I wish I had a better memory for names or, indeed, my copy of the game with me. Unfortunately I left it at my mate's house as I'm going back over this evening for another couple of games. So forgive me but I can't actually remember the name of the card I wish to talk about - it's something like "To Overcome Death" or something similar. It's a Mythos Rumour in Miskatonic Horror and it is, quite frankly, ridiculous ...

It starts with 3 Clue Tokens on it and one Clue Token is automatically removed at the end of each turn (beginning the turn after it enters play). To add a token to it, an Investigator must pass a Horror Test with 2 successes. When there are a number of Clue Tokens on it equal to the number of players plus 5, you pass; when there are 0 Clue Tokens on it, you fail.

So if on one turn, all the players manage to pass just one Horror Check with 2 or more successes, you break even. You add one token to it and take one token off it. To actually make progress towards winning it, you need to pass 2 or more such tests per turn.

Even in a four player game, this is exxceedingly hard. Especially, and this is a crucial point, that on average one monster comes into play each turn. Meaning if you run up to that monster and manage to pass the Horror Test with 2 or more successes, you either break even by killing the monster OR you have to run away/lose on purpose so that you can go back to it next turn and do it again.

This is ... ridiculous. When this card came in to play in our game and coming into play over the next few turns, we had so few monsters in play that it was literally impossible for us to win the Rumour. Not just very very hard, but literally impossible. The best we could do was keep it on 3 Clue Tokens for seven consecutive turns. It was impossible for us to do any better.

And unless you have a LOT of monsters in play when this Rumour comes into play, I imagine this will always be the case. I don't see how this Rumour can be winnable under normal circumstances, or even most abnormal circumstances. And given the "Lost" penalty for this Rumour, this is very painful indeed.

My friend and I are already planning to House Rule this card to removing a token only on turns where you didn't add one. Otherwise this is just too damnably stupidly hard.

Thoughts? Opinions? Comments? Large sums of money? Advice?

Stenun said:

I think i miss something, but if on a 4 players game, all players pass one Horror Check with 2 or more successes, you add 4 Clue don't you ? You're not breaking even. +4 -1 = +3...

Hugues said:

Poor wording on my part, apologies. I meant "if all players collectively pass just one test between them with two success, you break even".

It depends on what the wording on the card actually is but I suspect you may have misinterpreted the intention. I don't have the card in question but usually such cards require that you go to a location and then perform the test, so it may be such that you do not actually require any monsters to be on the board to perform the Horror Check.

As Stenun mentions, it might be that all the Investigators can try and pass a Horror Check every turn. That would certainly be more in line with the way the Rumor cards work.

xris said:

No, you need monsters.

In a four player game it's a struggle to keep the Rumour breaking even, let alone make any real progress on it.

So what is the Fail penalty for the Rumor?

Dam said:

As I say, I don't remember. But I'm fairly certain it made both my mate and I wince at the thought of it.

I will have my copy of the game back this evening after our games and will type out the card in full then if no one else has doen so by that time.

How does Hank interact with this rumour then?

Pass = everyone gains +1 max stamina and discards 1 injury.

Fail = All monsters are Endless and Undead don't count towards the monster limit.

It is pretty harsh and totally worth throwing a few combats to pass. Note that if you are throwing a combat you can all throw it on the same monster provided no one screws up and defeats it.

Veet said:

Pass is pretty weak for the effort that it seems to require. As for Fail, I was expecting something truely deadly, not meh that it turned out to be. Against Shub-Niggurath early, yep, nasty, rest, M-E-H. Then again, monsters are only slightly above Arkham Encounters as things I care about in the game, so less to no monster trophies doesn't mean a thing to me.

Veet said:

That's the one, thank you.

And it's not just against Shub-Niggurath that it would hurt. It completely kills at least half of the Personal Stories, and makes things much harder against Abhoth, Atlach-Nacha, Bokrug, Tsathoggua and Yig - all of whom require monster trophies in some way.

On the other hand, what, if Jim Culver has passed his personal story before this rumour fails? Or even more extreme, if he is allied with John Legrasse?

Stenun said:

How do A-N and Yig require monster trophies ? Do you mean spamming for Allies and Blessings? Tsathoggua, meh, final combat is a loss anyways unless you gear up very likely a loss even if you do, so moot IMO. Bokrug, you can remove Beings with gate trophies, harder yes, but doable. Only thing this Rumor really does is lower the score in winning games.

As for Personal Stories, pass/fail on them very rarely is the key difference between a win and a loss. Someone like Silas, just grab a trophy on turn 1 and your PS is set, hell, on the other hand, it helps Vincent Lee who can never fail his PS. On quick count I saw 12 PS that require monster trophies, with Tony Morgan one that you probably actually want to fail instead of passing and Vincent (not among the 12) as mentioned being helped by this Rumor if failed.

Veet said:

Even better than throwing the combat is to just max out your Will and Sneak, go to a location with a lot of dudes, enter combat, pass a horror check, and then flee before you even have to make a combat check. Depending on how many monsters are in that location, you might have to stay there and repeat for a couple turns, but I do agree that this will usually be worth passing (plus you don't even have to worry about accidentally being injured in the process)

Since we are discussing this card, let me ask a question about the horror checks.

For monsters like the Maniac and Witch that has a "-" and no penalty listed for the horror check, can you actually do a horror check against these monsters with no modifier and take the results for the rumor or does the lack of a modifier or damage prohibit a horror check against these creatures.

Thanks

There is no horror check against the – icon. Likewise for combat checks if the appropriate space shows –

Not entirely convinced of you case, Dam, particularly as most of your arguments tend to be merely a dismissing of my points without much thought.

This Rumour is VERY hard to win. I would argue it is the hardest Rumour in the game by quite a stretch. Under the usual circumstances you'll need several Investigators working at it over multiple turns. That's a lot of resources to suddenly take away from the other parts of the game where they'd usually be focused. And even then, most turns you'll probably just break even on the Rumour - not getting a net gain at all.

Secondly, the Fail penalty is very harsh. One or two players might think monster trophies are mostly irrelevant but I don't think most players would agree with that - certainly none of the players I game with would. It's all about getting monsters to get Clues or Allies or Blessings to make it easier to do the gate travelling and sealing. Take that away and suddenly even the simplest of games is much harder.

This is an over-powered Rumour; the method to try and pass is overly difficult and the Fail penalty is overly harsh. Put them both on the same card and you definitely have a card that is easily the nastiest and hardest Mythos card in the game,

Stenun said:

Ehhhh, it's harsh. But it's not *that* harsh. I mean, basically it makes the game a Tsothoggua game (except not really, because you can still get gate trophies for trading).

Avi_dreader said:

I can think of two that are definitely harsher and one that is variable depending on the situation.

One Thousand Young is definitely harsher. But it creeps towards the Fail condition so rarely and it's easy to win.

Return To The Old Ways is (arguably) harsher but it is so easy to pass that it's never a problem. It just becomes a necessary action to be completed asap.

As for the variable one, I think Good Work Undone removing all Elder Signs can be harsher sometimes (removing 5 is harsh, get it at the start of the game and have it remove 0 is not). But it takes just 6 Clues minimum to Pass, which is easy. Yes, Good Work Undone could possibly keep going forever depending on the die rolls but it's easy to stay on top of it.

(Tattered King can be harsh but it's very easy to stay out of the street at the right time, just don't chance an Encounter that could kick you out of the location and hey presto.)

So those with harsher Fail effects are far easier to avoid, making the power of those Rumours considerably less. And that's my point - it's the combination of an extremely hard (often impossible) Pass condition coupled with an extremely harsh Fail effect that makes this Rumour exceptionally and overly nasty and powerful.

Stenun said:

Given what you have to do to Pass it and (for me) the weak Fail-clause, I'd utterly ignore it, go about my business and let it Fail. For all the hype the original post was giving this Rumor I thought its Fail would be something like "all monsters gain Nightmarish and Overwhelming 3", not "all monsters gain Endless". Whoop de fricking doo, so I kill a monster, it goes back to the cup instead of getting a trophy? Monster trophies contribute so little in terms of Clues gained (since I don't 99% I don't bother with Allies or Blessings, even less with Deputy) that this Rumor doesn't make the game harder by a significant amount (if at all) for me. Maybe if a group is all about gung-ho killing monsters, sure, but game is about gates, monsters are a distraction, whether one gives me a trophy or not doesn't change my approach to the game at all, I can still get my Clues just as easily by collecting + cashing gate trophies at SB.

Hardest Mythos I'll give you, but for me there is no point in even trying to pass it, so it kinda sputters away. Nastiest? Monsters getting just Endless is nasty? Not by a long shot. There are many Mythos cards that when ill-timed can turn a win into a loss (or draw), but this Rumor isn't anywhere on that list.

Have to agree. For me this is a pretty tame rumor. The divertion for solving it is actually something you'd do anyhow (granted you have to shift tactics a bit, but your dedicated monster hunter will be out ther killing anyway, won't he?) unlike many others where you loose useful stuff for fulfilling them. Also the fail could be worse. Ok, no more trophies. So? Sucks at the start of the game, but so does pretty much every other rumor.

I find it amusing that one would challenge Dam on the threat of a Rumor involving monsters. What's the phrase?...like ice-skating uphill.

This is just a clash of strategies. I still don't completely understand how Dam plays, but he obviously ignores half of the game as much as he can (the half that doesn't involve Gates or Clues). Whereas Stenum relies quite a bit on monster trophies for enhancement. (My Cult does too.) But everyone has a particular Rumor that they hate, that isn't necessarily hated by everyone else. Even in my own group, someone likes the Terrible Experiment for offering a smorgasbord of targets without having to chase them down; the rest find this player insane on this count.

Stenum, your choices are simple: either remove the Rumor from your games, or start thinking outside the box on how to beat it, or how to survive it once it fails. Arkham Horror abhors stagnation, and when a tried-and-true strategy emerges, it will find a way to shatter it. (Enter Atlach-Nacha.)

But shoot, I would do anything--ANYTHING--to just get Cover-Up and Mistrust in Dam's Mythos Deck. Two Rumors that would absolutely destroy him. (But he's still................*shrug*................to risk putting Kingsport in his games. )

jgt7771 said:

But shoot, I would do anything--ANYTHING--to just get Cover-Up and Mistrust in Dam's Mythos Deck. Two Rumors that would absolutely destroy him. (But he's still................*shrug*................to risk putting Kingsport in his games. )

Mistrust doesn't look too bad given that I shop almost purely at C. Shoppe, so tend to have "left-over" UIs to chug away. Combined with reduced numbers from 2 extra boards, it starts at 9 Clues, so 4 UI + 1CI, not out of reach by any means. Of course with KH in the mix it would reduce numbers even further, 4 treated as 2 investigators so only 6 Clues placed, 3 UIs are present about 99.9% of the time.