Hi everyone,

today I played "Cursed Classes" the first time. Three friends of mine entered the Mansion of Madness as investigators. Remembering their bad experiences from "Blood Ties" they decided for some extra-punch characters - "Ashcan" Pete with his guitar, ,Jenny Barnes with the 45er and Michael McGlen with his "Betsy" (his beloved Tommy Gun) ...

At first things started smothly. While the electrical problems of the Mansion went havoc on the lights, and room after room became dark, the investigators slowly entered the premises and first rooms. The Keeper had bad luck with his Mythos Cards as well as Trauma Cards, so he (which was me) had plenty of opportunity to gather threat marker, but he had little to nothing to challenge the investigators - except for the uncontrollable urge, we he left out for now ...

Although it always is a bad idea to split up, the three investigators did so. Ms. Barnes kept an eye on the floors, while Pete went to the Furnace Room and McGlen took care of the laboratory ... There, in the laboratory misfortune struck, and McGlen had some trouble with the cooling chamber - as it was scripted and the single highlight of this campaign. But in the end it was nothing he could not deal with.

In the meantime Ms. Barnes had some issues with the darkness and she ran around very undecisively (Mythos- and Trauma-Cards played well along the decisions of the gamer); but her paranoia was removed as soon as she found the lantern/ torch. She and Pete moved forward into the direction of the library, while McGlen returned to the gallery in order to reveal what was hidden in the closet. That was when the Witch Detaigne appeared and laughed at the investigators' faces.

But laughing she did not for long ... Although Ms. Barnes lost control of herself and got rid of the lantern/ torch by throwing it in an uncontrollable urge at the witch, while darkness struck all the rooms and place in the surrounding, she and Pete had some real luck in pinning the Witch down - it should be mentioned that both felt a couple of uncontrollable urges and shot each other or attacked McGlen with the Guitar when he returned to the group. In the Meantime the Witch was stunned several times and therefore several round; so Pete as well as Ms. Barnes had some trouble but a lot of time to deal with the Witch fair enough. Later McGlen happened to show up and let his "Betsy" sing a wail of death at the Witch.

Just a few moments before the Witche's death right in front of her library two Mi-Gos showed up; but with the finishing moves on the Witch the Investigators were able to solve the riddle of the "Cursed Classes" ...

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Now that's more or less what happened.

What did I do wrong? Probably I should have used the uncontrollable urge a lot more. But when would have been the best time? The uncontrollable urge costs 2 threat points; but would I be allowed to use it several times on the same investigator during the same turn? The card does not forbid it; and the rules don'T mention any restriction. That would have been expensive, probably valid, but also very demoralizing and for me as the Keeper also frustrating with the few other options I had ... And on the other hand: I had really nothing else I could have used against the investigators. Also I had more then 20 threat markers available, so I would have been able to dish out some real pain on my investigators making them act against each other - or if not damage then alternatively I could have moved them away from the Witch ... But what then? This would have led to a delay and would not have won me the game anyway. Because ...

Another msiconception of this scenario is that "Dark Minions" allows me only to move my very, very few creatures only once per turn one single space ... Considering this and the speed of the investigators ... it felt like: "Hey, Captain Slow! What are you waiting for???"

What was frustrating as well was the size of the map and the little realistic chance to investigate all the rooms. Ok, we did not play with four, but only with three investigators. Still there were about half a dozen rooms that simply were not investigated. And even if my friends had been a little faster in retrieving the proper keys in the proper order and time this would not have changed a lot, since the Witch showed up literally in the middle of the map and therefore drawing all the attention and therefore leading the investigators away from "the dark tower" ...

My friends told me they had the feeling that this scenario is very unbalanced. When we played "Blood Ties" they also felt this about the first scenario, but back then they had a lot of bad luck with dicing, too, and they were not sure whether their impressions with "Blood Ties" being unbalanced was maybe the result of this bad luck; this time though with the "Cursed Classes" things went more or less smooth with them, and I as the Keeper had only little opportunity to interfere with my friends. Ok, again: Maybe I should have used "Uncontrollable Urge" a lot more. But what is the point in doing the same thing turn after turn - "Oh, look! McGlen has this Tommy Gun and feels the uncontrollable urge to shoot his friends ..."*yawn*

Sorry. I liked The Lynch story as well as the "Inner Sanctum" a lot; "Blood Ties" was pretty nice, but challenging in differen ways. But "Cursed Classes" ... ? It felt like, well ... I don't know. It was not as good as the other ones...

What is your opinion? Do you have any suggestions without implementing House Rules in order to play "Cursed Classes"?

All the best,

Mad

Hi.

lol

My long text is a test on each and everyone's sanity. Sorry for all the misspelling ... Something like this way beyond the 2 am mark in the morning ... It was definitively a way too long a day...

Good night.

Mad

So I had a nice, detailed reply written, but pressing Publish got some script error that ate the whole thing. Not going to rewrite it, so I'll go for the short version.

First, you can't make investigators attack each other with UU and UU can only be used once per turn on an investigator. Check the FAQ.

Second, most people don't like Classroom Curses because the Keeper can't summon any monsters by his actions, they only come from Events/Objective. For me, CC is top-2 out of the five base scenarios, Fall of House Lynch (scenario 1) is the other contender. Inner Sanctum is a shoot-em up, Blood Ties isn't that bad (except for the one auto-win Keeper Objective) and Green-Eyed Boy is just full on stinking crap. I played all the other scenarios with each of the Objectives (1A, 1B and 1C) but could only stomach one play of GEB.

For CC, as Keeper you need to hit the investigators with the Mythos cards. I've managed to wear down the investigators to barely alive with just the Mythos cards before any monsters even showed up. Some people just spam Darkness as much as possible and then complain the scenario is dull. Well, duh. Also, the move monster Keeper Action IIRC lets you move Beasts (Hound) an extra space and there are also Ducts for the Mi-Go to go through.

Additionally, investigating each room is never the point. You're there to find the clues, for which the prologue spells out the first location, then clues lead to other clues. That reveals the Objective allowing you to win the game. Going off to investigate rooms that have no relevance to the plot, especially if it takes you well out of the main corridors, is not a good idea IMO.

Hi there,

thank you very much. I appreciate and like what you write here.

About the UU - OK, well, here I failed due to the lack of knowledge of the FAQs ... Haven't read those in a while ... I promise: Will do better in the future ... And seriously will apology to all my gamers in all the sessions that suffered from it ...

I would like to reassure you that I am not so much interested in swarming the area with monsters; in all the scenarios I kept a very low profile with it. And also I am very used to playing the Keeper very passively throughout the first half of the game - doin' things every now and then and just gathering Threat markers.

Yesterday with CC most Mythos cards I drew were restricted to certain rooms which either neither existed on the map (for instance kitchen, cellar) nor were being reached so far (all the upstairs-rooms). When I drew the fifth or sixth card of this kind (bad luck mixing them I guess) I simply gave it up to do anything else with it; similar was the development with the trauma cards (good traumas, but always connected to very low scores on sanity or health), but what would be the point in gathering those, if you don't have the Mythos or encounters that let you play them?

About the size of the map: I fully agree with you: There is no need to explore the whole map. The funny thing with yesterday's CC are a couple of things, though, that lead me to the conclusion, the map of CC is too big or too wrongly scripted:

-In the beginning the investigators split up. So they were able to investigate the first half of the map in only four to five turns; the McGlen-gamer with his actions in the complete laboratory section made him return to the start of the game (4 truns) in order to get into the Gallery's closed closet and collect the Silver Key, which is needed to access the library, as well as the second clue of the story. So This investigators was out of the game for about six to seven turns, because he could do nothing else but run around. Up to this point the gamers already spent 12 turns in this mansion.

- Ok - one might say - yeah! Why didn't they go into the attic? Because Witch Detaigne showed up in the library between turns 9 and 10, and one gamer had "Ashcan" with his guitar, which allowed him to move the Witch into the gamers' hands (slowly). So the focus was not on the attic, but on the only single creature of darkness. Now that is not bad. I tried hard with a few Mythos cards (the very few I could really use) and a by far too light usage of my Keeper's action to keep them appart. But the Investigators were on her, and the game stalled - heavily.

- In the meantime end-game was next to start. And when it did, the McGlen gamer already was in the same place with all the others with the already heavily beaten up Witch and shot her into bits and peaces. Game Over for me as the Keeper (nothing's wrong with that) and Super Bowl for the gamers.

So in 15 game rounds the complete attic and tower sections were simply not part of the game. This is pretty funny considering that the final clue no 1 was hidden in the farthest North of the tower. I ran the numbers again during this posting - in order to reveal the first and main clue without having any trouble at all an Investigator needs 17 turns - and that in a story which only holds 20 turns. This would also mean that Hall 1, the Furnace, the Attic and the two of the three rooms of the Tower don't get investigated (all in all 6 rooms) at all. Taking into account now that by (1) the end of turn 9 and by the end of turn 14 a couple of creatures show up, (2) the Keeper may use his actions and Mythos cards to slow the Investigator down, (3) there is a riddle in the Freezer/ Cooling Chamber, all this slows the Investigator down. This won't be as much of a problem for more then one Investigator? Actually numbers won't change this a lot, since more Investigators earn the Keeper more Threat power giving him (theoretically) more power.

With all this on my mind I am not so happy with this setup - especially with this weird running around in order to collect clue 2 and the silver key ...

Anyway - wall of words. Maybe I would look differently at this, if I choose a different setup of the setting with the clues and items at other places. Still this weighs heavily on me. And maybe I should withdraw from my "friendly" kind of gameplay as the Keeper and try to be a lot more evil the next time ...

Ok, thank you for your attention.

All the best!

Mad

Maybe I should add this one:

I decided for this CC the following setup answers:

1c 2a 3a 4b.

Here's some of my math for CC:

www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7225516#7225516

If Ashcan has Duke, and honestly, he always has Duke around here, nobody bothers with the Guitar vs +2 Str and Dex in combat, you can ferry the clue/key to another investigator, not requiring just the one investigator to run back and forth for the clues.

Hi there,

Dam said:

That is a very interesting link. Thank you.

True: The Investigators may ferry the clues/ keys, but still someone or some few will have to make the run. So it does not change a thing if the gamers take the opportunity to exchange stuff.

About "Ahscan": I would agree with you. But still my friend decided to choose the guitar instead of the dog. And yesterday the guitar gave him the advantage to move my Witch; and with Dark Minions I could only "compensate" his movement of my figure. Therefore the Witch remained at the same position for quite a while; that she got slowed down from multiple dazes does not change the situation. Because the Ashcan gamer and the Barnes gamer agree that he would keep the witch within firing range of Ms. Barnes. So I whitnessed a quite delicate situation in which the gamers simply nailed down one monster and focussed - not knowing about the investigation's goal though - on it totally - nullifying the other opportunities available. That's bad. Maybe it was not such a good idea for this particular mission that the Witch showed up in the library. The +4 hitpoint bonus per Investigator does not compensate the "flaws" of this scenario ... But according to what you have suggested and explained above, maybe the "flaws" would have had less effect, if I had used a lot more Mythos-stuff...

*Am I whining here ...?*

All the best!

Mad