Okay, so two quick questions about PS's.

1. For Investigator's who have to draw a type of item, does their starting posessions count towards the draw? For instance, if I play Dexter and I draw a Tome for my Unique item, does it count towards passing my Personal Story?

2. For Joe Diamond's Personal Story, would I be consider to have discarded a Unique Item if I trade it away to another investigator, and thus fail?

Wolfgar said:

1. Drawing is always meant "after initial setup" and implies "draw and keep". And it's not triggered by your buddies passing you the X item (as per FAQ, pages 37-38)

2. Nope, discard is not trading away (for the very same reason you don't get benefit from "gain" cards when you receive something. For instance, Business Associates is not triggered by you giving money to your pal). So, Joe can give a fellow investigator a Unique item without failing his PS (and fortunately is so, otherwise part of the coop spirit would have been endangered)

Wolfgar,

I had the same question initially and Julia came to my rescue as well. At the time she used Patrice as the perfect example as to why it is the way it is. According to her Starting Possessions and the Pass criteria on her Personal Story , she would Pass at the beginning of the game.

The Professor said:

Glad you still remember it :-)

I hear a distant howling, like Avi's voice twisted by the wind, saying something about Patrice that should be devoured at the beginning of every game…

Julia,

I try to remember everything you tell me!

The Professor said:

:blush:

Patrice is a herald! ('least I consider her as such)

…and Julia is a Guardian !

The Professor said:

:laughter: I hate Guardians so much…

Because there are no good ones, or because you can't stand anything making things easier?

Wolfgar said:

Uhm. That's a good question. Strictly speaking, normal Arkham is a little too easy for me (one of the reasons why most of the Heralds I create are really tough guys), so things made easier aren't that much appealing to me. But, if the design of Guardians were clever, I'd probably play sometimes with them. Among the official ones, Nodens is okayish, but unless I'm desperate, I don't shop for Blessing, so, even if in play, I rarely use the Blessing deck. Hypnos is broken: flooding the board with clues all the time makes the game so easy that I lose interest very quickly. Bast has a great theme, and some interesting ideas, but the mechanics triggering the Beloved of Bast acquisition are so bad that it never enters play.

Amikezor created some years ago a very good Guardian called Hermes, that basically gave new opportunities to investigators for triggering certain special cards. For example, you were allowed to discard a Weapon while at the Woods to get a Sheldon Gang Membership, or discard a Unique Item at the STL to get a Membership. In this way, the game balance wasn't changed that much, and you were allowed to play with cards that normally never enters play (like Condition cards from Dunwich) or simply give more realism to some other points (Hermes allows you to buy a Rail Pass at the Train Station, that, if you think of, should be always granted as in real life)

Finally, I guess I don't like that much the idea of Guardians because it seems to me like they are more on the Derleth's view of the Mythos rather than on HPL's, but still, probably that's the less important point of those I mentioned

Manishtusu said:

What I actually meant was: Patrice is a guardian . More powerful than Nodens and Hypnos combined.

Guardians (Nodens, specifically) are Lovecraft's creations, in Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath Nodens acts as a Deus ex Machina character, saving Randolph Carter from Nyarlathotep. So the concept was familiar to the Great Master as well. Still, balance is key to using guardians imo. A same power-level herald and nasty game mechanics, like the MH act cards equalize the playing field. Hypnos is fun! Makes you go to places where you wouldn't go normally.

Manishtusu said:

Indeed, but still. Dunno. Nodens appear in how many stories written by HPL? Maybe you're right (it's really a life since I read the whole HPL). Nonetheless, I don't like them very much anyway :-p

Only Nodens as I recall. He also appears in The Strange High House in the Mist, taking place in Kingsport.

Manishtusu raises the point I use to define why I use Hypnos ~ given the need to spend time acquiring Clue tokens at the Unstable locations, having a handful of Clue tokens in places Investigators don't usually visit is a good thing for the RPGer in me.

I have been operating that trading and returning to the box both count as "discard." Otherwise, Zoey could avoid failing her personal story by just giving away her Cross. So Joe couldn't simply give away his Unique Item.

Tibs said:

Even if I see the logic of your point, may I object that Zoey's Cross is something very specific while the whole "Unique Item" category screws everything a little more? Plus, how often does Zoey lose her Personal Story?

Two counterpoints that actually agree with you:

1. Joe Diamond is a pretty strong character, so it's fitting that he has a hairpin-trigger fail condition.
2. Zoey Samaras's story does not fail often—all the more reason to prevent the player from a guaranteed fail prevention.

Tibs said:

No no Julia, you're going the wrong way with it. I'm saying that "trading" counts as "discarding," but not all "discarding" works like "trading."

Tibs said:

Aye, I realized that, but still, really, I don't like it (nothing personal, Chris!)