Yes, this exactly. Most RPGs I play these days have limits, and you have to conserve some resource to have enough power to clear a final area.
I just don’t see having your four best cards as being notably weaker than having 10 cards, most of them not 100% germane to the situation as it’s evolved. And if you don’t have your best cards at that point, then either you’ve used them to hopefully some great effect, or you’ve messed up. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.
Agreed 100%.
And while we’re on this topic, I also wanted to mention that I’m OK when Gloomhaven (or Pathfinder) has me exhaust a character who runs out of cards. it’s the same thing as when I play Pillars of Eternity, and one of my party is knocked out, as I see it.
Yeah, that’s on you. It’s like if I were to tell someone I don’t like Jim Jarmusch movies because they’re slow and he starts trying to explain to me that they’re not slow. If you can’t accept a basic fact about the game, we aren’t going to be able to have much of a discussion.
Yeesh, speaking of not being able to have much of a discussion. Crying? Worst thing ever? Calling me a “prick” and then lecturing me on belittling people? Really, Rob? If you start in with the equivalent of u mad bro, that’s where I figure it’s not really worth it.
It’s not a matter of exhausting cards. It’s a matter of exhausting your character because your character is your cards. Because other than hit points, your character is only a set of cards. He has no stats, no abilities, no attributes, just a set of cards that barely constitute a deck (equipment mitigates this a bit, and I presume that ramps up considerably the longer you play). You use the cards as a measure of what you can do, how much you can do, when you can use your power. And I love that dynamic as it’s expressed in games like Pathfinder and the Decipher Star Wars CCG. But the progression of any game of Gloomhaven is taking those things away until you’re literally too weak to walk down a hallway to reach the boss, much less actually fight the boss. The game clock here is a narrowing possibility space that gets tighter and tighter, restricting the most basic of actions.
And furthermore every meaningful action is a sacrifice. You literally sacrifice a piece of the character when you do something. Because that fireball spell isn’t just a fireball spell, it’s a measure of how long before the game grinds to a halt. As I said upthread, I understand game clocks, and I understand why Gloomhaven does this as an alternative to the usual game clock. I just think it’s an example of inherently discouraging game design (Pandemic is another example, but I’ll save that derail for another thread). It simply doesn’t offer enough else to overcome that inherent frustration.
Does that explain it? Let’s take your example here:
Okay, cool. But now imagine those characters can’t even walk or pick up a sword. Ugh, right? Imagine they’re unable to catch their breath. They’re dead on their feet until something comes along and dispatches them. And even if they could walk, it would be the last thing they do because it would use their last card. Now make that the structure of every scenario for every type of character. Make that the foundation for every one of the game’s puzzle situations. Voila! Gloomhaven.
-Tom
Ooh, let me put it this way. In Pillars of Eternity, the primary threat to your character is a monster killing him. When that happens, it’s something the monster did to you. The primary threat in Gloomhaven is my character running out of cards. When that happens, it was something I did to myself by playing the game.
-Tom
I see what you mean. My experience of the start of the game (as framed by the stories on the character mats and the first scenario) was that our party of non-generic fantasy characters (except for the scoundrel) felt more like a rag-tag band of people down on our luck than a powerful and heroic party. I am not sure of far you have played, but the branch of scenarios that starts with number 4 is a bit more in the direction of mild horror, (i.e. the Gloom).
It is probably connected with us being are a group of D&D and Descent veterans. We also approach Gloomhaven as a light-RPG, which means we are probably primed for overestimating the presence and impact of the theme. However, I think that is also one of the elements that heightens the experience of playing in a group.
Some of the combinations when you get some items and enhancements are definitely the stuff of power fantasies. I also enjoy how the discard mechanic interacts with the stamina potions. Some of the more interesting decisions I make during my turn are what cards I should take back in hand. Usually I am faster than 2/4 of the party and most monsters, so I have to decide before most of the round is over. Having access to the same card two rounds in a row can really bring some strategies together, but sometimes I need flexibility in case the board state changes a lot, etc.
I think this is central to what we do. I get the impression that we try to avoid using loss cards (except for the lasting ones) unless the situation really warrants it.
And here’s the heart of the issue, I think - you seem to only regard the loss actions as meaningful, but that just isn’t the case.
Also really not true. If you are regularly losing due to having exhausted yourself through card play without completing the scenario goals, you are, and I’m sorry to have to say this, doing something wrong. You are far more likely to be exhausted by, yes, monsters.
I did it because that is how you’re treating other people. Your comments such as “It takes all kinds…” because @malkav11 doesn’t mind losing cards is pretty rude.
I don’t know why you’ve got to get like that. When I spoke to you in ‘person’ you were kind and gracious, very helpful in trying to make me feel comfortable.
You make actual good points when you discuss games. You’re articulate, smart and funny. Why do you need to insult people?
I said you were acting like a prick because sometimes I don’t think you hold yourself up to the same standards as you expect from others on the forum. So yeah, it was immature of me to say you’re acting like a prick and say you’re ‘crying’ about the card loss, but sometimes I have a difficult time giving people respect when they are mistreating others. The first time I pointed it out, you didn’t say ‘oh yea, sorry - I was getting worked up.’, you double down and get all offended when someone points out your less then stellar behavior.
I recognise it may be a big deal ro organise but I´d quite like some of the qt3ers to put together an after action report from a scenario they run.
I’ve been thinking about this. I may set up the first scenario again and see if I can’t put together a round by round action to show off how the game works for those who can’t parse out what’s going on in this thread. I may do it this weekend, if I remember and have time.
Is it, though? I bolded the important bit - this is why it feels like you are arguing instead of actually looking to have a discussion. Well, that and your putting some of my words into quotes and telling me I couldn’t be more wrong, which are the cornerstones of an argument and not a discussion. You are unwilling to budge in your opinion, so why are you even asking any of us for information or clarification? What is your end goal here? Do you believe you will convince myself and others that our enjoyment of Gloomhaven is wrong, somehow?
Sounds like we just need a computer game implementation…
Ha - I wouldn’t complain!
I am making heavy use of the Campaign Tracking app and the Monster AI app, and I think that has helped pretty significantly. IF those could be bolstered with some automation (or even combined), then things would be really smooth
I understand where you are coming from with this, but in Gloomhaven, it feels different, because the cards are not literally just options (ok, you used your fireball, now you don’t have it anymore). Instead, they are also to some extent your life force. Run out, and you are just hosed. There is no “baseline” of activities for your character. Use up your cards, and you’re done.
I think that, for me, is fundamentally the problem. I do not like cards being effectively tied to your life force/ability to keep going. I want to make a decision of casting a fireball to be based solely on whether it is warranted for the situation, not have it also tied in to some type of exhaustion/life force mechanic. I want the decision to cast the fireball to be a “bigger boom” option, not one tied to how much longer the game will go. What Gloomhaven does, to a degree, would be the equivalent of having a slowly declining hitpoint pool in a CRPG, no matter what you do. I want to get tired because I’m getting beaten on by monsters and doing things, not because an artificial clock is ticking.
Echoing what Tom said, to me it feels more like a sanity mechanic in a Cthulhu game (no matter what you do, you are going mad, the only question is will you be able to finish your task before you do) than it does a fantasy RPG mechanic.
That’s why I’m really bummed I did not get Kingdom Death: Monster back when it was more affordable. What a lot of people seem to not like (the randomness, the fact that some times you will try and still fail) bothers me far less. In fact, I like some randomness. I do not want to perfectly optimize to find the way to do something with no odds of failure. (I know, Gloomhaven isn’t quite to that level with its random monster cards, but still).
For me, it is somewhat like the old debate between procedural generated games and fixed scenario games. I want to do my best to battle the “reasonable randomness,” and if I lose to it, that’s fine. I don’t want to try to solve something pre-created within a specific time window.
Good god, now I’m talking myself out of Gloomhaven, which I own and have set up. I probably need to stop. :)
(Also, I understand that to a degree I am talking about two concepts - the exhaustion over time mechanic and the “puzzle” nature of the game. But I do think the two themes are somewhat interrelated here.)
I can understand that. It can be frustrating knowing that if you use up your useful 1 use card that you may run out of time to finish the scenario. I want to use that big ability!
I have run out of cards 2x. Once my wife was still able to win, and once she got overwhelmed with monsters. Still, I like the added pressure of deciding when it is OK to burn that card. I’d also be OK if that mechanic didn’t exist because I just think the system is pretty cool - the different monster attack decks paired with the specific monster standees, equipment, the top and bottom card play.
I don’t play a lot of different board games, so maybe my happiness also stems from not being able to compare it with much else :-)
It would be pretty trivial to simply house-rule that you don’t lose a card during a long or short rest, only when you play them (in the case of cards that are lost when played). It would probably break the game’s balance of course, but it would be easy to test/implement.
I don’t think anything Tom has said has been outright incorrect (snark aside). I’m nodding along with him up until his conclusion, which is that he doesn’t like that part of the game.
From a purely mechanics-based point of view, I really like how you need to manage your cards throughout the scenario. There’s a lot of meaningful decision-making there, mostly about whether blowing a one-shot ability early on is going to put you out of cards by the end of the scenario. You’re constantly weighing benefits and costs. That’s really engaging.
From a flavor standpoint, you kind of have to jump through some hoops to justify a lot of the mechanics that are present. My character is exhausted because they ran out of cards? Did they get tired? Is this a ragtag everyman group of dudes or a group of heroes? Are the scenarios fast-paced dungeon crawls or small thoughtful explorations? Your expectations of the game affect your opinion of it.
But everything’s intentional. I appreciate the tightness of the design. I like that when I fire a scenario up, my first thought is invariably “How am I supposed to do all THAT with so few cards and so few hit points?” I also like how every scenario ends with some nail-biting. It has come down to the wire every time, and that tells me that the systems are working together as intended – hand sizes, rate of card loss, monster stats and density, boss abilities, everything.
As your individual characters progress and level up, they get new splashy abilities that will replace some of the boring ones from the starting pool. As the town’s prosperity goes up, your new characters start at higher levels with the extra abilities. I’ve come to accept that the game is really about the town of Gloomhaven, not the characters you create. There’s probably a good discussion somewhere about whether or not that’s a misstep.
I will add that I think a forgiving but not horribly unbalancing house rule would be something like:
Hit points going to 0 is the only way to exhaust a character. If your character runs out of cards, they don’t exhaust. Instead, you can only use the Move 2 and Attack 2 options for the remainder of the scenario. You can no longer take any rests, short or long. If your character has a personal goal that involves exhausting a number of times, halve that number.
It keeps your character from just keeling over when they run out of cards, and it allows some limited utility and participation in the rest of the game. It’s the Gloomhaven equivalent of the AD&D mage running out of spells before the end of the dungeon – the mage doesn’t die, but they aren’t going to be terribly useful.
“It takes all kinds” is rude? That’s not how it’s intended. In fact, it strikes me as awfully thin-skinned to take offense at it, and to furthermore use it as justification for insulting me and dismissively describing my posts as “crying” and my mostly reasonable criticism as “worst thing ever”. If you want to call me a “prick”, you don’t get to do it while you’re lecturing me from the moral high ground.
I don’t recall asking anyone for information or clarification. I’m having a discussion about game design. Think of it as no different than discussing a movie. When you talk with people about a movie you’ve all seen, do you explain the plot to them?
As for “budging from my opinion”, is that your goal? To change my opinion of the game? Why? What kind of discussion do you think we’re going to have if you come to it with the goal of changing someone’s opinion? Generally, discussions are people sharing various opinions. I’ve never said anyone is wrong to enjoy Gloomhaven, so I don’t know why you’re coming into a discussion to tell me I’m wrong to not enjoy Gloomhaven.
And, yes, I think you’re flat-out, objectively, 100% demonstrably wrong when you say various enemies aren’t inherently more powerful than other enemies. Like the sort of wrong that makes me wonder if you’ve actually played the game, which I know you have. But that’s not the same as saying an opinion is wrong or trying to change your mind, which I have zero interest in doing. It might help if you’d return the favor and not think of this as people trying to discredit each other’s opinions.
Well, I hope you do. I’m sure there are scads of Gloomhaven videos out there, but I’d be particularly interested in watching one from someone I know.
Especially when there are so few (zero?) tools to manage the loss of cards (disclaimer: that may develop with later abilities or characters for all I know). Compare this to Pathfinder, mentioned upthread. Your “life force/ability” as you put it, is entirely your cards, but managing the loss and cycling of those cards is a fundamental part of playing the game. Gloomhaven is always and only a one-way trip down a spiral of inevitable exhaustion, without recourse, with only the inexorable loss of powers, abilities, and even the capacity to move a tile or pick up treasure. That is, to me, nothing like running out of mana in a typical RPG or dying because I don’t have enough cards to refresh my hand in Pathfinder.
That’s a good way to put it. I feel the same way about Mage Knight’s hard cap on how many turns you can play (to be fair, that sort of time limit isn’t exclusive to Mage Knight). I have a difficult puzzle to solve, but my solution must fit into ten turns or I lose. But Gloomhaven is even worse, because my characters are candles slowly dwindling until they just flicker out and die. Great paradigm for a horror game, but I don’t feel Gloomhaven earns its claim to horror when it’s just implementing rote dungeon crawl gameplay.
Just get started and you’ll be fine. When I set it up, I get pretty excited about playing. Piecing together the scenario tiles, adorning them with monsters and terrain and loot, settling on each character’s hand of cards, drawing a road card, those early turns when you’re flush with options, all great stuff! That flickers out eventually, but when it’s burning, it’s great.
“Probably” break the game’s balance? It would shatter the game’s balance. In fact, the game just wouldn’t work. Without the constant pressure of impending exhaustion, you could just hang out to heal and hoover up treasure before moving on to the next room. You might as well house rule that there are no monsters in the dungeon. :)
Ha, I wonder if I’d have the same issue if Isaac included some narrative folderol about how the dungeons are filled with life-sapping magic so you can only stay down there so long. Like oxygen in Subnautica or something.
I obviously haven’t played enough to really appreciate the card variety, but so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the starting cards still seem pretty useful. I almost never have the sense that I won’t need that card again. In fact, the boring cards – Move 5? Snooooze… – can be pretty darn crucial.
That’s why I haven’t given up on Gloomhaven. I really like what I’ve seen with how Isaac has created asymmetric characters with evolving powers that force hard choices when you start a scenario. Having to settle on which cards to bring is the sort of game design I love.
Having seen Kingdom Death: Monster, where it really is the intent that the town matters more than the characters, I can’t agree with you here. Gloomhaven forces you to retire characters, which is an interesting decision that I admire, but the gameplay still depends entirely on the strength of the characters through their gear, their cards, and their leveling up. Gloomhaven might raise their level and serve as a hub to power up gear and whatnot, but the actual gameplay is ultimately about the characters. To such a degree that I can’t imagine playing this with permadeath, which is a core design principle in Kingdom Death*.
-Tom
* To Gloomhaven’s credit, it has a much less dopey name than Kingdom Death Monsters. I feel a little ridiculous every time I type that. I don’t think I’d be able to bring myself to say it out loud. I’ll just have to call it Kay Dee Emm.
Look, taken in it’s full context, "“You love a game where you get weaker and weaker until you can’t bend over to pick up a penny or walk down a hallway to open a door? Welp, okay. I guess it takes all kinds.”, it certainly comes across as talking down and mocking @malkav11 for not having an issue with something that you do.
Also, @malkav11 explains a part of the game you already know and you respond, “Please continue to explain to me how to play the game. Insert eyerolly emoticon.” He’s trying to be helpful and once again you mock him.
Maybe you never intended to come across like that. Obviously some people find some things rude while others don’t. I do have to say, one member privately thanked me for calling you out because they felt you were being rude too - so I’m not the only one.
For someone who has such a way with words I have a hard time thinking you didn’t realize how you were coming across. Maybe I am thinned skinned or overly sensitive to things like that - but I absolutely hate when someone is disrespectful to someone without any cause.
Not having played KDM, I can only defer to your experience here. Could you expand a little bit? What makes KDM town-focused where Gloomhaven is character-focused?
And I should have used slightly different words – the story of the game and the meta-progression is really about the town of Gloomhaven. Gloomhaven is particularly striking to me because of how… transient?.. your characters are. You level them up and run them through scenarios to feed the town, probably over dozens of hours, but they’re eventually going to grow old, retire, and be forgotten about (unless you’re a meticulous recordkeeper). But the town persists.
Also, are you suuuuuuuure you can’t figure out a way to stream KDM? I’d love to see it played.