Eldritch Horror
Jun. 4th, 2015 04:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoI played my first game of Eldritch Horror on Tuesday.
Eldritch Horror is similar in many ways to good old Arkham Horror, in that it's a cooperative game in which players attempt to avert the destruction of mankind by the Great Old Ones or similar eldritch beings by moving their named characters with unique special abilities around a map, collecting clue tokens, having encounters, acquiring allies, artifacts, or other items, and occasionally doing battle with horrifying monsters spawned from gates, often rolling dice hoping for 5's and 6's.
If you've played Arkham Horror, it's possible that right now you're wondering what exactly the difference is.
Eldritch Horror has a world map instead of a map of just Arkham. Your ability scores no longer shift during the game at the cost of each other, but are fixed stats - though they can be improved up to 2 points each during the game. You can still close gates, but you can no longer seal them. You can no longer spend considerable amounts of time in another dimension - you visit only briefly when trying to close a gate.
I'm sure there are other differences, but I'm not entirely certain how many of them are in the base game, and how many odd things I encountered were because we were playing with the Mountains of Madness expansion.
I was a little late to Tuesday board game meetup. Most games were full and/or starting, and I had my choice of trying to join four people playing Eldritch Horror which was still being explained to the new player, or wait to see if anyone else was going to show up. I opted for choice number two, because 1) I had not played EH before, and had already missed a lot of the rules, 2) Cooperative games are not my favorite, and 3) Cooperative games are even less my favorite with people I don't know well. This is because if I screw up and cause my friends and I to lose I can reasonably expect them not to hold it against me. It's harder to predict how strangers will handle such a thing. Will they complain that I'm not pulling my weight? Will they pressure me to do the thing they think I should do instead of the thing that I want to do? And make no mistake, if I join this game I'm going to be playing it all night, so it's not like I'll be killing an hour and then doing something else.
So, I wasn't going to do this. However, Jose is a wonderful host, and noticed that I was still without a game and checked the list of RSVPs to see if anyone else was coming, because if not I was going to be sitting around doing nothing until a group finished a game. Turns out...no, this is it. The people at EH kindly offered to let me join them, and Adam asked if he should start over on explaining the rules. That would have made me feel awful, so instead I opted to make sure I went last in round one, would ask questions of people not taking their turns, and gradually figure things out...which is less than optimal, because it means I'm probably not pulling my weight like I feared, but I figured I'd just ask for more guidance than usual for my turn until I'd worked things out. It seemed preferable to making them spend another 10-20 minutes on the rules.
And we're off! ...to a shaky start. Someone died on turn 3. Fortunately, you get to rejoin as a new person when this happens, so our violinist was replaced by a politician. Shortly after that we lost another character, the only one who was in Antarctica at the time. It was at about this point that people started to mention that we weren't making very good progress on what we needed to be doing in order to win. By then I had a general sense of how the game worked, but hadn't noticed anyone working towards any obvious goal. I was making my way towards Antarctica because my Explorer character's special ability to move down uncharted paths and then act again would be relevant there, but with no real sense of whether I'd be doing anything useful by going there.
I asked what it was exactly that we were trying to accomplish, and got the answer that we were trying to avert the end of the world. Yes, but how? We need to solve four mysteries. Okay, and HOW DO WE DO THAT? Finally, I got the answer that I wanted, which was that whenever someone completed an encounter on [one of these two places in Antarctica] they could spend a clue token to face a cultist, and if they overcame said cultist we get a marker on [this card], and when we have five of those we've solved that mystery.
Now, at this point that card has one marker on it. The world is full of open gates and shambling monsters and the doom track is gradually working its way towards our utter oblivion. And I'm...the only one headed to Antarctica? And no one else is even close?
At this point, I said something about this being what I don't like about cooperative games - the pressure. Someone joked not to worry about - just don't fail. Great.
Our scenario for this game was the Rise of the Elder Things, which meant that cultists could be faced with a Lore test to free them from the grip of alien mind control magic, in which case we don't have to fight them an gain an ally instead. Win! I wanted to stop off on a snowy mountain and study up my Lore a point before I went to go convert cultists. I was lightly discouraged from this plan, because it was felt that there wasn't time. I disagreed, feeling that it was better to make it more likely that I would succeed the next four times I tried this, rather than risk failing once or twice and taking even more time. To say nothing of whether having more Lore might be useful for the other 3/4 of the game. Eventually, I did not let myself be swayed from the path of knowledge. I think I made the right call, because I managed to deal with a cultist a turn for the following four turns, and then we were 1/4 of the way to victory.
After that I'm a little hazy on the order that things happened...I know there was another mystery that I solved more or less single-handed, and one that some other people came to help me, and then I did 2/3 of the last one. All four of them turned out to revolve around doing things in Antarctica.
Now, this is not to say that I was the only one contributing. Someone else was gathering clue tokens and passing them to me so I wouldn't have to spend time getting them myself. Our politician fed us a steady stream of items and such, many of which were useful. The other two people mostly fought monsters and closed gates, which are both important things. But it did feel a little weird that I was the guy tacked on just before the game started, and I turned out to be the one best suited to going to Antarctica to do the things that would make us actually win, as opposed to merely prolonging our demise.
Overall, I think I liked it a little better than Arkham Horror. I felt like you could be more invested in your character, because they could be improved beyond just having useful loot. I felt like more of my dice rolls had a chance of actual success. It was also nice to have a goal to work towards beyond just closing/sealing gates.
Eldritch Horror is similar in many ways to good old Arkham Horror, in that it's a cooperative game in which players attempt to avert the destruction of mankind by the Great Old Ones or similar eldritch beings by moving their named characters with unique special abilities around a map, collecting clue tokens, having encounters, acquiring allies, artifacts, or other items, and occasionally doing battle with horrifying monsters spawned from gates, often rolling dice hoping for 5's and 6's.
If you've played Arkham Horror, it's possible that right now you're wondering what exactly the difference is.
Eldritch Horror has a world map instead of a map of just Arkham. Your ability scores no longer shift during the game at the cost of each other, but are fixed stats - though they can be improved up to 2 points each during the game. You can still close gates, but you can no longer seal them. You can no longer spend considerable amounts of time in another dimension - you visit only briefly when trying to close a gate.
I'm sure there are other differences, but I'm not entirely certain how many of them are in the base game, and how many odd things I encountered were because we were playing with the Mountains of Madness expansion.
I was a little late to Tuesday board game meetup. Most games were full and/or starting, and I had my choice of trying to join four people playing Eldritch Horror which was still being explained to the new player, or wait to see if anyone else was going to show up. I opted for choice number two, because 1) I had not played EH before, and had already missed a lot of the rules, 2) Cooperative games are not my favorite, and 3) Cooperative games are even less my favorite with people I don't know well. This is because if I screw up and cause my friends and I to lose I can reasonably expect them not to hold it against me. It's harder to predict how strangers will handle such a thing. Will they complain that I'm not pulling my weight? Will they pressure me to do the thing they think I should do instead of the thing that I want to do? And make no mistake, if I join this game I'm going to be playing it all night, so it's not like I'll be killing an hour and then doing something else.
So, I wasn't going to do this. However, Jose is a wonderful host, and noticed that I was still without a game and checked the list of RSVPs to see if anyone else was coming, because if not I was going to be sitting around doing nothing until a group finished a game. Turns out...no, this is it. The people at EH kindly offered to let me join them, and Adam asked if he should start over on explaining the rules. That would have made me feel awful, so instead I opted to make sure I went last in round one, would ask questions of people not taking their turns, and gradually figure things out...which is less than optimal, because it means I'm probably not pulling my weight like I feared, but I figured I'd just ask for more guidance than usual for my turn until I'd worked things out. It seemed preferable to making them spend another 10-20 minutes on the rules.
And we're off! ...to a shaky start. Someone died on turn 3. Fortunately, you get to rejoin as a new person when this happens, so our violinist was replaced by a politician. Shortly after that we lost another character, the only one who was in Antarctica at the time. It was at about this point that people started to mention that we weren't making very good progress on what we needed to be doing in order to win. By then I had a general sense of how the game worked, but hadn't noticed anyone working towards any obvious goal. I was making my way towards Antarctica because my Explorer character's special ability to move down uncharted paths and then act again would be relevant there, but with no real sense of whether I'd be doing anything useful by going there.
I asked what it was exactly that we were trying to accomplish, and got the answer that we were trying to avert the end of the world. Yes, but how? We need to solve four mysteries. Okay, and HOW DO WE DO THAT? Finally, I got the answer that I wanted, which was that whenever someone completed an encounter on [one of these two places in Antarctica] they could spend a clue token to face a cultist, and if they overcame said cultist we get a marker on [this card], and when we have five of those we've solved that mystery.
Now, at this point that card has one marker on it. The world is full of open gates and shambling monsters and the doom track is gradually working its way towards our utter oblivion. And I'm...the only one headed to Antarctica? And no one else is even close?
At this point, I said something about this being what I don't like about cooperative games - the pressure. Someone joked not to worry about - just don't fail. Great.
Our scenario for this game was the Rise of the Elder Things, which meant that cultists could be faced with a Lore test to free them from the grip of alien mind control magic, in which case we don't have to fight them an gain an ally instead. Win! I wanted to stop off on a snowy mountain and study up my Lore a point before I went to go convert cultists. I was lightly discouraged from this plan, because it was felt that there wasn't time. I disagreed, feeling that it was better to make it more likely that I would succeed the next four times I tried this, rather than risk failing once or twice and taking even more time. To say nothing of whether having more Lore might be useful for the other 3/4 of the game. Eventually, I did not let myself be swayed from the path of knowledge. I think I made the right call, because I managed to deal with a cultist a turn for the following four turns, and then we were 1/4 of the way to victory.
After that I'm a little hazy on the order that things happened...I know there was another mystery that I solved more or less single-handed, and one that some other people came to help me, and then I did 2/3 of the last one. All four of them turned out to revolve around doing things in Antarctica.
Now, this is not to say that I was the only one contributing. Someone else was gathering clue tokens and passing them to me so I wouldn't have to spend time getting them myself. Our politician fed us a steady stream of items and such, many of which were useful. The other two people mostly fought monsters and closed gates, which are both important things. But it did feel a little weird that I was the guy tacked on just before the game started, and I turned out to be the one best suited to going to Antarctica to do the things that would make us actually win, as opposed to merely prolonging our demise.
Overall, I think I liked it a little better than Arkham Horror. I felt like you could be more invested in your character, because they could be improved beyond just having useful loot. I felt like more of my dice rolls had a chance of actual success. It was also nice to have a goal to work towards beyond just closing/sealing gates.
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no subject
Date: 2015-06-04 05:39 pm (UTC)Rise of the Elder Things I've only played once, but from what little I remember it's specifically designed to show off the Antartica board, so probably more than one person should be there in a five-player game. Depends what horrible Rumors came up, to some extent - those can pull people off to other parts of the world and will need dedicated effort to solve. Some of them end the game if you fail them.
Generally speaking running around the board chasing skill improvements isn't a great idea. Shopping or getting artifacts is more effective, and the improvement encounters aren't all that reliable. They're by no means a bad thing if you stop off at one along your way to a clue encounter or something, but it's not something you can generally afford to prioritize. But then, I don't really know if I'm the best strategist for the game.
Five players is a little tough anyway, I think four investigators is the sweet spot. And Rise of the Elder Things is a specially long scenario - all other Great Old Ones need only three mysteries solved, and have a shorter Doom track. On the other hand, I seem to remember some Elder Thing mysteries seeming a little easier to solve than some others. And the Antartica board, which isn't always used, has encounters that can "Advance the current mystery" - the exact effects vary by which type of mystery is currently active but are always very strong.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-04 07:45 pm (UTC)Yes, I did notice that spells seemed to pack more of a punch without crippling you to cast them. The musician next to me Shriveled things to great effect, and our psychic frequently managed to keep other people from suffering madness-inducing sanity losses or taking lethal damage with some other spells.
We started with a game-ending rumor at the beginning, which is a detail that I missed - they had already set everything up before I was there and before they started in on the rules, and no one thought to mention it again. Fortunately a couple of people went to deal with it in time, though I think they needed a couple of turns to prepare or something. Or maybe an ill-advised early attempt to deal with it was what got our first person killed. There was a lot to take in all at once.
I wasn't chasing a random improvement (I agree, that would probably be a waste of time), but visiting Snowy Mountains, where I could trade my once-per-round free Focus use for a skill improvement. It was right next to where I'd need to convert cultists anyway, so it cost me only the one turn and was a sure thing. I wish I'd noticed it sooner, or I probably would have gone there earlier and snagged another point of something.
It was indeed very long - about five hours total for us. Ironically my turns tended to go the fastest even though I was tied for least experience with the game, since they pretty quickly settled into choosing two out of three of the action on the City of the Elder Things, resting, and focusing, with occasional uses of my free move to flee the Dhole that was chasing me. The players estimating whether they could kill things without dying or going crazy needed a bit more time for their turns.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-05 03:34 am (UTC)Between the explorer's fast movement across uncharted routes and the one-per-turn free focus, I'd say training up Lore to deal with the mystery is strongly suggested. I mean, OK, you'll usually benefit from the free focus power in the Encounter phase even if you don't use it in the Action phase, but still. For normal people that's four actions to train up - focus, move in, spend focus, move out. For the Explorer it's two - move in, use ability to take another action to spend focus, use ability to do so without paying actual focus. Move out. Assuming you're looking for encounters on spaces adjacent to the Snowy Mountains, anyway, which I don't remember the board geography enough to say.
Five hours is unusual, I would say, but then you're also over the number of investigators I've usually seen and playing what is theoretically the longest Great Old One. Three hours is maybe more reasonable once everyone knows the rules, especially if whoever owns the game keeps it stored in a manner conducive to quick setup.