Hey folks,

Just saw the new scenario, and to be honest I'm not looking forward to playing it. Don't know if our group will.

One of the major put-offs of the previous campaign was how INSANELY difficult the scenarios got. While I agree there is a fine line between "challenge" and TOO challenging, it seems that this scenario, like many of the previous ones, clearly crosses it.

On the one hand, yes, it's more of a sense of victory if you win, but in little bit of time we have alotted for Arkham, I would much rather have more fun playing regular games than getting discouraged by impossible scenarios. Why not instead of trying to make the game "more challenging", try to make it more fun. Include new, imaginative ideas that don't necessarily just make it more difficult? My vote is to up the fun, detract the difficulty.

Anyone else agree?

I've got to disagree. The scenario isn't a guaranteed win, but it wasn't THAT difficult. With a 4 player team it was very winable... we won it first try in about 2 hours. The strategies are a little different, but some of the changes actually made things very interesting without making them much harder. The pace of the game was great. My guess is that with a good strategy, a team of 4 can win this scenario somewhere close to half the time. I think that is a pretty good ratio.

One of the fun things about the scenario is that it really was tailored to most of the characters in the pool. Some of them may not seem that great, but there are several that are very good at closing gates quickly or fighting monsters with very difficult horror checks. Add to that the fact that there is a free combo that makes one character into a world class monster hunter, and you have a lot of tools get things done.

I don't want to give too much away, but just focus on what you need to do. Look for ways to close gates quickly and move around the board. Look at the way some of the characters can excel and try to set them up so they have a good chance of getting spells or items that will help do things quickly.

This scenario does a great job of showing off the strengths of some of the less popular characters, even if some of the strengths are only at set-up.

Anyway, I thought it was a lot of fun, and we are looking forward to trying it again to see how well our strategies work.

(Disclaimer: if you are playing a team of 8, this does seem like a very difficult scenario. There are ways to do it (especially if Elder Signs can be used to remove doom tokens), but it will take more work and some luck to keep the doom track low enough to close all 12 gates.)

It might be wise to actually PLAY the scenario before you comment on it. We ended up sailing through it with ease on our first play and I didn't really feel particularly challenged by it (although there were a few life or death scraps which the scarcity of clue tokens lent an edge to). Personally I think that the addition of Calvin with his backstory added a nice bit of colour to things and the overall setup for the scenario was obviously well thought out .

Really gotta say that it doesn't look super hard. They provide an alternate victory condition of "have closed a certain number of gates during the game" that is incredibly easier than the normal victory conditions.

For a four person team, you just have to close a total of 8 gates. Not all at once, ever during the game. You can have people jump into the gate on the first turn, becase closing gates without sealing moves you closer to victory.

Yeah, they remove all 10 of the clues that start on the board (11 unstable locations, but one is eaten by a gate on Mythos phase zero). And they remove all your starting clues. But you win without having to put up any seals! You save thirty clues . The game actually sets most teams about 12-15 Clues ahead of the game. Clues aren't scarce, you're rolling in them. Because you don't need to spend 30 of them to move the game forward. Every clue you ever get is just gravy dice.

I'm little disappointed with how easy this one is, frankly.

-Frank

We'll be playing this next Wednesday (our designated League night) and we are an 8-player/investigator team. And we're looking forward to it. As has been pointed out earlier, the loack od starting clues is more of an annoyance rather than a disadvantage, and not being able to seal gates means we don't have to hoard clues. I can see us having to find ways to control the Doom Track (South Church comes to mind), but that i what happens when you play 8. The monsters will also be a pain, but there are ways around that as well.

This scenario is nothing like Cthulhu or Azathoth in the last league, and I like how it starts the league rolling.

Despite winning it easily, I would say it does not seem overall easier than a regular game. You don't need to seal gates, so you are closing gates faster than usual. But... this can lead to a lot fewer open gates on the board, and fewer monster surges. This in turn leads to the doom track filling up very quickly. If you don't take this into account, and you get delayed in another world, you could end up having the doom track fill up before you close enough gates.

Winning seemed quicker than a regular game, but it did seem like mistakes and bad luck hurt a lot more in this scenario.

Overall, it played differently than a regular game, it was over in 2 hours, it fit in nicely with the story, strategy mattered, and there was risk but it was winnable. That to me works as a nice first scenario. Hopefully they get harder, but I hope the scenarios keep driving towards having to play different strategies.

Oh look, the shadowy stranger is disagreeing with himself.

AGH! GIVE US BACK OUR CUSTOM AVATARS FFG!

I wouldn't call the first scenario difficult as much as it is puzzling. It's not *that* hard to close eight gates (especially if you don't have to seal them). It's easier than a sealing victory. In my opinion, the real fun is in the custom fighting conditions and the character selection aspect. If you're playing for score, the strangeness of the scenario definitely adds to the flavor (and the inability to just choose power players definitely adds to the thrill). I'm very excited about it and will begin it sometime today (I don't expect to lose though, I think that if you handle things correctly your odds can be much higher than 50/50, I'm thinking more like 95%/5%). Still, it will be fun, and not monotomous like some of the last scenario games.

Hey folks,

You're right, it WOULD be a good idea to play it first before commenting on it - it's just that when I looked at it and saw that they totally removed all the starting clues, I figured it would be quite difficult. After all, using clues for re-rolls is very helpful.

This reminds me of some of the scenarios in the previous league. The poor grammar and poor mechanics of some of the earlier scenarios led me to believe that there was one person writing these things at FFG, not testing them, and not giving much thought to how they would work or how much fun they would be.

Essentially what I'm saying is I don't want to waste time on a poorly planed and designed campaign by one dude who's more interested in just getting these things out there as opposed to creating a well-rounded and enjoyable experience.

HOWEVER, I am hopeful that on this second go-round FFG will get it right - it sounds like this scenario isn't as tough as I assumed, and I'm hoping that it's a reflection of what's to come.

We've had much more fun with the game just playing a straight Kingsport or Goat of the Black Woods than those last few scenarios. As long as the new scenarios are adding to the play experience and really taking advantage of the time you invest, then I'm down.

Maybe we will give it a try tonight after all.

Well, some of the scenarios in the first league may not have gotten properly playtested, but this second time around I'm pretty sure that the people organizing the league have put more thought and planning into what they are doing. Sure, these are not as thoroughly playtested as a new game would be, so some folks might find ways to "break" them, but I think all in all they will play better than some of the other ones. Plus, this league appears to follow a storyline or theme, and that idea really excites me.

After completing 9 and 10 in the first league I feel we can try anything.

I think I need a new avatar... but I like this one!

Avi: I think you are right, the odds are probably a lot better than 50/50, but I didn't want to sound to cocky in case I got lucky I think you used the right word... the scenario has a bit of a puzzle feel to it, which I think is great.

JJ: I agree. This scenario feels fairly well thought out. The story, mechanics, and character choices all seem more cohesive than some of the first league scenarios. So far this is good stuff.

This is also a fun scenario to try and play for score. The mechanics make it seem a little harder to try and slow down the game to pump up the score. I like the idea of scoring a lot better when there are fewer ways to try and grind out a high score.

tamsyn said:

How about replaying 10 except— every gate opening is a gate burst ;'D

im many things but not a masochist!

well, I must admit it wasn't THAT tough... but it was challenging anyway. although we found that there's a thing we couldn't agree with - Calvin's ability "reduces all sanity loses by 1". is that means, that he reduces sanity loses for posessing investigator only (much like professor Harvey's special), or it works literally as printed, for every investigator in the game? we have played with the first, less powerful option, but maybe we we were wrong. any clues?

We played it that the ally only reduces his buddy's sanity loss - your less powerful option. That's the way allies tend to work, I think.

And it only reduces sanity "loss" from monsters and stuff, not sanity "spent" in spells.

same as I thought - just wanted make sure. thx.