mansions of madness is really fucking shitty

[clockworkjoe]

I know I talked about the flaws of this board game from FFG last episode but I played again and goddamn this is a shitty fucking game

We played a scenario where each player can get a card from the keeper that they can only read - mine was "if you die, you are eliminated from the game". Thus when I died, I had to sit out the last hour of the fucking game.

Oh and by counting up the number of actions required for the investigators to win compared to the 25 turns you have before the game ends - you realize it's nearly impossible for the players to win. If the keeper is even moderately successful in slowing down or hindering the investigators.

it's a piece of shit.

[crash2455]

At least it doesn't take 8 hours to play (like Arkham Horror)?

But yeah, long board games where you can just lose early on suck.  I was almost turned off of Bang! because I was killed in the first round of my first game.

[Salkovich]

Is there anyway to effectively house rules that shit? Or is it just a broken piece of awful?

[Shallazar]

Deck building games are pretty fun. Ascension and Nightfall are two that I can highly recommend.
As for long Board games

Just bought Descent this past week and played the crap out of it. So far we've been able to make it to the boss Room and it was a super close ending. The the players had not one-shoted my Master Manticores and then Charged the Giant, i would have one. They were one turn away from loosing.

But yeah, hearing the RPPR review of mansions of madness has turned me off.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Your next show should be about games that trick you. I played the Adventures of Ravenloft board "game" at a New Years party and boy did it waste a big chunk of my life.

Paladium is a poison arrow frog, providing a nice warning to people. Mansions of Madness is just in it to jack your honey.

Yet, strangely, I still enjoy playing Pandemic, though that game has beaten me 5 out of 5 times.

[clockworkjoe]

Is there anyway to effectively house rules that shit? Or is it just a broken piece of awful?

I mean you could houserule the "1 player gets eliminated before the finale" rule but the way the game is designed, it seems that the investigators have a very small chance of winning. Also you can make a wrong decision early on and thus screw yourself out of a win because you wasted a few turns doing so but you won't realize this until much later.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Do they have an active update forum? I know Fantasy Flight's normal forums, at least for their table top RPG ones, are active if cluttered.

I found some errata after like 15 minutes of poking around their site. Not very extensive and not knowing the rules for the game I have no idea if it helps the investigators at all.

[clockworkjoe]

we had the errata - clears up a few things but not much else.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Then you should write up a CoC Scenario called "Real Mansions of Madness" where you systematically kill the characters before they can achive any significant goals. It'll help with your frustration. Trust me: it's science.

Too bad you can't do a board game actual play, though. The suffering of the RPPR crew would be delightful theater.

[clockworkjoe]

Then you should write up a CoC Scenario called "Real Mansions of Madness" where you systematically kill the characters before they can achive any significant goals. It'll help with your frustration. Trust me: it's science.

Too bad you can't do a board game actual play, though. The suffering of the RPPR crew would be delightful theater.

it would be boring I would imagine. You kinda need to see the board to understand what's going on.

[Tadanori Oyama]

If it's anything like the Ravenloft game than I know what you mean. Pretty much meaningless without the visual element. I'm simply lamenting the knowledge I won't be able to see the pain on people's faces as they play. Unless I watch people play it at GenCon, of course. That might be funny.

[IDaMan008]

Gotta agree with Ross on this one. Mansions of Madness is seriously broken in favor of the Keeper. I've played as an Investigator twice, and we didn't even come close to winning either time. The second time we played, the Keeper was able to bring out two Shoggoths by the time we had moved our Investigators into the second room, and he put them right between us and all the clues we needed to find. The worst part was that there weren't any fucking weapons in the scenario! We had to fight off a Shoggoth with a revolver and a battered old six-string guitar. I think one of our characters may have actually punched it at some point.

Don't play this game unless you enjoy losing difficult games.

[clockworkjoe]

haha I've played that scenario too. Same thing happened.

Another thing: the keeper has a bunch of ways to disarm characters - you can drop weapons or have them run out of ammo extremely easily.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I loved how Shane Ivey didn't get what you where talking about at all for awhile in the Unspeakable Oath podcast.

Awesome story too. Sucked into the fridge. Ha. Well, at least you where on the winning side, right?

[clockworkjoe]

I loved how Shane Ivey didn't get what you where talking about at all for awhile in the Unspeakable Oath podcast.

Awesome story too. Sucked into the fridge. Ha. Well, at least you where on the winning side, right?

the traitor card has a fun bonus: if you die you are eliminated from the game. So I still lost.