Eldritch Horror I: Enough is Enough, FFG.

Over a year ago, Tom Chick asked whether the Mountains of Madness expansion to Fantasy Flight Games' Eldritch Horror was "the beginning of the end" for EH. At the time, I thought it was a bit over-the-top; while I wasn't MoM's biggest fan at first, I'd come to enjoy a number of the changes MoM brought to the game. (Though there are still things I would, and do, happily manage without.) But now, with my recent purchase of the two most recent expansions - Under the Pyramids and Strange Remnants - and with yet another expansion on the way - I've certainly started to share Tom Chick's sentiment, albeit over a year later.

Now, before I launch into this ill-conceived rant, I should make a few things clear.

First: Some Quick Background.

For those who aren't aware, Eldritch Horror is a co-operative board game set in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, based on works by H.P. Lovecraft and others, where Investigators travel the globe and try to solve three (sometimes four) Mysteries before either the "Doom Clock" runs down to zero and the Great Old One Ancient One arises, or you run out of cards in the "Mythos Deck".

"Seriously, you can use the name Azathoth but not call me a Great Old One?"

Investigators (characters/pawns), each with distinct attributes and abilities, try to solve Mysteries before time runs out. Investigators must also fight monsters, find Clues, close otherworldly Gates, and deal with encounters while they try to win the game. The review by committed hero at RPG.Net gives a good summary of game play.


Second: I Love Eldritch Horror.

This point can't be over-emphasized. I love this game. It's possibly my favourite board game of all time. It hits the right balance of gameplay, replayability, and theme; it's a great intermediary between role-playing games (which I have read and played obsessively over the years) and board games (which I mostly avoided until recently). Eldritch Horror has given me more gameplay-per-dollar than possibly anything except my AD&D books back in the day...or possibly the various Civilization video games.

Of course I can't help but get attached to the characters; I'm a role-player after all. Witness the relationship web I drew after I bought the expansion Mountains of Madness.

THIS IS WHAT SANITY LOSS LOOKS LIKE. Send help.

Yes, this is Draft 2. I won't share Draft 3 which includes the "non-player characters" (i.e. Ally assets) from the Assets deck - though I will mention that Guiseppe, the Vatican Missionary, holds deep but forbidden feelings for the ex-Cultist, Diana Stanley; Evelyn, the Personal Assistant, may or may not be having an affair with Charlie Kane; and Auguste, the Arcane Scholar, is Jim Culver's uncle. No comment on whether Draft 4 will include Unique Assets or the Investigators from the more recent expansions, Strange Remnants and Under the Pyramids.)

"Is...is Miss Stanley coming with us? Just asking...no reason."

I have also made certain observations about the characters in Eldritch Horror that are TOTALLY SCIENTIFIC AND VERIFIABLE AND NOT AT ALL ATTRIBUTABLE TO CONFIRMATION BIAS.

For instance, Akachi Onyele will invariably muck up a key roll, no matter how many dice you're rolling for her. To the extent that our table calls a spectacular failure to "Akachi" something.

"Way to Akachi that roll, Bob."

(A success in EH, by the way, is a 5 or 6 on d6, most of the time; a 4, 5 or 6 if you're Blessed and only on a 6 if you're Cursed.)

On the other hand, Wilson Richards (who, when I play him, talks like Scruffy from Futurama), is renowned for succeeding in Lore rolls (where, to start at least, he rolls only 1 die).

"Don't see why you're so surprised. Wilson's learned a thing or two."

But I digress. The point is, I love this game. But there were a few things bugging me about it, especially with the last two expansions and what point is there in having a blog if you can't bitch about stuff that bugs you?

Third: This Isn't About the Game Being Too Hard.

Quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, the game's got too easy...while acknowledging my tweet from a week ago...

"This new expansion makes the game too easy," he mused right before three Investigators fled screaming into madness. #eldritchhorror #ffg

— Erstwhile (@Mawezunu) May 7, 2016

But more to the point, it's got cluttered, it's accumulating a significant amount of needless detail and, well, stuff, and it's losing the elegance and simplicity that it had in the past. It has become, indeed, victim to the very same bloat that afflicted its predecessor, the venerable Arkham Horror. (Tom Chick said much the same thing back in 2015 regarding Mountains of Madness.) Ironically, I'd picked up Eldritch Horror because the consensus online was that it was more streamlined and playable than Arkham - and it still is, if only barely.

Thankfully, the game is quite modular and it's relatively easy to strip things you don't like. But that said, in my view it's a shame that FFG is so committed to this product churn, particularly when it doesn't, in my view, improve the game.And I don't really like paying for an expansion only to ditch half of it.

Anyway. That's my introduction. In the next post or two I'll focus on specifics and why, if I'm honest with myself, I'll probably buy Signs of Carcosa but feel bad about doing so. (And, thus, why should FFG care? They'll get my money either way. But, so it goes.)