Hi all, my name is Doug and I'm a chronic gamer.

Just finished our 7th game of MoM. What a great game!!!! I've had MoM for around a year now but was too busy to get to it till recently. I only have the main game so far but plan to get expansions at some point. For some reference let me break down our plays…

S1 me as keeper, friend as 2 investigators, just getting feet wet, smooth enough, some tech errors, keeper wins by a landslide

S2 me as keeper, friend as 2 investigators, more familiar with rules, smoother game, less errors, keeper wins w/o trying

S3 me as 2 investigators, friend as keeper, rules glances once in a while, rule scrutinized for content and intent, error count: unknown, keeper wins while also napping

S4 me as 3 investigators, friend as keeper, rules lawyer-ing and some fudging needed (mmm fudge), errors…dont you mean happy mistakes, keeper wins yet again

S5 who wrote this one? disappointing perty much the same as S4

Also 2 self made scenarios

SMS1(From Beyond) me as keeper, could use some wording and fluff editing, ending undetermined due to an error in objectives -Draw

SM2 (Salems Lot) me as keeper, actually proud of my scenario (help from friend in game, credit due),  a bit of in game tweaking, INVESTIGATORS WIN!!!! :O

Amazing game! really  truly is! The whole thing has so much potential! Stunning components and fairly solid gameplay. With that said I would like to host some complaints for discussions sake…

-the keeper always~ wins! This can be factored by inexperience, the keepers ferver getting the best of him and/or the scenario baseline. If it is due to inexperience this cant really be helped since knowing what to do is contradictory to playing the game itself. The keeper can, if willing, tone himself down. The foreknowledge of events is quite powerful. Including an attack against the keepers threat may be one way to tone the game. Finally, a well written scenario is key to a great game for all players.

-a lack of options. At times you find yourself 2 3 even 4 turns ahead simply due to the fact that it is inevitable. I do think that some more mechanics (options) are needed (as long as they ride with the game not against it) to keep thing more interesting overall and to avoid dead zones. As i say that I also say that the options are there but are ignored in lieu of 'the more logical' advancement. To explain further…I could~ 'waste' an action to try to learn a spell but I pass so that I do move an extra space.  

One edit to the main rules that we plan to try next game is to have 4 action points per investigator. These action points are spent at 1 per move and 2 per action. This will yield several possibilities for an investigators turn. The investigator could do 4 moves (an actual run), 2 actions (meaning you could do an attack and attempt to learn a spell), perform 2 moves and an action, etc etc. This may, however, speed the investigators up too much.

-the expandability of the physical game. I, personally, would like to have seen the 5 scenarios in the main game packaged individually and with a specific marking on the card to differentiate the different scenarios. This would, imo, make each one more plug and play compatibility. This would also match much better with future expansion (since they have to reprint many of the cards anyway).

Well, this is just the tip of the ice burg. I hope to hear what you think and to further the discussion.

-it's behind you!

Hi Doug. I'd like to address your complaints.

1.  Yes, the keeper does always win. A good game is one that is won or lost by the skin of your teeth. I play with two simple house rules that help bring this balance back:  The keeper gets ½ point fewer threat per turn (e.g. 2½ threat for 3 investigators). And, the Keeper can't have more than 4 total Mythos and Trauma cards. If he gains more he has to discard down to 4. This has been extremely helpful.
   Also, I'd like to shamelessly plug my re-balanced official and custom investigators for your discretion. They have helped both the variety and the fairness of the game.
2. There is kind of a lack of options. At its heart, this is a game about following the clues, and that's really what you need to do. That said, the keeper often has decision on how to stall or ambush the investigators, and the investigators often have to decide when, how, and if to deal with a threat (specifically, monsters). I agree on your assessment of Tomes, but occasionally the investigators find themselves with a free action, so why not, if the spell can wind up being helpful? Shrivelling is a pretty damn good spell, I might add.
3. Don't forget that the major expansion, Forbidden Alchemy, does not come from the same printer as the Print on Demand scenarios, and so they don't need to re-print base-game cards to match the color palette. The three FA scenarios are effectively like three more scenarios in the base game. Many seed cards are re-used and so it would have been a great increase in the card count to make cards unique to EVERY scenario.

Well keep playing and try out new scenarios. If you email me at tibs.chris@gmail.com I can send you a touched-up PDF of Soak Man's Playthings scenario.

 Interesting … my group has played a total of 5 times now (3 scenarios from the base game, 1 till death do us part and 1 from forbidden alchemy). The investigators won of the them by a very narrow margin and all the 4 others were won by the game (ie. the players and the keeper all lost). 

Actually, in my group the players have bested me (the keeper) most of our games.

I think that investigators have won 5/10 games at least, maybee 6/10 don´t remember exactly. I as the keeper have won 3/10 games, and there have been 1 or 2 both side loses. 

But on the other hand, I as the keeper have been trying to give the players a fair chans of winning, and not playing with that cheap tactic you can use in many of the scenarios… 

 in our games, the keeper doesn't read the event cards beforehand so he can't plan a murdering tactic based on what he knows will come next. Additionally this keeps the game more interesting to the keeper as well. The story unfolds to the keeper as well as the players.

xaarex said:

This is just playing it RAW, nothing new:

"Build Event Deck: The keeper takes the five Event cards for
the story the players have chosen and builds the story’s Event
deck in order, starting with the stage “V” Event card on the
bottom and ending with the stage “I” Event card on top. No
player may look at the face of these cards during this process." (p. 5)

Also, that only works for the first play of each scenario, unless the Keeper develops amnesia after each game .

Won as the keeper again yesterday. But it was a really close one. If one of the players hadn't failed a roll the investigators would have won instead :P

I'm new to the game (and this website), and I've only run two games so far, but I think that a Keeper who wants to win at all costs (or uncompromised rulekeeping) compared to the pleasure the investigators are having is kind of missing the point. I want to have fun with my friends, not browbeat them with Keeper victories. That doesn't mean I don't obey the rules and give the investigators hell, it just means I may, for example, keep a Mythos card to myself instead of destroying a player's chance to succeed. I play games with my friends to have fun, not to show them how facile I am with a well-played Trauma card.

It does depend a lot on your group. My most recent Arkham group won only two games out of over 10. They're used to getting hosed every step of the way, so as the keeper I literally give them no breaks (that said, I still nerf myself without actively choosing to go easy on them). It does make their victory more sweet.

I had planned on waiting till after another game or two but thats been delayed twice now. The plan now is to get FA (now that i know its the updated copies on amazon) and really can not wait even one more second for Call of the Wild!

As far as players having fun.. we both do and a lot. It would not be fun for either of us if we were to 'take it easy'. My goal is simply to help the investigators along a bit more. More than helping them I feel it would make the game flow better (only a guess since we havent actually tried it yet). At the same time the four action point play that I was suggesting might also nullify some of the keeper action cards (uncontrollable urges) but thats why we need to try it.

For me having A B C 1 2 3 story lines is not bad but adds little to no replay value. The main story is the same for the most part. Simply changing the end goals is not really enough to warrant playing it over again. That may be a bit harsh so I,d change that to (with the same player(s).

Said and done its not that I want to make it too easy just that the investigators need to at least be able to accomplish the objective. I have found that its not impossible just impossible within the allotted amount of time. One example would be "The door slams shut" place a no door token over any door. One investigator would have been able to escape but not any more..the other one had no chance at all. Granted I could~ have split the investigatos up but there was no reason to have done so (unless you consider "we should split up in case the door slams shut" a good reason).

On the flip side moving too fast can be just as bad. *spoiler* I moved too fast at the start of one game, opened the door and instantly froze to death..hehe. I was too early to hear the warning.

Oh well. Wish I could play to try it out now.

Did I mention Call of the Wild? Oh…I did…several times? Ok. Thanks for reading

Call of the Wild

Jacob Singer said:

I disagree. MoM is a boardgame, not a RPG, where the guardian is just a lonely player against a team of other players.

The game is quite balanced when played raw if the 2 competing sides are cunning.

I agree that MoM is fairly balanced save for a few loopholes and or wordings. You would hope that in-house playtesting would hit somewhere near this mark. The problem lies in that this is a unique type of board game. In most games you play the same setting over and over again following the same set up, actions, resolution and scoring. While MoM does this too it also changes all of them each time you play.

The average person can normally understand game mechanics and will pick up the flow of the rules as they play. When it comes to MoM you need to know nearly everything you can before you ever start. Since the game is so dependent upon the investigators fighting the unknown, the players need to have something to compare that to. The problem is that once you know the rules the game is nearly over.

This is mostly looking at MoM from the perspective of a first time investigator player. After the first game they should have a feel for how things work.  This means you have to 'waste' a scenario getting to that point. Since each time you play a new scenario there are new things to learn as well. This is the exciting part! The excitement should not be dampened by mechanics. That is why I feel that the investigators should have enough options to at least attempt to avoid these pitfalls. Attempt is the key word here. Simply having more options does not mean they will make the correct decision. I would rather kick myself a bit for choosing wrongly than to be frustrated with the fact that I had no chance in the first place.

I think we can agree that the keeper has the advantage here. Even if you don't read/know the event deck (which can really only happen the first time you play a given scenario) you still know where everything is seeded. This is a big advantage (whether you take it or not). So, changing the investigators rules some should not be that much of a swing in power. What I'm looking at is a more interactive investigator turn where loitering is less likely to hurt them.

@Tibs I did not look at the actual material (still having some issues with PDF) but I think I get the idea. I'd have to agree some of the stats in MoM are a bit under/over powered. Other than that it looks like too much of a change to the core game. I'm not saying its bad, it may well be needed. My own house rule can be turned on/off with a word. Until I've had a chance to try it out my house rule could easily be broken.

We finally tried out the house rule!

-An investigator has 4 points to spend each turn.

-1 point may be spent to move one space (up to 4 spaces each turn)

-2 points may be spent to perform an action (up to 2 actions per turn)

As you can see there are several options. An investigator could move 2 times and perform an action, move 4 times, perform 2 actions but more importantly move once, perform an action, move again (or any combination). For example, an investigator could move one space into combat, attack a monster, move away (with an evade test). For another example, an investigator could attempt to learn a spell from a tome and (if learned) cast it. For yet another example, an investigator could actually run at top speed to the aid of another investigator (or away from a serious threat) and actually get somewhere. The options themselves may seem overpowered but investigators still have to choose what is going to be best. With this simple change I (we) feel that investigators actually have a fair chance against the unknown.

You may think that this gives the investigators too much power (too many options). During our test game a few issues did come up but we do our best to keep things going. The first thing that came to our attention was, that with this house rule, the investigators could solve puzzles very quickly (it should be said that the random distribution was nearly solving the puzzles for the investigators this game). Taking an action attempting to move into a locked door room, get a chance at the puzzle, then use an action to work on the puzzle again. I'm actually ok with this since you can clear a puzzle while you are there more often and it creates less frustration for the investigator knowing what to do but having to wait a turn to do it. Another, potentially overpowered, issue is an investigator would be able to attack twice. This one is good and bad. Since some characters have the ability to attack again using the normal rules which this house rule would double. On the good side, lets face it…some of these monsters can be rather nasty.

At the end of the playtest we had decided to amend the house rule to include some limitation. While we still liked the idea of having the extra options it was not our intention to recreate an imbalance for the other side. Here is the tentative additional rule.

-an investigator may not perform the same type of action more than once per turn

I'm not sure that is worded well enough or even clearly enough to help. Most actions are labeled 'action'. My intent is to disallow two attack actions or two learning a spell from a tome actions and the like. The intent is not to, once again, limit it to one total action.

For this playtest I was the keeper and my friend ran 2 investigators (Pete and Mary) for the Inner Sanctum scenario. I was concentrating on the house rules functionality too much this game. No, that's not a cop out, I lost fair and square. I just mean that had I paid more attention to the fact that I needed to be more agressive in the beginning I could have still won (in particular killing one investigator after the objective rendering him unable to win). The rouse rules run feature made for a much more tense end game and I (at least) felt that the investigators were actually~ running for their lives (which they most certainly were).

Regardless which stance you take here this house rule would at the very least make new comers to the game more apt to accomplish something meaningful. Seeing as the keeper would more than likely be someone that has played several times (you) meaning an major advantage. The only real drawback being that they learn the original game incorrectly. It could be very overpowered for players that are use to the game but this should only mean that its tasking the keeper.

My plan is to use it for the next game as well but play as the investigators. Give it a try sometime and let me know what you think.

I believe that, officially, each investigator may only attempt the same puzzle once per turn. Check out the rulebook on that.

Yup. Forgot to mention I did look that one up. It occurred to me about the 2nd or 3rd puzzle. So its not an issue when it comes to puzzles. Are there any others that might double up?

Well I finally got Forbidden Alchemy

*spoilers*

First off, once again, I was totally enthralled with the set! I love the crawling ones minis. It took me nearly an hour to put all the card in sleeves (ok I might have been reading a few as well). I do not think I've ever had this good a value or 'bang for the buck' out of a game. Every single aspect of this game is outstanding that is until you play the scenarios.

What is the deal? How can they make such a great game and yet fail so hard with the basis for the game? I was utterly disappointed with the games. I really do not know what to say. Sure I can and have and will write my own but I don't get to enjoy unfolding any of these. Actually this should be the least of my problems because after playing each one I know them too.

There seems to be a disconnect between the story cards and the objectives. Sure it sort of can make sense after the story is told but by then the game is over. I am fine with the basic stuff such as 'You hear a loud crash coming from the hallway'. Fine…we need to go check out the hallway. At least this is something regardless of how blatant it may be. A lot of the story cards do tell you a story but do nearly nothing to further your investigation. I'm not saying that every card should specifically clue you into your next move but they are, after all, clue cards. Especially when there are several chosen paths in each story and printed companion clues they should coincide better.

I dissect the clue cards looking for the faintest hints as to the overall mindset of the characters involved. I still feel like I am tasked to simply search blindly only to  completely discard any and all plans since the objective is nowhere near anything I was trying to accomplish.

Yellow Matter: I shudder at this horrible work. Nothing is even remotely coherent. The clues have nothing to do with the whats going on. There are several new keeper action cards for this scenario (none of which are interesting or exciting) that seem to contradict and overlap themselves. They are also extremely overpowered. I mean beyond too powerful. As the keeper you do not need to do anything. You could easily just sit there for 8 turns and gain threat. After some time simply create a couple of cultists and beef them up with some mutations and whack anyone going near an altar.

What is with the bonus attack on mutated cultists?!? Pay a threat…do 3 4 even 5 wounds uncontested? Either I missed something drastically or this is just nonsense. Yes an investigator does know this capability beforehand. This brings up the age old meta that needs to be addressed every time a scenario is made. The investigators are REQUIRED to explore (I say required because without doing so there is no game). Hindering this progression is fine (thats part of the fun). Dead ending the progress is also acceptable (even more fun here). Making it impossible to not ever do any one thing wrong ever…not kool, not acceptable, not fun.

I was especially set back by finding that the most obvious connections and story possibilities were left ignored. Here is my my friend, I can save him, I will help him no matter the cost (and also avoid giving up 5 free threat!). The basis of the story is mutation. The basis of the story is my friend is exposed to this mutation. Now here is me finding him still barely alive. Have the test subject mutate for goodness sake! As a player if I were making an extra effort to tag-a-long my friend wouldn't be exciting and scary to flip over an event card only to find the friend you are so desperately trying to help has turned on you? Replace the test subject with a crawling one! Horrible, thematic, exciting…yes yes yes!

If you have the ability to create new keeper action cards for a scenario then why not create ones that actually make sense? IMO if I were to have written this one I would not have used cultists at all. The cultists would be replaced by zombies and keeper action card (singular not three of them) would be made to help run them in this scenario. I would also like to have seen mutation since its a mutation story. The way we quickly rewrote things was to have mutation accumulate on the zombies and once it reached the zombies total health it was replaced with any beast type monster (it mutated). additionally we worked out that the investigators could be 'infected' via a wounding attack. For the investigators with mutation the keeper could pay 1 threat to make them test against mutating. Pass: mutate into a beast monster, Fail: gain a mutation token. 

lastly, the objectives themselves are ludacris. Kill the uber Faust using investigators that can get nowhere near him? Fine alt they can desecrate the altars….riiiight. Same problem, dead investigators IF they have the torch and IF they didn't already use it. Even under the best circs you need to do it twice!

Once again we saw no use of tomes, special actions, trauma, mythos and in this case the new side effect cards. Did I mention that i rolled 7 10's (no worries I have melted that die)!

All in all we still had fun (up till the end which was quite a let down).