrible. Everyone can choose a retainer during set-up, and will break immediately the game. No way. Especially because you can spend money wherever you want for buying objects. It seems to me to be even less appealing than Guardians are. If it'd have been something like "when Organized crime is in play, every investigator, during game setup, must discard a skill and take a Sheldon gand membership card instead" now this would have some sense. To me, at least.

Hopefully other institutions will be nastier

To be honest, I doubt it :-x I think they're more like...secular guardians, so to speak. It seems fun, but unless I'm losing a lot to a certain AO (like Chagnar Faugn or Atlatch Natcha), I'll probably not bother :-x

EcnoTheNeato said:

I see another custom contex coming trying to fix everything... ::laughter:: just imagine everyone having a retainer in a game with the Lurker ::laughter:: maybe use Hypnos for a little extra help (is it an impression of mine, or is it really Avi sobbing in the distance? ::laughter:

The thing that bothers me about Organized Crime is not that it's completely beneficial (although they should call a guardian a guardian), it's that, in this particular case, it's a complete thematic disconnect. Becoming involved with Organized Crime should really have some big potential for trouble. There's really no downside at all . If anything, it should be more common to be arrested, not easier to get out of the effects of being arrested (or at least, both things simultaneously). There is the small chance that the Sheldon Gang Membership will get you arrested where you might not have otherwise, but as it is, that's only an optional addition during setup. If this required you to take a Sheldon Gang Membership, then at least that would be something potentially negative.

One thing we should be careful of, though, is that it's possible that there are rules affecting institutions in general that we are not aware of from that sheet. Perhaps there's a general effect whenever you use an institution, such as adding a doom token during setup. But it would be kind of weird to have a general rule like that which balanced them all to the negative, as that would imply that all of them are supposed to be positive. Maybe that's the case, but otherwise, I'm guessing these just are what they are from what you see on the sheets, in which case, Organized Crime does pay, I suppose.

It's also possible, I suppose, though unlikely, that unlike heralds and guardians, there is additional content on the backs of the institution sheets.

Sanford's a scumbag anyway.

To everyone that hasn't played the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Carl Sanford is a Nyarlathothep worshipping madman that wants to awaken Cthulhu and see the world go down. He was never intended to be a good guy.

About Organized Crime having no downsides:

The game is set during the height of the prohibition, which was THE heyday of the organiyed crime/gangs.

And also before the Feds really knew what they were doing (or had the balls to just walk into a theatre and kill a man)

But hold off, folks! We don't know how Insitutions work! Just because we're reading a card doesn't mean that's EXACTLY how it works, nor that this is the only part of the institutional aspect Of course, this could be exactly how things are, but why get hopped up on it when we don't know all the info

I can't wait to get the official rules for how the institution rules will be played. I think they will be a refreshing addition to the base game and a good alternative to the Guardian Rules. I was never really a fan of the Guardians. Cards like Organised Crime will help enhance that nice 1920s feel that I love about this game.

Dam said:

I know. It's pretty ridiculous. I just won't play with the card ::shrug::

EcnoTheNeato said:

I hope they're not all like guardians :'/

Anyhoo, happy birthday :')

Julia said:

Yes, I was, but mostly because I did 12 hours of moving today... Although I'm not happy with this double guardian thing at all. Now you can play Lurker with Hypnos and a free start of game retainer ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

Thanks

Don't forget you can play those types with Daisy, Patrice, Mandy, and Joe!

I'm thinking that there really aren't that many HELPFUL cosmic entities in the Mythos. So who's left to help the Investigators? Well, the same groups that already have been: the Feds, the Faculty, the Bootleggers. Humans banding together against the Horrors. So yes, the Institutions are "Guardians" because they ran out of Guardians.

I think there are more (less masochistic) players out there that use Guardians than visit this forum. Y'all make it sound that if the hardcores won't use 'em, no one will.

jgt7771 said:

i think until we learn if there are any extra institution rules you are correct in assuming that these are guardians of the earthly variety... and while i think i'm somewhat masochistic (i keep playing the game) for not using guardians much I'm not totally insane in using many of the heralds either... they are mainly a balancing tool to increase or decrease difficulty with thematic structure which i am completely for.... its better then them just saying... ok here you can play with these rules now without any explanation

i also can confirm that I know people who only will play with guardians because they hate losing...then again these same people consider fight checks as using your combat check an speed checks to use all your movement points available... its definitely not the hardcore way of doing things (and it aggravates me to death, like a person who considers themselves to have beaten a particularly hard video game when they have infinite lives and health cheats activated) but it's just the way some people play.