Hi: We've only played one game so far (one I lost as the Keeper because I stupidly didn't realise that I was allowed to see the Objective even though the players aren't). I have a question about the puzzle "Power Outage", though: A darkness token is placed in the room, which means that the players are at a minus two to their attribute rolls, etc., and it also takes a movement point as well as an action to explore the room. To turn the lights back on, they have to complete the puzzle with the wiring. We disagreed about whether this was a requirement for searching the room or not. Thematically it made sense for us to just leave the room in darkness and spend the extra movement point to search, rather than waste time to fix the wiring. What are your thoughts on whether turning the lights back on was a REQUIREMENT for searching the room at all, or just a requirement for searching the room as an action without an extra movement point?

Well, as you say, thematically could make sense (And you could always house rule it that way if you feel it works better for you)

But by the rules is quite clear. You cannot explore a room until you solve the obstacle card. Since power failiure is one, you need to solve it before getting the rest of cards.

The advantage how is that, if you solve the puzzle, you automatically continue researching the room, since solving the puzzle is part of the player's "exploration" action. So, should someone be able to solve the puzzle in 1 round, the whole room is lit and searching with 1 single action (and a move, since it's dark when the action is started). Not so much of a disadvantage any more, if someone with enough Int is in the party

Elbi said:

The darkness token is placed as a result of the obstacle card, so it doesn't require the move+action the first time (under most conditions)

Oh, yeah, you're right of course. Thanks!

Thanks for the replies! It's always a little slow and awkward playing a game for the first time as the game owner searches through the rules for answers to unexpected questions.....

We have played the game once and, have a non-wire puzzle issue. In a room that was dark, with a maniac, the investigators attempted to go into a room with a locked door. They simply evaded the monster and attempted the move to go into the room. There was a lock puzzle with the dials in which you have to match colors, three aside, to finish the lock. The point of contention is that there is no rule to the ability to solve a lock puzzle in the dark as the penalties are for combat actions and, any action costs one additional movement. How can they solve a "color-based" lock puzzle in the dark? This seems to make the point of having the lantern to be negligible. Why is there no penalty to solving a puzzle/lock in darkness? They decided the maniac caused so little damage if they failed to evade that it was worth taking a single hit point to try to solve the lock and just ignore the monster. They did the same with fire, simply rolling to move through a room with fire making the extinguisher pointless. Any help on the darkness/lock thing would be great.

As an aside, if there is an expansion, update at some point, the power outage puzzle would have been a little more interesting if, they found that the lights didn't work and had to go find the fuse box in another location to bring the lights back on. Would solve the puzzle issue there as well in which you have to make a connection of colored wires in a dark room...just thematics but, makes more sense then solving puzzles in the dark.

nbxfan said:

Well, puzzles are solved by intellect. And in MoM Int isn't affected by darkness, the same way the Fire status effect doesn't affect the Darkness status effect. It just doesn't!!

nbxfan said:

They did the same with fire, simply rolling to move through a room with fire making the extinguisher pointless. Any help on the darkness/lock thing would be great.

Did you remember that they have to roll a horror check to enter a room on fire? And take damage if they end their turn in that room?

K xx

Yes we knew about those rolls for fire. Thank goodness I printed out the errata as well. We did the scenario with the flaming zombie and, all had a good laugh that if they hit him, he could end up burning to death but, wasn't effected if the fire was on him.

Fire forces Willpower checks, not Horror checks.

nbxfan said:

This is more of a thematic thing using colours to give the players something to work with; "in game" the investigators are picking locks, listening for falling tumblers, or whatever else is appropriate for the lock, but they could hardly put a few actual locks in and make the players genuinely pick a lock (well, I guess they could, but I don't see it being popular, not least for teaching criminal activities). It's like you can't really take a part of the lock away and replace it with one out of thin air, it's just an abstraction of the process.

In fact, seeing as most lock breaking methods probably mostly rely on touch and sound, it makes it rather apt that there is no penalty applied.

Huh. Yeah, I see your point. Not much of a lock when you just have to match colours to open it, I guess.