I started happily popping out the map tiles from the boards and started to wonder…
Do I need to be keeping them separate by board number, or do all the map tiles (I’m taking about the smaller 1-3 hex shaped ones) just get lumped together?
Edit: I see from Scott’s box layout picture that they are separated by the type of environment they represent.
I do get it, and I collect the cards that have been removed in a separate bag. Mostly for archival purposes in case we want to chug our memories of what happened that time we went to that place and some thing happened.
I do not see removing cards as unnecessary conspicuous consumption, though. Is it really so different from having a number of rarely-played games on the shelf? While much can be said of how light Gloomhaven is on legacy mechanics I think a lot of the draw is the evolving world that is based on the choices we made.
I like seeing the person in your picture checking the manual. I am constantly referring back to. And apparently that isn’t a sufficient amount, because I’ll usually find that we’ve been screwing something up previously.
I’m convinced this is what’s going on with all you guys carrying on about how you and your friends beat a scenario the first time. I find the scenarios prohibitively difficult, so one of us is doing something wrong. Given that I love love love reading rules, my money is on y’all. :)
-Tom
To be fair to us guys, our mistakes are pretty much split down the middle between helping and hurting our chance of success.
Maybe a solo Gloomhaven campaign for a stream some time? Might be fun to switch it up a bit, and also be educational?
Dude, I would stream boardgames in a New York minute if I had the setup for it!
-Tom
Well, the thing you’re doing wrong is playing it by yourself. ;)
No, that is just his idle animation.
We had our first two retirements today, and did the scenario for my brute’s personal quest.
Our scoundrel wad replaced by a mindthief, and the spellweaver will decide next time we play.
So far we’ve unlocked the sun, concentric circles and triforce boxes.
I actually had that thought just after I wrote the reply - it would be awesome though, but probably require a few tri-pod mounted cameras and a bunch of streaming tech/savy that may or may not be worth the aggravation. Still, something to think about for the future, maybe.
I’m having trouble understanding the legacy aspect of this game, there are removable stickers but it’s confusing since there are also boxes you can’t open until you get to certain points which means the stickers are just a small aspect how would having removable stickers work at all?
As far as I know, the default stickers aren’t removable? So you slowly accrue this worldmap of locations you can visit that is more or less permanently altered by the path you take through the campaign. Throw in things like permanent removal of world events and some branching scenarios and there’s basically the possibility of “losing access” to certain things over time, while gaining access to others. If you use the default, non-removable stickers and actually rip up discarded event cards, you are pretty deep into legacy territory.
Not that deep really. Gloomhaven is a campaign game where things unlock as you go. There is very little permanent change to the game or the setting (mostly just the titular city’s prosperity level, and the precise composition of the event decks). A true legacy game will do things like unlock entire previously unrevealed mechanics, radically alter the game board, destroy character options, and more.
I mean you’re eventually gonna run outta character record sheets, too.
(I actually really get skeeved out by Legacy mechanics, so those even deeper ones you mention make me feel sweaty and nervous, @malkav11)
So the mechanics are fairly unchanged - the legacy aspects being compared here are the permanent changes to the physical components, but they aren’t foundational to the concept of ‘legacy’?
The physical component in question literally only exists to put stickers on. It’s basically an elaborate campaign progress sheet.
When you tear up a “city event” card, you are making a permanent change to an extremely small part of the game. When you open a box in Pandemic Legacy, it usually fundamentally changes the way all subsequent games will ever play. @malkav11 is saying destroying a City Event card is not deep into the Legacy territory, not that it’s not Legacy at all.
I think it’d be hard to re-sell a Gloomhaven that’s been played. If that’s a part of Legacy that bothers you, this is nearly as bad as any other Legacy product. However, I don’t think it’d be that hard to restart Gloomhaven. Even if you put non-removable stickers on the map. The only hard to change permanent effect is stickers on cards. They’re pretty rare and I don’t think break the game in a way that would make replaying from scratch fundamentally different than first playthrough.
Plus the rules inherently state that upgraded skill cards should be effective for any future player. It’s one more way to ignore the Legacy stuff if you so chose I suppose, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to NOT lean into what Legacy type stuff there is. It’s not a huge, sweeping thing like some games are but it is more fun if you play that way (not necessarily ripping up cards, though I would argue that ads a certain weight to your choices that is undeniable) than if you treat it like a temporary thing with removable stickers and ignoring previously upgraded skills. And once you break the seals on the envelopes, that’s a feeling you’ll never have again, why not really lean into it, I say.
Well, people destroying event cards are doing so on their own, it’s not an expected component of the game. But I suppose removing them from the deck could be considered a very light element? To me 95% of what Gloomhaven does is just campaign mechanics with slightly more secrecy than most such games. The only real “legacy” bits, to me, are Gloomhaven having a permanently increasing prosperity, and the enhancement system. And I only see the former as making a significant gameplay difference overall, while enhancement is the only element that reflects the individualized nature of legacy-style changes.
