This probably belongs in the variant forum, but I'd be willing to put together an Artscow deck with alternate Personal Stories for everyone. For people who really need a change, great, this will help that. And for everyone else, something alternate would be nice to have for the sake of variety. It's still a house rule, but with a deck of decent looking cards, it doesn't have to seem that way. I'll start a thread in the variants forum... post your ideas there.

Walk said:

Yeah, that's a good fix Walk. Sadly, you need to play with Innsmouth to be able to use this. Thus my idea of pushing up the limit to six clues. You enter an OW with five, and can have bad luck with the encounters, offering you the sixth one (same bad luck as having 4 and research materials). Nothing wrong with failing the PS in this way, but at least you have a chance of completing it without screwing too much the stretegy of the game.

Reading over jgt's posts, I realized that one benefit I've derived from playing Android is that it's gotten me to regard my characters in a more abstract way. I mean, yes, on a certain role-playingy level I do wish that Hank could save his Pa (and maybe also that my characters could end the game with $20, a cool car, and friends with Houdini), but from a storytelling point of view, it's so much more meaningful and noble and tragic (not to mention Lovecraftian) when he can't, and is left sad and ruined by his efforts to save the world. Not that this is something to strive for either, I'm just saying that I, as the master of my character's destiny, shouldn't dismiss the possibility just because that's not what the character would want.

At the same time, the stories are indirect enough that I don't feel like the characters are typically in a position to consciously decide what the outcome of their story will be, so it need not break roleplaying...it's not like Jenny ever intentionally lets her sister die for the greater good, she was just investigating the wrong leads, getting in over her head in other worlds, not sure whether Isabelle would be better served by hoarding her clues or thwarting the cult via gate closing (and maybe taking the resulting evidence to the cops), and then one day: whoops, box .

Look, I get it. I really do. And I can't say some of this isn't coming from solid bitterness that Darrell, my favorite Investigator....ISN'T ANYMORE. But all of us are coming from a serene Spock-like position of knowledge. We know those stories suck, these stories are okay, and those stories over there are to be passed at all costs. And now we can all sit back in our chairs and dispense guru-like wisdom to those that do not have it: "Oh, foolish one. That story is wasteful bunk. Spend your time elsewhere and deal with the minor inconvenience of failure." And that's what I'm supposed to say to my group?

"Yeah, sorry. Some of these stories are insignificant crap, and some are fantastic. Everyone tells me so."
"Which ones are crap?"
"I thought you didn't want to know."
"We don't."
"Okay, then. Good luck."
"But you know it sucks major ass when we sometimes successfully pass our stories to become gods, and sometimes we pass them at the eventual cost of the game. It's difficult to know how much effort we should put into any given Story."
"Yes, that is unfortunate. But eventually, you will know all there is to know about every Story, like me. And then you will know exactly what to do in every situation. Won'T tHaT bE FuN?"

And "Well, that's Lovecraft! >rimshot<" is just woefully inadequate as an excuse to cover for the vast unbalancing amongst the Personal Stories. There's a Mythos deck and Encounters and Ancient Ones and Heralds that want you dead; Personal Stories shouldn't HELP them do that. Challenge, sure...barricade, no.

I think everyone is getting too concerned over balance and fairness issues. I don't really see why a cooperative game needs all the players to be on a level playing field as part of the experience is having to lend a hand to the less able investigators. If you hate playing certain investigators because they suck then don't play them. Competitive games must be balanced, coop not so much.

jgt771: First of all, remember that, sort of like subochre said, purely roleplaying this game is essentially impossible. How do the investigators know where everyone else is, not to speak of all the gates and monsters? How do they know all the various ways the Ancient One might wake up and how close it is to waking up in each particular way? The answer is: they do not. But the players have access to all this knowledge. The investigators are just sort of wandering about based on hearsay about where gates are and places they have hunches about.

Second: you don't need to wait for players to figure out Stories over the course of many games. Just have them look at the results for success and failure and judge for themselves whether the story is worth it. If they don't want the story results spoiled for them, have them cover the flavor text with the other Story card.

Third: I think this may have been mentioned already, but I'll say it anyway: I don't claim to think all the investigators are balanced, nor am I really willing or able to attempt an investigation to determine the relative power of each investigator, but if you're talking balance in terms of Stories, it shouldn't just be how good they are. Stories are not balanced against each other, they are balanced against their respective characters (who are balanced against each other). Their relative benefits or detriments should depend on how difficult it is to pass and fail them and how good the investigator is. Again, I'm not pretending the investigators are balanced, but, in a perfect world, the stories would be balanced in relation to their investigators, not each other.

I definitely feel the force of your concerns, but regarding the matter of what to say to your players, I don't think there's anything special about this case as opposed to the more general dilemma of whether to boss your characters around or let them make their own mistakes. Just as when they discover that they shouldn't have passed that story after all, they might end the game disappointedly realizing that the clues they spent on a check for a unique item or avoiding an injury might have sealed their last gate. So I treat those decisions in the same way as the stories: if they ask, I'll gently point out what a big deal clues are and maybe speculate about how useful Lore and Will will be to Hank, but you don't ever have to say "this story is terrible, don't ever bother with it."

That said, while Walk and arkhamresident raise good points, I do share the feeling that, if I roll my eyes whenever I see my character's PS (or shed a tear when I draw one who's been crippled in this way), this does suggest a certain clumsiness on the designers' part.

arkhamresident said:

The aim of the base game was to make everyone equal. It's good to have strengths and weaknesses, but a character who's mostly weakness or mostly strengths is a chore and a bore, respectively.

jgt7771 said:

That's true even of "good" stories. Each game is different. Sometimes it makes sense to try to pass a particular personal story, sometimes it doesn't. The decision of whether to try to pass a personal story is part of your overall strategy of the game. Akrham Horror is a great tactical game, but it's a little light on long-term strategies. I welcome the extra layer of strategy that personal stories provide.

avec said:

Of course. As an individual player, I do too. And that's an extremely comfortable position to be in, now that we know exactly what the consequences are. Do you really take advantage of that "extra layer of strategy" with Darrell or Jenny? In the back of your mind, do you play Tommy and Silas as "temps"? Do you tell everyone else at the table to wait on Seals to let Wendy pass, or to stall Gate Trophy usage for Akachi?

Everyone here seems to have the same view, mostly, on that extra layer, and of course it's because the unknown factor is gone. All that's left is the strategy. Well, my group doesn't have that yet, and the trend I've noticed is that the...what would you call it?...the "expected intention" that Pass is "good" and Fail is "bad" is...faulty? (I've heard "clumsy", and I've heard "less than fair".) And that's irking them. Losses didn't use to irk them; they could take losing the good fight in stride. They expect the Mythos deck to hurt. They expect ANY large card to hurt. They expect any small card to help. And in some cases, Personal Stories DON'T, at least not on any level playing field, and it's really leaving a bad taste in my mouth when all I can say is, "Yeah, sorry. That's one of the stories that sucks. You should've ignored that one." Because with this group, there's every possibility that I might have to say it AGAIN the next time that SAME Investigator is drawn several months later.

But I've gotten a whiff of the assumed consensus: that's just how Personal Stories are. Play them strategically, or risk introducing a extra threat to victory by playing them in ignorance. My stance remains: it shouldn't have been that way.

we recently got innsmouth and do play without knowing the result of the cards. while i knew some beforehand (tommy's pass, amanda's fail, silas' fail and tony's two results) from reading these forums, and knew that generally some were good to pass (patrice's, without knowing what it did) - we're slowly going through the investigators and learning the results.

but how we'll play the personal story cards in any given game, seems to be very situational. the last game we played we had two characters that needed 3 gate tokens to pass (norman and akachi, iirc) and one who needs to spend 1 gate trophy (among other things). and akachi fails when someone spells 1 gate trophy. it was weird, we knew at least someone would have to fail. i don't remember who succeeded and who failed, but we did pass patrice' story, of course, since it's easy and i knew it was somewhat good..

jgt: Well, I can only speak for my own game group. Most people are quite comfortable weighing the pros and cons of a personal story, even if they haven't seen it before.

I'd fix Vincent Lee and Ashcan Pete by making them faster- at least give them a speed of 4... Somehow Jenny, Carolyn, and Harvey all manage to be powerhouses with a speed of only 3 but Dr Lee seems dead in the water every game, even though I don't consider him a 'bad' Investigator.

I dread drawing Amanda Sharpe or Ashcan Pete....but I REALLY dread picking Bob Jenkins or Monterey Jack.

Monterey Jack is the coolest character, but he's also by far the WORST investigator, and it's a shame. HE NEEDS 4 SANITY!!! 3 Sanity is useless unless you're a gangster with a Tommy Gun...And why pray tell is an Archaeologist's 'Lore' skill so low?

Speed and Sanity seem to be the most precious commodities...

I agree about Monterey Jack... such a cool character (IJ, of course) but so lame. Here's my take on him... I didn't increase his Sanity, but bumped up his Will, which should help that. He still has the same original ability to draw an extra UI, and the added ability to gain +2 when going for a UI, but he doesn't start with any UI, which I think balances that somewhat. Of course, he starts with an Ally, which is great, but that seemed fitting for Indiana Jones usually having a sidekick of some kind. He's possibly a bit overpowered now, but definitely a much more interesting character to play.

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

Vincent would be an interesting character if he had five speed...

As for the rest. What?! Bob is GREAT! He's fast and an excellent fighter, starts with lots of money, is good at items, and when you have Innsmouth, he gets even MORE money (that he can convert into clue tokens). And Ashcan is excellent too, even though he's a bit harder to use (I'd argue that he's a top tier character). Very good at combat, and he can pull off quite a number of combos that nearly break the game. You just have to understand how to use his shopping powers properly (recycling old journal, the king in yellow, eltdown shards, dhole chants, livre d'ivon, or searching for Elder Signs with one dollar.

Hmmm... Perhaps house ruling that Vincent has speed as a fixed possession skill, and Monterey, will.

See, I have to say that the Personal Stories did a really nice job of "fixing" several of the characters, including Monterey and Vincent . Okay, maybe it's just me, but I have no issue with any of the characters...but I'm an old RPGer from way back, so I enjoy each of the Investigator's strengths and weaknesses.

The Professor said:

Monty's PS is decent, but Vincent gets the short straw with his PS to boot. Swapping a seal for +2 movement (not even Speed, movement)? Not in this lifetime, better haul Vinny to Innsmouth Jail and get a replacement investigator, hopefully I don't draw Amanda, Dexter or George.

Dam said:

I don't know Dam, I'm hopeful you draw Amanda, Dexter, AND George ;'D and Vincent, of course.