Tonight we played another Mansions of Madness game. Still a lot of fun, but, like always, the Keeper won. Now, seriously, has everyone ever won the game when the Keeper plays aggressively from round 1?

Hi.

Mh. I played MoM six times as the Keeper. I made it 3 times as the winner, 3 times as the looser. My game mode is not as hard; but tbh I am a ***** somewhat in a way that I don't use all the force on the Keeper's Actions; also I had plenty of bad luck with the Trauma- and Mythos Cards in almost any session ...

Would you mind explaining the "hard Keeper game style"?

All the best!

Mad

MaddockKrug said:

Hi Mad,

thx for answering! For "aggressive Keeper" I mean: pushing players since round 1. Spending all your threats to stockpile Trauma and Mythos and use your actions. Every time you can hit, you hit as strong as you can. Using monsters to protect what you need to be protected, and moving them every time you can to cause Investigators to check their Willpower. Slowly demolishing them, in order they have very few Stamina points left when you reveal your Objective, so that you can kill them with ease and no replacements can be drawn. Keep on using cards to move them wherever you want (distant from clues). Reset their puzzles every time you can, so that they are struck with it.

Do not misunderstand me, I love all levels of play, there is no need to be such aggressive, but, with my friends (all playing RPGs and BGs since the dawn of time) we all agreed on this: we want everyone be as tough as possible, we believe victories have a sweeter taste in this way. But it never happens the Keeper loses a game, in this way. So I was wondering: is the game a little broken if you push too hard?

Sorry, I only play as a "entertaining" Keeper, making game more exciting in ways other than breaking the investigators balls.

I still have a decent win ration though.

What the...? There is another way to play other than gunning for the investigators from the word go? If so, I certainly would never bother with it. Keeper plays to win, period.

I usually get my Keeper wins through wiping out the investigators. Looking over my logs, I saw 3 investigator wins (including first play where had no idea on the Events, since as per the rulebook you're not meant to read them in advance), 1 draw and 11 Keeper wins.

Dam said:

::rofling:: yeah, I know you'd have said that. I was tempted to say "What I mean with "aggressive Keeper"? Well... playing Dam-style" ::laughter::

Dam said:

Hm. You played a little more than me; at the moment we are 10 Keeper wins, 0 losses. I'd love to know something more about your 15 games. Are they logged at BGG? Just to know if you played several times the same adventure with the same guys or what

I really think it depends, but I will say that I must have played nearly, if not, 50 times as Keeper. I am undefeated, because not only have I pushed since Day 1, but our group also uses the variant where the Keeper has the skill point tokens for each investigator player playing. A decent amount of the time I've never had to use those tokens too.

However, when someone else pushes as Keeper and I am the investigator, I can win it half the time. It depends which investigator I play and how lucky I can get on top of my skill. Sometimes it's impossible, and other times the window of opportunity presents itself and I go for the off-chance of winning. If that screws up and there is no other way to win reasonably, I see if I can't outlast the Keeper via the Event deck and earn a tie game or a win if the Keeper had to kill us before time was up. Sometimes all scenarios when the Event deck is up are guaranteed losses for the investigators, so as you continue to play that tactic, you will see how to tackle the scenario for the next time. I have beat the Fall of House Lynch a couple of times, the Inner Sanctum a few times, beat 'Til Death Do Us Part once, and the first time playing ever Season of the Witch. I have such a low win amount only because I usually Keep and hardly ever get to play as an investigator, but when I do, players find me a strong asset in their party. I have several wins with tie games too. I have found Blood Ties, Classroom Curses, and Silver Tablet to be inexhaustibly difficult, but I have come very close to winning (one turn away or one damage away in any case). Green-Eyed Child I have seen beaten before too, but I was turned by the Keeper, so I lost that with him. One other thing I recall doing is the more you play this game, you are rewarded with knowledge, as such, there is for some levels a 33% chance you simply must escape when the Objective is revealed to win, and I have gambled and won that way too with instead of pursuing the Objective running willy-nilly back to the start (and it is not as easy as you'd think camping the starting space).

Besides playing with the indispensable McGlen and his dynamite, Joe Diamond, Harvey Walters, and Kate Winthrop are some of my winning characters. I also use Ashcan Pete and Jenny Barnes if I need some more brute strength. Sister Mary is good if you plan on delving a map that must target you a lot, and the only one I can think of without getting cards out is Classroom Curses. The other girl is good if you plan on Binding monsters to sneak past or stop beastly pursuers. Kate Winthrop is best played mid-game, when one of your initial investigators has been killed off. This is because some of the clues should have been found by now, so what you do next is when she comes out and it is too much work to go for another clue, roll her Luck and +2 for every clue you found to READ the Objective (not reveal). That way you can begin prepping a battle plan to win or just throw your hands in the air and accept your doom.

The main thing to keep in mind is as an investigator is that you can win some and lose some, but you must work hard, pick yourself up when you lose, and press on for that win. It is doable.

Tromdial,

thank you for the really exhaustive answer ::smiling:: It's very interesting for me to hear that you're more or less 50-0 as a Keeper (not so sure what you meant by gaining skill points as a Keeper, though). I'll try to focus on the Scenarios you won the most, maybe working with the investigators this time (even if I must confess I'm strongly tempted by playing a couple fo games with you, and comparing our styles ::laughter:

I guess the key point is a good synergy and a continual movement across the board. Too often I've seen my players spending a couple of turns trying to open the same lock, and, later in the game, being in the wrong position of the board, without having anything to do but spending all their turn moving to reach different rooms. But still. Let's see. And thx :-)

Julia said:

Yes, constant flow of movement is essential to survival. If it's just me playing as an investigator, I go with Joe Diamond and/or McGlen. Joe Diamond is incredible for picking up everything on his merry-way, and even if he dies, someone can still pick up his Magnifying-Glass later; same with McGlen and his dynamite. I also always go with high Willpower, as it is almost always the most practical. When the Keeper can't give you sanity damage via rolls and you are packed to the teeth with weapons, it ALMOST puts you even with the Keeper.

The variant is in the back of the main booklet on pg. 26 and is titled "Monster Skill Points" as an Optional Rule.

As Keeper, I have had at least two very close calls, where it was only a stun token or one movement short of winning, whether it be cutting off a Shoggoth and blasting him or just simply escaping.

Julia said:

I start a new job Monday and I work 60-70 hours a week. Never worked a factory job before but this one seems like the cleanest and most professional work environment. Depending how exhausted I am or if I slowly build enough of a tolerance against exhaustion, I don't see why we couldn't have one of us be Keeper while the other end of the post/email control the Investigators.

What it would entail is the Keeper side sets up everything completely and the Investigator does nearly the same, informing the Keeper player which characters are being used and what starting cards so they may be set-up on the Keeper's table; in the meantime, the Keeper informs the investigator player(s) which Action cards are disclosed for the scenario and what the top-back card is on each room of the map, i.e. Hallway 2 has a regular exploration back, The Laboratory has a Lock card, the Graveyard an Obstacle card, etc. etc. so that the investigator player has a full map to plan and explore. Because everything is face-down for the Investigator anyways, basically turns are back-and-forth Q&A discovery, i.e. "Joe Diamond moves into Hallway 2 and uses his Magnifying Glass to explore. What does he find?" So hundreds of Chess-like posts/emails would have to be sent back-and-forth, but also it is a session that could casually and patiently be done in a couple week's time. If you are interested in that, then we could opt for a map and see how it works out.

Also I notice you have Arkham Horror create-a-stuff as links, Julia, at the bottom of your posts. Do you create your own Mansions maps or plan to? I have one almost completed and am eagerly awaiting the revised edition of Forbidden Alchemy to do an homage to a horror series that I adore.

Julia said:

www.boardgamegeek.com/plays/thing/83330

Additionally, if you look at the investigators used, you'll see that each investigator has been featured about the same number of times as another. This is due to the normal approach (for me) of setting aside any investigator that has been used until all the investigators have been in a game, then the full cast is once again available. Random investigators instead of picking investigators at times as well.

Tromdial said:

Agreed. Joe is impressive with his Magnifying Glass. It still requires a little wisdom on how to use it: trying to focus on a series of single-spaced rooms , so he can explore both of them in the very same round. Something that my friends seem not to get properly (the only time he could have explored two rooms in a row in our latest game, he spent his second action to read a tome) ::laughter::

Also, thanks for stressing the Willpower thing. I thought so, but I never played as an Investigator, so I couldn't be certain about it.

And ok, optional rule. I never studied the section of optional rules, we don't play that often (more or less once / month) and we use only the core rules

Tromdial said:

First of all, break a leg with the new job :-)

Your offer is very tempting (and kind), but I'm afraid there are some technical problems that, at least for now, could be overwhelming. I think you're American, so basically the first, big issue, is the time zone. I think that when you're at home from work, I'm sleeping. And with the 60-70 hours / week job you have, and my "normal" 50 hours / week job + university, the only "free zone" would be on Sunday (and it's very rare I have a whole Sunday for games). So, our games could easily last three / four months, and sadly this is clearly not feasible (I cannot - no room at home - leave a game for such a long time on the table)

Maybe in the future (there is a small chance I'll leave my country in not too a distant future, let's see...)

Dam said:

Thanks for the link and the clarification Dam! I'm gonna skim your reports now!

Julia said:

Yeah, it's just an optional. I believe if you want players to have a slightly easier time getting their wins in, do not use that option. I've used it from the very beginning and it may explain why I am undefeated; however, my friends have also Keeped and I taught them to use the same variant.

Julia said:

np. It would take a lot of patience to perform but I thought I'd offer that. When you do have some free time, ask again and I will let you know.

Also, I need to be dealt damage first before you can play the Broken Leg trauma card

Julia said:

Hey Julia,

I think I have to correct you on that.

When I read the rules on Magnifying Glass right, you have to use the additional action right after the first explore action. When you want to explore two adjacent rooms, you have to move after the first explore and this move would be your additional action. And since you allready used your first action for exploring, you can't explore the second room.

Or am I reading the card wrong?

Tromdial said:

::laughter:: thx!

el Igore said:

Nope, you're absolutely right. Sorry, I didn't cross-checked the card before answering.

Sigh. A Mansions-wiki a la Arkhamwiki.com would be great

@Tromdial: sorry, I forgot to answer to one of your points: I still haven't created anything for Mansions of Madness. I honestly don't like the game as much as I like Arkham Horror (it's a good game, but still, too many flaws for my personal taste), and I don't have much free time to start thinking about Mansions custom material as well

Hi there,

although I don't want to hijack this topic and drag it too far away from the OP-question, I have a couple of new questions about what you discuss here.

I am very impressed about a few things: First of all I am happy to know that there are at least some people "around" who play this game more often. Since MoM was released here in Germany as the German version I only had the opportunity to play it for six times in my region (60km / 40mi radius around my place) now. And to my disappointment: although there is a huge Arkham Horrors fan community in my neighbourhood, Mansions of Madness is only very seldomly played by other gamers around. Also you made me curious about this optional rule; I will definitively take a look at it.

Now for the questions:

a) From what I learned during gameplay, I as the Keeper spend a lot of time reading all the different Mythos- and Trauma-Cards during the game session. And it happens quite often that I simply "forget" that I have a "good" or "valid" Mythos card in a given situation, therefore it does not get into play as likely as it should have been. So my question is: Besides simply playing more often and getting used to all the game components, do you also "prepare" more before a given game session? In other words: How do you manage this huge amount of different tools for the Keeper?

b) Reading about your winning scores I really wonder: Isn't this too frustrating for the gamers? How do you manage it that your gamers still like to play the game? Is there some kind of "competition mentality" or something? I hope you don't play and win the game so often, because you have to change friends on a weekly basis. (And I bet that is not the case ...)

At least your discussion so far "opens" my eyes. When friends and I played MoM on last Friday, the gamers were not overly excited by the game; they also believed it was broken in some ways. Also to me it seemed like a more disappointing then a good game-experience. And - especially with reading your comments on your gameplay-style and the win-ratio as the Keeper - I truely draw the conclusion that my Keeper-style is probably too passive, too friendly. Reasons for this are pretty simple: During the first turns I nearly do nothing accept of gathering Threat Tokens and Mythos/ Trauma-Cards, but I let the Investigators do what ever they like. And all of a "sudden", everything explodes right before the end-game, the game becomes hectic. The big flaw in this way of playing the game is that there is no real "threat-feeling" or "insane-story-feeling" about it ... Too bad.
Just as a reminder: Although I believe that the Keeper is bound to play the game in order to win it, I don't see it as my fulfillment to win as often as possible ... But I don't see any reason why not to play it the hard(er) way in order to give the other gamers a challenge and to evolve a dense game-atmosphere ... Maybe my friends would start thinking different of the game as well ...

All the best!

Mad

Hi Maddock,

sorry you don't have many chances to play Mansions because of the lack of players in your area. That's just my opinion, clearly, but I don't think Mansions is a particularly great game. It's good, but it's very long, and the set-up is very long too (and frial: if for any reason - people talking around you, or what else - you put a card in the wrong place, you screw up the whole game) and often we had the idea that the stories have some weak points (I posted some question at this regard about the "Til death do us part" adventure), and this ruins the pleasure of playing the adventures. So, personally, if I had to choose between Mansions and Arkham (or some other games, from Twilight Imperium to Doom), I'd certainly put Mansions down.

As for your interesting questions (it's really cool to exchange impressions on games and not only doing rules lawyeries):

a) being a Keeper, I generally look at the conditions on Mythos / Trauma cards, so I can see immediately which can be played in the coming round and which not.. Then it's kinda easy, and I have a good memory. The thing requiring me the most time is learning how to use properly the Keeper Action Cards. Some of them require some care with the meaning of their wording, so I generally spend the last 5 minutes of the set-up trying to figure out how to play them in different combo. But that's all

b) frustrated players. Clearly, I cannot compete with the 50 victories of Tromdial, but I can tell you of my experience. I believe this strongly depends on the attitude players have in front of the game. In the last game played, the third event card allowed me to spawn a Shoggoth in the chapel. One of my friends started saying "ok, game's lost, what's next? there is no reason to keep on playing". Now, I believe it's really unlikely to beat any Scenario before the third event card is revealed. So this comment could have referred to any Keeper style. This kind of things turn me down *a lot*. Players should live an adventure, and sometimes adventures can be difficult. Other players I play often with, play the opposite: "a Shoggoth? Let's try to see if we can have shogghy steak for dinner", and accept the challenge. As for myself... consider this: I'm a chess player. In the last six years, I played 143 games with my usual chess partner. I won only one game (96 games ago). But I keep on playing. Is this frustrating? Dam(n) it is. But when I win? It's the sweetest thing, because it means I've started playing on a whole new level. This is the way I play boardgames. You beat me hard? Next time I'll try to do my best to improve (that's one of the reasons why, playing Arkham, I started Avi's Advanced League: at the beginning I thought I'd not have been able to beat any of the Scenarios, today I slaughtered the 22nd and I'm two Scenarios away to winning the League

During the last days, I had an interesting discussion with one of my friends (also writing on these forums; it happens we are friends even in the real life), and he said I play Sam Raimi's style, while he's searching for a dramatic crescendo. He has lost more or less all MoM games played so far. So, yeah, probably your gaming style can be too friendly, especially in the beginning. Just try to see which the best experience both for you and your friends is :-) After all,the main goal of every boardgame is having a good time in good company

Dam said:

I respect your passion to win, but from my side I get no pleasure in stomping to the ground a bunch of casuals. I get a pleasure knowing my guests had a fun time playing with me, and all from the flavor, conversation and discussion during the game.

And those modified scenarios with investigators being separated by their objectives.

MyNeighbourTrololo said:

Of course house rules change things, which is just another reason I don't use them if at all possible. IMO the game is already Keeper-favoring RAW.

Those houserules does not all benefit keeper, and they're are more of a making game deeper than making it plain harder. And some can compensate.