Hello!

Got a quick question regarding line of sight, and in particular exploring new areas. If I open up a door to a new room, does the whole room get revealed to me (as laid out on the quest description page), or only the parts of the room that the heroes can see from their position on the map? (i.e., if the the room is cross-shaped and heroes don't have line of sight into either wing of the cross, much like the first room of the first quest in JinD, do the monsters/items within the wings get revealed right away, or do they stay hidden until the heroes move further into the room and achieve LoS to those positions?).

Thanks muchly!

The entire area is revealed at once.

I suspect that available playing time is more of a factor in this than any thematic logic for what you can actually see. It takes the OL a minute or two to set up the area if she's organised, and then the players can plot tactics for the area they now see. If you reduce the amount of information to line of sight only, the whole game will run slower for a number of reasons -

• You have to be aware of the LOS of each hero for each square they move through.
• The OL has to add to the area when a new LOS occurs, which will cause more discussion and decision time amongst the players after it's taken you time to provide the new information.

In addition, you have to handle movement of monsters that are out of LOS fairly.

Each scenario is long enough as it is. IMO you won't increase your enjoyment of the game by being logical/thematic on this point - the increase in playing time will sap the fun.

Having areas in the scenario has a number of effects in itself such as limiting the number of monsters the OL can throw at you in a single turn, since they can't pass through from an area you haven't opened (at least, they can't normally - the Alarm card from WoD can be fun). It also represents something of a compromise on the line of sight concept, balancing it with playing time. In many scenarios the areas are fairly small anyway.

I should also add that playing a line of sight rule when revealing the area is going to advantage the Overlord, because the players will make tactical decisions that they have to abort or alter, or will play more cautiously, giving the Overlord more time to accumulate threat.

It may seem that the Overlord needs to be beefed up, but the first few scenarios in JitD are training scenarios, helping you all learn the rules, and psychologically, making everone feel sorry for the overlord so they don't take it badly when the overlord starts snotting them in later scenarios. If the Overlord was toasting the heroes from room 1 in the 1st scenario, they wouldn't be back for round 2...