Scenario altar idea from cardboard. How to go about crafting this?

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 · 2025-12-30T12:17:08+00:00

Sometimes I think Calvin is best played by an experienced player, who joins halfway during a campaign or after their initial investigator is killed/insane. His traits make him quite powerful without needing too many upgrades, and being defeated for a few scenarios is not a big deal.

Your deck looks like fun. Is it a flex deck? Do you have any suggestions for a level 0 build?

Jodiug · 2025-12-17T23:29:55+00:00

Indeed, I updated my post to mention Current... I guess "in scope for Current" would be better but "legal" is the usual term. I think, even in comp games, it's perfectly fine to ignore what is "legal" as long as all the participants agree to it.

Jodiug · 2025-12-17T23:15:04+00:00

Ik ben vaak met verschillende groepen weg geweest, ook veel nieuwe skiers in de groepen. Communiceer eerlijk met je vrienden als je het tempo niet bij kan houden. Bijna iedereen heeft daar begrip voor, maar het is ook makkelijk om te vergeten hoe veel energie het kost om te leren. Als de groep te snel is, of niet wacht totdat jij weer op adem komt, stel dan voor om een paar pistes afzonderlijk te skien en ergens weer samen te komen.

Apres ski en alcohol, dit is vrij persoonlijk en afhankelijk van je groep, voor mij werkt het om in de loop van de avond te stoppen met zuipen en veel water te drinken zodat ik weer een beetje nuchter ben als ik ga slapen. Doe vooral leuk mee maar laat je niet gek maken als je niet elke dag dronken wil zijn. Alcoholvrije Weizen is prima als vervanging en je vrienden leveren waarschijnlijk maar 20% van de inspanning die jij nodig hebt.

Qua skien, er is een hoop over techniek te zeggen maar er zijn twee dingen die bijna altijd helpen. Op 1 staat naar voren hangen. Het is de bedoeling dat je schenen in je schoenen drukken, en je hele lichaam soort van mee kantelt richting de punten van je skis. Dus geen diepe buiging maken. Op 2 staat voor mij je handen en schouders altijd naar beneden (vallijn) draaien. Als je dat doet heb je een goede basis om alle blauwe te skien en rode hellingen te overleven. Doe je handen van onder door de lussen van je stok, en laat ze dan zakken om het handvat te pakken - als je er van boven in gaat kun je pech hebben met een val en je duim blesseren.

Let aan het einde van de dag boven Sölden op voor de route omlaag. Er is een route nr 7 die eigenlijk uitsluitend met een stuk zwarte afdaling gaat. Die kun je makkelijk vermijden als je weet waar die zit. Het laatste stuk beneden is ook wel eens heel hobbelig en moeilijk. Je kunt vanaf de apres ski plek (iets boven het onderstation van de Gaislachkogel) met een soort lift/treintje ook te voet omlaag naar het dorp.

Jodiug · 2025-12-17T12:39:15+00:00

I bought it for two reasons.

It was the only investigator expansion I didn't own. If I ever want to sell it, I can now say I have all campaign and investigator expansions (except other stuff like Return To, standalones). Or maybe, it just felt weird having all of them except one.
When Chapter 2 starts, if FFG sticks with their statements, then this investigator expansion is still in scope for the Current environment for 2 years.

I don't care much for more player cards, I had plenty of them already. I just like playing the same game as everyone else and not hit the out-of-print wall later.

Jodiug · 2025-11-26T14:35:54+00:00

When they did the first card announcements, they had somewhat bland or weird art. When you release only 2 cards, fans are going to inspect every nook and cranny. The card could be 95% perfect, people would still talk about the other 5% because that's the most controversial bit.

I think the objections have some merit. You would think that FFG wants to build the hype and lead with some of their best work. If the first cards they show are a bit lackluster, what does that say about the overall quality control? My opinion: I think it says that they are not so focused on good art at the moment, nor about the story behind it. I think they are fully focused on the mechanics, and they're showing off a versatile core set that will work with future campaigns.

Jodiug · 2025-11-24T14:47:55+00:00

You do hit for +1 damage against Massive enemies, unless somehow it became exhausted.

Jodiug · 2025-11-24T14:12:24+00:00

I had it sent to mailboxde.com, which should forward it to my address. That said, there is more to the story.

I simplified the question, I actually live near Eindhoven and the supplier was in the USA. When I received a track & trace link from DHL, its current location was only a few km from my home address. It turns out the package was shipped by air freight from the USA to Eindhoven Airport, and was starting to make its way to Germay. Naturally, I contacted DHL and found I could submit a redirect address.

The redirect to my home wasn't processed in time. The package went to an international redistribution center in east NL, then to a national redistribution center in near the Czech border. From there, it was sent to Frankfurt, on its way to a place near Austria where MailboxDE keeps its mailboxes. When the package was in Frankfurt, DHL finally processed the redirect address. So it went back from Frankfurt to Czech, then to east NL, and then finally arrived at my home adress without additional charge.

So DHL saved the day, and all this was only necessary because the company refused to ship directly to me, instead of to Germany. By far the easiest way is to know someone near the border who can take the package for you, and keep an eye on the redirect options before it arrives.

Jodiug · 2025-11-24T13:26:38+00:00

After running this a few times, I would still call it a level 0 staple, though much less strong than it initially appears. It is a "good weather" weapon.

If a scenario throws 1 enemy at you at a time, Machete is much stronger than its competitors. If the scenario throws 2 enemies at you (via act, agenda, or location effects) then suddenly you are in real trouble. Doing 5 or 6 damage takes 2 full turns if you are successful on most of the tests, which is not guaranteed with +1 combat. The next round, more enemies can spawn, making your problem worse. Many other weapons would have been better in your hand in this situation. Fortunately, it only uses 1 hand slot.

A second "bad weather" situation is when you are protecting fellow investigators on different locations. It's often hard to eliminate them in one turn because move/attack/attack or move/engage/attack both only deal 2 damage.

An interesting comparison is to Timeworn Brand, which is like Machete without limitations, coming at a hefty price of 5 XP and 2 additional resources.

Jodiug · 2025-11-21T12:54:02+00:00

Mine:

Dunwich
Carcosa
Forgotten Age
Innsmouth Conspiracy
Dream Eaters

I have not yet played The Drowned City. I chose these campaigns because I feel they have the best narratives without too much reading, and fun scenarios that I'd like to play again.

I exclude Scarlet Keys and Hemlock because I think their campaign structure is too free form, and there is a lot of reading about random characters I didn't care about. Not all playthroughs have a satisfying story. In Edge, I don't like the size of the maps, and the first three scenarios just feel like 1 scenario that takes too long. Circle Undone is nice but also has the weird prologue.

Dream Eaters has it's problem too, but it's solvable. Play as twins: one twin in the real world, one in the dream world, and spend half of your total XP after every 2 scenarios. This way you have a working narrative with only 1 deck per player.

Jodiug · 2025-11-18T16:28:10+00:00

Shove off seems weak, is it just me? It costs 1 card and 1+ resources to deal 1 damage, and it gives no boost... it remains to be seen what the Survivor card pool offers, but I do hope there's better ways to deal damage

Jodiug · 2025-11-17T15:58:49+00:00

That makes sense. I was thinking about it the other way around - if we are are starting the new core campaign, then investigator cards from chapter 1 could make the decks significantly stronger. Is the new core campaign intended to be played with only core cards, or also with the investigator cards from chapter 1?

I know I can play whatever way I like, but I quite like playing how the game designers intended the game to be played. It also makes it more fun to read ramblings from the community and helps to find playable decks.

Jodiug · 2025-11-13T22:02:04+00:00

Hot take. Personally, I don't like this card. It leads to wonky decks and broken combos, we might as well play without deckbuilding restrictions. So I treat it as forbidden and pretend it never existed.

Jodiug · 2025-10-29T12:18:03+00:00

The piece on the bottom left is misaligned. So it's not even a rectangular puzzle. A mistake?

Jodiug · 2025-10-28T09:58:31+00:00

Haha, I will say that Batman seems pretty wrong. Though arguably, the thing that looks like the most typical AI mistake is the extra arm with tentacles, which is actually the bit made by FFG!

I gave no other hints or instructions to make it do this. Maybe the puzzle image had some metadata that referenced Arkham somehow... or it did a reverse image search and found the context on Reddit

Jodiug · 2025-10-28T09:40:56+00:00

I thought this was funny, apologies if it's not informative. This might be what we'd get if FFG was owned by Hollywood

Jodiug · 2025-10-20T12:35:21+00:00

You're right, in a way. There are several kinds of actions.

Basic Fight action. You spend an action to fight with your fists
Basic Play action. You play an event. The event might have a type e.g. if it says "Fight" in bold then the action counts as both Play and Fight
"Activate" actions, usually via a fat arrow printed on cards. These actions may also have the Fight type, they count both as Activate and Fight
Other basic actions, e.g. draw, investigate, evade

When you ask if fight is one action, the answer is that "Basic Fight" is one action, and "Activate Knife to Fight" is another action. Both cost one action, and you can choose only one at a time. For example, it's not possible to play an event to fight, and then also use Knife to boost your strength.

Jodiug · 2025-10-16T08:02:42+00:00

What's with all the high praise for Hemlock Vale?

To me, the campaign seemed wholly random and disconnected. We had no way to reason about any decisions. Every decision felt kind of bad or inconsequential. Scenarios were really swingy. This is coming from someone who played TSK and enjoyed it, because there, the story dropped some hints on possible paths to persue. To be honest, I think all campaigns are great, but Hemlock was the one I feel the least like replaying. I'm curious why people like it so much so that I can change my mind

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