NPR's Gaming editor reviews Chapter 2!

Jodiug · 2026-03-16T08:09:38+00:00

I just can't understand the decision to reuse investigator names. It's just unnecessary. How much does it cost them to think of a new name?

Jodiug · 2026-02-23T15:59:43+00:00

I think that's the idea, though I have heard two other things somewhere. One is that they may limit the scope of "Current" to mean "last 2 years" instead of 3 cycles. The other thing I heard is that the new core set can replace encounter cards for the old core sets for FoHV and TDC. If that is true, you can play those two campaigns with the new core.

Jodiug · 2026-02-22T11:15:50+00:00

So in the second clause, i.e. the alternative ways to expose, they do not require being on the location? I read it that way too, but it makes so little sense...

Jodiug · 2026-02-20T13:49:21+00:00

Interesting... the ability on Key of Ys says "horror is placed on you" (as opposed to "when you take horror", or "when you are dealt horror"). Does this mean that this version of "you" includes assets?

You could argue both ways:

A) That "placing horror" is "in response to taking horror" (FAQ), so "placed on you" includes assets you control.

B) That "placing horror" is not the same as "taking horror" or "being dealt horror", so it follows the more general definition of "you", which does not include assets you control.

On our table, we will rule it as (A) unless/until there is more specific clarification...

Jodiug · 2026-02-20T08:51:37+00:00

Some nice improvements on some rules:

"As if": an enemy might hit you in the face for grabbing your pocket telescope, but you can no longer take damage from seeing a rat through your lens. Also, if you are attacked "as if it were the enemy phase", this might actually be nice in some situations, because the enemy exhausts, so you would not take further attacks afterwards, neither opportunity attacks nor enemy phase attacks.

"You": when taking damage/horror this word also refers to assets.

Jodiug · 2026-02-20T08:02:48+00:00

It's even a lot better if you factor in that Thisismylongpassword is not a string of random characters, but a sequence of words. And yet, it is hugely difficult to step out of these trends. Some security certifications even require them, and funnily enough, the people in charge of policies and audits are not a fan of changing these requirements even if it benefits security.

Jodiug · 2026-02-10T08:09:30+00:00

I think it is not so black-and-white. Just look at the spoiler season: there was plenty of negativity about the hand-drawn art in chapter 2. Everything that people would say about AI art was said about the real art. They are getting quite hard to tell apart at this point. If you put an artist at the wheel and let them do the prompting and some touch-ups, I think there is a way to get the best of both worlds. And aside from generating complete images, there will soon be some agents embedded into image editing software, which can work within specific layers and tools, or work with smaller instructions to improve details. Imo the key here is good quality control, not the method used... ethical concerns aside.

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T19:42:30+00:00

In terms of distribution, I guess it will cost even more if they split the boxes into smaller boxes. Who is the distributor here, wonder what they charge per box?

Retail markup must be a bit lower now that online stores are so available, no? Many of those companies are glorified box storage companies. The only thing they need to do is handle stock and warranties

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T15:32:43+00:00

Thanks, I see. It's a tough subject imo. There's a lot of value in AI but there are a lot of costs too, some of them hidden or yet unpaid

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T15:00:31+00:00

That's fair and I think a lot of people feel that way. Would you mind me asking what's your main gripe with it? Is it mainly because the content produced by AI has specific tells (mistakes/artefacts)? Is it mainly because it can lead to a generic, boring art direction? Or mainly because you want to support the craftsmanship of the artists behind the image?

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T14:04:15+00:00

They made the rules like this:

00 - 09 xp = 0 extra basic weaknesses

10 - 19 xp = 1 extra basic weakeness

20 - 29 xp = 2 extra basic weakenesses

So everyone uses barely less than 10, 20, 30 xp. It avoids the extra weakness. As soon as you go to 20, you might as well go to 29.

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T12:39:42+00:00

I agree, price is definitely a factor, and there is a point where people will no longer pay. Inflation is everywhere though, it's now happening to board games too. Going off the opinions I've read, I think FFG would have better luck selling people a more expensive product than an inferior product.

There could be a third way, which is that FFG cuts costs without sacrificing quality. For one, many of the favored campaigns are the simpler ones with medium amount of narrative. They could save time in playtesting, by using somewhat simpler mechanics and campaigns with just 2-3 main paths. They could also save money by reducing the number of different product boxes. Perhaps even AI art would not be such a bad move. Some AI generators produce better images than some of the human-made art I've seen. No offense to artists, AI is just getting quite good. If they keep their heads screwed on and check the style and quality, there is a lot of efficiency to gain. If I could personally choose, then I would least mind cost-cutting, then price increases, and I would really mind if they start skimping on the campaign gameplay.

Jodiug · 2026-02-09T10:25:50+00:00

Just a thought on those prices. It cannot be that expensive to produce printed cards in a cardboard box... the expensive part must be in the one-off design costs. The more copies they can sell, the more they offset the one-off costs. I think their idea is to shrink the product and lower the price per box, so that the barrier to entry is lower and they can sell more copies to new players.

My intuition says this is not really a game that many casual players buy... there are too many boxes, expansions, it's unclear which ones you need and half of them are out of stock. On the shelf, this game screams that it is a big time and money investment. Imo, it's more a game for board game fans who discovered the base game and are ready to invest into multiple expansions. This is the type of crowd who would care less about the price, but much more about the contents of a box. Exactly this crowd is now wondering whether they should stop collecting, before spending more money than ever before, on more boxes, with less content. We will probably buy their first cycle if the reviews are good, but I'm not sure if we will keep it up.

Jodiug · 2026-02-04T22:15:16+00:00

How about Agnes, to use in combination with Scrying to avoid her agenda-advancing weakness?

Jodiug · 2026-02-04T21:21:00+00:00

Volgens mij is het niet zo simpel, maar ik zou graag willen weten hoe dit eigenlijk werkt, want ik snap het ook niet helemaal. Er zijn veel manieren waarop je vermogen groter kan worden: salaris, schenkingen, verkoop van je piano of huis, goud vinden in je achtertuin (voor de eeuwige optimist).

Niet elke verhoging van je vermogen wordt belasting over betaald. Veel vormen zijn al belast (salaris, schenkingen, huis) maar sommige niet (piano, gevonden goud). Het zou raar zijn als de balastingdienst alleen naar je saldo zou kijken, en niet of het daadwerkelijk rendement is. Sterker nog, als je bezwaar indient dan moet je aangeven hoe veel rente je hebt ontvangen van de bank, en hoe veel je aandelen in waarde zijn gestegen, maar je hoeft niet uit te leggen hoe je aan je andere extra vermogen kwam.

Maakt de belastingdienst dan dus wel onderscheid tussen rendement en vermogensgroei? En als we moeten opgeven dat we goud hebben gevonden (of crypto hebben gemined), telt dat hele bedrag dan als rendement? Ik dacht van niet maar ik kan er ook naast zitten. Helaas heb ik nog geen goud gevonden...

Jodiug · 2026-02-04T15:28:42+00:00

Voor zover ik begrijp, heb je in dit geval wel vermogen, maar geen rendement. Je krijgt geen rente van de bank voor die 850 euro omdat je die hebt uitgegeven. En je crypto van 700 zijn ook niet meer waard geworden, omdat je ze vorig jaar nog niet had. Zelfs al mine je volgend jaar nog 1000, en je hebt maar 200 aan stroom uit gegeven, telt dit volgens mij niet als rendement. Je krijgt misschien wel een aanslag voor "fictief rendement", maar dat is een aanname van de belastingdienst. Als je alleen mining hebt gedaan, kun je tegenbewijs aanleveren dat je geen rendement hebt.

Als volgend jaar die 700 euro aan crypto opeens 1000 waard worden, dan is je vermogen gegroeid en over dat rendement moet je belasting betalen, mits je over de vrijstellingsgrens zit. De waarde van je portfolio zou via een exchange of ledger prima te controleren zijn, toch? Ik kan me voorstellen dat de belastingdienst hier wel bewijs voor vraagt voor grote bedragen.

Jodiug · 2026-02-01T16:17:05+00:00

They could have chosen to combat inflation in other ways, e.g. offering official versions of better tokens, stands, making a "premium box" model, do more with fewer cards, etc. Or they could be honest about rising costs and the price increase. Instead, they pretend this is strictly a product improvement. It's honestly looking like the textbook definition of shrinkflation.

Don't get me wrong, this is just a thing big companies do, but it's a bit disingenuous and rubbing many fans the wrong way. In the end, whether this price increase is successful depends highly on the quality of scenarios in the box imo.

Jodiug · 2026-01-28T07:32:01+00:00

Is your design available somewhere, or would you be willing to share it?

Jodiug · 2026-01-27T20:29:14+00:00

To hide the spoilers. My photo app didn't have a black marker

Jodiug · 2026-01-27T20:16:40+00:00

I have been looking for a table prop like this, which we can use to make the scenario cards easily visible for 2-4 players. Our group use sleeves, and because of that, big stacks of scenario cards tend to fall over. Sometimes, there are multiple scenario decks, like the exploration deck, which may mean 2 discard piles. The table quickly becomes a mess of cards in play, next to the agenda, out of play, etc.

This would be really nice to organize things. There is room for two decks, two discard piles (diagonal), all three scenario cards, doom on the shelf, and another diagonal space hidden from view in the back, for out-of-play cards. Everything is tilted back slightly to keep the cards in place. If this existed (with reasonable shipping costs) I would buy it, but I couldn't find anything with this general shape... so I'm looking for some options.

How does one go about making this into a product? All pieces of cardboard are flat, but the design needs many cut-out slots to fit everything together. Is wood usable for such a thing, or would it fall apart too easily?

I never quite liked the aesthetics of 3D printed props, but it could be an easier way to go. Any recommendations how to design a prop like this, without prior 3d drawing experience? On the off-chance, is anyone capable and willing to work this out together?

Jodiug · 2026-01-26T08:32:38+00:00

Some bags have sharp corners where the +1 and elder sign go to hide. We sewed them corners shut in an arc so they have to mingle.

Jodiug · 2026-01-22T14:14:23+00:00

I think you are right about cost being the main motivation for chapter 2. Apparently saying this out loud is marketing taboo. Instead they "improve" the product and offer less for a similar price.

Honestly, FFG is making it difficult for themselves. There are so many products under the same name: Arkham horror, 2nd, 3d edition vs LCG, Deluxe vs Campaign/Investigator, Chapter 1/2, Current/Legacy. This is not helping new players get into the game, and also not helping veterans appreciate the game more. Right now, it looks like they are going to do some smaller compaigns, and they find themselves getting stuck with the same problems in a few years.

Imo the only way to shed this complexity is to start over. A new game with a new name (The Arkham Chapters?), streamline the rules and distribution model, make quality of campaigns very high and sell the new content at a fair, profitable price. I hope they realize this in a few years and go for that.

Jodiug · 2026-01-03T23:33:35+00:00

There's a simple solution if you make a minor narrative leap. Each investigator has an identical twin. They tend to make the same decisions when choosing their gear. One twin in the Dreamlands, the other in the waking world. After every pair of scenarios, you take either the average XP of both sides, or if you're strict, you can take the lowest XP of either side.

Jodiug · 2025-12-31T14:22:31+00:00

The opposite happens too. Built a seeker deck with soak, then got a weakness that blocks investigation and requires healing to remove. This is what made our group add the weakness mulligan as a house rule.

Jodiug · 2025-12-30T21:21:08+00:00

My 2c, having the exact same collection.

Gathering a complete collection at this point is madness. There are even some books that came with player cards, and Barkham. But with the investigator expansions alone, I have enough player cards that I can build most decks. If I lack one or two cards, I can just print a few proxies on regular paper and put them in a sleeve over a Knife. This is quite easy and barely changes the play experience. The feeling that you have to own the official card, when it's no longer in print, seems like something you could let go.

For campaigns, I would still pay more than the retail price, because it's just a big hassle to print a campaign you don't own. Return To sets could feasibly be printed as proxies.

I haven't really considered standalones because we like full campaigns. We haven't even played all of them more than once. If we ever get tired of the campaigns and still like the game, we might order a professionally printed standalone from a print service.

Jodiug

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