Hey guys!

Had some mixed success with MoM with my gaming group, so I have been tinkering with a couple of the rules to increase overall group satisfaction. The two most common complaints are: Difficulty level (somehow the keeper seems to easily win every game, or both sides lose) and randomness.

I have been testing out the following house rules to answer these complaints:

-At the start of their turn an investigator gets to choose between the normal 2 moves/1 action OR 2 actions. A stunned investigator still gets 1move/1action. This change is mainly to give investigators more options and a greater variety of strategies. So far this has worked well, and hasn't unbalanced the game too much. Although i haven't tried this out with Joe Diamond and the magnifying glass yet...

-Instead of adding Luck to a stat when spending a skill token, you get to roll a number of d10s equal to your Luck stat to accomplish the test, keeping the best result. This makes skill tokens more useful and feel more satisfying when you use them on a roll. Often my players will use a token only to fail with a hideously bad roll OR roll low enough to succeed anyway. Both of these result in the player feeling like they wasted their token. Or maybe there is just something more satisfying about rolling multiple dice... Oh and skill tokens work normally when used to complete puzzles.

So, thoughts? Naive attempts to get my game group to like a game i like? have you been having similar results with your group?

-wellist

OMG.

In my eyes, 2 actions is too much. Two shots from a shotgun in one turn? Nuff said.

Another OMG.

Srsly? Multiple dice?

Have you seen Sister's Mary Luck?

Your house rules makes the game a lot easier for the investigators. Do they complain about difficulty ? Can you tell us what they don't like more precisely ?

amikezor said:

Indeed. I would like to know how often Keeper wins vs Investigators.

Before change and then separately with the new house rules.

hey guys!

the 2 complaints are:

-Difficulty. I have played the game roughly 2 dozen times through a variety of scenarios. I have lost 1 game as the keeper (Fall of House Lynch obj B). In my gaming group, I usually lose most competitive games. After playing 5 or 6 times, most players have given up on the game and I recruit other players.

-Randomness. Many times the game comes down to a single d10 roll. The players feel like despite their best efforts, if they roll poorly once or twice, they've lost the game.

Obviously, my gaming group seems to be an anomaly. The idea of giving the multiple actions option is to give players a choice to either be able to move, or do more stuff. Sure there are turns where the players will roll well and totally slay any monsters they come up against, but anyone who has played MoM will tell you that no combat roll is a sure thing. Most of the time Michael McGlen drops his tommy gun and then spends a couple of turn awkwardly wrestling a zombie.

Or perhaps this keeper is just tired of killing conventional investigators and now desires to kill super heroes...

Have you tried allowing the players to spend skill points after a roll? This gives them a little more control and might skew the odds in the Investigator's favor, but should at least lessen the chance of losing the game to bad dice.

@ MyNeighbourTrololo: I don't really like using the tokens post roll, as then it's a "sure thing". I prefer to play with the "rolling dice equal to the Luck stat and keeping the best" as I feel it retains the spirit of the original rule. Sure, it seems to make Skill Tokens more valuable but hey, if it makes it more fun for the players...

Played with both house rules today in the "Return of the Reanimator" story. Last turn victory for the players, with Michael Mcglen passing an amazing Intellect roll to realize that Herbert West's weakness is a Sledgehammer to the head. Hilarious. A couple of observations:

-happier players

-i had to pull fewer punches with both mythos cards and monster spawning.

-more strategy conversations between players, as they had more options.

-for 3 attacks in a row Dexter Drake decided to throw his swordcane (and missed each time, of course)

Basically, if you are either A) having difficulty keeping your players from being too frustrated, or B) are interested in a more competitive game for the Keeper, I recommend trying out either of the two house rules I mentioned in my original post!

thanks

-wellist

wellist said:

Well, I can see that randomness could be an issue. Though, it does not appear to be so important in the winning/loosing outcome of a game, usually (for our group).

As for difficulty, if your players suffer from loosing too many times, you may try give them some tricks at the beginning (as to follow the lead as quick as possible, keep an eye on what the keeper is doing, do not spend to much time killing monsters when unnecessary) or add rules to make it easier, as you suggest.

The bottom line in any game is to have fun for all participants, and if the investigators consistently don't win that is not fun. Unlike being a dungeon master the keeper can play against the players if he has a real competitive spirit. But a good keeper ( who wants to keep his players happy) will adjust accordingly if his advantage becomes too strong. I think any rules that assist the players is helpful. House rules personalize a game, creates ownership in the game. I have a whole bunch of house rules that will be listed in another post. In addition I have made my own cards, scenarios, made player mats with all the stats, have added personality quirks for the investigators and enriched the thematic elements .

For example every room has a clue for the investigators some of those clues are red herrings to lead them off the trail some of them are further assisting the investigators in unfolding the story, but every room has a story to tell. creating several subplots, so they can have minor accomplishments on their path of solving the mystery. There's lots of fun things you can do, the key is to make it all fun. As a keeper being at a slight disadvantage is more exciting for me than being able to drive all my investigators insane or to kill them all, the harder the challenge the more exciting for all. ideally the investigator should barely when at great cost and loss, such is the stuff of great story.

I guess in all fairness H.P. Lovecraft did leave them defeated often

Has anyone done any tinkering to some of the end event deck results. i do enjoy playing this game, however, the group I played with did not like the fact that we played thru and entire scenario and no one won because the last event card showed up.. Does anyone have any suggestions. I know for at least one of the scenarios (The one with the witch from the base game) can easily ignore the last event card and play until either the witch is killed or the investigators are killed. other than turning over the last event card and having everyone lose, this is a great game to play

In my games, I allow each investigator an Intellect roll to look at the first exploration card in a room. It's like a perception check in an RPG. This gives them a chance to see (and pick up) items, and to save time on "Nothing of Interest" cards. I still require an action to attempt a puzzle on an obstacle.

I've also been toying with the idea of having exploration cards committed to the spaces they are in. This would not be relevant for Lock cards, but would work for obstacles, for example. In a custom scenario, the Master Bedroom could have a suitcase in one space and a bottle of whiskey (free for the taking) in the other.

when you're the keeper, investigators are not "your" players. It's a boardgame, not a RPG (I'm a long time RPG GM and player), where the player keeper play against the players investigators.

So I suggest you to change roles : play as investigator and stop being the keeper will immediatly renew the game and give chance of success to the investigators team.

If you really want to break that nicely balanced game in the investigator advantage, you might consider that investigators gain 1 chance token when they roll a natural 1 on the dice. It helps, it's fun and rewardful for the guy who succeed the roll with a 1.