Greetings and salutations once again, I promised to continue my previous post with my own experience in this game, and commit to that promise I shall! Allow me to present in this blog post my own introductions, explanations, and insights regarding the new game I intend to start with my students, friends, and gaming buddies: Arkham Horror!
The following games below all fall under the Arkham Horror boardgame series, with one core boardgame (the town of Arkham itself), and as to date, five expansions (the fifth still unknown when to release), each expansion either contributing a new horrific storyline to the series, or an entirely new location also plagued in similar to Arkham's horrifying events:
Arkham Horror: The Core Boardgame
Arkham Horror: The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion
Arkham Horror: The Dunwich Horror Expansion
Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow Expansion
Arkham Horror: The Kingsport Horror ExpansionIntroduction and Pre-Play
First of all, Arkham Horror is a fairly easy game to play for players who already have backgrounds regarding table-top gaming, as most of the terminologies used in the game are recycled and restated in some form or another in many common table-top game series. Terms such as skill checks, dice rolls, successes, difficulties, and the like are quite easy to understand for veteran players but almost self-explanatory for novice players. Worry not, for I do not intend to run games such as these without completely clarifying first what these thingamajig terms mean to complete novices or first-timers to the craft.
The story follows thus (from my own perspective of restatement):
The main setting of the core boardgame is in the town of Arkham, Massachusetts, a fictional town in the Cthulhu (pronounced K-thul-hu) mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Here, dimensional instabilities surge across the town and every so often spawns forth a gate leading to one of many parallel dimensions. Left unattended, monsters often cross these instabilities and wreak havoc and terror on the town.
The only force that stood up to these abominations were a select number of "investigators", people with remarkable skill and courage with the definite motivation of bringing down these beasts, sealing off Arkham from these dimensions, and keeping the Ancient One from ever awakening. This Ancient One, if sufficiently satisfied to awaken, might just be their end - or the end of Arkham itself.
The story is pretty straightforward and gives everyone an idea of what they should do to win this game - they are to either prevent these dimensional gates from being opened too long by closing them off and/or sealing them permanently, or if the inevitable happens, engage the Ancient One (which is like the big boss of every RPG) in combat and defeat it. One such Ancient One, though, already spells doom once he awakens, for once he does, the game is over.
Game setup and introduction can take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the players' capacity to learn and follow the instructions. Setup itself takes time, so it is best that the players helped in doing the setup as well. They are to freely select an investigator identity from a pool of at least ten or more investigators (more if the expansions are factored in the mix) and set its initial assets (money, skills, items, spells, etc). It is recommended for new players to select according to what they think is best for their personality, while more expert players are strongly recommended to choose characters that they think would serve some use. Characters were made balanced, thus there is no superbly strong character and there is no useless one. Each works according to how the player makes use of it, which often produces different (and even surprising) results.
Once the assets and players are set up, the Ancient One is randomly selected, or if the players so choose, they can even select the Ancient One they wish to have for that "episode". Each Ancient One has its own horrifying consequences of awakening, and a corresponding doom track meter, which when filled, would awaken it and thus force the investigators to engage it in combat to win.
After setup, order of players is decided by the leader of the group going first, then by the player to his left, and so on until all players had taken their turns.
The Game Mechanics: Phases
There are several phases in Arkham Horror: Initial Phase, Movement Phase, Combat (if applicable) Phase, Arkham / Other World Encounter Phase, then culminating with a Mythos Card Phase. For beginning groups, each phase is resolved by all players first before going to the next (unless a Combat Phase is necessary to allow Movement, which will be explained when you sit down to play the game itself).
Initial Phase
Each character, to start with, has a set range of status points and "focus". There are six status types, coming in pairs: Speed / Sneak, Fight / Will, and Lore / Luck. Speed determines how many locations your character can move at one movement turn (that is, if you have speed 3, you can move for up to three or less locations on the Arkham Map). Sneak determines how well you can slip past monsters if there is a need to go past them during a Movement phase. Fight determines how well your character deals damage when fighting a particular monster. Will determines how resistant your character is from being terrified by the presence of a monster in front of him / her (thus this refers to one's nerves of steel). Lore is a special status used in resolving turns that require analysis of certain texts or stories. Lastly, Luck is an almost self-explanatory status used to resolve turns that require certain feats of luck to accomplish.
These status points are resolved using dice rolls, which is the heart of any role-playing game. With the absence of actual action, one can never really tell if a person's attack killed a monster or not, right? That is why dice rolls were substituted for these moments. Probabilities of getting successful actions depend on a player's dice roll on one of the status types. Therefore in fighting a monster, a player would need to roll dice equivalent to his Fight (along with modifiers) and determine if he is successful or not. In this game, they use 6-sided dice, and a value of 5 or 6 typically means a successful move. Sometimes more than one successful move is required, and thus the player's difficulty of that action increases.
A character's focus is a fixed value on his character sheet that determines how much he can modify his status points every turn. Therefore a focus of 2 means that a character can perform two one-point modifications to his status, which often results to one status being enhanced, and its pair being diminished (such as focusing on Fight / Will, which can give +1 Fight but -1 Will). Players need to take into account these changes, as these can make the difference in the game depending on the need to do so.
The initial phase normally consists of just the focus phase, along with the un-exhaustion (resetting) of used cards, and it is necessary before any movement can be done.
The Movement Phase
Once done with focusing and un-exhausting, players will then need to move their character for up to at most their current Speed. Thus a character with 3 speed can move for up to 3 locations across the Arkham Map. He, however, can choose to move only 2 locations, 1 location, or even not at all, which means he stays in place. But he can never move more than his speed.
In the event that monsters are along a character's movement path, the player has the first option of performing a sneak check. This means he will roll his Sneak (factoring in the monster's sneak modifiers, which can either add or subtract dice). A successful sneak check means that the monster "fails to notice" the player passing by and thus the player can move further. However, failed checks mean that the monster "notices" the poor player and thus the player is left with no choice but to fight (more on combat later).
Sometimes a combat phase can follow a movement phase of a player before another player may move, for strategic purposes (i.e, Player 1 attacks a monster that is blocking Player 2's movement path).
Once all players have moved and movement-related combat has been resolved, the encounters will follow.
Encounters Phase (Arkham / Other Worlds)
Depending on which non-street tile the player landed in, he can either follow the special instructions on the location itself (if ever any is written on the board) or he can choose to have an "Encounter" in that particular location. This means that he has to draw a card from the encounters to that location group (since each location is separated into Neighborhoods, which in turn is a location group) and resolve whatever the card instructs. Sometimes this can be in the form of benefits that will give the character items or bonuses, or even unfortunate events that can result to a lot of bad possibilities (combat not excluded).
It can also happen that players in Arkham can get sucked into the Other Worlds, which are dimensions that are on the other side of an open gate. When that happens, their encounter will be dependent on which Other World they are in, and it is resolved as normal. Downside is that they have to stay there for a short while and perform several more encounters before they can return to the real world.
Once every player has performed an encounter, combat may possibly ensue!
Combat Phase (May either occur during Movement or Encounter Phase)
The combat phase may occur either during a player's movement (when a monster blocks his / her path) or during the encounter phase (when a card explicitly states that a monster pops out at a player's location). In which case the following process is performed:
- Horror Check: A monster appears, and therefore you will be terrified! Only nerves of steel can resist such horrific sight and such nerves require lots of Will. Therefore, a player makes a will check modified by the monster's status. Success means that you are unmoved by the horrible sight, while a failure damages the player's sanity, removing a certain amount of sanity depending on how powerfully the monster can traumatize the player (indicated on the monster itself.) It is to be noted that players completely losing Sanity will end up in the Asylum (or Lost in Time and Space for Other World encounters) with half their assets (Items, Skills, Spells, etc) GONE. But they will completely recover afterwards.
- Combat Check: Should the player maintain sanity or resist being terrified by the monster, the player proceeds to fight it, making use of his Fight, modified if he has weapons / spells / items / allies with him. Note that each combat check exhausts any used items, meaning that they cannot be used again should the player enter another combat in the same turn. Success is measured by the monster's toughness, and the player must make at least that number of successes to "kill" that monster. Failure to do so will mean the monster will counter-attack and damage the player, while Success means the monster is killed, and its carcass is awarded to the player as a trophy. It is to be noted that players completely losing their life will end up in the Hospital (or Lost in Time and Space for Other World encounters) with half their assets GONE. But they will completely recover afterwards.
- WARNING: Bear in mind that IF both Sanity and Stamina (your life) drop to 0 at the same time, your character is considered DEAD BEYOND REVIVAL. You will be forced to create a new character.
The Mythos Phase
This phase will determine the next outbreak of horror in the game. It will dictate at which location a dimensional gate will open (thus enabling another channel for monsters to roam Arkham). Gates are special passages to Other Worlds that, if left unattended in great numbers for so long, can either lead to an outbreak of monsters that will ultimately awaken the Ancient One, or tear Arkham apart so forcefully that the Ancient One is shaken awake by such disturbances. Either way, it spells DOOM to have so many gates open!
The only way to prevent such a catastrophic defeat is to close or seal the gates before they become a major problem. Gates can be closed by first traveling inside the Other World within that gate, perform encounters there, make it back to Arkham safely, and then perform closing rituals on the gate, which involve several tokens or a special item, and maybe a point of Stamina and Sanity as well (the gate-exploration experience takes its toll on both mind and body). Closing off gates hinders the Ancient One's awakening, thus making everyone safe, but gates that are not permanently sealed will still have a chance of re-opening, given sufficient conditions. So do not relax one's guard!
The Mythos phase also dictates how monsters in the map will move, and indicates if more monsters would appear. Afterwards, that current turn ends and a new turn begins, starting with a new Initial Phase, and so on.
The Doom and Terror Tracks
Specially-numbered tiles on the board and on the Ancient One's card depict the Terror and Doom tracks respectively. These counters represent the deadline by which players need to accomplish their mission. The Terror Track indicates Arkham Town's general impression - how terrified its citizens are and how horrifying Arkham is as a place to stay in. Generally, the more monsters there are roaming the field, the worse this terror track gets, which can ultimately lead to the closure of several essential shops, and if it gets really out of hand, the resulting insane terror can tempt the Ancient One to awaken prematurely!
The DOOM track is an even worse entity, as it dictates how the Ancient One reacts. Each gate opened results to one additional counter to this doom track, and more counters add as more gates burst open. Gates closed using special means decrease this counter, while temporal seals do not diminish this value. Get it to the maximum, and prepare to meet the Ancient One itself in combat!
The Ancient One
If players ever get to the point of not closing off gates or fending off monsters in time, their last chance of survival or winning is to destroy the Ancient One itself - with the exception of one, Azathoth, whose very appearance will trigger the end of the world, thus destroying everything and guaranteeing instant defeat to everyone. Other Ancient Ones, however, are at least, killable.
The Ancient One is a formidable monster whose life is far more than any monster in existence. Players will engage the Ancient One in regular combat, discarding certain cards as its conditions to perform an attack. Failure to do so means that the player is out of options to assault the Ancient One, and thus the giant monstrosity proceeds to devour the living hell out of the player (creepy!), leaving the group with one less player to destroy the giant thing with. All players devoured = game over.
The life meter goes down with each success scored by investigators during their fight checks, and once the damage accumulated takes out the Ancient One's whole life, then it dies and it spells victory to the players! Hooray!
Whew, that tired me out in typing a gist of the game from my perspective of playing through almost 1/4 or 1/3 of it and from reading reviews and gists of the rule books. Hopefully I can provide a clearer perspective of it once I get my hands on the rule book and once my players sit down in person, in front of the board game, in front of the Horror.
Hahaha!
~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer
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