(1)

vs.

(2)

vs. vs.

Scenario 1: You get an encounter "draw an injury or madness". What do you choose? I'd choose madness, as there's some nasty inuries, especially Broken Hand.

Scenario 2: You get an encounter "draw an injury, madness or curse." I'd take the curse, as it can dissapear by it's own or I can get blessed. As Rita, however, I would rather draw a madness, as there's a good chance I get a weak madness such as agrophobia.

What about you?

Links for all the previous Great Debates can be found here.

Most of the Injury cards are -1 to a stat, which is not usually that bad (unless it's -1 Speed). Broken Hand is a problem, but I'd rather have that than the dreaded Madness card, Amnesia. So I'd rather take an injury.

Curses SUCK. I would rather have an injury or a madness over a Curse. Luckily, it's a lot easier to get rid of a Curse than an injury or madness, but still. In the course of play, getting an injury or madness will sometimes elicit a groan; getting a curse always will.

Under most circumstances, having a Curse is effectively having your stats cut in half, and you have to spend twice as many clues to pass checks. Those penalties are worse than any injury or madness.

Tibs said:

I usually prefer to draw an injury (I live in terror of amnesia— it's like having a character killed for the purpose of gate closing). Unless the player is at zero clues and the others have enough to finish the sealings. Or if there's an extra elder sign to give them. Broken hand's a pain, buuut, I can live with it. Just give them some good evade items or spells. I hate curses, but they're easy to get rid of, so I'd rather take one of them if I had a choice.

Personally I fear Double Vision just as much as Amnesia. But maybe that's just me.

avec said:

THAT's the other one I forgot. Yes; Double Vision.

Once we had Charlie Kane with Amnesia. But he had Mythos Lore and Research Materials, so he was still able to slap down a seal. POLITICS RULES

They all have their hideous moments. Those listed are probably the "worst" ones, but it's entirely situational, and I've seen problems crop up with all of them. The most consistently wrecking to the basic game plan are Amnesia and Double Vision, so they are understandably the most feared. The skill penalties can be pretty damning, if you have gameplan with that skill involved. It's pretty easy to have a character screwed by Memory Loss or (more likely) Back Injury. Broken hand has crushed many monster slaying dreams. On the madness side of things, have you ever seen Darrel Simmons with Claustophobia? Saddest. Thing. Ever.

I would probably think about what would screw me the most, then pick the opposite, but I'm thinking I'm leaning toward an injury. If I have a high-sanity character, I might prefer a madness, because they're better able to take the sanity punishment inflicted by such cards. But I might not, because they might want to use their sanity for spells. But what if they get -1 Lore! So many ways to be screwed.

I'd pick a curse over either, usually, because curses go away.

I'd pick a Curse over the others because it's easy to get rid of.

Then I'd probably pick Injury over Madness. the reasoning is that in games which includes the cards I almost always draw from them rather than give away half of my items and clue markers. Since investigators are typically more likely to go insane than unconscious, I'm more likely to draw Madness cards later in the game and I don't like having to draw a second card of one type.