I haven't played the game yet, but I heard some people saying that after you've played a scenario, it stops being fun, since you already know what's going to happen.

But does is a scenario really becomes unplayable after you played through it?
I'd imagine that replaying a scenario is just like replaying a video game, or watching a movie again. You may know what happens plot-wise, but it's still fun.

As I said, I haven't really played it yet, and this is the only thing keeping me from running to a store and buying it right now.

Is the randomnization and player choices enough to make each game play SIGNIFICANTLY different?

And I mean really different, like, a whole new experience, not "instead of turning right I turned left this time"

Because if there's still room for strategy and planning even after you've played a scenario dozens of times, I'm definitely getting this.

Blind Pumpkin said:

What randomization?
There are layouts for what cards, in what order, lie where. Once the players *know* where the specific set of cards is, they *know* what will happen where and when. (That is, if they are able to count cards in a casino. Remembering every item you found in every dungeon is hard )

However, there's an amount of uncertainty in the game, at least for the investigators, as there are several "ways" of playing each Story as determined by the Keeper.
Before setting up any game, the Keeper has to answer an array of questions (3 - 6, with 2-3 solutions), where one question decides the overall tone and objective of the Story, while others affect certain rooms.
So, as an example, the Keeper has to decide which room the former housekeeper used the most. Depending on his decision, the investigators have to enter a certain room to make progress or different Monsters spawn at specific locations.

Of course this SEEMS like a lot of possibilities, but if you look at it, the map is always the same.
The Keeper always has the same opportunities, however HOW he might use them differs.
The overall tone of each Story is comparable at all its iterations, but it's not necessarily the same.
(There's one Story with a focus on Cultists. One about Fire. One about Darkness. These will most likely play similarly at each replay, only "where to go?" changes.)

Lets say you play with a certain group of friends every 2 weeks, then playing each Story once will take you 2 1/2 months. Replaying them with another variant adds another 2 1/2 months, so basically you may fill half a year with just playing completely different versions of the Stories. Afterwards you MAY have to reuse old answers, however you can mix them up with new ones or other combinations.

I know, I understand that, but what I mean is, one day you're going to run to out of alternatives. Isn't it possible to replay a scenario, without harming the mechanics of the game?
I'm not talking about revealing plot-points. What I want to know is if the gameplay is affected when the players are familiar with a scenario.

Like for example, if there are cards or items that require the ignorance of the investigators for it to work properly, or things like that.

Players will know which rooms to explore to find the clues (which progress the story), assuming they can remember. Clues and scenario-specific items are always placed in the same location, depending on the scenario variant. Certain items are placed randomly, but none that have a direct impact on the progression of the story.

It would be similar to re-playing an RPG supplement.

It would certainly be harder to the Keeper, as he would not have the luxury of watching the players muck about exploring as the event card markers stack up, but I suppose even that is dependent on the scenario.

Umm... I'll just tell you what a game looks like without going into the crunchy bits, otherwise I'd spoil too much.

Say, we play a certain Story. As the Keeper I decide that I'll select option A on the "main" question. This also selects the objective and the position of the last clue.
Now you, the players, select your investigators, see the map, remember that that's the Story where the Keeper uses Witches a lot.
You remember the last time you played it some months ago, when your friend died while he tried the reach the exit, and the last time, when you barely managed to kill the end boss.
You don't know which objective I've selected.
Before your first turn I'll read out a text that is determined by another question I had to answer. This generally shows you where to go first. It's something like "there's light in the bedroom", or "the grass on the way to the back entrance seems trampled down.
Since you've already played the Story once and the text is really blunt, you know where to go first.
Once there, you find a clue that is determined by another question I had to answer. Whatever it says, it's basically just another "Go there next", sometimes better hidden than other times.
Some events happen, affected by the already known or still unknown answers I've given. You remember those, since you don't forget things like "A car full of Cultists appear at the front entrance!" if properly played out

Well, and that's basically the game. You find a Clue Card, get directions to the next Clue Card, try to stay alive in between.

There's an amount of uncertainty for the investigators, since they don't know which permutation is currently being played, but the overall feeling is always the same.
Whether you find "He killed the butler and hid the corpse in the basement" in the kitchen or in the bedroom doesn't matter - you remember what happened once you go there :-/

So once you've played all possible combinations, the whole "riddle" part is basically removed, since you already know which Clue directs to which room. It becomes a match "investigators vs. keeper", where everyone more or less knows what's going to happen when and tries to abuse it as much as possible. It's like replaying a Quest in a videogame or pen and paper RPG. You know what is going to happen, but still try to find other, better ways

Elbi said:

Oh, ok, so the gameplay structure isn't really affected by player knowledge? Thanks for clearing this for me, definitely picking this up then!

Knowledge will be helpful (because they know the "tricks" the Keeper may play on them), but they cannot be perfectly sure what will happen until it happens.
However, the different outcomes MIGHT be really small: Whether a Monster spawns at Room #1 or Room #2 doesn't really make a big difference.

If they know what Monsters spawn in which turn, probably it is time to switch to another game and wait for an Expansion pack (which will surely arrive at some point in time - if we compare MoM to Descent, which started of with a small amount of Quests as well, the first Expansion might introduce a lot more Stories and/or ongoing campaigns.)

But this will take some time

At the risk of getting yelled at - the game has a couple of problems that you can avoid.

Foremost, when you get the game - DO NOT jump in and start playing a scenario like most of us did. While I realize that most games like this take some time to learn the rules - this initial release has several problems in errata and replacement cards that should come with your game. I have found that it is very important to closely read all the rules and the online errata - check out the forums here BEFORE you play your first game. This is not what I usually do either - but the scenarios we have played have been grizzly failures - players get mad and hateful of the game - primarily because we didnt know "this errata" or know "that rule" as it was overlooked OR not printed on my card. Our experience was we read the rules and jumped into Scenario 1A with "hunt down walter" - and we didnt have the replacement cards in our set - so catching walter was pretty impossible.

Here are some of the key mistakes we made that hopefully will help others:

1) we thought the number if the corner of the Trauma cards was additional damage along with the Trauma outlined - its outlined in the rules that the player must be BELOW OR EQUAL to that value before it can be used. We missed it.

2) We missed that players can only have one Injury and one Insanity (page 25) as it was under the example and we jumped to the next section when we read it.

3) In the puzzles, we missed that the little arrows have to go upward and on the Rune puzzles that the "notch" goes upward on it - not to the side.

4) We thought guns could shoot through open doors as line of sight - when they cannot.

5) We thought monsters couldnt go through locked doors when they can.

6) We knew that monsters lost their turns when stunned so we thought players did to - they dont - the lose one movement but still get one action and one movememnt (and are at -2 to Skill checks).

7) We didnt know that you test for Horror when a monster PASSED another investigator - we thought only the last investigator where the monster STOPPED had to test HORROR. This is not correct. You test each step.

8) If you think that a Keeper Action card can be used multiple times on one monster or multiple times on the same investigator - you better look it up. Our Keeper used Uncontrollable Urges on the same investigator - preventing them from ever reaching the exit and winning.

9) It says to test for HORROR when the monster enters a space with an investigator - NOT when the investigator enters a space with a monster.

10) We didnt think invesitigators or monsters could move diagonally - when they can.

11) Unlike the investigators, the Keeper cannot do his turn in any order they like - akak they cannot complete an attack - then move the monster. Alternately, if the EVENT STEP puts a monster on the board in a space with an investigator - the ATTACK STEP has already been completed and you cannot attack until next turn.

12) If you run into a situation where you have a DOOR that cannot be unlocked - you may have missed something. In Scenario 1A, we missed that on EVENT 4 - all Locks were to be removed.

13) We missed that "DRAW" a puzzle piece costs TWO puzzle actions to perform - as we thought all puzzle actions cost ONE. (p 18) and when an investigator solves a puzzle - OTHER PLAYERS MAY NOT HELP THEM.

14) We missed that Barriers can not be moved from their starting space. This is one of those that I think should be changed - as the investigators wanted to put the barrier on the other door in the room but since they couldnt move it out of its starting space it would mean they would be blocked into a room with the monster vs blocking the monster from entering the room.

15) When you are killed (before the reveal) a player can re-enter the house with a NEW investigator. Players quickly figured out this is a good way to use an investigators special abilities - with the goal of dying off and entering the house with the investigator they really wanted.

16) We knew that once all the monster figures were on the board - that the keeper couldnt add anymore. However, we missed that the keeper could KILL a monster on the board to place it elsewhere. p 25

People reading this will say - RTFM - and I have to agree with them. However, I know that new players eager to try out their new cool game will many times try to play on the fly. However, I have learned quickly that this is one of those games you really need to "get it down" before you play as I've lost a few players from this game already due to Errata, missing cards and misunderstandings of the rules. All gamers have "seasoned" and "inmature" players who join in and some more than others - flair up "unfairness" quicker than others. My "seasoned" players continue to try out the scenarios - but each time we play - we seem to learn some rule we overlooked and players continue to harp on things like "Why do players have to evade monsters and get hurt - when monsters can just wander past the investigators without any test or damage...UNFAIR." Geez - some people

I thought horror checks were caused by a monster entering the same ROOM as an investigator (and vice versa), as opposed to the same SPACE.

Page 13 of the rule book.

I don't think a monster moving into an investigator's space triggers a horror check, unless the monster happens to be entering the room at the same time.

I don't think there is an issue with replaying a scenario unless you play nothing but MoM and play it a lot. We played four games in the first week we had it, but now didn't play it for a week and when we pull it out again in a week or two even if the basics of a scenario are familiar I don't think anyone will remember the details. The differences made by the keeper's choices can have a fairly radical effect on things.

One thing I think just makes the game a million times better - first play - or replay is not setting any cards out on the board. Someone posted a narrative description of all the rooms for Scenario 1 using a set of choices. The 'flavor text' of the rooms went along with what was really going on the scenario (based on the keepers choices) and not having the investigators able to just aim for large stacks of cards is a night a day difference IMO.

Whoever wrote that up is a man-gawd and when I am done painting I plan on doing the same for other variations of Scenario 1 and then moving on to some other scenarios.

Great Hasters Ghost!

Your right - see this is exactly what I am talking about. How much must we study this before we get all the rules correct!

I know pretty much every scenario inside out. The first time I played as the investigators after learning the details of every scenario was the best game I've had of it so far. I think knowing the game well actually makes it better.

Honestly, saying it isn't replayable because you've played a scenario is like saying Monopoly isn't replayable because you know where all the properties are. Or that Axis & Allies boardgame isn't replayable because all the starting pieces are set.

The Keeper gets different Trauma & Mythos cards every game. Dice rolls go differently. Players will choose different investigators, and choose different abilities for those investigators. The Keeper can choose between 3 final objectives for the scenario, and 2-5 clues (depending on scenario) with 2 possible positions for each clue. Clues can only be revealed in order due to lock cards, so the investigators cannot really "skip ahead". There are also some random cards strewn around, which occasionally have useful equipment for the investigators.

So, there are a variety of things that will make a game play differently each time you play it, even if you know the scenario, final objective, and all the clue positions.

Dvang said it well. I am excited by how easily expandable MoM will be by adding so little. Think at how much variety you'd add by giving each investigator 5 more cards... two more physical/mental trait cards and another item. The number of variations would go through the roof.... compare that to adding 1-2 (?) location cards to each neighborhood deck in AH.

What AH does do way better is offer freedom. MoM is a dungeon-crawlesque tunnel run, clue to another clue onto the next, as investigators, deviating from the A to B to C to D only wastes time in general. Not only do the Clues set limits to the game, but also the Events, which are always in the same order in each Scenario, many times doing the same thing regardless of Keeper's setup choices.