Any hardened veteran characters yet?

[TheFool 11]

I didn't see page 2 when I responded last, so I'll just add here, you are not supposed to play any scenario more than once. I realize we are limited in scenarios, but that doesn't mean that the game is designed where you run through curse of the rougarou four times while idling. That should be done as a pure standalone or as part of a different campaign.

 

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

Edited December 24, 2016 by TheFool

[VermillionDe 70]

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

 

I make an exception for the Rougarou side quest for one reason. If you run it solo, the rougarou doesn't always spawn. So my rule on it was if he didn't spawn than the investigators were just chasing rumors and can try again later. For the rest, I agree. It makes no sense to run any of the same campaigns or side quests again. I believe that was the original intent. 

As far as weaknesses go I think it's just as much a matter of continuity as experience or asset cards. If you gain them, you keep them. It's part of carrying it all forward. However once the game is in your hands it's your own game to play, so play it as you think the intent best fits. Until we get clarification, that's the best we can do right? 

[Network57 561]

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

I make an exception for the Rougarou side quest for one reason. If you run it solo, the rougarou doesn't always spawn. So my rule on it was if he didn't spawn than the investigators were just chasing rumors and can try again later. For the rest, I agree. It makes no sense to run any of the same campaigns or side quests again. I believe that was the original intent. 

As far as weaknesses go I think it's just as much a matter of continuity as experience or asset cards. If you gain them, you keep them. It's part of carrying it all forward. However once the game is in your hands it's your own game to play, so play it as you think the intent best fits. Until we get clarification, that's the best we can do right?

What do you mean he doesn't spawn? He gets put into play by Act 1b, it's unavoidable.

[ricedwlit 209]

 

 

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

I make an exception for the Rougarou side quest for one reason. If you run it solo, the rougarou doesn't always spawn. So my rule on it was if he didn't spawn than the investigators were just chasing rumors and can try again later. For the rest, I agree. It makes no sense to run any of the same campaigns or side quests again. I believe that was the original intent. 

As far as weaknesses go I think it's just as much a matter of continuity as experience or asset cards. If you gain them, you keep them. It's part of carrying it all forward. However once the game is in your hands it's your own game to play, so play it as you think the intent best fits. Until we get clarification, that's the best we can do right?

What do you mean he doesn't spawn? He gets put into play by Act 1b, it's unavoidable.

 

Concur, unless people decide to not advance for some reason. Then they either all need to resign or let the agenda advance to the end (which has provisos for someone not having the curse, e.g never advanced to  Act 1b).

 

(edit for punctuation)

Edited December 25, 2016 by ricedwlit

[mwmcintyre 271]

I don't get saying they could run the same scenario multiple times. If you're carrying over from campaign to campaign, it would be ridiculous to allow running a scenario they had already completed. You just treat it as one big campaign. If it's an ongoing story with your investigators - they've already completed the sidequest.

[VermillionDe 70]

What do you mean he doesn't spawn? He gets put into play by Act 1b, it's unavoidable.

You are correct, clearly I missed the line that instructed me to spawn him. So yeah, agreed then, there's no reason to play a scenario (or sidequest) twice. 

[Soakman 987]

We played the campaign with 3 players (Roland, Wendy, & Eunice - a custom investigator of my own) with the following results: 

 

We beat The Gathering

We lost Curse of the Rougarou

We beat 50% of the cultists in Midnight Masks

We beat Carnivale with all innocents saved

We beat The Devourer Below via the path of least resistance

 

By the end, I had my signature weakness, two basic weaknesses, a scenario weakness, a very enhanced deck, an extra ally, an extra asset, 3 mental trauma, and 1 pysical trauma (most traumas happened at the end of the last scenario resolution). This left my final investigator with a starting Sanity of 6 and a starting Health of 5 (Roland was down to 2 starting sanity, yikes!).

 

So  yes, my deck had 4 weaknesses to draw out of 37 cards. So in the end, I had a 10% chance to draw a weakness per card as opposed to the 6% chance at the beginning. 

Vets both gain AND lose power depending on how well you do. And if you die, you just bring in a new investigator, so there's no harm.

 

I think the biggest issue is a player who is reluctant to take on a new investigator when their vet is sitting at a max of 5 sanity and he already has 3 mental trauma. This can cause an entire scenario to fail (and be harder at the same time due to increased player numbers) and if you can't resign it sets back the other players' decks because they may be forced to take trauma as well.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Soakman

[TheFool 11]

We played the campaign with 3 players (Roland, Wendy, & Eunice - a custom investigator of my own) with the following results: 

 

We beat The Gathering

We lost Curse of the Rougarou

We beat 50% of the cultists in Midnight Masks

We beat Carnivale with all innocents saved

We beat The Devourer Below via the path of least resistance

 

By the end, I had my signature weakness, two basic weaknesses, a scenario weakness, a very enhanced deck, an extra ally, an extra asset, 3 mental trauma, and 1 pysical trauma (most traumas happened at the end of the last scenario resolution). This left my final investigator with a starting Sanity of 6 and a starting Health of 5 (Roland was down to 2 starting sanity, yikes!).

 

So  yes, my deck had 4 weaknesses to draw out of 37 cards. So in the end, I had a 10% chance to draw a weakness per card as opposed to the 6% chance at the beginning. 

Vets both gain AND lose power depending on how well you do. And if you die, you just bring in a new investigator, so there's no harm.

 

I think the biggest issue is a player who is reluctant to take on a new investigator when their vet is sitting at a max of 5 sanity and he already has 3 mental trauma. This can cause an entire scenario to fail (and be harder at the same time due to increased player numbers) and if you can't resign it sets back the other players' decks because they may be forced to take trauma as well.

 

So are you playing this and Dunwich Legacy as one big campaign? As in, you won't be repeating the side-stories but will keep all Story Assets and Weaknesses?

Edited January 3, 2017 by TheFool

[Soakman 987]

Haven't decided yet. Probably not. I'll likely play each campaign separately. Even Arkham Horror (the original) let you retire investigators who had enough trauma, lol.

[borithan 237]

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

I think talking about the intent when we are talking about something that explicitly breaks the rules is a little odd. As it is at the moment you are intended to start a new campaign with a new investigator. Now, who knows, maybe the expansions will add official rules about continuing with the same investigators (the rules are written to support the Arkham Horror core set as a stand-alone game, and so there is only one campaign to work through at the moment), but at the moment it is explicitly counter to the rules. Now, the decision to adding weaknesses and trauma at the end of a final scenario of a campaign suggests they realise players may want to try and continue with the same investigators, and so they are proofing the system for that kind of thing, but it doesn't mean it was intended within the design space of the system.

 

Personally I would argue that if you are doing campaigns with the same instigators it is just one long campaign, and so you can't do side missions again. All the rules regarding "campaigns" would apply to the whole length of playing through.

 

It also runs counter to the spirit of the thing in my mind. Presumably if you want to run the investigators on you are expressly choosing to be attached to the characters, which suggests a story-telling motivation, and it doesn't make much sense in the story to go and do the same side quests twice. You wouldn't do it in an RPG, so you wouldn't do it here.

Edited January 10, 2017 by borithan

[TheFool 11]

 

Yeah, but if you take the same Investigator on multiple campaigns, he could run the same side-story more than once. I guess if you treat it all as one big campaign as you suggest, you would not run into story asset problems either. So either you treat them as separate campaigns and return story assets at the end of each, or you treat it as one big campaign and keep them, but you won't be able to ever run a side-story again.

 

I remain convinced that bringing Weaknesses over from campaign to campaign underpowers your investigator greatly though. But maybe that's the intent.

I think talking about the intent when we are talking about something that explicitly breaks the rules is a little odd. As it is at the moment you are intended to start a new campaign with a new investigator. Now, who knows, maybe the expansions will add official rules about continuing with the same investigators (the rules are written to support the Arkham Horror core set as a stand-alone game, and so there is only one campaign to work through at the moment), but at the moment it is explicitly counter to the rules. Now, the decision to adding weaknesses and trauma at the end of a final scenario of a campaign suggests they realise players may want to try and continue with the same investigators, and so they are proofing the system for that kind of thing, but it doesn't mean it was intended within the design space of the system.

 

Personally I would argue that if you are doing campaigns with the same instigators it is just one long campaign, and so you can't do side missions again. All the rules regarding "campaigns" would apply to the whole length of playing through.

 

It also runs counter to the spirit of the thing in my mind. Presumably if you want to run the investigators on you are expressly choosing to be attached to the characters, which suggests a story-telling motivation, and it doesn't make much sense in the story to go and do the same side quests twice. You wouldn't do it in an RPG, so you wouldn't do it here.

 

 

Why would talking about intent be odd? It's a variation to the rules suggested by the developers themselves, not something dreamt up by the community.

 

I agree that "one long campaign" is the way they envisioned this to work though, for the reasons you've given. I'm personally going with the "multiple campaigns" approach though, because while I like having a persistent Investigator, I also like replaying stuff

 

As long as you're consistent, either approach works.

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

I think talking about the intent when we are talking about something that explicitly breaks the rules is a little odd. As it is at the moment you are intended to start a new campaign with a new investigator. Now, who knows, maybe the expansions will add official rules about continuing with the same investigators (the rules are written to support the Arkham Horror core set as a stand-alone game, and so there is only one campaign to work through at the moment), but at the moment it is explicitly counter to the rules. 

The campaign guide explicitly suggests the possibility of continuing into the new campaign with the same investigator.  I'm really not interested in a debate of what qualifies as "rules" and what might not, but the game very directly gives you the option.

 

As for playing the same scenario more than once...  <shrug>  I've never understood what people think they're accomplishing by bending the rules into pretzels in a cooperative game.  Should you play the same scenario more than once with the same investigator?  Probably not.  Do the rules explicitly lay out that you can't do it even across campaign lines?  Not that I can find.  Can you do it?  Entirely up to you and how much fun you get out of abusing your game.

 

I guess we're better off with players like that trolling the campaign guide than other players.

[Network57 561]

I think talking about the intent when we are talking about something that explicitly breaks the rules is a little odd. As it is at the moment you are intended to start a new campaign with a new investigator. Now, who knows, maybe the expansions will add official rules about continuing with the same investigators (the rules are written to support the Arkham Horror core set as a stand-alone game, and so there is only one campaign to work through at the moment), but at the moment it is explicitly counter to the rules.

The campaign guide explicitly suggests the possibility of continuing into the new campaign with the same investigator.  I'm really not interested in a debate of what qualifies as "rules" and what might not, but the game very directly gives you the option.

 

As for playing the same scenario more than once...  <shrug>  I've never understood what people think they're accomplishing by bending the rules into pretzels in a cooperative game.  Should you play the same scenario more than once with the same investigator?  Probably not.  Do the rules explicitly lay out that you can't do it even across campaign lines?  Not that I can find.  Can you do it?  Entirely up to you and how much fun you get out of abusing your game.

 

I guess we're better off with players like that trolling the campaign guide than other players.

Judge less. This is a co-op game, it's no skin off your nose how people approach their personal campaign mode, so why deride them for it?

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

Judge less. This is a co-op game, it's no skin off your nose how people approach their personal campaign mode, so why deride them for it?

 

How someone plays doesn't affect me, and I truly don't care.  If they want to take out half the cards they don't like, play with every location face up, treat shrouds as zero and Umhordoth as if it had 1 HP, it's all good.

 

But how we talk about rules around here does affect me, and I do care.  My point was actually very nearly the same as yours - it's a co-op game, do whatever you want, but don't force the rest of us to endure tortured hairsplitting of the rules to try and justify it to yourself.

[TheFool 11]

 

 

Judge less. This is a co-op game, it's no skin off your nose how people approach their personal campaign mode, so why deride them for it?

 

How someone plays doesn't affect me, and I truly don't care.  If they want to take out half the cards they don't like, play with every location face up, treat shrouds as zero and Umhordoth as if it had 1 HP, it's all good.

 

But how we talk about rules around here does affect me, and I do care.  My point was actually very nearly the same as yours - it's a co-op game, do whatever you want, but don't force the rest of us to endure tortured hairsplitting of the rules to try and justify it to yourself.

 

 

"Tortured hairsplitting of the rules", geez. It was an honest (and civil) rules debate about a grey area. You claim you don't care, but there was quite a bit of disdain in your post from my reading.

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

"Tortured hairsplitting of the rules", geez. It was an honest (and civil) rules debate about a grey area. You claim you don't care, but there was quite a bit of disdain in your post from my reading.

 

Again - I don't care how you play.  I do care how we discuss the rules.  There is a distinction there.

 

It's only a gray area if you're trying to force the rules to justify the way you play.  The RPG bent for this game has been well-stated, and it should be rather obvious that solving the same mystery each campaign is not intended.  So just own it - you're playing against the design, and that is up to you, but please spare us the disingenuous "Oh, the rules could go either way!" fainting spells.

[TheFool 11]

 

 

"Tortured hairsplitting of the rules", geez. It was an honest (and civil) rules debate about a grey area. You claim you don't care, but there was quite a bit of disdain in your post from my reading.

 

Again - I don't care how you play.  I do care how we discuss the rules.  There is a distinction there.

 

It's only a gray area if you're trying to force the rules to justify the way you play.  The RPG bent for this game has been well-stated, and it should be rather obvious that solving the same mystery each campaign is not intended.  So just own it - you're playing against the design, and that is up to you, but please spare us the disingenuous "Oh, the rules could go either way!" fainting spells.

 

 

You assume too much. In my reading of the rules, I genuinely believed the design to be different. I mostly came around due to discussing it in this thread, stated as much, and now you claim I'm "disingenuous". I've been anything but. You're arguing with some personal ghost. Feel free to get your last word in, and then I suggest we move this thread back to the original topic.

[Cabello 2]

Hey all. Been playing this game a lot since it came out. I have run through the core campaign several times now have have started a long game. For this we treat everything a one long campaign. For us that means that each side mission can only ever be done once for the run and everything stays, good and bad. The only thing that changes as we progress from one story to the next would be the chaos back.

[evilidler 145]

everything stays, good and bad. The only thing that changes as we progress from one story to the next would be the chaos back.

You're playing as intended, which is pretty hardcore