I didn't notice this in the rule book of the game and wanted to know (referring to Descent: Journeys in the Dark) if a 2 player game is similar to Descent as in that the Investigator player must pick two people to play the game are is he stuck with just one?

You could do one Investigator but the booklet recommends the Investigator player choose 2 investigators, much similar to Descent, yes.

Hi.

I have not played Descent; but as for the rules of MoM:

MoM does not mention that in a two-gamers-game-session the player of the Investigator is meant to choose two different Investigators. By default he chooses only one Investigator.

Quote:

Rulebook pg 6

Once a player has
chosen his investigator, he receives the corresponding investigator
Character card, Trait cards, and listed number of skill point tokens.

Quote ends

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[QUOTE Tromdrial]

You could do one Investigator but the booklet recommends the Investigator player choose 2 investigators, much similar to Descent, yes.
[/QUOTE]

Really? I did not find this in the rulebook.

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In theory he has no disadvantage at least as far as the power of the Keeper is concerned, because the Keeper only receives one threat-marker per round.

If you like to "houserule" it or to give the player the opportunity to have a broader diversity in skills and play-options, you may decide that he could choose two different investigators. But keep in mind that the Keeper would receive two instead of only one threat-marker per turn.

All the best,

Mad

edit: for some reason the tags for "quote" won't work ...

 Thanks both of you for the reply. I see what you're saying Maddock and it makes sense now why in a 1-vs-1 game that the investigator would only play one character.

As I was referring to Descent, a player must pick out two characters to attempt to delve into the dungeon. I believe this rule is in place because the Overlord (keeper) sets up the map and places a slew of monsters that are preset to the dungeon. Where in MoM, the players setup the map and, I'm guessing here since I haven't played one game yet and only read the rules, the monsters are spawned on the fly.

Thanks for the help and if I notice in a 2-player game, which I doubt will happen often, it's too hard for the player to win, I'll adjust rules as I see fit.
 

Hey there,

anytime, np.

Coldmoonrising said:

Yeah, the Investigator-gamer setup the map; but the "content" (exploration-, clue-, obstacle- and lock-cards are set-up by the Keeper. So I assume that there is not much of a difference between the Keeper in MoM and the comparable figure in Descent.

I also assume that the Keeper will have some trouble with just one Investigator, because he only receives 1 threat per round. Some of his Keeper-actions and mythos-cards cost him more then just one threat-token - which is just a wild guess ....

Enjoy the game.

Mad

Coldmoonrising,

both in Descent and Mansions of Madness, we tend to play 4 Investigators (Heroes) vs the Keeper (Overlord) regardless of the number of people playing; since the Investigators (Heroes) are suppesed to work together, we don't see any troubles in having a person controlling all of them, in case of needs. The interactions between the Investigators grant a lot more fun that a single Investigator game

 I would definitely recommend supplementing your investigator ranks. Increasing them to equate to 4 I mean by that. The reason behind that is 4 investigators simultaneously will always perform better even if the keeper gets 4 threat tokens per round. You are getting 4 potential explores at the cost of 3 more threat to the keeper. If you were to break it down, and the keeper was to deal with threats accordingly, he is still proportionately getting 1 threat a time to deal with each individual investigators. While the investigators have now gained 3 more explores per turn phase, and since you are working on a timed event basis, this is a large advantage.

On top of that it keeps the game more lively, more interaction between the keeper and investigators.

It seemed to play better in a 2 player game when the lone investigator player, played with at least two characters. In one situation that I played if the investigator only had one character, there would not have been much chance of them beating the story. If you started a story with a character with a low intellect skill, puzzles would take too many turns,  and if you had a low strength character he may be quickly killed when played by them self.

Since the game is pretty weighted against the investigators, and smaller investigator teams seem to have more trouble as Altez stated, I play with a simple house-rule that the keeper gets ½ point fewer threat per turn (e.g. 2½ threat for 3 investigators). This has vastly improved the game for everyone, and has made 1-investigator games more viable.

I support Altez here.  Although it goes against every law of horror movies and literature, the ability to split up to achieve your goals on time is often necessary.  You can't split up with just one investigator.  Well, with Lovecraftian horror, sometimes, you can, but at that point, he or she has usually transformed into some sort of sinister thing and has already lost.

Altez said:

GrimJester said:

HAHAHA! Beautiful.

OT: I do not see the point in playing only 1 investigator simply to follow the rules. I do not even think I could call this a house rule. It fits much better under common sense. Its hard enough to get a game in let alone an involved player. Barring a scenario specific story that is meant to have only a lone investigator a person playing this sort of game should~ be able to understand and run multiple characters.