Alright the title may be a bit of an exageration but the odds of investigators beating the keeper is astronomical if the keeper is even remotely bright. I play with a group of gamers who are all serious players. We play a ton of games and are all rather competitive. Well I ended up being the Keeper this week and we decided to do Scene 2 Obj. 1C. I went rather easy on them but once they figured out where the final clue was, the crypt, things got out of hand.

All I had to do was just summon huge amounts of cultists at the nearby altar and then on the following turn sac them to change them into shogs and hounds. The investigators could not do enough dmg to even put a dent in the sheer number of creatures I was creating. There were 4 investigators by the way. All I had to do was weaken a couple of them and then the second they revealed my objective card all I had to do was kill one of them to win. That was it. With 5+ monsters in the next room and a hand full of cards there was no way they could make it to the exit in time to win...

I felt awful. I knew they could tell if I threw the game and I didn't want to deny them a real victory but seeing the investigator make it to the clue room with an army waiting to kill her next door was demoralizing an honestly not fun for me either...

Honestly a Shog for 3 Cultists and a Hound for 2. And only 1 threat to make a cultist...With 4 threat coming in per turn it was just stupid...

TL;DR What stops the keeper from camping an entire posse outside the Clue 1 room (or near the lowest HP investigator) and just slagautering one player once the objective is revealed? Worked fine for me and I wasn't even planning on it until the last two turns.

Anyone else have this problem? Did I cheat somehow?

Oh on a final note. The investigator I ended up killing was wearing the Cultist Robes. They didn't help much. The other monsters weakened her just fine before she got in the room; she was only one or two hits from dead.

We've errata'd Summon Worshiper to only allow 1 new cultist at each altar per turn to prevent precisely this.

Perfect! That is exactly what I was hoping!

Was caused the objective to reveal? The Event timer or the Objective reveal conditions?

We have played scenario 2 twice, and investigators never get further than 3th clue. They were surrounded by monsters kicking and biting them. I think this errata fixes most of the problem. But I have another question. Can you summon a cultist, and at the same time kill it to summon a Shoggoth, tindalos hound, or a zombie? or do you have to wait to next turn to kill it and summon? I think this will give investigators even more time to be ready to fight.

Per the rules, it can all be done on the same turn, assuming the Keeper has the threat to do so.

Euhm... I don't get the problem really. It's GOOD that the keeper CAN always 100% win if he CHOOSES to.

However, you are the keeper, you are role is to create a challenge for the investigators not just run them over. Who agrees that is fun? If you do nothing but give them shi* all the time who will think the game is any fun? Don't make it a flawless victory. Slow down on your hate and bring them a reasonable amount of challenge. If you want to be a bitc* and spawn tons of shoggotsh in the first turns go ahead, but dont expect anyone to want to play with you again.

ishinken said:

And what evidence do you have to back these statements up?

Ishiken:

While you can certainly play the game that way if you want to (i.e: playing a role similar to the keeper in a Call of Cthulhu role-playing session) and I can even agree that sometimes that may be appropriate for social reasons, this is not an RPG and the keeper is not a game master.

The game is marketed and described as being a competitive game between investigators and keeper, so it is perfectly reasonable that one expects that both sides can enjoy a reasonably balanced experience if both sides play to win. Being Cthulhu and all, I don't mind slightly better odds for the keeper and that the investigators face frequent painful defeats , but the situation the OP describes goes way beyond what can be deemed acceptable

To the guy responding to me first:

What is there to back up? All I typed were only reasonable stuff I figure out in my head and no statistics to prove a point.

To the next guy responding:

But if they fail at - say - one adventure to achieve this, why not just play with it? If you want to do all you can and find adventures that suits that play style, play those then. If you are not competent enough to "nerf" the other adventures either leave them be or let someone else play them who are not as "1337" of mind.

I know they might claim it's competetive but it's logical that not every adventure fits under this category. What do you want them to do really? For many it might still be fine but really, not that much change is needed to also make it fit your play style aswell. Invent house rulings (simple) or make a handicap (lesser threat, limit keeper actions). The choises are many if the wills are aswell.

ishinken said:

Well, naturally everyone should play as they prefer. I was just commenting on your observation that it was a "GOOD" thing that that scenario is unwinnable for the investigators if the keeper wishes to play as well as he can (i fail to see what this has to do with "1337"-ness, I suppose anyone can deliberately lose a game if they chose to do it- i know i do it all the time with my kids) . While it is perfectly reasonable to adapt the scenario to play something else other than MoM as described by the rules, It is clearly not a "GOOD" thing that that scenario was broken in the first place, else why would the authors chose to have it fixed...?

If you prefer the type of interaction you describe between investigators and keeper, i strongly suggest you try the CoC RPG instead, since it is meant to be played in the way you describe. You will probably like it a lot more than MoM. I know I do (and I love MoM!).

That was just my personal opinion on the take of "game master" vs "players". I personally think it's better that the keeper would be able to (not saying this game is a case of 100% keeper win power) win if he so choose and therefore is a bit in charge of the game and is meant to make sure that all the investigators have a good time and that you are able to give enough challenge yourself to keep yourself entertained aswell.

I want statistics on how many friends the "ME SMASH PUNY INVESTIGATOR!" Keepers have to burn through in order to continue playing MoM... It's a game. If you want competition, play sports, go bet on darts, try some Trading Card Game tournament.

That said, back to topic:

As a Keeper in 2-1C I underestimated a Hound and spent the next 2 turns dealing Mythos Cards in order to allow the players to catch up. However they still died once the three Zombies I needed in the right spots and the Cult Leader attacked them...

There's a statistics thread on this forum, found HERE - if enough players report that the Keeper won 2-1C it should become pretty obvious how easy it is.

Limiting the amount of Cultists that can be spawned per turn or drastically increasing the number of Cultists necessary to create one of the monsters could really change the stories balance. Right now, I'm confused about the Shoggoth only costing 5 threat while in the previous Story a Maniac costs 4. That's only +1 threat for a much harder monster o_O

ishinken said:

You realise you expressed you original post as fact, not opinion, right?

Bleached Lizard said:

Are you an actual FFG employee and these are official erratas, or is this a house rule errata for you and your friends?

I think it's his house rule, and I have to say I agree.

I also played this scenario yesterday (second time playing the game) and it proved quite easy at the end.

Since it was the second time I played I was a bit unsure how powerful the investigators were but in the end they had no chance.

I summoned a total of 11 cultists. 8 of them became 2 shoggoths and a hound (which I moved to the locations to reveal the objective).

The other 3 died at the hands of the investigators. But once I had my 8 cultists by the chapel and summoned the monsters, they lost their hope.

I did a very grave mistake (due to noobness and stress from taking too long to set up the board) of not reading the first "clue" paragraph part of the prologue.

But even so, one investigator went straight to the study and found the locked cabinet. And as someone said earlier, how could they know where the brass key would be?

All in all, it was a fun game, but their odds were low.

At work so can't check, but don't you find the BK when you first the first Clue (highest numbered Clue, is it Clue 3 or 4?)? If so, prologue directs you toward that Clue, either basement or secret passage IIRC.