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REAL ESTATE Horror Immobilie
Mansions of Madness
Something Is Rotten in the House of Lynch!
Creaking floors, generators humming, flickering electric lights and eyes that
stare out of the darkness – welcome to the house of horror (one of five)! The
basic concept of “Mansions of Madness” is in essence known from the old horror
fun game "Chill: Black Morn Manor" (Troy
Denning, 1985) – one or more brave adventurers search for clues inside a
manor house to reveal the identity of its creepy owner. The adventurers must
find the matching weapons or tools in order to put an end to the nightmare. By
fiendish machinations they can even come under his spell and from then on,
willy-nilly, help fulfil his sinister plans. The original intentions of these
unfortunate victims (or rather willing helpers?) are forgotten. More often than
not it is only decided at the last minute, which side eventually gains the
upper hand.
In "Mansions of Madness" (at the moment only available in English) the situation is similar, but far more complex. Not uncommon for a boardgame made by Fantasy Flight Games, three or four decks of cards and a few other components are not sufficient – quite on the contrary, the game box is packed to the brim with cards, smaller cards, markers, tokens, plastic monster and plastic adventurer models as well as booklets with rules, scenarios and special instructions for the mansion’s owner / the games master (these instructions, quite reasonably, come in a separate booklet). Also not unwonted and rather standard for this company, the individual components are very nice and produced in first class quality (merely the plastic used is not to everyone's taste). For playing purposes, one really needs almost all of these elements, although they could have left out some of the cardboard pieces (e. g. Wound, Horror or Skill markers) by simply using paper and pencil.
The game, though complex, is rather easy to master. The biggest effort comes before playing starts: laying out the gaming arena. The (variable) game board consists of up to fifteen (double-sided) cardboard tiles to be arranged according to the map of the chosen scenario. In this mansion (sometimes including a garden area) the adventurers are about to investigate and the “Keeper”, as the games master is called in “Mansions of Madness”, springs his traps and leads his minions and monsters. The Keeper then secretly makes his choice(s) from options offered within the scenario instructions and builds his decks of cards accordingly. There are scenario specific Clue and Exploration cards, Keeper Action Cards (some of them are used in one adventure only, others more frequently) and lots of other cards as well –Mythos cards contain instructions for traps, encounters, mishaps and the like for the investigators, Trauma and Injury cards cause psychic and physical damage respectively, etc. – and the five matching Event cards for the scenario, each of these to be revealed and read out aloud after a predetermined number of rounds (between three and six). In order to save time, the investigator players read the short story for the chosen scenario in the Investigator Guide booklet (the Keeper should read it too, ideally before starting the game), while the Keeper deals Clue and Exploration cards (called “seeding”) face down to the specified locations according to the Keeper Guide. Then the players may choose which investigators to play (eight characters are available, known from other games of Fantasy Flight Games’ "Arkham Horror" series; this series includes "Arkham Horror", published in 2005, numerous expansions, as well as card games etc.), select their (variable) characteristics (Dexterity, Intellect, Sanity, etc.) – but you can also use your favourite character in every scenario. To conclude the set-up, the Keeper reads the short Prologue from the Keeper Guide, and the investigators may start their search. At this point, however, only the Keeper knows, what the scenario really has in store for the adventurers, and, more importantly, the Keeper alone knows the winning conditions for each side. The Objective Card containing this information must be kept secret from the investigators, until either one of the winning conditions is fulfilled, or an Event Card (usually the last-but-one) or (very rarely) another card calls for revealing the objective of the scenario. Studying the clues thoroughly, the investigators should be able to guess the objective beforehand, anyway.
The game is played in rounds, starting with the investigators. They may decide which character goes first in each round. In their turn, they may move up to two spaces and perform an action. This can be a further movement, but usually they will search the room, use an object or perform a ritual (read card text), sometimes even take part in a fight. Whenever adventurers encounter monsters – or monsters surprise them –, a Horror test is called for (roll a die against your Willpower statistics). If you fail (die result higher than the – sometimes modified – Willpower points on the Character Card), you lose a Sanity point (take one Horror token) – a total loss of Sanity may cause a takeover of the character by the Keeper (or in some scenarios even worse things may happen). Unlike in similar games, an actual fight is by no means mandatory. The Keeper may even decide rather than to attack with his monsters to constantly have the investigators take additional horror tests and thus drive them right to the brink of madness – and beyond. In some adventures this may even be the better strategy. Combat is resolved by the Keeper drawing cards from the matching monster cards stack (the categories are human, beast and eldritch enemies) until a card text corresponds to the situation on the board. Frequently a skill test is asked for (d10 – ten-sided die, a result of "1" automatically means success and "10" failure). This whole process is an unusual but rather fun way to settle fights. As soon as all investigators end their movement and action sequence, it is the keeper’s turn to act. He draws Threat tokens equal to the number of characters taking part in the game. He may spend these tokens for actions. The Keeper may also decide to accumulate Threat tokens to use later on for more expensive actions, more painful for the characters (as explained on the appropriate Keeper Action Cards). The Keeper may play Mythos cards – if he can pay their Threat cost –, which are normally rather harmful for investigators as well. If an investigator suffers physical or mental damage, the Keeper may immediately deal Injury or Trauma cards respectively. This may result in movement impediments for this character or an investigator suddenly suffers from claustrophobia etc. Whenever the number of rounds printed on the back of the top Event card equals the number of rounds played, the Keeper flips this card over, reads the instructions out aloud and resolves its effects (only the text matching his choice from the Set-Up steps). Unless any victory condition is met now, the next round begins.
“Mansions of Madness” is – despite minor mishaps and errors, especially in the 5th scenario – a horror adventure game that works almost perfectly. Most other games set within the world(s) based on the stories of Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890 – 1937), from the role-playing game “Call of Cthulhu” (Chaosium, 1981) to “Arkham Horror”, perhaps with the small exception of "Witch of Salem" (Kosmos 2008, which is only connected vaguely to Lovecraft, though), fail eventually because sooner or later a Great Old One appears to fight the characters. Great Old Ones are almost omnipotent, almost invincible, and according to the inner logic of these dystopian worlds earth’s destruction must needs ensue. Corey Konieczka downgrades this ultimate fate a bit. Even in Lovecraft's stories there rarely appeared such an almighty being – unless in his rather worst ones. Frankly, literary genius Lovecraft was none, rather a master of eerie moods in often rather banal settings. In his better short stories, the enemies of the hero – the hero being usually an elderly scholar, a scientist, engineer or writer, even sometimes a policeman or private eye – are madmen, worshipping supernatural, often nameless beings (“nameless” and “forbidden” in addition to “horrible” and “degenerate” are perhaps the most widely used adjectives in Lovecraft’s stories), are hillbillies or cross-breeds of lesser humans, as he seldom forgot to mention – pretty racist, by the way. Sometimes mutated beings appeared, brought into existence by unknown radiation (“The Colour Out of Space”, “The Dunwich Horror”) or less powerful aliens visited the earth. Further popular fiends from his repertoire are descendants of witches and warlocks of the Salem Witch Trials, held in Lovecraft’s home state of Massachusetts at the end of the 17th century (he, by the way, wholeheartedly agreed with persecutors and witch hunters), as well as Undead and Ghouls.
All of these appear in “Mansions of Madness” as well. While there are miniature models of alien Mi-Go (tech-savvy dragonflies from space), the dreadful Hounds of Tindalos (time-travelling, wyvern-like eldritch beings, mentioned only once by Lovecraft himself) and even Shoggoths (massive, amoeboid creatures) and Chthonian (giant, tentacle-mouthed earthworms, not credited to Howard Phillips Lovecraft, but to Brian Lumley), to bring them into play the Keeper would be using his powers of that scenario in a particularly mean way. Each of the five adventures in “Mansions of Madness” offers several ways in which the story grows from its starting point. Thus mysterious power failures at a university building could be caused by a more or less harmless joke by female students dabbling in witchcraft or by sinister experiments of alien invaders. The search for a missing business partner can end up in the uncovering of a scary murder conspiracy or in the attempt to open or close a portal to another dimension.
The rules are relatively well structured, well illustrated with examples, not overly complicated, and therefore easy to learn. Again, the absence of a useable index is to be deplored. In the first edition used for this review, some cards are misprinted or not clearly labelled, but replacement cards are provided and on the support page of Fantasy Flight Games for “Mansions of Madness” on the internet, Errata and Frequently-Asked-Questions-lists are available – up to date and actually rather useful to eliminate any ambiguity. The 5th scenario was really muddled up a bit – the majority of corrections cover this particular adventure; without these it can hardly be mastered. There is a second edition in print, allegedly (hopefully) with most of these errors rectified.
All the scenarios (even number five) are logically structured and remarkably detailed. A new element of the game, solving special puzzles, which is mainly used to slow down the investigators, is usually well integrated into the plot. Nevertheless it is employed a little too often. Anyway, here is an example: the characters are confronted with a power failure that can only be repaired by constructing a new circuit (a so called Wiring Puzzle). To achieve this, a character has as many attempts as correspond to his Intellect points. However, before the puzzle is solved, no investigator may look at the Exploration cards in that room. It is of immense importance, though, for the characters to know all the clues and gather all the equipment, otherwise the adventurers lose valuable playing time that will inevitably help their opponent reach his goal.
All this works quite well, contributing to a concentrated atmosphere and is even entertaining when losing the game. No adventure leads to endless dice rolling, the random factor is limited to what is really necessary, sometimes there is even the possibility that all parties lose, and yet they still spent a thrilling evening.
Martina & Martin Lhotzky, Marcus Steinwender
Spieler : 2 – 5
Alter : ab 13 Jahren
Dauer : ca. 150 – 200 min
Autor : Corey Konieczka, Tim Uren
Grafik : Henning Ludvigsen, Kevin Childress et al
Titel : Villen des Wahnsinns
Preis : ca. 57 Euro
Verlag : Fantasy Flight Games 2010
Genre : Horror adventure game
Zielgruppe : With friends
Version : en
Rules : en
In-game use of language : yes
Kommentar:
Harmonious components and design
Good rules
Lots of fun and replay value
Vergleichbar:
Betrayal at House on the Hill, Höllenhaus
Meine Bewertung: 7
Martina, Martin und Markus
Lovingly produced, easy to learn, this adventure boardgame set in the universe of H. P. Lovecraft provides nearly perfect entertainment for all friends of the genre.
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