After playing Mansions of Madness since its release last Wednesday, I realize there is so much depth to this game that makes it such an incredible masterpiece. It's been a long time since something as great as this came into the board game world, and the design doesn't sell itself short in anyway. One of the great things about this game is the potential it has to expand. There are so many roads for new expansions, and in this post I wanted to list some of the ones I find would be a great edition to an already amazing game.

First, what I like about Mansions the most is the combination of older games I played as a child mixed in with some of FFG's great cult followers. We all feel the elements of Descent: Journeys in the Dark, but throw in a nostalgic round of Clue mixed with the best of 1313 Dead End Drive, and you have yourself an instant win. That being said, some expansion ideas I thought would be amazing for the base game would be:

1. Adding more elements of 1313 Dead End Drive's gameplay. Perhaps throw in a few deadly bookcases, stairs that can be sprung to life, killing monsters and Investigators who are too careless, and of course the cherry on top: the chandelier. Trap cards could be implemented for the Keeper, as well as ways in which the Investigators could utilize the environment of the mansion to protect themselves.

2. Another addition could be the fact other players may be exploring the mansion in search of the answer to the mystery as well. Police officers enter the building every so often and may eject Investigators from play, or even have them join forces as allies. A lot of potential I see here with having other NPCs that only act based on a series of cards and not necessarily through the Keeper or Investigators.

3. One of the things I love about Mansions is the puzzles, and I would love to see more of them in play. Heck, you could throw in a copy of Trivial Pursuit and have Investigators answering riddles to determine if they may open doors or not. Add some trivia questions based on the Lovecraft universe for those who are followers of his books and you add even more flavor to the game. Regardless the choice, I feel more puzzles are one of the essential components that should be included in a new expansion.

4. Finally, one of the greatest things about Mansions is the fact that stories can be played in so many ways. One of the essentials I feel an expansion should have is a boatload of new stories. Of course this seems obvious, but adding more areas for the investigators to explore (such as garden houses, residence halls, or even a darkened wood around the mansion itself would be interesting).

Overall this game is by far one of the greatest I have played in a long time. I love the design, story, and gameplay; each one adds its own element to a near perfect game. While it has its flaws like many board games do, it isn't as cutthroat as some other dungeon delves. It avoids straining the Investigators to much, making sure to have them realize that monsters are not something easily beat as often as they might be in Descent, yet still adds the tension and competition factor to it. Time is not on the Investigators side, seriously.

Anyways, drop some suggestions in here for new expansions and what you feel would be a great addition!

How about giving investigators the ability to "astral project" into another plane of existence? Their physical body would remain in a room in the mansion but another figure or marker representing their astral body would be able to move freely in this other dimension on a separate board. Some physically weaker investigators such as religious figures would have much greater power on the astral plane and could defeat monsters in some sort of battle of will. An old game called "Nightmare House" (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3535/nightmare-house) had a separate astral plane board.

I just wanted to note that this thread's title is quite misleading. I expected a review of the game.

So, apparently the game has great potential to be expanded in interesting ways. But what's actually there right now?

After reading some of the other threads I'm not convinced the game is worth getting at the moment. Apparently, there are quite a few problems:

• too long setup time
• limited replay value
• distracting puzzles
• unbalanced scenarios
• misprinted cards
• missing miniatures

I've also seen quite a bit of initial excitement about the game. I think, it will take some time before someone can actually write an informed review, i.e. with more than a couple of playtests.

Even after completely screwing up the rules, my group is begging me to play it again. I didn't have any missing mini's, the 7 cards were swapped out, and I told them ahead of time that we wouldn't be playing Scenario 5 until errata come out. Very few, if any, misprints exist on the normal cards.

It's fun as hell, and setup goes faster when you let the players set up the board while the keeper seeds. I just couldn't do that first game due to.. well.. teaching them how to make up the map. Just have your players start in the north-west corner and build across, as that is how the seeding order goes.

jhaelen said:

To address the problems so far.

1. Yes setup at the moment is long, but it's a new game and you have to make sure you have everything in the right spot. So I know I've been taking a long time just because I've been double checking everything when I havn't needed to.

2. Limited reply vale - This is not true, someone did the math and there were over 200 setup patterns of just the board and clues, this does not even included the different characters that could be played.

3. Distracting puzzles - I feel that the puzzles add to the game but I'm a firm believer in setting a time limit for those doing them so they don't slow down the game (an egg timer has been suggested in the book and others use stop watches and give the players 10 second per intelligence point)

4. I have found that most of the problems (though I haven't played them all yet) with unbalanced scenarios comes from lack of rules knowledge and either misreaded a card or a rule. So yes, this would unbalance a game.

5. They've included reprints of all the misprinted cards with the exception of the suitcase, But here is the thread for that "http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=208&efcid=1&efidt=455093"

6. It does happen sometimes that pieces are left out of a game, I had everything and so did many many other, those who have posted that they were missing something have/can contact the company and the company will send them out to you.

And yes, as always it will take longer for a fully review to come out that has more than a couple of play tests, but so far everyone seems to be having fun and in my mind that is the main point of the game.

jhaelen said:

If it makes you feel any better, I did run all the stories with all the choices. While there are many different instances of said choices (many different placements of items, etc), I got exposed to all the different styles the game offers.

Then again, every playthrough is new. If you play a story setup once, make your own clues and place them as you see fit, but keep the Objectives the same. Any fan of writing could make awesome riddles..or play a story over again and time them, or even have a score based system as to how many points they can get (number of turns, etc.), but always throw in a new twist to the story in your own way.

too long setup time

Not really that long once you get used to it, especially the Keeper. It's pretty much just sorting out the Keeper's cards and the exploration cards used in the scenario, and then double-checking them so you don't screw the story up. With practice, it won't take much time at all IMO.

limited replay value

Yet to be proven. It seems like a lot of replayability to me. Even playing the same scenario with the same option choices will play differently based on a lot of things.

distracting puzzles

Puzzles are fun and occasionally challenging. Only some people (a minority on the boards, from what I've seen) find them 'distracting'

unbalanced scenarios

unbalanced mainly due to low investigator numbers, and not extremely unbalanced either from what I can tell. Not all options are as easy as other ones, for either the Keeper or the investigators.

misprinted cards

Yes, there are a few of these. It's unfortunate. Hopefully FFG will put out a complete FAQ/Errata soon.

missing miniatures

Only 1 or 2 people mentioned being short miniatures out of all the ones sold (or at least posting). I wouldn't make this into a general problem of the game. My copy was fine and had all the miniatures, for example.

One of things that does pose the problem, if any, is the misprints of the cards, yes. FFG should always double check and double check 5 more times to make sure cards and other material are printed correctly. As long as the FAQ continues to be updated though I have no problem personally, although it it always that extra step to read the material in it..

jhaelen said:

• As with Arkham Horror, the setup time can be shortened using a good storage system, splitting out and grouping the character and story-related cards, etc. Business card racks from Staples and Plano screw jars from your local crafts store work great!
• Replay value is good, but could be better. If FFG had chosen generic token cards to refer to clues on a printed page, it would have helped make online bonus story releases (and stories from the community) much easier. It's still more interesting though to replay a known scenario making your own choices to survive, than to draw a card that lands you lost in time and space.
• I've learned tricks to excuse myself from the room (get a drink, pick up the mail, clip my toenails... ) in hopes that the players will cheat to finish the puzzle before I get back in to pop that Shoggoth on them that I've been saving up to buy over the past 3 rounds.
• I expect the true balance will be clearer after we've all had time to become experienced players all around. Vicious Keepers could (and should) be able to stack the scenario against Investigators, but might not have much fun if nobody wants to play against them over time. On the other hand, Investigators should expect to be challenged... and punished if you ignore clues, head the wrong way, get locked in combat mode...
• Misprints and missing pieces happen, especially on first releases. Imagine the level of whining on the boards if the release had been delayed in order to perfect it. If this were a serious concern I would consider contacting FFG for replacements instead of... you guessed it... whining on the boards. BUT I would hope and expect that they don't rely too heavily on a FAQ / errata document solution.

If I were king though, after replacing puzzles with more clues instead, I would then move the Investigator Trading step to the Investigator Turn, call out the stun token removal step *for monsters* in the printed summary, include more sanity tokens for larger groups (seriously, "use pennies" if you run out?!), then shrink the denominations on wound tokens: do you really need 1-11 just to latch it into the figurine hook? I can make change with $1, $5, $10, $20.

Just minor gripes though! Overall Mansions meets some very ambitious goals.

insanimo said:

Umm... WHAT???

Yup! Meaning: please finish the puzzle so that we can get on with the game! I [the keeper] will be over here doing something else until we can get on with the more interesting aspects of the game.

insanimo said:

Well if you are going to do that, (not that I approve of it) then why not just remove the puzzles? Add in riddles or just make it an intelligence skill check or something.

But I for one actually like the puzzles and all the players I play with seem to have no problem with them either.

Also have you asked your players if they like the puzzles or if they just think that they are a waste of time? If they all like them I'd say keep them in and run them as they should be; if everyone hates them then get rid of them and just make it a skill check. But that's just my two cents.

Kazi said:

I'd have to agree, with the addition of: if the players like them but agree it's taking a lot of table time, impose one of the time limit rules for solving it in a turn.

Just to add something to the "my players hate puzzles" argument:
3 investigators, two were being slowed down by combat, the third one was Harvey. When he first saw a puzzle, there was a length of "you ARE kidding me, right?" while I set it up. I later told him that, when he selected the frail old man who needs a walking stick he clearly wasn't expecting to use him in COMBAT, so, obviously he wanted to use his brain instead. Several puzzles later there was less complaining, more "nooo, I'm stuck for one round, ****!"

Although I expected him to NOT like it, he later looked at the other trait options for Harvey, discussing how he could optimize the character. So, even if there is a lot of whining about the puzzles, maybe they like 'em. Otherwise, if everyone just wants to do combat and combat only and possibly more combat and oh-****-this-item-ain't-a-weapon-so-it-is-crap, maybe Descent would be a better game...

You're not the only one playing the game: that's true, which is why the puzzles are still in (until I hear otherwise from my friends). I don't have to like it.

Why don't you just drop them? I'm not the only one playing the game.

You're among the minority. Maybe so, maybe not. We'll see how the puzzles feel after 3, 4, 5 months of play (especially from the Keeper's perspective). I don't have to like every mechanic, just replying to a forum titled: "Review Of Game."

Why don't you impose the alternate time limit rule? The fact that this option was added to the formal rules is telling. But watching the clock, listening for the egg timer to go off or listening to the Jeopardy jingle is not that exciting.

Maybe this game is not for you, try hack-and-slash games like X. This isn't the case: I'm interested in Mansions. Cthulhu games are intended for brains over brawn, which is why I'm particularly interested in the clue mechanic, which is *not* hack-and-slash. I would prefer more (and more subtle) clues, over the puzzles, that's all.

"Clip toenails, waiting for players to cheat past the puzzles" is my house rule.

A good mechanic in Mansions that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the evade test (which could be called an evade "penalty"). The ability to take damage, then get away is much better than in Arkham Horror, where often the evade roll is extremely difficult, landing you in the hospital. In Mansions you might take damage, but you can still take an action -- kudos!!

I agree with the Evade mechanic, as well as other mechanics that still allow the players to take their turns even if they take damage or horror for any reason. Lovecraft games aren't about imposing a **** fest on monsters, but more knowing that they are a big annoyance.

I completely agree, the evade check in this game is great and helps keep it balanced between the players and the keeper.