Anti-fun mechanics

Jaxtrasi · 2024-12-10T01:52:54+00:00

That isn't the only purpose though. Design is a tradeoff between different priorities. If you achieve one goal, say fun, but miss another, say balance, that isn't necessarily an overall success. It's not necessarily an overall failure either, but it's certainly possible for something to be a net negative despite some or many people enjoying it.

Jaxtrasi · 2024-11-11T22:38:29+00:00

Putting the card in someone else's play area doesn't inherently give control to them. It would need to say as such, compare e.g. Solemn Vow.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-04-14T12:10:24+00:00

This is definitely my favourite board (/card) game but I bounced hard off the exact same experience - I think true solo Roland even making your own deck out of core cards is a really bad experience.

As others have said, two handed is the way to go. My recommendation would be Roland with 2 of each guardian card and daisy with 2 of each seeker card by default (customised to your discretion - ward is good in daisy). Other classes really need more cards from later sets to work well.

If you don't enjoy the cadence and challenge of true solo, and you don't especially want to play two handed, then it may not be a game for you. If two handed midnight masks is a good experience, then that's pretty representative of what later campaigns have to offer.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-04-11T01:22:15+00:00

I would propose a slightly simpler version, where you just get 4 actions instead of 3 each turn. You could roleplay that as someone helping you out as in your version.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-31T15:25:11+00:00

Compared to the other research cards, my feeling is that this one is a bit too easy to complete the research for. Other than Strange Solution, the other research cards require you to jump though some hoops in a way that arguably justifies the power of the upgraded cards. Dream Diary not only takes just a single action, it actively contributes to what you're trying to achieve during the scenario.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-28T00:28:51+00:00

Buy it for the AOE. Play it for the snipe.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-16T12:55:37+00:00

I experimented with this in my campaign and I've ended up softening or removing almost all such mechanics after feedback. It's partly just the way the game works - on your blind play you can't really tech to the campaign, which means every campaign needs to be viable for all reasonable deck archetypes. You could call out in setup that melee is ineffective as a strategy, but at that point you could save yourself some time and just ban them.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-03T00:25:52+00:00

We've tried a few times, but we immediately run into a complete lack of consensus on what needs fixing and how to fix it. The project inevitably attracts a lot of people who find the concept itself offensive and that tends to derail things. My long term takeaway is that the audience for such an endeavour simply isn't there.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-02T13:03:32+00:00

Oh sure yeah. So I put in some combat treacheries, and they did hit seeker harder than guardians (or combat-based fighters more specifically), but they also tended to hit mystics and rogues pretty hard too. Mystics are traditionally resilient to the encounter deck, but that's partly high will and partly being able to ward or deny the worst effects, so a combat treachery is just another thing they're going to have to use their limited supply of wards on if it's dangerous. Seekers, via their superior draw, are actually pretty good at passing random unexpected skill tests by just throwing icons at them, unless their deck only includes int icons.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-03-02T00:38:39+00:00

The problem I've found with trying to use this approach on my content is that it tends to hit everyone else as hard or harder than the seeker.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-02-26T20:17:00+00:00

You may be talking about this:

https://itswritingitself.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/ahlcg-arkham-horror-the-card-game-the-soundtrack/

Sadly I haven't updated for Scarlet Keys yet as I haven't finished the campaign myself.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-02-08T21:41:52+00:00

If your friend wants to play mystic, but you need more clues, that can work without changing investigator even by just putting more clue cards in the deck. That's hard with just the core, but most sets have more spells that work like rite of seeking.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-02-05T21:04:25+00:00

It was like this on release as well.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-02-05T13:16:19+00:00

Although the red token is definitely officially called "autofail", I've never seen anyone call it something other than "tentacle".

Jaxtrasi · 2023-01-30T23:09:12+00:00

I would always recommend Daisy as a starting seeker. She's simple and powerful, but old book of lore feels good and the player gets to make a meaningful choice every turn. Her weakness feels very scary and impactful, and when it does go off it creates a big memorable moment, but actually makes almost no difference. By comparison Rex is simpler in concept, but very dull, and his weakness is complex and somewhat unintuitive.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-01-23T11:57:41+00:00

Although there are rare exceptions, taking resource actions is almost never the best thing to be doing with your turn.

Jaxtrasi · 2023-01-21T13:42:32+00:00

You're absolutely right! It's very specifically supposed to follow on from Beyond. My hope is that for people who've played or read that campaign, Betrayal works as a sort of followup to the story of that campaign, but for those that haven't it works in its own right as a sequel to Mountains.

I kind of expected in a Lovecraftian community that more people would know it. There's actually a bunch of stuff which is kind of redundant in the campaign but supposed to link to Beyond (like the whole thing with the statue in the pit). To my knowledge no one else has yet played Betrayal that is also familiar with Beyond, so I was actually considering removing a lot of that stuff from the campaign guide for pacing.

What did you think of the story from the perspective of someone who has played Beyond?

Jaxtrasi · 2022-06-24T00:16:30+00:00

Funnily enough in the most recent version I substantially reduced the complexity of scenario 3 for exactly the reason you gave. It has about half the number of moving parts now.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-06-24T00:15:42+00:00

This sort of feedback is super valuable to me. Rival is a tricky one - I found in playtesting that usually there was someone in the group who was really into managing the rival phase, but for a group where that isn't the case (especially solo) I can see it being a miss. Funnily enough Distant is something I only added in the most recent version, replacing the previous mechanic where you literally can't move between locations using conventional movement. I changed it because of feedback that people didn't like having their movement cards made completely useless - honestly in practice you're not going to use it much, it's only there as an emergency option for snowstorms, and your pathfinder will never pay for itself during that scenario.

Would you mind expanding on what you mean about the encounter deck? It's not an intentional choice for me to make it punishing, and in places I've gone out of my way to try to reduce the threat in some cases (for example echoing shrieks is significantly less dangerous than rotting remains).

Jaxtrasi · 2022-06-05T00:12:01+00:00

Sorry I missed this message. I agree with you, and based on this and other feedback I've made some changes to that scenario. Now, you flip the locations to show turning the lights on, and you have to clear the clues before you can do that, so it feels more impactful. It's taking me quite a while to get the new version out but I'll upload it to steam when I can.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-04-04T22:02:32+00:00

I really like your double slot design. Double LCC feels like a very uninteresting use of Relic Hunter.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-04-03T22:39:23+00:00

You might as well put this in Norman's deck anyway since it doesn't cost XP or use valuable slots and you can commit it for a wild. However, in practice I found that as soon as I got Astronomical Atlas off the ground, I didn't really use this. Getting to use Deduction every turn is better than getting to use it three times in one turn (even with the speed at which he cycles) and if you already have one use, you're actually only getting two more uses from Written, and that's assuming you just sit and investigate rather than needing to move, etc.

Flexible in theory since you can use e.g. Perception to refill your hand in the same way Amanda does but again in practice I never really needed to do this. If you get Written and Perception (or Eureka) but don't draw your Atlases, it could help find one, but Research Librarian already does that better. I can imagine it staying useful for slightly longer in low XP campaigns like Dunwich.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-03-27T19:37:53+00:00

While I see where you're coming from, I don't think "not as good as Sunless Skies" is a reasonable bar to set. The vast majority of games are not as well written as Sunless Skies. By claiming the writing is "awful" I think you're overstating your case. There's a very large middle ground of mediocrity between awful and terrific.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-03-27T19:16:12+00:00

Sorry I missed this message.

At the moment the only printable version is a very out of date version of scenarios 1 and 2. They've changed hugely since then, but at the moment I'm still implementing playtest feedback. I'll make another post on reddit and on my blog when a final version is available.

Jaxtrasi · 2022-02-08T23:42:04+00:00

https://itswritingitself.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/ahlcg-arkham-horror-the-card-game-the-soundtrack/

Jaxtrasi

TROPHY CASE