As of the writing of this blog post, the town of Arkham is in serious trouble. Monsters stalk the streets. Cultists, who have infiltrated every aspect of regular life, are working toward an unknown agenda. And, right at the stroke of midnight, as the cultists are about to unveil their plan, the only man who had any idea of what was going on, Roland Banks, has collapsed into a gibbering mess on the ground. Turns out that the town government was in on... whatever is going on. And it's too much for Roland Banks, FBI agent, to take. Time is running out. Someone else has to step up. But who?
I'd been eyeing Arkham Horror the LCG for years. I mean, how could I not? I love narrative. I can't get enough of it. So, when I found I really enjoyed FFG's newest LCG, Marvel Champions, and when Arkham Horror's core set dropped to about half of what it normally was, I kinda figured why not? I really enjoy the gameplay loop of Marvel Champions, where you discard cards from your hand to get your stuff out. I'm a sucker for loss and damage, and that game delivers that sorta thing in every move you make.
I got a hell of a lot more than I bargained for.
First off, the core gameplay is enormous, yet claustrophobic. You accomplish tasks in this game by doing a skill check, by and large. There are tokens in what's called The Chaos Bag (which for the moment is more like The Chaos Cup, no bag included in box), that can either give a bonus, penalty, or something else completely random. Cards in your hand can give bonuses to these checks, to help offset what's usually a bad draw from the Bag/Cup; you can certainly "commit" more of these cards, as you wish. There's four different difficulty settings to this bag: Easy Standard, Hard, and Expert. I tried my first game on Easy... and was disappointed. I didn't have to engage with the system all that much. So the next game I upped it to Standard and had a much better time. There's a tight system of choices in this game and, while it seems forgiving (at least at first), you'll find yourself in a world of hurt if you don't take the time to stop, think, and play the right cards.
The second thing that you have going on is the Agenda and Act Decks. Agenda decks are the bad stuff, Act decks the good. You are trying to get through the Act Deck before you get to the Agenda Deck, and may God help you if you fail. Interestingly enough, there is always the option to quit, so that way the big and awful thing doesn't happen. Doing things that further the Act Deck usually give you experience, which you can use to modify your character's deck. The Agenda always has a resource called Doom being generated, which reminds me of Threat in Marvel Champions, except this stuff can be attached to characters and it still counts to advancing the Agenda Deck. Yikes. And, at least from what I can right now, there's not much of a way to stop that advancing Doom, which is accumulating each turn.
And the third "important thing" (there are many) is the the fact that you are traveling between locations in the scenario, each represented by its own card. Now, this requires you to have some actual space to accommodate the locations, but so long as you're willing to bunch up locations that you're not using you can actually fit the game into a very small space, if need be. It's not ideal, but it can be done. Each location has a number of Clue Tokens (which are used to advance your Act Deck, by and large) and a Shroud Value, which is how difficult it is to get those Clue Tokens. Once you harvest that area Clues generally don't come back, so you're supposed to move on.
When you take these three primary elements and mesh them together you get a system of exploration, stress, and hard choices, with an actual release valve should things get stupidly difficult. With campaign play all these things coalesce into an engine that delivers pure narrative. Certain things carry over and inform the narrative.
I'm currently sitting here, looking at the characters that I have to choose from so Arkham can be saved. I have to start all over. None of the goodies I'd gotten from using Roland transfer over. Instead of a triumphant attack on the cult, someone else is going to have to pick up the pieces and pull some amazing moves. Am I up to the task? Can Arkham be saved? Regardless of those answers, the ride is so much fun that I almost don't care.
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