The Game

Arkham Horror The Card Game is a living card game from Fantasy Flight Games. A living card game is like a collectible or trading card game where packs are released and you buy additional packs of cards. However, a living card game isn’t a blind buy like something along the lines of Magic: The Gathering. There is no risk as to what you get in the pack. It is always going to be the same, for some of the games it adds in new characters or villains, Marvel Champions, but for Arkham Horror: The Card Game, it adds in more story and they run through cycles of story.

I took my investigator, Wendy Adams, into the first scenario of the base box of Arkham Horror. You can see how it went, but I talk at the beginning how this is a deck construction game. I could have built my own deck, but that would have added time away from the game, so I didn’t want to do that. Instead, I jumped into the first scenario to see what I could get done.

For a full review on it, you can check out my TableTopTakes on it.

Over the next month, or so, I am going to play through the other two scenarios in the main box with less lead-up and explaining as I play the game. If people are enjoying it I will get some of the Mythos packs for the base game that continue the story from the base box.

The Beer

To continue on the theme of Surly Brewing, I had another one of their tart ales. This time it was the Key Lime Supreme. Not much more to add about it because I already had the mango and the grapefruit that they offer as well. A great slightly tart summer beer. And as it’s pushing the 70’s here in Minnesota, that is what I want to be drinking.

Thank You

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The Session

We start with them finishing their search of the half-orcs room after the latest dragon attack. But people are starting to show up, so they realize that it’s a bit suspicious with what they are doing and they decide to pursue other means of investigating this latest dragon attack and not really where the missing scarab from the first attack is. It makes sense to them because this dragon attack was also caused by a scarab.

They talk quickly with a few towns folk seeing if they can figure out if this is something that’s happened before. A few of the old timers tell Thrain a tale about how there was, about 60 years ago, a large dragon that came out and it was killed. That is corrected on them though as it turns out unlike this ancient black dragon, that was a young dragon. So Thrain doesn’t really think that there’s much of a connection.

The rest of the first year students are now out of the cellar and are looking around as well. The group spots that both Addrus and Dorin are missing from the group. Considering how suspicious Dorin has been acting, they decide to check up on him and see where he might be off to. Barrai finds him in his barracks hurriedly packing a steamer trunk and talking to himself about how everyone is out to get him. He tells Barrai about the threatening and disturbing notes that he’s been finding. Barrai feels a bit bad about it as he watches Dorin climb into the steamer trunk and close it while giving Barrai instructions as to where to ship him so he gets home safely.

Barrai messages every basically saying that Dorin probably isn’t their guy. Bokken heads to the meeting location but everyone else goes to where Barrai is. They decide that they’ll help Dorin get sent where he wants to go later, but right now they need to continue their investigation. They give Dorin some more food so that he’ll be slightly more comfortable and then go down into the tunnels where they are hoping to catch someone after the fact. They consider going down the the the direction that leads to the tower, but Kip is able to investigate and figure out that no one has gone down there in a long time.

At this point in time, they start piecing together some of the odd things that have happened in the past with the tunnel. How Barrai tried to put Sanphire to sleep but got someone else in the tunnel instead the first day they’d found the tunnel. How there had been someone skulking around in the shadows by the tunnel. How Sanphire had told them that Addrus and Parag were the only two first years he’d seen the day before. The group splits up with Barrai and Kip going to find Castillia and Thrain and Bokken going to find Parrag in hopes that they will know where Addrus is. Neither of them do, but Parrag wants to ask Addrus some questions. In particular he wants to know why he borrowed his shirt, but also with both of them being spies, why it appears that Addrus did another mission. Parrag completed all four of his and had four keys from each mission, but Addrus had five keys. Castillia, on the other hand, doesn’t know anything about what’s going on or where Addrus is.

Grabbing the steamer trunk with Dorin in it, they set off into town to go to the bank. Kip tries to get information or access to Addrus’s account and find out information on the account. He learns that isn’t that easy to do, and casts friends in order to make it easier. He claims that he is a joint on the account and he needs to get access. He finds out about the documentation for a joint account and is disappointed that he likely won’t be able to forge it as there is a magical element to it and it requires blood from both people on the account. Kip does find out that Addrus was last there two days ago. They go to the bar again to get some late lunch and ask around if anyone has seen Addrus there. No one has seen him there recently as he hasn’t been in, in three days.

And at this point in time they decide to fill in Assendial on everything that they know. Instead of doing that this session, we’re giving them a little bit of time forget everything and see what they find as useful information for Assendial. Oh, and Bokken is still carrying around a steamer trunk with Dorin in it. They do feel slightly bad about making his life so hard.

Behind the DM Screen

***** PLAYERS DO NOT READ *****

So, I had plans for this session that generally went according to what they should have. I’ve been laying hints for quite a while that Addrus is up to more than previously thought. At the original dragon attack he was talking to someone in the shadows and then unseen by the players made it to the cellar before them. He also was in the second interrogation that Barrai was in for people who lied or misled in the Zone of Truth. The additional key also was called out before by Parrag when they accused him of being a spy and found the ring of keys in his stuff. And most recently, Addrus was back before everyone else was back from the Tower the day that the scarab went missing. Did he steal the Scarab, who knows, but the players should figure that out soon and definitely now realize that he’s been acting suspicious.

I had to give some prompts to the players to move them along in the right direction right now. They caught onto the fact that Addrus and Dorin were missing and hence suspicious, but they really like Dorin was someone who is trouble, whether or not that makes that much sense. They definitely should know that they have broken Dorin with everything that Barrai has done at this point in time, it’s certainly been implied enough times.

Do you like sessions without combat, we’ve had a few of those recently? If you’re the DM, how to you run investigations, do you just sit back and see where there players go, or do you have planned clues?

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Last time, if you remember, our Bokken player was missing because he was feeling under the weather, so Assendial had tasked them all with figuring out who had stolen the scarab amulet/relic/thing from Tormin’s desk. He wasn’t supposed to have it there, but he’d been studying it. The group, minus Bokken, searched Tormin’s office finding the secret spot where he most likely would have stored it, but they didn’t really find any clues and were instead attacked by a mimic that was in one of the drawers to be security. They also created a list of suspects in the 2nd year students who were also around the school at the time as well as Parrag and Addruss having been seen there.

In this session they continued that investigation. They waited for all of the 2nd year students to leave as they filled Bokken in on everything that was happening and what they’d been tasked to do. Once the 2nd years left, they went to the second year barracks. Unlike there which are open communal sleeping areas, the 2nd year students have their own rooms. Barrai, who last time decided to see what second years stood out, starts them down the path of looking for a few rooms, one that looks like it has Flink the Tabaxi in it, rooms for the twin dwarves Snickle and Fritz, a room where the giant Nafitl is using, and the room of the half-orc Lisanial.

They push open a few doors and find one that has bunk beds in it, which they decide must be the room of Snickle and Fritz. Going through that room, they find that it does appear to be their room and that either Snickle or Fritz has a girlfriend and the other one doesn’t. Besides that everything in the room, for either Snickle or Fritz is a mirror image of the other, so if one has their shirts going from left to right dark to light, the other is flipped so the room is very symmetrical. Barrai finds the picture that seems out of place and then a pile of letter held together with a ribbon which he takes two of the letters at random. Thrain moves around two pairs of shoes so that the room is no longer symmetrical, but there’s nothing else of interest.

Next they find Flink’s room, they can tell where she’s been sharpening her claws. While her bed and dresser also fail to lead any interesting clues, they do check on the three suitcases that Flink has set by her dresser. The top one appears to have several brown paper packages tied up with string that have a smoky and salty smell to them. They guess that it is a smoked/preserved fish, and don’t bother opening them. The next one is full of climbing gear and the bottom one is empty. Not that interested in the suitcases, Barrai looks for loose floor boards and finds one that is slightly loose. He pulls on it, but nothing happens, Thrain gives it a go, nothing happens. Bokken steps in and has no problem breaking the board to get it up, but reveals just a solid floor beneath it, not even enough room to hide any of the fish. Bokken puts the board back and Thrain casts mending on it.

They next come across Lisanial the Half-Orcs room. This room is a mess, but it is jam packed with tossed down piles of weapons, a lot of them, multiple suits of armor, boxes, a dresser, and a bed. Barrai starts going around the room, putting in a little effort, sorting stuff as he looks through it to see if there are any clues. Bokken finds a pile of shortswords which Lisanial has labeled “throwing sword” and one longsword, “throwing longsword”, and takes one of the short swords. Thrain decides to grab one of the breastplates to get it to a black smith to get turned into his size. And then he goes through the drawers of the dresser. He finds a lot of messy clothes in there, and six bags with money in them. He grabs a couple of coins from all of them but stops at the sixth one because he can tell there is only a thin layer of coins on top, inside it is a scarab.

Bokken takes a moment and inspects the scarab and realizes that while similar, the metal looks a different color and the body of the scarab is different. Then Kip grabs it and looks it over to see if it looks magical. He thinks it might be magical so Barrai casts detect magic on it, he can tell that it’s magical and some sort beacon or something, but doesn’t fully understand the spell. Bokken grabs it back and takes off running with a siren noise and lights blinking that Kip has cast on him. Thrain takes this moment to grab five of the six money bags and another set of armor. Barrai and Kip rush over to the window and try and get the best vantage point possible to see if a dragon is coming from the tower. Barrai is pushed out of the way by Kip who sees what looks like a dragon. And Thrain using Thaumaturgy, amplifies his voice so Bokken can hear him over the siren noise that Bokken needs to ditch the scarab because a dragon is coming.

Bokken instead, being extremely obvious, rushes towards the watch tower where Sanphire is on watch, and passes him the scarab. Linken the one remaining teacher on campus comes out of the teachers quarters and is passed the scarab as well. No one knows what to do after Linken tries to dispel magic on the scarab and it doesn’t work, he does turn off the siren and lights on Bokken. Bokken grabs the scarab back again and throws it as far back towards the dragon as possible, which causes it to land and clink nicely onto the top of the barracks that Barrai, Kip and Thrain are coming out of. They book it towards the watch tower and towards the mess hall grabbing Bokken who is assuming that the dragon will deal with the scarab and then leave like last time. Turns out that Bokken is basically right, but doesn’t count in how long a stream of acid the dragon is letting out, and Kip, Thrain, and Bokken get caught in it.

They take a rest in the cellar with the other first year students before, as always, getting curious again. Linken comes and gives them all the update that the dragon has in fact left after one pass over the second years barracks but that the students should stay in the cellar until he comes back to get them. For Barrai that wasn’t soon enough, so he goes over to Dorin who looks like he’s in the midst of a panic attack, and causes him to panic even more, using an ability to seed doubt and fear into Dorin’s mind so that he turns against and is afraid of Cordin, the Dragonborn for an hour. Dorin screams about how Cordin is in league with the dragons and takes off running up the stairs. Thrain casts darkness over the rest of the students causing in more panic, and they all head out, Barrai, Thrain, and Kip through the secret tunnel and Bokken through the main entrance with him saying he was going to get Dorin back.

Once outside they go and find the scarab and go back to Lisanial’s room. Grabbing the scarab with mage hand Barrai and Kip determine it is likely not active anymore, though they do almost lose it to Kip’s squirrel Karl thinking the scarab was food when Barrai tossed it to kip. Back down in the room, they start going through everything, but it’s hard to keep track of it all because of the mess, so once they start to clear an area, Bokken dumps the stuff out of the window, and they continue to tear apart the room.

That’s where we ended the session. Normally we’d play in two weeks, but that’s on the 24th of December, so that’s not happening, and one of the players is gone leading up to Christmas, so another longer break.

So as always a little behind the DM’s screen.

I think it’s important with an investigation to try and not lock people into too much of what they have to do. This was a light planning session for me because of that. I knew that they’d find something in one of the rooms, hadn’t decided on what it was until in the moment. And I also hadn’t decided on whose room it was going to be. I actually used the dice to help decide that, not how well the players rolled, but some random roll behind the screen.

That’s it, that’s about all for the session, I hope it offers some interesting ideas.

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Why did I pick Chronicles of Crime?

There are multiple reasons, first, I really like games that have some sort of puzzle or deduction to them. Escape room games like Unlock or Exit are good examples, Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition or Arkham Horror The Card Game even have elements of them. So I like detective style games as well, even Clue, the classic, I still enjoy because of the puzzle of figuring out information as efficiently as possible.

The other thing is that is has an interesting app integration piece. Now, that’s going to disappoint some people, but I really find it interesting, though it can’t be played without the app. The app scans QR codes allowing you to interact with people and ask them about clues or other people you might have found during you investigation. But that’s not the coolest piece of the app in my opinion. Instead, there is a video component that you can use basically as VR if you want, where you can look all around and see the crime scene. While you’re doing that, you’re telling the other players what you see and they’re grabbing what might be useful clues for you to use later in your investigation.

The other thing that’s really cool about this for me is that there is a community aspect to it. It’s not just the company making scenarios, you can go out and get scenarios that other people have created and put together so maybe someone did a dog napping or there was a grisly murder, you don’t know. But there can be an ever increasing amount of story just from the base game. Plus there are expansions, there is a Noir expansion that looks cool, but I’m more excited for the Redview expansion which is a kids on bikes, almost RPG like version of the game, so it doesn’t have to just be crime, you can do wildly different things with it.

So hopefully that explains why I was interested in the game and picked it up. Does it sound like a game that would be cool? Maybe see if your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) and get it ordered in for you and help them during these times.

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