What's Next?

[CEOWolf 46]

Any day now we'll get a spoiler for the finale of Legacy but after that cycle what cycle do you think we'll see next? What kind of Investigators will show up?

[Eruantalon 17]

My money is on Innsmouth. It's just too good to pass on - escaping the town, all the related Cthulhu/Dagon/Hydra stuff.

Judging by Marie we should expect investigators with deck restrictions built around traits.

[Molinext 18]

Based on Marie, I am guessing a Kingsport based campaign. With its reputation as a city of deamers, I think we will get marie, Yorick, dexter, luke. Not sure who else, maybe Tommy muldoon.

[Chronos96 15]

I know that so far it seems to be the case that scenarios that take place far from Arkham seem to be POD but I'd really like either a Mountains of  Madness cycle or a scenario in Alaska with Ithaqua.  Also a cycle in Egypt with Nephren-ka or the Dreamlands.

[BD Flory 695]

We could get globetrotting campaigns as self-contained deluxe expansions, taking the role of Saga boxes in LotR.

[CEOWolf 46]

Isn't Innsmouth a story secluded to a single building? I think they'd focus on going to various places. I hope to see an Egyptology meets Lovecraft expansion cycle that be fun.

[Gaffa 673]

Um, Lovecraft's Innsmouth story takes the protagonist all around Innsmouth (and far away from it in the epilogue).

If you want a Lovecraft story set all in one setting, try In the Halls of Eryx or, in a way, The Outsider.

[CEOWolf 46]

I only read like three stories of Lovecraft (Dagon, The Rats in The Walls and Dunwich Horror)

[Akol 1]

I think Innsmouth  would be nice. I always remember the game Dark corners of Earth.

But this time I would like to see Mountains of Madness.

[Network57 561]

There are a couple of Lovecraft stories with Egypt/Middle Eastern feel. Entombed with the Pharaohs, which is one of my favorites, and something like the Lost City or the Undiscovered City.

[Causty 4]

I think it would be cool to see some locations re-used .. Say the next deluxe is Innsmouth (PLEASE) .. Adventure one uses locations 1-6, adventure 2 uses locations 7-12 and adventures 3 uses locations 1 through 12, Mythos pack one comes out and uses some of the locations from the deluxe set , we could then have maybe 2 adventures in the mythos pack as opposed to 1 making the whole campaign longer all over.

 

Also how about the next stand alone adventure based on HPL's story The Horror at Red Hook, act one of that adventure could be to find a certain building that hides a secret, now if you have read Shadow over innsmouth and Horror at red Hook you will know that they both share a certain building in common .. so you could run HIRH as a side quest (starting at act 2 as you have already found said building in Innsmouth with certain criteria to make HIRH available, chaos bag, players discression) and it would fit into the current campaign a lot better than just waking one morning in Dunwich and thinking "heck its Carnivale lets all bugger off to Italy YAY! ! !  ! !!"

[Srba 336]

I don't know how Eldritch Horror handles this, but the thing that turns me of Mountains of Madness is that it seriously limits the number of characters that could realistically be involved in the scenario. Would Ashcan Pete ever find himself on an Antarctic expedition? Skids? Agnes?

[Julia 2,809]

I would not start with "realistic" and "Lovecraft" in the same sentence... however, Eldritch allowed all investigators to go to Antarctica and introduced a marvellous condition calle "Hypothermia"...

[Orlion 0]

I think the actual Mountains of Madness expedition would be in the latter part of the campaign, with travelling there potentially being a scenario.

[TheFool 11]

The Arkham Horror Files 'universe' has expanded quite a bit beyond Lovecraft's work. It has its own characters and themes to call on, and isn't limited to what would 'fit' in a Lovecraft novel (which is why we can have "Ashcan" Pete blasting a Star Spawn with his shotgun while in the Antarctics).

[Srba 336]

On 12/03/2017 at 10:08 PM, Julia said:

I would not start with "realistic" and "Lovecraft" in the same sentence... however, Eldritch allowed all investigators to go to Antarctica and introduced a marvellous condition calle "Hypothermia"...

There has to be an element of verisimilitude in the games justbas there does in the fiction, and more so in this game than in previous Files titles because we're being asked to invest personally in our characters more. In fact, FFG have sold this quite hard as a hybrid roleplaying experience.

In the context of the game world, I find it easier to accept a cabaret singer casting spells on extradimensional creatures than I do same cabaret singer going on an expedition to the antarctic.

[mwmcintyre 271]

There's already a bit of a disconnect with reality in how the game plays. After all in the base set scenario, you can be trapped in the house searching the attic and play your beat cop card. So..... a cop was randomly hiding out in the attic? Or when you're in the middle of a scenario - hey, I know, I'll pull out my .45 that I've apparently just forgotten I had up until now. Sometimes there are fun ways to justify it, sometimes not.

In the spirit of MST3K - "Repeat to yourself it's just a game, I should really just relax."

Also remember that these are people who have chosen to investigate really weird things and are determined to uncover the truth. As long as one person can legitimately have some connection, just imagine they've brought their buddies along as backup. Much weirder things have happened in action and adventure movies. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom had a cabaret singer/dancer and a chinese street kid tagging along with Indy on a trek through the back country of India.

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by mwmcintyre

[Julia 2,809]

2 hours ago, Srba said:

There has to be an element of verisimilitude in the games justbas there does in the fiction, and more so in this game than in previous Files titles because we're being asked to invest personally in our characters more. In fact, FFG have sold this quite hard as a hybrid roleplaying experience.

In the context of the game world, I find it easier to accept a cabaret singer casting spells on extradimensional creatures than I do same cabaret singer going on an expedition to the antarctic.

What's realistic and what is not it's very subjective. My point was simply that all these games allow for a narrative experience that keeps on making compromises, and we need to accept that. For example, in Eldritch, in one single round you can either sail across the whole Pacific Ocean or travel by train from L.A. to San Francisco. If we pretend this is "realistic", it's laughable. But it's a compromise we have to accept in order for the game to work. Same for Antarctica (having Marie going there ain't that different than Marie going to Tunguska or on the Hymalaya with no equipment).

Additionally, you say that these games allow for an RPG-like experience. Then it's 100% fair to allow players who want to play Marie to go to Antarctica. Having restrictions on the characters you can use for this or that will suddently shrink the fanbase. Not to mention that considering the history of Antarctica explorations, there are like 0 Arkham Files characters able to survive.

Then, it's entirely up to the players creating houserules to modify the game experience according to their likenings, of course

[Samea 141]

This is Arkham Horror, where the answer to everything is probably: "Portals!" - When playing Mansions of Madness, my investigator was searching a kitchen. When she opened the freezer, inside was a PORTAL TO ANOTHER WORLD! She collected a clue or two and continued with her investigation without batting an eye.

I guess in the Arkham Horror world, these things are pretty commonplace and while destroying your house traumatizes your investigator, seeing it being transformed and merged with other places seems more like a bloody nuisance.

So I imagine it's portals bringing police officers and weapons to you and dropping you randomly in the Bayou during your investigation of an evil cult. "Quick, we have to help Professor Arm..." - "Watch out, it's a rogue portal!" - "Whoaaa!" - "Aarrgh!" - "Hey, wait, is this Venice?!!"

Edited March 20, 2017 by Samea

[BD Flory 695]

It's obviously early to generalize about multiple cycles, as we aren't even halfway through the first. At least so far, though, the card game seems significantly more grounded than is predecessors.

My suspicion is that the more globetrotting stuff is aimed at the PoD scenarios rather than core products.

If those are incredibly successful, maybe FFG rolls the dice and tries standalone campaign boxes that are complete, but have no player cards. If I'm not mistaken, if Zealot were packaged this way, we would get about as many scenario cards in that box as we got in total (including player cards) in Dunwich.

But taking player cards out of such a product eats away at your market, because there isn't much incentive at all for multiple players in a group to own it. You only need one for four players. So again, PoD sales would have to back this play, and it would probably be marked up over deluxes due to economies of scale.

 

Could be pretty cool, though. I wouldn't mind getting the occasional campaign you can power through in one sitting like Zealot, even though I'm loving the box/cycle canpaign format so far.

Edited March 16, 2017 by BD Flory

[Khudzlin 734]

33 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

If those are incredibly successful, maybe FFG rolls the dice and tries standalone campaign boxes that are complete, but have no player cards. If I'm not mistaken, if Zealot were packaged this way, we would get about as many scenario cards in that box as we got in total (including player cards) in Dunwich.

Not quite. Night of the Zealot has 120 scenario cards (I'm including basic weaknesses, since you need only 1 set for a group), while the Dunwich Legacy box has 156 cards (of which 99 are scenario cards, again including basic weaknesses). On the other hand, Dunwich Legacy has 169 scenario cards as of pack #2 and, should the trend continue (about 35 scenario cards in each pack), the total number of scenario cards for the campaign will be around 300 (for comparison, the Core Set has 232 cards, excluding mini cards and reference cards).

[BD Flory 695]

7 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

Not quite. Night of the Zealot has 120 scenario cards (I'm including basic weaknesses, since you need only 1 set for a group), while the Dunwich Legacy box has 156 cards (of which 99 are scenario cards, again including basic weaknesses).

Even better. A boxed campaign would have 30-40 more cards to use in building scenarios. And it could also utilize core set encounter sets. So the 3 scenarios could be more developed, or there could be a fourth scenario.

Or FFG could reduce the card count to keep the price point comparable to a box with player cards.

 

Thanks for the actual numbers.

Edited March 16, 2017 by BD Flory

[Khudzlin 734]

14 hours ago, BD Flory said:

Even better. A boxed campaign would have 30-40 more cards to use in building scenarios. And it could also utilize core set encounter sets. So the 3 scenarios could be more developed, or there could be a fourth scenario.

Or FFG could reduce the card count to keep the price point comparable to a box with player cards.

 

Thanks for the actual numbers.

Well, a boxed campaign could be more developed than Night of the Zealot, but a box & cycle campaign (which is the standard) would never fit in a single box (you'd need about 2 boxes full of scenario cards).

 

You're welcome

[BD Flory 695]

6 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

Well, a boxed campaign could be more developed than Night of the Zealot, but a box & cycle campaign (which is the standard) would never fit in a single box (you'd need about 2 boxes full of scenario cards).

Yeah, a boxed campaign like this would be shorter than the full box/cycle setup.

It's early to say this, since we haven't even completed Dunwich, but it might be nice to have a other shorter options that aren't Zealot.

If the format's successful, they could also do 2-part boxes, like the Hobbit boxes in LotR (even though iirc LotR didn't introduce continuing mechanical elements until the Fellowship saga boxes, later).

[Meretrix 98]

On 3/12/2017 at 4:58 PM, Srba said:

I don't know how Eldritch Horror handles this, but the thing that turns me of Mountains of Madness is that it seriously limits the number of characters that could realistically be involved in the scenario. Would Ashcan Pete ever find himself on an Antarctic expedition? Skids? Agnes?

Which is why FFG's investigators are a silly joke meant to pander to every demographic. They are nothing like Lovecraft protagonists who were made up largely of educated professionals.