florrat said:

Oh I didn't exactly mean that it was the easier case but rather that I was hoping that you could extend my algorithm just the way you did.

Your new example: Hmm tricky one. Perhaps you are right, otherwise the WotYS would loose significant power in a game with many investigators.
Next example: Same as above.

Walk said:

Last page of the AH rulebook under Terror Level Summary.

Well, school has been rather hectic and I haven't had a chance to come here in a while.  Nevertheless, I think I'll pick up where I left off.

Tbla: Yes, but why, precisely, do the people want the trophies?  Yes, they're a sign of the investigators' prowess, but why do the people actually want you to hand them over?  Are they going to do anything with them?  And, most of all, why are trophies transferred to the new investigator upon a devouring when nothing else is?

Gamemaster: Hmm, I hadn't noticed that.  However…the last page is a summary, a recap of rules that have appeared previously, and the bit about adding the Doom token at the moment when the Terror Track hits 10 appears nowhere else in the rules.  Thus, I'm inclined to stick with the main body of the rules.  Does anyone know if this ever received an official response?

Walk, it was said that when the doom track reaches ten, you add a doom token to the doom track and you double the monster limit. For each terror increase above ten, you add an extra doom token.

However, this is not written on anything official that I'm aware of. I guess this is part of the proto-FAQ that once were partially revealed. Hence, for this to be official, we have to wait until we see them published (which in normal human time means: one day, our grandsons and granddaughter, now elder, coming to our graves to pray, will whisper "we have them, we have them all, now you can rest in peace")

In the ORIGINAL printing (with the brown board—remember that?) the rule was that when the terror level reached 10, a doom token was added and that was that. In the revised version, it was changed so that the monster limit is removed, the AO awakens when there are too many monsters, and additional terror-ups would add doom tokens.

I play both effects.

Walk said:

Hmm tricky.

Why do people want trophies? Well I guess the investigators simply pick them up to convince other people that there is a real threat and that they should help them in whatever way they can.
As for why you loose them when you use them, the only thing I can come up with is that once the investigators has used them they don't think they will need them again and leave without them them.
The last question has been bothering me a lot and I must admit that I have no idea. In fact, for the first games I played, I didn't know that you were allowed to keep your trophies, I just assumed that you lost them as well because it didn't make sense to keep them.

So there are several things that I can't explain. But I always try and I really enjoy the challenge to make sense out of the more trickier things. And it's always nice to have someone to challenge me.

I just want to toss this out as an alternative.

Trophies aren't necessarily anything tangible. Sure, someone might pick up a Gug tooth, but what's a Gate Trophy? And what piece of a Zombie wouldn't just say "dead human"? Plus, street-sweeper Investigators would really start to SMELL after a while, don't you think?

Trophies are an Investigator's growing reputation around town. A rumor that there was something wrong about that house, until you came out of it. A couple of wandering bystanders noticing you battling with something in the shadows. Something overheard from a couple of Lodge patrons about you being a real pain in the Asylum. Like much in Arkham, whispers of things both good and bad get around pretty fast. Considering the wacky encounters you keep getting into, it shouldn't take long for almost everyone in town to hear about the "stranger" doing what the cops or God can't.

So when you find yourself in the Boarding House, someone might approach you asking if all that stuff they've been hearing is true…because they've seen their own share of insanity, and maybe they could help. Certainly Father Michael is a hub of information from his entire congregation; he's willing to do what he can. "We hear things," the longshoreman at the end of the dockside bar says. "Have a drink. Yer money's no good here."

Of course, clout has the shelf life of a banana in the sun. After a while, you'll find a certain what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude at places that were more than happy to help just a few days ago. But that next rumor of heroism is just one bad surge away…
 

I always (for all the tens of days that I've been playing) kind of thought of the trophies as non-tangible as well, kind of like a reputation score in some RPGs. I couldn't really imagine bringing an eyeball or finger of a cultist into the chapel of South Church so that I could be blessed (and yes, I suppose you could bring in a cultist's cloak or some sort of broach, but honestly, that still seems a little "Serial Killer-y" to me).

But I think jgt's idea of why you're left with less rep to spread around after a while; the short shelf life of people's gratitude, lends an even more elegant touch to the idea of the trophies as reputation.

Still, I can imagine Trashcan Pete walking around with his Star Spawn friendship bracelet, too.

jgt7771 said:

I like it! That's a really good explanation.

Still though, why do you keep the trophies when you change investigator?

Tbla said:

Do you? Oh!

Um…

Oh! So, maybe the reputation goes along to the new Investigator? As in: "Mandy Thompson? I know you, you were friends with ol' Ashcan, weren't you? He had talked about you the last time he came in here. Any friend of his is a friend of mine…"

Maybe?

Nun of your business said:

::laughter:: I'm more oriented on "he's wearing his [= the dead friend's] Star Spawn friendship bracelet, too"

Wanna play. So baaaaaaaaaaaadly. Sigh.

Yeah, there's no good explanation of the trophy thing.  Even with the "reputation" idea, it still doesn't quite explain how everyone manages to coordinate their gratitude.  (Gossip would have to be near-instantaneous and very far-reaching.)  Also, there are a number of indications that trophies are physical, or, at least, sometimes are.  Take, for instance, the Science Building's Dissection ability, which is clearly supposed to represent the scientists dissecting the corpse and giving you information they gleaned from it, the various Graveyard encounters which give you a trophy for finding a corpse, and this encounter from Miskatonic: "Harney tells you that the critters have tried to break into our world before. He shows you a strange object of wood and stone, tied together by iron bands. Draw a gate marker from the stack of gate markers and keep it as a trophy, even if it is an Endless gate."

Well, I did say that trophies "aren't necessarily anything tangible."  I've so rarely visited that old Dunwich Shack, I had no idea Harney had his own Gate Trophy.   So a Trophy could be any number of things.

We should probably treat it like Schrodinger's Cat: a trophy is "all things" (both alive and dead) until it is used.  Then you'll know exactly what it is by the story it tells!

jgt7771 said:

With the only difference that we don't know whether the cat's alive or not as long as the box is closed, while we know for sure that trophies are dead and stay dead, box closed or not.

Uhm, I hear something knocking in distance…

…

Julia said:

Except when they don't.  In our last game, there was either a Mythos or Encounter (pretty sure it was a Mythos?) card that had some specfic monster trophies jump up and try to kill us.

Silly quantum monsters.