Mr Body has been murdered; it’s up to you as Prof Plums to investigate this crime.
Was it coronel Mustard in the kitchen with the knife?
Perhaps it was Miss Peacock with the revolver in the billiard room?
Or perhaps it was that large burbling spawn of an elder god that’s dragging itself through a portal in the attic??
Mansions of madness is a board game with a difference. There is the usual stuff that the larger more complex games usually have going for them, these include lots of cards and dice, loads of choices and customisation and allot of detailed plastic figures. These are all great features, however the thing that really sets it apart is the fact that the players have no clue what the objective is.
They know who they are, they know their skills and weaknesses, however, when they enters house/crypt/rock garden (more on that later) they do not know what they have to do to win the game- add to this the fact that the watcher player (what this game calls the games master) know exactly what they need to do and what he needs to do to beat them!
This game is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu mytos and as such has a strong horror theme, it pits the players against a number of threats from monsters, dark gods and forbidden magic.
The characters in the game are messing around with creatures and artefacts not meant for the world of me, as such there’s a good chance that some of the things they encounter are going to put a few dents into their metal wellbeing.
To reflect this, the investigators have two meters to keep an eye on, body keeps track of physical wounds and damage, where as the sanity bar measures your mental state.
Let either bar drop too low and there are serious repercussions- the body bar reaches 0 and you die, however if your sanity hits bottom things get a little more complex, the watcher can play all kinds of nasty tricks on the unfortunate player, everything from making him fear and even attack other players on sight or turn his weapon on himself.
The whole game is designed to make players as paranoid as possible, the watcher player can hit them with any number of nasty surprises at any time, he dosen’t even have to wait till his turn!
The level of role play is up to the group, however with a little effort, this game can be allot more than just another board game, now…where did I leave my deerstalker and shotgun?
hub42 