Ghost Stories

I've played it and enjoy it quite a bit. I have still just played on normal level, but I think the strategies might have to change as the difficulty is increased.

I also thought the rulebook was pretty clear as well -- maybe layed out in an unorthodox fashion, but everything is in there.

Something came up so a neighbour couldn't host Left4dead today, so I played a couple of solo Ghost Stories. I won both games which means, according to T.O.S. logic, that I must have gotten a rule wrong. Looking through the HAVE A RULES QUESTION? READ THIS FIRST! thread, I've found something that hasn't been asked before.

See the "Abilities of the Ghosts" reference sheet, icons #2, #4, and #5. They are: #2 Haunt the first active Village tile in front of the ghost, #4 Haunter- place a haunting figurine on the card when the ghost arrives, and #5 When this kind of ghost appears place the haunting figurine directly on the board. The rule book, on page 3, under Ghosts (G), states that the left stone applies when the ghost enters the game and the centre stone applies each Yin phase. What I've noticed is that #2 and #5 appear on the left stones but #4 does not. Icon #4 only appears on the centre stone. The contradiction is caused by icon #4's "when the ghost arrives". My interpretation was that the rules plus cards were correct, rather than the play aid. Which obviously makes for an easier game because Haunters take one turn longer to hit a village.

All the T.O.S. comments imply that the play aid rule is being used; however, since no one has queried it, the designer hasn't ruled on what is correct. And because of that, this cannot be the reason why some find it easy to win and others find it impossible. (I think the latter are just plain playing badly.)

I'll try it the play aid way next time, but in any case I think this is one of the best games to be released last year.

Finally played it thursday night myself...not sure why there's all the rules confusion though. Seemed pretty straightforward to me.

I don't think it's abstract as some have said. I'm with Uba, the game really does have the feel of a Chinese ghost movie like MR. VAMPIRE or ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND. It has that boppin' around, goofy monster fighting feel down pat. All that's missing is the one-eyebrowed priest. But that being said, I almost think it's a tragedy that this system wasn't used for an ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 board game- it's a straight-up siege.

I also think it was a miss to go with the over shaded/over colored CCG-style artwork...if this had traditional artwork or at least artwork inspired by traditional artwork, it'd be awesome.

It's tough as balls though and it is incredibly dependent on what cards are drawn. I kind of think the "fight or take the action" thing makes it a little too hard. It feels like sticking fingers in a leaky dam.

In all, I like it- it's fun, pretty easy to play,and there's some good drama. On my post-unemployment "to buy" list.

Notahandle wrote:

All the T.O.S. comments imply that the play aid rule is being used; however, since no one has queried it, the designer hasn't ruled on what is correct. And because of that, this cannot be the reason why some find it easy to win and others find it impossible. (I think the latter are just plain playing badly.)

I'll try it the play aid way next time, but in any case I think this is one of the best games to be released last year.

The play aid rule is what we used and the game seemed very tough. I like it but not enough to by my own copy when a local gamer has one and enjoys playing. It is shorter than Arkham with a similar feel, just on a much smaller scale.

I've always played it that the haunter goes right on the card as soon as it arrives, as in the player aid... that's probably because I've only played the Vassal version and it tells you to add a haunter to the card whenever one of those ghosts is drawn. It's probably also because I was glued to that player aid for the first couple games until I learned all of the symbols. I think the problem in that case is not with the rules, but with the cards... for those ghosts, there should have been an "add a haunter" icon on a left stone on the card, and then a "move the haunter" icon in the middle stone. That would be consistent.

I don't think the rules are bad, but there are some small things like that which have caused some questions. One thing I just discovered today which I'd been playing wrong (well, inasmuch as it came up in some games) was that you only need any 3 village tiles haunted in order to lose (4 in the basic game), and not 3 in a row. Sure enough, that is stated correctly later in the rulebook, but the problem is that the first time the rulebook mentions the haunters, it adds a special note that in the Initiation level, if you have a row of 3 tiles haunted and a 4th one in that row would be haunted, then you lose. That's only a special case intended to clarify that one possible situation for the Initiation level; that having a haunted "phantom" 4th tile in a row would lose you the game. But having read that first, it created an expecation for how that worked in the game... that you'd only lose on the Normal level with 3 in a row haunted... and so I didn't notice that later rule or didn't internalize it correctly after having the "row" thing stuck in my mind.

Michael Barnes wrote:
"Finally played it thursday night myself...not sure why there's all the rules confusion though. Seemed pretty straightforward to me."
I have exactly the same feeling here as I did with Last Night On Earth: Warning! T.O.S.sers at work! There seems to be a peculiar phenomenon where 90-95% of the questions have the answer Read The Fucking Manual. It baffles me that seasoned gamers can read rules, add a twist to them that isn't there, and then blame it on poorly written rules. I thought the LNOE rule book was crystal clear; Ghost Stories isn't as well written but there're nowhere near as many problems as I was expecting from the T.O.S. whining. (As mentioned above, I could only find one contradiction.) I also get peeved at the amount of time game designers spend answering questions that RTFM would resolve, because I think it's a shame that their time is not spend on designing more games.
"I don't think it's abstract as some have said. I'm with Uba, the game really does have the feel of a Chinese ghost movie like MR. VAMPIRE ..."
It has a wonderful abstract puzzle quality in planning your moves as far ahead as possible (normally I'm not a puzzle fan). And to mesh that so seamlessly with the atmospheric ghost fighting, well, that's what makes it so brilliant for me.
"...if this had traditional artwork or at least artwork inspired by traditional artwork, it'd be awesome."
Definitely. Whilst I like the art, I do think it's too 'comicbooky'.
"It's tough as balls though and it is incredibly dependent on what cards are drawn. I kind of think the "fight or take the action" thing makes it a little too hard. It feels like sticking fingers in a leaky dam."
So does Agricola ... but that game simply feels frustrating, whereas Ghost Stories is a delight to play.

Grudunza wrote:
"I've always played it that the haunter goes right on the card as soon as it arrives, ... I think the problem in that case is not with the rules, but with the cards... for those ghosts, there should have been an "add a haunter" icon on a left stone on the card, and then a "move the haunter" icon in the middle stone. That would be consistent."
Assuming that that is the correct interpretation. As always I took the Occam's Razor approach when I had to evaluate the contradiction and choose which bit to ignore.
"One thing I just discovered today which I'd been playing wrong (well, inasmuch as it came up in some games) was that you only need any 3 village tiles haunted in order to lose (4 in the basic game), and not 3 in a row."
One way to avoid the misperception would have been to stress even more that the 'phantom' 4th tile is a special case. As it stands you have the Initialisation level Haunter movement+special endgame case, followed by Initialisation level endgame conditions, followed by the advanced levels information. The other way would be an introduction or summary of play that includes all the endgame data. In the past I've come across several gamers whose first question is "what are the victory conditions?" My conclusion was that any rule book I write should include that information in both places; it's better to be clear and redundant than confusing.

ubarose wrote:
"... Ghost stories uses examples to clarify the written rules. ... whenever instructions do this, many questions that are answered in the examples pop up on TOS. My conclusion is that there are people who simply don't read the examples."
It sounds very plausible as I can certainly imagine some T.O.S.sers won't deign to read examples (mistakenly believing the rules have all the necessary info). But it is an aspect of bad writing if an example contains new rules; examples should clarify something previously explained by presenting it in a different way.
"I think that perhaps there is some confusion over the haunters due to the fact that there are two types of haunters: one type that starts on the card; one type that starts on the first stone."
Don't forget there's a third: play aid icon #2, which haunts the first active Village tile in front of the ghost. (The instant tile-flipper!)

Bitching and moaning is all I ever expect over there (and I'm rarely disappointed!)

These are the people who will pile on a thread whining that the box is hard to open.

"Did you have fun with it after you did get it open?"
"Who knows, I just bagged the bits, read half the rules, and declared it broken. And it's too hard to open."

ubarose wrote:
"What I do know is that I did what I normally do with game rules - read them all the way through, including the examples."
And all the play aids!
"They weren't the best rules I've ever read. There were some obviously rough translations. There was a rule or two that we had to parse. However, it wasn't even close to what I expected from all the bitching and moaning."
Absolutely! Occasionally you have to compare what's written in a couple of different places. Hardly the insurmountable task that some whiners make it out to be. Having said that, I do think there's an element of laziness on T.O.S. Rather than think about it for themselves, some of them prefer to post a question and let someone else do the 'hard' work.

Not Sure wrote:
"These are the people who will pile on a thread whining that the box is hard to open.
"Did you have fun with it after you did get it open?"
"Who knows, I just bagged the bits, read half the rules, and declared it broken. And it's too hard to open.""


Since the Oxford gaming group was starting too late to make the trip worthwhile, I did try two more solo games yesterday afternoon with the Haunters going onto the cards immediately. I scraped by in the first and was thoroughly and speedily overrun in the second. I was expecting it to be tougher, just not that much tougher! No respite from the initial Haunters, followed by a couple of chains of them, and I barely got a third of the way through the deck. Excellent!
(Hopefully the Oxford group will get their act together so I can play with four.)

Michael Barnes wrote:

It's tough as balls though and it is incredibly dependent on what cards are drawn. I kind of think the "fight or take the action" thing makes it a little too hard. It feels like sticking fingers in a leaky dam.

Exactly. I'm really not seeing what's to like here. I played it yesterday on the maximum level and almost beat it: would have done had not the last Wu-Feng incarnation to turn been the aptly named "Hope Killer". That's six plays in, which doesn't bode well for longevity at all.

Possibly the most annoying thing about the game are those incarnations. A couple of them (such as the Hope Killer) look well-nigh impossible to beat. Others (the Uncatchable and the Howling Nightmare) can be very easy or terribly difficult depending on board position when they enter play. I'm finding it hard to see what the point of playing the game is when it's possible that you could be beaten before you draw the first card, just because Hope Killer is in the deck. It just doesn't have enough narrative, drama or variability to qualify as playing for the experience alone.

I'd considered that it might be a more interesting game if you could know in advance what incarnations are in the deck, and thus plan for them. But this robs the game of one of the areas where it does at least generate some drama.

I think I need to shut up about it now, try it a couple more times (just to be fair) and then write a review.

I'll have to disagree with you, Matt. I prefer not knowing what the incarnations are, and I like their variability. I defeated the Hope Killer in the game where it came up, but it took some work, to be sure.

What I like a lot about Ghost Stories is that unlike Red November, by comparison, where it's just a bunch of gnomes running around doing individual things, in this game the different roles really need to work together and plan ahead. It is like Pandemic in that sense, and also has the sacrifice for the team and do what you can to help your brother feeling of Lord of the Rings. The constant barrage of ghosts does get repetitive, and as MB said, the system probably would have worked well or better for a straight-up siege game, but I like looking for the times when you can get some brief respite from exorcising ghosts to do something useful with the village tiles. To me, the interaction of the roles creates a lot (or at least a decent amount) of replayability and some sense of narrative, because even though the ghosts are always coming out, they will come out in different ways, which will create different needs for dealing with them.

I like the artwork a lot, too, as bright and colorful as it is. Something about the color scheme trips the pleasure center in my brain, for whatever reason. I find it very appealing. Yeah, I suppose it would have fit the theme more directly to hearken back to the look of those movies, but it may not have felt as vibrant, to me, at least.

Michael, you've been complaining about a lot of artwork lately (well maybe more than lately, but I haven't been reading your work for more than the last several months), and out of curiosity I'd like to know some examples of games where you think the artwork is both really great and also fits the game/theme really well.

MattDP wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote:

It's tough as balls though and it is incredibly dependent on what cards are drawn. I kind of think the "fight or take the action" thing makes it a little too hard. It feels like sticking fingers in a leaky dam.

Exactly. I'm really not seeing what's to like here. I played it yesterday on the maximum level and almost beat it: would have done had not the last Wu-Feng incarnation to turn been the aptly named "Hope Killer". That's six plays in, which doesn't bode well for longevity at all.
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I think the Hope Killer is a reason to keep the tokens around. We have faced Hope Killer three times and beaten him all three times -- this doesn't mean haven't been defeated by the onslaught of haunters. The game can be a beast, but the challenge is worth it.