After getting MH and KH today for some reason the Dark Man of Wizard's Hill popped into my head.  I started thinking that with all these new Mythos cards in my deck if anyone took the DM's offer the chances of ever having to repay it were quite slim and will just get worse with more expansions.  Now I like clue tokens and money just as much as the next guy but I think Mr. DM is getting the shaft so I made the following to help with the dilution.

In case it's not obvious any investigator that accepts the DM's deal takes one of these.  Now I'm no AH guru so if it's not harsh enough or too harsh let me know.  Any input would be appreciated.  Just go easy I'm very fragile.  On second thought be viciously cruel with your critiques I could do with a good cry.

EDIT:  I just noticed that I wrote "you" instead of "your" in the last sentence.  Oops.

Well... first of all, the idea it rather cool :-) let's do some math ;-) a game lasts probably around 15 Mythos (mine are generally shorter, 10-11 Mythos, but I play 5 investigators, so it's defintely quicker than a 3 investigator game). This means that, even in the unluckiest (and unlikely) probability that the Dark Man makes a deal with the investigators, you have to roll 14 dice (starting from the Upkeep number 2) to roll. If a token has to be added on a 1, statistically speaking you have to add 2 tokens before the game ends. Which means the card should not influence the game at all.

Try this one: you add a token on a 1-2 (maybe 1-3), and the cost for removing one of the token is reducing both your maximum stats by 1. This shouldn't be too scary (investigators could be tempted to make the deal because there's a certain buffer of turns before the final problems start) but tough enough for not undervaluing it. And possibly (if you feel you want a kinky game) you could make that in certain games (Nyarly) investigators who want to refuse his offer should pass a Will (-2) check to do so.

Julia said:

Good point.  I never really pay attention to how many turns pass in our games so that never occurred to me.  Maybe making the initial checks harder plus making more rolls based on the amount of tokens on the card would be ok?

Upkeep:  Roll one die plus one die for each token on this card.  For each 1 or 2 rolled place one Stamina token on this card...  etc...

 here you go. Probabilities of having at least 3 tokens as a function of the number of turns:

x-axis: turns

y-axis : probability of 3 or more tokens

blue is 1/6 and red is 1/3.

So in 15 turns, it would happen with P~0.4 for 1/6 and P~0.95 with P=1/3.

If you can remove the tokens, I'd suggest 1-2 or even 1-2-3 (1/2)

Julia said:

::Laughter:: I was just reading these suggestions and thinking, "this is a really good analysis, I wonder who wrote it" (I couldn't see the icon, but lo and behold, it was Julia).

Anyhoo.  An alternate suggestion would be raising the chance of adding a token 1-3, but only having maximum stats reduce by one each time to reduce it (and possibly reducing the doom penalty to 2).  Also, it'd be easy to circumvent by retiring the investigator, so, you should ban that.

Someone had done that deal in a game months prior, but we had no idea what might happen from that.   Then just yesterday I played a game where the relevant Mythos card came up and I thought, a ha, that's what that was all about...  

I like the idea of the card, though.  I wouldn't start it with 1 token, though, which seems pointless.  Just have it require only 2 to devour.  Otherwise, I like Avi's suggestion that they have a better chance of coming up (1-3) but only require 1 Max reduction to remove.

I quite like the idea of the old debt coming due in a completely different game ;) Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but, some day, and for the rest of your life....

Jake yet again said:

The doorbell rings.  You answer it.  A man stabs you twice, "That's two doom tokens!" he screams before running off into the night.

Avi_dreader said:

::purring::