Greetings, fright fiends… from an AH forum lurker for months; at last I emerge. Always great questions asked there, but personally I never had any confusion all these years with AH, stayed sane + remained the same. Until…

Finally branched out to MoM + played our first game the other weekend, went over pretty well except for one thing I can't quite understand yet:

1) When seeding the cards, for example let's say for 'Storage Closet' : (Nothing of Interest, Axe, Lock: Padlocked Door) - I can understand since there's only one door, that's the one that's has the lock on it… but then to explore it the Investigator would have to be in the adjacent room + use an action, right? If s/he has the appropriate key then they could uncover the Axe on the same action, but then I get confused since they would need to use a Movement to go into the room + get the Axe. Technically the Exploration cards are all on top of each other in the Storage Closet… ehm…

2) In a situation where there's more than one door I don't know which room should have the Lock. I've only played Fall of House Lynch as Keeper + this might not actually be a problem the way they have you seed the cards in most stories, but I seem to remember a problem with the a Lock in the basement landing (2 doors) but the room itself has the Keeper seed it with one Lock.

3) Also the manual instructs you to put the exploration cards over the name of the room. I'm already finding that it helps to have the name plainly visible, don't know what other people are doing in Exploration Card placement. Again, even though the cards are atop one another technically I'm picturing a locked door with the goodies inside the room (see #1).

Generally I'm just not understanding the 2 Moves + Action as it relates to Exploring.

I looked to see if this question has been answered already + didn't come across it… I'll be reading the manual again tonight to see what I missed. Thanks all in advance.

Let's see. Locks are opened when an investigator tries to enter a room. So, the lock is used for all doors leading into that room. An investigator should never be able to be in a room that conains a lock. From you example - the investigator uses a move to try to get into the storage closed room. If the investigator have the correct key, he kan discard the lock and move into the storage closet. Then it's possible to explore, and pick up the exploration cards.

(From the rulebook, pg 8)
During setup, the keeper places a number of Lock cards on
various rooms (as instructed in the Keeper Guide). Locked
rooms can easily be identified by the Lock card on topof any
Exploration and Obstacle cards in the room.
Unlike other cards in a room, Lock cards are revealed when
an investigator attempts to move into the room. Before a player
physically moves his investigator figure into the room, the keeper
turns the Lock card faceup and reads it aloud to all players.

Yes yes, once I re-read the LOCK concept on page 8 - pretty much answered everything.

So basically now it makes to me to put all Exploration cards atop one another in a room, but investigating a Lock is a (Move + Action), possibly burning/wasting the Move if you can't get it open.

2) And to answer my own question, the only other leap of logic I need to make is to remember when a room with more than one door has a lock, they're both locked -until- an investigator meets the requirements to remove it, thus removing the lock from ALL doors in the room.

Great, I understand completely so now that in my larger game tomorrow as Keeper I can CRUSH THEM.

gh0stm0n said:

No. At no point is an action used in regard to a Lock card. You may have been generallizing the lock card with the Explore action, but just to be sure:

Situation A: Attempt to move into a locked room (use 1 movement). Flip the lock card over, you have the key, so you discard the lock card, and move into the room. At this point you may (but are not required) spend an action to explore the room to pick up any Exploration cards in the room.

Situation B: Attempt to move into a locked room (use 1 movement). Flip the lock card over, you do not have the key. You stay in the adjacent room but have still used up the movement point. You are now free to continue on with your turn and still have any remaining movement points and your action.

Brine said:

I thought you loose your remaining movement points. So, I'd say, on situation B, you can only take your Action. ;-)

You only lose the movement point you used to try to move into the room, not all of them.

During an investigator’s Movement Step, he may move his figure to one adjacent space.

When a moving investigator encounters an ability saying “this door is locked,” his figure remains in its current room and cannot move for this Movement Step.

Brine said:

Cool. I have been playing it wrong for all these games then ;-)

Good to know.

Brine said:

If the card merely says "This door is locked" (Sealed Door) does this mean that investigators can never get in?

Yes.

- there may be an event or something else that instructs the keeper to discard all lock cards in play, though…

Re: one lock, many doors. Page 8, "Lock cards are always resolved when an investigator attempts to enter the room, regardless of which door he uses to enter the room."