the way you are playing as the keeper is a big part of it. you've said that you try to setup late game stuff, and not F with the investigators for a while...

its something that's come up before. is the keeper a DM? or a true antagonist? I always felt I had to pull punches to have the investigators even have a chance. which wasn't fun for me, as the game is advertised as a true 1 vs many game. I can see people enjoying it alot in a relatively casual setting, with a keeper willing to work to make the game enjoyable (which it sounds like you are).

Seems like I'm hearing that MoM is both too easy and too hard for the investigators. Personally, I think it is neither. I think that all the printing errors seriously damaged MoM. If you play without the corrections the Keeper is over powered. If you play with the corrected rules and powers, and the investigators actually cooperate with each other and focus on solving the clues as quickly as possible, the game typically comes right down to the wire, with no need for the Keeper to 'hold back.' If the investigators, split up, wander randomly, and generally tool around looking searching every room for items, they are toast.

But I think the problem with the whole thing, regardless of whether the investigators can win, is that they don't have any meaningful choices. If they want to win, then they have to follow the script from A to B to C. Any deviation or slowing down to capture the flavor of the setting, will result in a loss.

It's just my opinion that if you spend the amount of time preparing to play this game and everyone investing the energy to make it a good story, then 99& of the time you would be better off just playing Call of Cthulhu RPG. It's obviously meant as a lite-version of that but it seems to involve almost as much work for the GM and it's probably just as mechanically complicated for the players (maybe even more so?).

jgriff wrote:


Great post. Yes, the unforgiving script makes this a boring game for investigators. And the setup for Mansions is generally a lot more effort than I usually put into preparing to run a session of Call of Cthulhu. With a choice between Mansions or Call of Cthulhu, I'm going to play Call of Cthulhu every time.

jgriff wrote:


Racing from A to B to C as quickly as possible is the game. Mansions of Maddness is a scavenger hunt with monsters chasing you and bit of bluffing and misdirection from the Keeper. We like scavenger hunts. We like figuring out the clues together - "The clue mentioned food. Should we try the dining room or the kitchen? Or maybe the fridge in the lab? Read it again? It mentions the maid, I think it's the pantry." We like the puzzles. Even before the game starts we have have to negotiate who is going to be take the character with the high IQ and be the puzzle solver, and who is going to be the character that provides cover. We like discussing among ourselves whether to run or search; who is going to cover whose back; whether we should fight, hide or flee; how we can form a bucket line to pass this key across the board to the character on the far side near the door.

My hope is that we will get scenarios that have more interesting and challenging clues. Something more like 221B Baker Street or DiVinci code kind of stuff - play on words, clues that need to be decoded, etc.

ubarose wrote:


I think the mechanics have some potential to be a good game but the scenario writing is awful (and inconsistent too). Really the Call of Cthulhu RPG is nothing great mechanically but the writing has often been top notch. MoM needs the same thing - a few fan written scenarios up there with a CoC-RPG game or Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective would make a ton of difference.

A RPG style game NEEDS great scenarios and clues to work and MoM doesn't have it. Alot of prewritten RPG scenarios are just as "on rails" as MoM but there is often an illusion of meaningful choices. If a MoM scenario could make the investigators feel that they have options outside the "script" and they could potentially still win the game, then it make a huge difference.

If Mansions gets half the fan-based love and attention that Advanced Heroquest got, then it could be something special but as it stands, I'm a pretty dedicated Lovecraft & Call of Cthulhu fan but I refuse to put Mansions on my shelf.

There should be some Mansions scenarios that aren't on a timer. And that have map set-ups that don't make it obvious which rooms are important. How about a scenario where there is just a card or two in every room, with no clues and no timer? Just let the investigators explore while the keeper periodically springs monsters or cultists on them, trying to just eliminate investigators.

Shellhead wrote:


Good point. Hell, SoTC and BB had that going for it with the false legions and dummy counters.

A friend of mine uses glass beads to show where cards are located. The actual cards are not on the board. This eliminates the ability to see the hotspots because they have more cards.

I also like the idea of a timerless scenario.

lj1983 wrote:


I feel antagonist. The first game or two I did pull back a bit because the players were finding their legs in the game and it took some time to realize that they didn't have time to explore and had to go clue to clue as quickly as possible. Now I have to go balls out against them.

Now, yes...I tend to not mess with them right off the bat because I don't want the pacing of the game to be thrown off early on. Once the pacing is off the game is pretty much doomed. But since I, as the keeper, know the long term objective I start to set things up to achieve that long term goal. Which in turn starts to confuse and entertain the investigators.

For me the game is a mixture of HeroQuest, Tales of the Arabian Nights and Talisman. None are games that I'd call heavy with decision making, but all are good romps to trod through on a game night.