Ok, I've double checked the board lay out and card placement, and I've looked up the description of lock cards.

Here is my trouble.

Objective 1b states "The keeper wins if an investigator enters the Freezer"

Problem one is that "Opening the Gate" is a lock card which means that players technically can't enter that space until the lock card is resolved so I can never accomplish this. Unless this card allows the character to move into the space as there is nothing stopping them or needs to be resolved (except for killing them for trying to enter the freezer)

Problem two occurs if triggering this cards counts at the Keepers win stakes, as there is nothing keeping the players from wandering into that room before the timed event card warns them away from it. (Like my players did)

Problem three occurs if you don't limit the use of "Uncontrollable Urges" and just have investigators move X number of spaces and enter the room which means at the very least they are dead and it also possibly means that I have won as there is nothing (like another locked door requiring a key) to stop them from getting to that area.

Am I missing something? Or is it just suppose to be really hard/almost impossible?

Details sent off to support so hopefully we will have some answers (or I'll be told that I missed something, which is possible, though I'm not sure what it would be). Either way I'll post the information I get here.

Glad I didn't play this option on Friday night. Also, the 1st event card seems to make more sense when using this scenario option than the other ones. I wonder if that needs to be fixed as well?

Here is the reply I got:

"Hello Kelly,

1) When resolving this lock card, the investigator moves into the room, is killed and then the keeper wins the game.

2) If your investigators wander into this room before the Event warns them about this, then they had an important learning experience – Follow the clues! If they are ignoring clues and randomly looting the house, then they are never going to win the game.

3) The rulebook specifically states that the Keeper cannot move an investigator through a lock card. The keeper either needs to win by gaining an ally (with the "Loss of Will" mythos cards), use the "Compelled by Madness" Mythos card, or play a psychological game to trick the investigators into the freezer.

I hope this answers your question!

-Corey Konieczka
VP of R&D
Fantasy Flight Games"

Another big thanks to FFG for answering all my questions and pointing out that I had completely missed a rule (see 3). It's nice to know that any questions we have can and will be answered in a clear and timely fashion.

1) Good thing to know.

2) Which makes sense seeing as this is the more advanced scenario. But it does seem to cut the game short, but the next time the players will probably be more cautious.

3) I completely missed the fact that you cant use Uncontrollable Urges to move people into locked rooms. I guess this makes me a horrible jerk, but I'll know better for next time (though by the point I had started forcing people into the room I had already won by the first guy wandering into it so I guess it doesn't matter so much...so I guess I'm not a jerk and will know how not to be a jerk next time I run this)

I ended up running this scenario last night and had played with objective 1b. The players had spread out through the house rather than staying clumped together tightly following the path of clues. One of the players made his way to the Freezer on the turn before Event 1 would give the warning to stay away from the freezer. At that point, when it was revealed that I had won, it had created a rather unsatisfied reaction from the players. We had played a bit further, because it was a waste of time to set it up and have lost that soon.

jeffvandenberg said:

There is no way of resolving what you feel to be fair. I have 2 C'thulu adventures under my belt as a player and spectator. It wasn't always "fair". Having to go down a dry well, at midnight, in a cemetery, to near certain doom at the hands of a being that shouldn't exist, actually struck me and the other Investigator with me at that location as being rather fitting, considering Lovecraft etc.

You don't always get to know. If you take some of the game as "theme", in a way to give an RPG experience in a few hours rather than weeks, then one could live with it. Game-wise, one should learn to follow clues, and don't overlook the characters that let you look at clues and objectives.

My first two games, as a Keeper, gave me people new to the game (no surprise, it being a new game) No one appreciated Sister Mary, or the the two characters that can look at clues and objectives. They gravitated towards the combat characters, or the professor, as he can use magic and is extreme in his own way.

I don't know if I should advise players not to overlook the "Investigative" characters, or just let them learn the hard way, ha ha ha ha.

There is a great deal of truth there, in the spirit of CoC that sometimes you will trip on the wrong things and fall down a well. It's also true, that as a group we were perhaps not experienced yet enough for Scenario 5. It does seem like there are some things you have to learn about the game, and that experience with the game will make for the best experience as a keeper and player. In that regards, it's not that incredibly different from an RPG in that particular regard.

I guess what was frustrating was that the game has a long set up and then it was over in three turns. We probably should have reset up with me just making some different choices, particularly a different objective. I had just hoped that that was going to be the most interactive object for the scenario.

Definitely a learning lesson for the game.

jeffvandenberg said:

This is exactly what I did when the same thing happened in my group during this scenario. The set up to a different Objective took us barely five minutes.

When the first Event triggered this second time, we all laughed at the reference to the doomed room given there. Needless to say, they never entered the room during the second run (actually was not such a good idea in the end) but they learnt the lesson and probably will be thinking twice about rushing to explore haunted houses from now on.

It was a risky decision (because of frustrating results possible) to include such a thing in the game, but for us, worked quite well. I strongly recommend to change the set up slightly right away and go for another Objective as to not waste the set up if this happen to you.

SPOILER

To make the nasty Freezer scenario harder or easier, you can start by choosing 6 A or B, which either puts the first clue in the Coat Room (there in 3 moves, explore on turn 2, points to the next Clue in the Kitchen) or harder by seeding it in the Dining room (which takes 3 turns I believe to get to, and one runs the risk of hitting the Freezer first) Finding a Clue points to the next of course, and reduces the chance of blundering in to the Freezer. As Corey said, one should be concentrating on clues, and just blundering will punish you, but it would take an experienced player to avoid locks for the first Clue. The Freezer with its lock could be hiding a clue, for all the players know.

Now , can anyone give a thematic explanation to what happens to the butler, what his deal is, when one takes into consideration Clues and Event Cards.?

Just ran this scenario and had the exact same problem. It's natural for the players to spread out and explore, because otherwise they just all end up following whoever goes first and the other 3 don't feel like they're doing anything useful. So on turn 3, one player went into the freezer, ending the game before they'd even gotten the first event warning them not to go in there.

Maybe if the game didn't require such hefty setup time, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but we seriously spent longer setting everything up than we did playing. Left a really bad taste in my mouth. I highly recommend Keepers avoid running this scenario. And if you absolutely must run it, at least don't introduce newbies with the game with this one, or they probably won't stick around to play again.

This also happened to my group today.

What might have been a mistake in my part though is I miss-read my group and used uncontrollable urges to lead one toward the freezer to hint that if i wanted them to go that way, don't go that way as I was leading you to danger. They didn't get the message.

I regretted picking 1b (should have read the other two!), and we decided we would run this one again with 1a or 1c.

I think an easy solution would be to adjust the number of time tokens you have to put on the first event card based on number of investigators would be an easy fix. 4 was one turn too many for us.

Pretty disappointing.