Evil lays its foundation! Let's Investigate the Mansions of Madness!

Mansions of Madness is a board game from Fantasy Flight Games that pits 1-4 investigators against the nefarious KEEPER. The investigators attempt to solve the mystery as the Keeper throws monsters, madness, and pain into their paths. Investigators comb through the mansion searching for Clue Exploration cards, with the final Clue card revealing to them how to stop the Keeper.

I'll post a brief summary of the rules but if you want the real deal...

Mansions of Madness rulebook
FAQ
Errata
Headless Hollow's game sheet

CHOOSE YOUR VICTI INVESTIGATORS

Each investigator comes with four Trait cards. There are two physical Trait cards and two mental Trait cards. The player chooses one from each group and then receives the items listed on the card.

• Health - How many licks you can take before you die
• Sanity - How many licks your mind can take before you go insane
• Strength - Lifting, pushing, punching
• Marksmanship - How well you can shoot
• Dexterity - Just how dodgy you are
• Intellect - How many moves you can make when trying to solve a puzzle
• Willpower - The higher it is, the harder it is for monsters to freak you out
• Lore - Used for casting spells
• Luck - Always bet on black.

Skill points - Each investigator starts off with a certain amount of skill points. Before making an attribute test, the player may spend a skill point to add their Luck to which skill they're testing.

Skill points can also be spent to add Luck to the investigator's Intellect when attempting a puzzle.

THE VICT INVESTIGATORS

Ashcan Pete
Carolyn Fern
Darrell Simmons
Dexter Drake
Gloria Goldberg
Harvey Walters
Jenny Barnes
Joe Diamond
Kate Winthrop
Michael McGlen
Sister Mary
Vincent Lee

Investigators’ Turn

During a game round, the investigators can go in any order they wish. Discuss strategy as you plan your moves. If someone takes too long to take their turn, feel free to take your turn first.

An investigator’s turn consists of two movements and an action. These can be done in any order.

Movement – Investigators can move into an adjacent space. Spaces are delineated by a white line or a brown line with a door. Brown lines without a door are not considered adjacent.

• Sealed doors can never be moved through.
• Movements through doors do not take an extra action unless the door is locked.
• Lock cards are revealed when the investigator attempts to enter a room. If the investigator cannot bypass the lock, the investigator is stopped and can move no further.

Investigator Actions

• Run – Move into an adjacent space
• Card ability – Use an ability listed on a card
• Drop Items – Drop items or exploration cards into the player’s current room
• Attack a monster – FISTICUFFS vs TENTACLES.
• Explore – Reveal Obstacle and Exploration cards in the room.

The Keeper’s turn consists of five steps that are done in order.

1. Investigators in the same space may trade items. After trading, investigators that are stunned may remove one Stun token from their character.
2. The Keeper gains Threat tokens equal to the number of investigator players in the game.
3. The Keeper may spend his Threat tokens to perform actions from his Action cards.
   a. Drawing Mythos and Trauma Cards – The Keeper are limited to 4 Mythos and 4 Trauma cards. These cards are kept secret from the players.
   b. Moving Monsters – The monsters may move one space at a time, and they ignore Lock cards.
   c. Placing Monsters – The Keeper randomly chooses a monster of the right type and places it in the specified room. If the specified room is not present, the Keeper chooses which room to place the monster in.
4. Keeper may perform one attack per monster if they share a space with an investigator. If a monster has a Stun token on it, the monster may not attack but the Keeper may remove one Stun token from it.
5. The Keeper places a Time token on the event card. If the Time tokens equal the number on the card, the card is flipped over and then resolved.

Although the majority of the keeper’s activities are resolved during his turn, he also has a number of abilities and responsibilities during investigator turns.
The keeper is responsible for revealing cards when an investigator explores a room or attempts to move through a locked door. In addition, he is required to draw and resolve all Combat cards.The keeper’s largest interactions, however, involve Trauma and Mythos cards.

Playing Trauma and Mythos Cards

In each story, the keeper starts with a number of Trauma and/or Mythos cards. He can draw more of these cards by using his Action cards. Trauma cards can only be played immediately after an investigator has taken damage or horror (see “Trauma Cards” on page 25).Mythos cards can be played at the start of an investigator’s turn, or immediately after he resolves
a Movement or Action Step. These cards each have a threat cost on them (which may be zero), and some require the investigator to be in a particular room.

Mythos Cards

Mythos cards provide a great way for the keeper to slow investigators in their hunt for clues or to deal unexpected damage or horror to investigators. Such damage and horror could even present opportunities to play Trauma cards on the investigators.

There are four points during an investigator’s turn at which the keeper may play a Mythos card. The keeper may play a maximum of one Mythos card per investigator turn and may never play Mythos cards during the keeper’s own turn.

The points when the keeper may play a Mythos card are:

• Start of an investigator’s turn
• Immediately after an investigator’s first Movement Step
• Immediately after an investigator’s second Movement Step
• Immediately after an investigator’s Action Step

In order to play a Mythos card, the keeper must first pay the threat cost. Some cards also have a requirement which lists a room name, partial room name, or other requirement. The keeper may only play Mythos cards on investigators who are in one of the listed rooms or are fulfilling the requirement.

For example, if a Mythos card says “Requirement: Bedroom,” the card can only be played on an investigator who is in a room that includes the word “Bedroom” in its name (such as the “Guest Bedroom” or “Master Bedroom”). After playing a Mythos card, the keeper discards it to a faceup pile adjacent to the Mythos deck. If the Mythos deck runs out of cards, this discard pile is shuffled to create a new Mythos deck.

Trauma Cards

Trauma cards are used by the keeper to represent the physical and emotional damage that investigators have suffered. These cards can only be played by the keeper immediately after an investigator takes damage or horror . The only exception to this restriction is if an investigator has zero sanity, in which case the keeper may play one insanity Trauma card on the investigator as a keeper action (once per turn per insane investigator). Trauma cards are kept in the keeper’s hand until played and are drawn using specific Keeper Action cards.

Trauma cards with a red border are known as injuries and can only be played when an investigator takes damage. Trauma cards with a blue border are known as insanities and can only be played when an investigator takes horror. Some Trauma cards also have a large number on them, meaning that they can only be played on an investigator whose current health or sanity is equal to or lower than the number. As investigators take more damage
and horror, they become susceptible to stronger Trauma cards.

Each investigator may have a maximum of one injury and one insanity at any given time. If he receives a second card of the same type, the original card is discarded first. Thematically, the investigator has found a way to cope with the trauma or is focusing all his energy on this new trauma. Once received, it is very difficult for an investigator player to get rid of a Trauma card. A lucky investigator may find a piece of equipment or a Spell that can cure his trauma.


There will be times when you are asked to make a skill check. You’ll roll a d10 and compare the number to the appropriate skill. If you roll lower than or equal to the number, you pass! You can also spend a skill point to add your Luck value to the skill, increasing your odds in passing.

A roll of a 1 is an auto pass and a 10 is an auto fail.

Example: Joe Diamond is attacked by a zombie. The Combat card lists “Test Dexterity +1.” Joe Diamond adds 1 to his current Dexterity of 4. The player rolls the die, hoping to roll a 5 or less. He rolls a 1, which automatically passes. He then resolves the “Pass:” effect of the Combat card, which reads “no effect.”



To see a monster is to have it assault your very psyche. Every time you enter a room with a monster, you must make a Horror check. You roll against your Willpower, after taking any modifiers from the monster in to account. If you fail, you take one Horror.

Evade Checks

If an investigator is in a room with a monster, but does not want to combat it, the investigator must make an Evade check. Again, after adding in any modifiers, the player rolls against their Dexterity. If they pass, the investigator suffers no ill effects and may continue with their action. If they fail, the Keeper has the option of causing damage equal to the monster’s attack rating.

Combat

The investigator declares which monster they’re fighting and with what. The Keeper will draw a card from the monster’s corresponding Combat deck until he draws a card matching the investigator’s weapon. The investigator makes a skill check to determine if successful. After the attack is resolved, combat is over.

• Range - Some items and weapons have a range listed on their cards. The range is how many spaces (not tiles) away the investigator can attack. If there is a door or wall, then the monster would be consider out of range.
• Line of Sight - The investigator is considered to have line of sight if the players can trace a line from at least one corner dot from his space to a corner dot in the target space without crossing a wall or a door.

Hiding and Barricading Rooms

Some rooms have a trunk or a bookcase token in them. Investigators can hide in the trunk or barricade the room by pushing the bookcase in front of the door. The Keeper draws cards from the combat deck to determine whether or not the investigator has been found by a monster or if they are able to enter the barricaded room.

Things You Will See on the Board

Hiding Space - You can hide in these
Barrier - Use this to block a door
Camp Fire - Roast marshmallows or corpses
Corpses - Used for bad things. Roast them.
Ladders - Get from one room to another. Only investigators and humanoid monsters can use them
Vents - A beast monster may move from any space with a vent to any other space with a vent. It is, essentially, the xenomorph in Alien. IT'S IN THE VENTS
Altars - Probably evil.
Sealed doors - You shall not pass. Like, ever.

Exploration Cards - These are the cards that will provide the investigators with the tools and knowledge to prevail against the Keeper.

The Exploration card subtypes are:

• Clues – These will lead the investigators to the next clue and ultimately reveal how to stop the Keeper
• Keys – They’re keys.
• Equipment, Artifact, Weapons – Stuff to use
• Tome – Magic! or something.
• Nothing of Interest – Red herrings that are discarded immediately.

Lock Cards - Lock cards are revealed when an investigator attempts to move into a room. They require the investigator to discard a specific Exploration card or solve a puzzle before the investigator can enter the room. If the investigator cannot discard or solve the puzzle, he cannot enter the room and his movement is wasted.

Obstacle Cards - These represent obstacle that prevent investigators from fully exploring a room. They require the investigator to discard a specific Exploration card or solve a puzzle before the investigator can reveal the remaining cards.

Damage

The two main threats to investigators are death and insanity, which can be caused by accumulating too much damage or horror, respectively. However, throughout the game, investigators can hardly avoid taking damage and horror. Damage is usually taken during combat, while horror is most often taken as a result of failed horror tests and from Mythos cards.

Each damage an investigator suffers reduces his health value by 1. When an investigator takes damage, he places damage tokens on his Character card equal to the amount of damage he suffers. (The number printed on a damage token indicates the amount of damage it represents.) If an investigator ever has 0 (or less) health, he is killed (see “Killed Investigators”).


Each horror an investigator suffers reduces his sanity value by 1. When an investigator takes horror, he places horror tokens on his Character card equal to the amount of horror he suffers. If an investigator ever has zero sanity, then he is not killed, but is instead driven insane. The keeper may play insanity Trauma cards on an insane investigator as a keeper action. An investigator who has been driven insane can often be a bigger setback for the investigators than if the investigator were simply killed.

Once an investigator’s sanity is reduced to 0, he cannot gain any more horror tokens. Zero sanity is the lowest sanity an investigator can have. However, the keeper may play Trauma cards on an insane investigator when the investigator would ordinarily have gained horror (as if the investigator had gained horror as normal). An investigator only remains insane as long as he has 0 sanity. If his sanity increases above 0, he becomes sane again.

Investigators may occasionally be able to heal damage or horror. When damage or horror is healed, the player removes the amount of tokens specified from his Character card and returns them to the stockpile. Investigators may exchange damage tokens for ones of equal value (but of different denominations) at any time.

Killed Investigators

When an investigator's health is reduced to 0, the investigator is killed. The figure is then removed from the board and any Exploration cards and Starting Item cards are dropped in the room where the investigator was killed. Spells are discarded.

If the objective has not been revealed, the player may choose a new investigator.

Status Effects

Stun- Stun tokens are detrimental tokens placed on both investigators and monsters.

• Investigators: A stunned investigator only receives one Movement Step during his turn. If he becomes stunned during his turn, he may not take a second Movement Step. In addition, he receives –2 to every attribute test. The effects of stun tokens do not stack (that is to say, having two stun tokens does not give the investigator –4 to each attribute test).
  
  Note that this penalty only applies to attribute tests (i.e., rolling the die and comparing it to an attribute) and does not lower the attribute for other purposes. For example, this penalty does not reduce the number of puzzle actions an investigator receives.
• Monsters: A stunned monster may not move or attack.

An investigator or monster may have multiple stun tokens on him,
and may only discard one per turn (either during the Investigator
Trading Step or the Monster Attack Step).

- Fire tokens are placed in rooms that are on FIRE and effect every investigator and monster in the room.

• An investigator or monster figure in the room at the end of its owner’s turn is dealt 2 damage.
• An investigator must test his Willpower in order to enter the room. If he fails, he takes 1 horror. Regardless of the result, he may then enter the room. Once in the room, the investigator does not need to test his Willpower to move to a different space in the same room.

Darkness - Lights out! Darkness affects every investigator in the darkened room.

• An investigator who wishes to explore the room must spend an Action Step plus one Movement Step to do so.
• An investigator receives –2 to all attribute tests during combat while he is in the room. Note that this penalty is in addition to all other penalties (such as from being stunned).

There are some Exploration cards that negate the effects of Darkness.


The investigators WILL encounter a card that requires them to solve a puzzle. The puzzle interrupts the current movement/action and the investigator gets to try to solve the puzzle. If successful, the movement/action continues. If unsuccessful, the movement/action ends.

There are three types of puzzles: wiring, lock, and rune


Yeah, I'm going the easy way out and just copy the image from the book.

Solving a Puzzle

An investigator has x amount of actions to solve the puzzle, with x equaling the investigator's Intellect score. The player can also spend a Skill Point to add the investigator's Luck to their Intellect score.

• Swap a puzzle piece with an adjacent piece. The pieces are only swapped and neither one is rotated.
• Rotate a puzzle piece 90 degrees, clockwise or counterclockwise.
• Draw a random puzzle piece from the pile of unused pieces and replace any puzzle piece with the new piece. The new piece must be placed in it's starting orientation. This actions costs two puzzle actions.

Another example stolen from the manual


The board game says that only the current investigator can attempt the puzzle with no help from the others. In the interest of keep the game moving, I will allow the other to suggest moves. Playing via forum is already going to slow things down enough.

Alternates

1. Mogri
2. Elfir
3. Tefari
4. The Giant Head

Keeper Actions

These are the actions available to the Keeper in this scenario.

• Crawling Chaos

  • Action: Choose 1 witch in play that is not stunned. Stun the witch to force 1 investigator in the same space to test his remaining health -2.
  • Fail: If not infected, the investigator receives an Infected card.

• Absorb

  • Action: Choose 1 shoggoth in play. Remove 1 corpse marker or 1 zombie from the shoggoth's space to heal 3 damage from the shoggoth. Then, place 1 sample token on this card.

• Witchcraft

  • Action: You may discard 1 Mythos or Trauma card to gain 1 threat. Then choose an investigator. He tests his Willpower -2.
  • Fail: Place a witch in his space.

• Command Minion

  • Action: Move a monster up to 2 spaces. You may only move each monster once per game round.

• Evil Presence

  • Action: Draw 1 Mythos card and 1 Trauma card. If this was your first action this game round, you may end your Action Step to gain 1 threat.

• Raise Dead

  • Action: Perform 1 of the following:
  • Pay 1 threat to place 1 corpse marker in the Graveyard or Crypt.
  • Pay 2 threat to discard a corpse marker and place a zombie in its space.

Totes in for this if there's room.

I've played MoM three times before so I sort of know what to do but not enough to know the scenarios well. I'll join if there's room.

I'm interested since the Arkham Horror LP kind of died, but the fact that it appears you can only use each class ability ONCE PER GAME seems awfully limited. What keeps things interesting?

Each scenario is different and the winning conditions change depending on the choices that the Keeper makes when he sets up the game.

I also find the abilities in this game to be much more powerful than the ones in AH. Consider Kate Winthrop's Test Theories ability. If she passes her Luck roll, she can reveal the Keeper's Objective and how to win way before the endgame starts.

A game of MoM lasts about half as long as AH as well. It's more story-driven and intense since you don't know what the objective is. In Arkham Horror you always want to gather clue tokens, hop through gates, gear up, and kill monsters regardless of who the ancient one is or what expansions are being used.

The reason is because these powers are COMPLETELY INSANE within the context of the game (it tends to be pretty short and there's a lot of momentum for every player from the very opening). Using one at the right/wrong time can completely change the game; I had an investigator once use their "move a monster 3 spaces" power to position it in the exact spot I needed to win the game. Otherwise I would've lost.

What Stiv said. And what Elfir said. The game doesn't take all that long — there's a strict limit on the total number of turns.

She actually only reads the objective and not reveal it which is a rather important detail because only she gets to actually look at the card. This can be very important in games where she becomes a traitor and wins when the keeper wins since she can use her ability to find out what the keeper also needs to do to win and then misdirect the rest of the investigators to ensure a keeper victory.

Which was what happened in one of my games. Additionally many people actual play her ability where she can't actually tell the investigators exactly what the objective is cause otherwise her skill becomes very game breaking on many of the scenarios however it still becomes very helpful as she can actually help direct the team on the right path still.

So which scenario will you be using? Because I'd love to play if you were going to be doing 5 if there was room.

Til Death Do Us Part

I need to contact the people who volunteered to play way back in August and give them first crack at joining. I need to go through the posts but I think you were one of them. Sarcas was another.

Thread title edited because its/it's errors are NOT acceptable.

I'm still in, I tell you what.

Even when it's is used as a possessive? Because the foundation belongs to Evil.

its = possessive

it's = it is

Ah, I didn't know that. And now we're in this weird place where I get schooled in grammar.

Anyways, did I leave out any important rules?

Keeper's turn step 3b: also where the Keeper removes a Stun token from a monster.

You should have a section on when Mythos and Trauma cards are played on the Investigators, and what being Insane means.

Might want to define all the Status effects (stun, darkness, fire).

Should also talk about the difference between Lock cards and Obstacle cards.

If ever you have trouble remembering the proper use of its/it's, just remember Strong Bad's little tune about it:

"Oh, if you want it to be possessive it's just 'its,' but if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's I-T apostrophe S! ...scalawag."

I have no idea if you've forgotten any rules, incidentally. I just felt we could use some Strong Bad in here.

The name of this game sounds like a NetHack branch name. (Come to think of it, the gameplay looks like it'd fit right into NetHack too, so perhaps that's appropriate.)

How players are being chosen, though you did get to that later ;p

I need to go back in time and high-five past me, then. If I actually was one of the few, then I'm still up for it.

So it takes less time to get through than a game of AH? Interesting. If there's a spot PM me or something. :D

Setup takes a good while, but I don't think an actual game I've played (2-4 players) has even reached three hours.

Ok, I think everything's up! Waiting for Red Hedgehog and then we can begin!

Ok, Red Hedgehog is in!

Through the randomness of a d4, it will determine the order of which to choose your character. Name your character and then the two trait cards.

1. pence
2. Rai
3. Sarcasmorator
4. Red Hedgehog

I promise anyone that chooses Ashcan Pete to die a horrible death.

What's your beef with Ashcan Pete?

The very first game of Call of Cthulhu I was going to run, my two players both wanted to be hobos. I couldn't figure out how to make it work. I've hated hobos ever since.

Huzzah! Is that order you posted above the order that we're selecting characters in?