what's the deal with trauma? (SPOILERS!)

[awp832 447]

This thread has campaign spoilers.  You are duly warned.

So, what is the deal with trauma?  I mean, I know how it works and everything,  but it seems sort of... crazy, as it stacks up.   For example, after the campaign concluded I had Roland with 3 mental Trauma despite achieving good results on all missions and never failing Cover-Up even once.

 

1 Mental trauma from burning my house down

+2 mental trauma from stopping the ritual.  

So,  I am going into the next mission with 3 mental trauma, caping poor Roland out at 2 sanity,  with many many more missions to play and seemingly no way to remove trauma?  What exactly are we supposed to do?

[Network57 561]

First of all, trauma doesn't reduce your cap. It's just damage/horror you start with, but it can be healed.

Secondly, the game is designed for you to start each campaign fresh. So Roland would have no trauma, no XP, and a brand-new level 0 deck, if you took him against Dunwich.

[Meretrix 98]

It's to balance decks that are upgraded from steamrolling across all the campaigns in a row.

[Samea 141]

Yes, trauma is extremely inconvenient. But when a campaign ends, you are supposed to pick a new character for the next one or reset your old character completely, so trauma does not carry over from campaign to campaign. Every campaign is meant to be a single, independent story.

Now, some people like to play several consecutive campaigns with the same character and the game provides rules on how to do that if you want to do that. If you do, you're opting out of the intended playing experience to play super-gritty-let's-see-how-far-I-can-get-badass survival mode. This can be a fun challenge, but it is not meant to be fair, so you cannot complain about how hard it is.

Also I think that the introductory short campaign from the core is not necessarily a model for future campaigns and I would be surprised if during the longer expansion campaigns you would be as battered and bruised after 3 scenarios as you are in the core campaign.

[awp832 447]

....If that is the case than why in the quest resolution for The Devourer Below are characters assigned Trauma?   Why bother, since it goes away during the next campaign?   I guess it's just for as Samea put it "super-gritty-let's-see-how-far-I-can-get-badass survival mode"..?

[stevtimus 2]

I think the end campaign trauma and associated penalties are supposed to function like a scorecard in a sense.

[iGniGhted 113]

where does everyone get this idea that you throw out your investigator? the rulebook says you CAN, it also says you can continue with your current investigator... stop saying "supposed to". we're not supposed to do anything. if you're a chaosium Call of Cthulhu player, you'll know that, as the game goes on investigators get stronger, smarter, better at reading certain languages, better at driving, shooting, casting spells.. but, there's a cost, which is typically an investigator's sanity and health. hell, i've seen perfectly healthy investigators hacked up by an axe, and perfectly sane investigators driven permanently insane in half an hour.

 

on the other hand, i've seen deluded, partially insane characters bordering insanity melt the minds of wizards with the dread curse of azathoth, or punch holes through dark young with the fist of yog-sothoth.. i've seen battered and beaten investigators throw a deep one hybrid off a roof, and leap across chasms.

 

that's for me is the true point, as with the Call of Cthulhu RPG, you play your character until they can't really go much further. you stare deep into the eyes of the mythos and hope when the next story is over they still have a shred of their mental capabilities remaining to go on, if they haven't lost a leg, or arm, or head.

 

there's nothing stopping you from taking investigators across campaigns, but with their strengths comes their weaknesses. as in the CoC RPG, as your investigator becomes stronger, they also become weaker, which requires you tailor them to their weaknesses.

 

in this game, that's changing out cards. let's say Roland has 3 mental trauma (i've gotten this same resolution) now, you pack his deck with 2 elder signs, you take out allies that buff his attack, and help his will power. sure he's not the man he used to be, not as strong as he has learned to protect himself to survive, but he has strengths in XP other characters don't or won't.

 

to conclude, the resolution sanity loss in "Night of the Zealot" is to reflect that no matter how well you do, everything has a toll on you, and even if you're somehow able to achieve everything to the best of your potential, you'll still wind up suffering some type of affliction as a balance to the XP you've gained. to go back to Call of Cthulhu RPG, investigators commonly lose 5-20 sanity at the resolution of a scenario, which is to replicate the time after resolution that you've taken to think of the horrors you've witnessed as you try to gain some semblance of life as it used to be.

[Xenu's Paradox 40]

I imagine Dunwich will have official rules for multi-campaign play.

I also imagine those rules will address buying off trauma between campaigns with XP.

[iGniGhted 113]

I imagine Dunwich will have official rules for multi-campaign play.

I also imagine those rules will address buying off trauma between campaigns with XP.

 

i hate referring to it with everything, but seeing as how the game was heavily influenced by Call of Cthulhu RPG, i'd assume there will be, at some point, standalone campaigns, such as the well know "The Asylum" scenario that is a standalone scenario in CoC RPG that allows investigators to gain sanity and restore an insane investigator to sanity. . i would guess that you're right, and there will be ways to help, in small ways.. but that seems to create a power vacuum that makes older investigators better, especially if you have a 9/5 investigator with 30-40 XP worth of cards, and only 2 or 3 weaknesses to worry about.

[Network57 561]

where does everyone get this idea that you throw out your investigator? the rulebook says you CAN, it also says you can continue with your current investigator... stop saying "supposed to". we're not supposed to do anything. if you're a chaosium Call of Cthulhu player, you'll know that, as the game goes on investigators get stronger, smarter, better at reading certain languages, better at driving, shooting, casting spells.. but, there's a cost, which is typically an investigator's sanity and health. hell, i've seen perfectly healthy investigators hacked up by an axe, and perfectly sane investigators driven permanently insane in half an hour.

Night of the Zealot Campaign Guide:

"Future expansions of Arkham Horror: The Card Game will introduce new campaigns for the players to embark on. Typically, a deluxe box expansion forms the foundation for a new campaign, followed by six Mythos Packs that continue and conclude the campaign. The standard rules dictate that players start each campaign with new decks and 0 experience."

[Samea 141]

where does everyone get this idea that you throw out your investigator? the rulebook says you CAN, it also says you can continue with your current investigator... stop saying "supposed to". we're not supposed to do anything.

The standard rules dictate that players start each campaign with new decks and 0 experience. However, intrepid players who wish to embrace the chaos may transfer investigators who have completed one campaign into a different campaign by carrying over each investigator's deck, trauma and experience.

So, yes, you can play several campaigns with one investigator for whatever reason. But if you do, you are not using the "standard rules" for which the game is balanced and tested. You are not playing the game described by the rules. You are not playing the game everyone is discussing on the forums. You are on your own.

Again, you are free to do so. But you cannot complain about AH:TCG being too hard with trauma carrying over from campaign to campaign if this rule is not even part of the game.

[Gaffa 673]

So, yes, you can play several campaigns with one investigator for whatever reason. But if you do, you are not using the "standard rules" for which the game is balanced and tested. You are not playing the game described by the rules. You are not playing the game everyone is discussing on the forums. You are on your own.

To be fair, it looks like, at least based on forum chatter, that there's lots of house rulings going on everywhere. So that would make our trauma-wary poster in a pretty large crowd.

 

It's just good to know what the actual rules are so each of our small play communities has a common ground to discuss things on.

[Samea 141]

To be fair, it looks like, at least based on forum chatter, that there's lots of house rulings going on everywhere. So that would make our trauma-wary poster in a pretty large crowd.

The fact that the possibility to play more than one campaign is casually addressed in the core set shows that the idea must have seemed natural to the designers, too. Many people seem to prefer that mode. I see the appeal. But it would have been insane to sell a game where you basically say that a player has to buy all the expansions to get the full playing experience.

Also we have not really seen a full campaign so far and we have no clue how the game will look like with several expansions available. Perhaps there will be optional campaign rules (and the campaign recording sheets might help to reactivate characters from old campaigns), perhaps playing multiple campaigns will make no sense, unless the characters are time-travelling, bilocating, multidimensional beings, who knows?

But trying the default settings first is usually good advice when troubleshooting.

[mwmcintyre 271]

You could also say that the resolution at the end of the core set with the trauma is there with a storytelling purpose of having the investigators driven insane even if they "win", which is thematically appropriate. If Roland was down far enough, it tells the tragic story of him saving the day but being reduced to insanity as a result.

[Daft Blazer 291]

I might try and carry over an investigator to a new campaign, once. But frankly, by the time I've taken them through a campaign of 8 scenarios, l'll be ready for something new

When Dunich finally gets here, I'm ready to try some new investigators !

[shosuko 2,174]

Your character is supposed to be taxed irreparably over time.  This is a Lovecraft game after all...

 

Note that you can switch out characters as you like - so maybe, knowing that you will be expecting at least 3 mental trauma in the first story, try to have a character with a bit more sanity lead up that one.  Then you can switch in a character with more bravado to lead another where there may be more physical trauma coming in.  This could at least help you make your characters last longer. Maybe you want to keep 2 First Aid in your deck so that you can heal up some of the trauma before anything bad happens.

[TheFool 11]

....If that is the case than why in the quest resolution for The Devourer Below are characters assigned Trauma?   Why bother, since it goes away during the next campaign?   I guess it's just for as Samea put it "super-gritty-let's-see-how-far-I-can-get-badass survival mode"..?

 

Exactly. When you play in "gritty mode", you need the trauma to balance out your deck (though honestly, I feel they overdid it). If you don't, then the trauma is purely there for thematic reasons.

[Nasarius 0]

Your character is supposed to be taxed irreparably over time.  This is a Lovecraft game after all...

 

That's definitely my impression; nearly all Lovecraft Mythos games are heavily influenced by Call of Cthulhu and its trademark sanity mechanic. Your character isn't meant to develop into a monster-killing badass. They're much more likely to be driven insane. That's generally faithful to Lovecraft's actual writing, at least more so than typical RPG characters who stick around forever.

 

It's been mentioned before, but as long as your investigator hasn't taken trauma equal to the base stat (and therefore been eliminated from the game), you can use cards like First Aid to heal the damage/horror you take at the beginning of every scenario from trauma. This should allow a veteran character to limp on for a while longer, even under the rule variant where you're playing multiple campaigns.

[JaceDarker 0]

First I feel down the line they will incorporate something to reduce traumas.  Players get attached to characters, and FFG will see that.  Also you can always create a house rule to reduce trauma.  Make a side notation of how you did it and worse case you replay scenarios when the new rules come around.