Developers at BGG posted:

Tainted Grail: the Fall of Avalon is an unforgettable, solo or cooperative adventure experience for 1-4 players. Blending Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology with a unique vision, it allows you to impact the game world in deep and meaningful ways. A deep, branching storyline allows you to tackle problems in different ways, ensuring no two games play alike. Difficult decisions or harrowing choices wait behind every corner and seemingly minor tasks may reverberate with major long-term consequences.

In a land slowly sinking into the Wyrdness and torn apart by conflict; surviving each day is a challenge on its own. Starvation, sickness, violent weather, and random incidents all conspire to end your journey. Guardian Menhirs, that ensured safe travel throughout the realm, are slowly going dark turning simple logistics into an involving puzzle. To overcome these challenges, your character develops along several conflicting lines, such as Aggression / Empathy or Practicality / Spirituality. These traits unlock a rich choice of mutually exclusive skills and lead to different deck-building strategies, making character advancement meaningful and deep.

The character you develop is going to be tested during dozens of combat and non-combat encounters. Sometimes you will need to brute force your way, but often diplomacy might be a better option. Regardless whether you fight with your strength or your wits, our unique dice-less encounter system makes resolving each conflict fun and exciting, while keeping you immersed in the game.

In Avalon, there’s a legend waiting behind every stone and every tree. All locations have their own rich stories and secrets to discover. Places and characters are often much more than they seem. As you slowly put all the pieces of the larger puzzle together, the land will always have a surprise waiting for you just around the corner. Many secrets can be discovered only after several games. Created by one of the best polish fantasy authors, Krzysztof Piskorski, the story of Tainted Grail: the Fall of Avalon aims to push the boundaries of non-linear narrative, building upon the rich experience Awaken Realms has infusing ambitious stories with excellent board game mechanics and striking visuals.

Basic Rules posted:

The game is divided in Day cycles; each day our characters spend Energy to perform actions like:
- Exploring their current location (in a CYOA-like scenario).
- Activate location or character specific Actions.
- Travel to an adjacent location (connected by a travel arrow).
- Activate other miscellaneous actions - provided by an Item, by a Quest, a Secret, etc.

At the start of each Day the Story progresses a little, no matter what the characters do; a new Chapter is revealed, and new Quest, Task or even obstacles are added to the game. Day by day, the wyrdness grows closer and only lightning up new guardian Menhirs can keep it at bay; there is a constant sense of impending doom, so the characters can't allow themselves to idle around...but at the same time not preparing enough could be the end of the expedition.

Each Character is defined by six basic Attributes, divided into three opposing pairs:

Each of them could be of assistance OR hindrance during the adventure: having a lot of Aggression, for example, is going to help if we need to fight or scare someone away...but it means our character has a short temper. The more of matching pair of Attributes a character possess, the more difficult it is to improve them. Each point above 2 in a single Attribute also comes with an additional Skill that further improves the abilities of the character. Each character has also access to resources like Food, Wealth, REPutation, Magic and EXPerience; these can be used during the CYOA sections, gathered/traded/spent on the map or have specific in game uses. For example, at the end of each day, the characters can have some FOOD and Rest to recover their Health and Energy and to lower their Terror . They can also spend EXP to gain new Attributes, Skills and to improve their Combat and Diplomacy decks.

At the end of the day, the characters can also experience Dreams or Nightmares, that may have prophetic powers or may be simply influenced by their surroundings.

The land of Avalon is fraught with dangers. Not every creature is out to get you and not every villager is hostile to our characters...but most of them are. To avoid making a quick end, our characters will have to defend themselves in Combat or try to de-escalate things with Diplomacy. Both mechanics revolve around building and improving a deck of cards (one per type); this result in a deceptively deep series of minigames - more in this once we'll face our first foe.

Characters List posted:

Beor is a Smith and a strongman; he starts with 2 Aggression and he will probably spend a lot of time hitting people and stuff with his big hammer. He's not really a people person and his Festering Wound makes Exhaustion (IE: digging into his Energy reserves to the very last drop) an even worse proposition. His active ability is quite expensive, but also quite useful at the beginning of the game.
Pick Beor if you want to smash.


Ailei is a wise woman and an empath; she starts with 2 Empathy and she's the most suited to deal with other humans around Avalon. She is not very good at fighting and being Tramatized she has difficulty dealing with her Terror . Her active ability allows her to turn 2 Energy into 1 Health at will and is situationally useful.
Pick Ailei if you want to talk your way through problems.


Maggot is an ex Druid and a drug addict; he starts with 2 Spirituality and he's the most apt at Magic from the get go. He's not super good at either Combat or Diplomacy, but he's not too bad in either since he can usually count on a larger amount of Magic compared to the other characters (Magic can be used during both Combat and Diplomacy, and of course it is often checked against or used during exploration); when he sleeps, he may get Nightmares instead of Dreams even if he is not currently Going Insane. His active ability allows him to turn 2 Energy into 1 Magic at will.
Pick Maggot if you want to interact with the Supernatural.


Arev is an ex soldier turned farmer; he is the jack of all trades of the group and the most well rounded character, being good at both Combat and Diplomacy from the start, but not excelling in either. His drawback puts a weight on top of the whole party, although not a massive one; his active ability is situationally useful when the alternative is Starving (which is really bad).
Pick Arev if you want to have more of a say in how your character develops.

LP rules posted:

This goes without saying but please NO SPOILERS, not even in tags. Feel free to participate and vote even if you are familiar with the game, but please don't spoil future events or mechanics for people that have not played this before.

The thread is going to be full coop, with the limitation of asynchronous play taken into consideration. I'll ask the thread what to do next and I'll try to follow the most popular consensus; my plan is to play through a full Day cycle each update, automating decisions where possible in accordance with the thread's will. This means that I'll leave the big decisions to the thread and I'll play through more mundane steps on my own.

Unless it makes sense not to or unless the thread decides otherwise, I will Automatically Explore new locations, multiple times if necessary, until the main CYOA-style branches for that location have been exhausted. I will also Resolve Combat and Diplomacy encounters at the best of my abilities. The thread will have full authority on Party composition and on Character advancement (more on this as soon as we get some Exp!); the thread will also decide which direction we take and what our goals are each day.

Unless the thread decides otherwise, I will move with both characters together, as a Party. I will also use a popular homerule called Tag-team: whenever I explore or start another type of interaction, I'm going to do it with only 1 character (meaning that only of them will have to spend the initial Energy cost to explore); then, if the other character is needed - and if the situation makes sense - I'll allow them to retroactively spend 1 Energy (or other cost to initiate the interaction) too and act as if the interaction had been initiated as a Party. Normally, you have to decide if you want to start an interaction with only one character or with the full party in advance, but it's not always evident which character would be the most suited for a task and from time to time the game is affected by "old-CRPG-itis". We will still end up spending more Resources than the optimal amount, but at least at a more reasonable rate. I will not be able to do so if the situation would be unfeasible (IE: we will be able to call in support our other character to sweet-talk a merchant in a settlement; but we won't be able to magically teleport them on top of a mountain we have climbed if we need them to pick a lock then).

Even with this change, this is a long and difficult game and we will probably end up dead somewhere. If that happens, the game has two built in mechanics to allow us to continue playing without having to restart from the start. We'll explore them more in depth when it'll become necessary...

I plan on updating twice or three times a week.

Finally, in case there was any confusion: we are going to play the original game on Tabletop Simulator (which I digitized myself from my physical copy, since I have limited space and I find it easier to play it on TTS), but there is a Digital Version of the game on steam. However, it is NOT a 1to1 port of the game, and plays a lot differnent to this.

Travel posted:

These are the Locations we have discovered so far; the ones marked as Available are in range of an active Menhir, but we have not scouted them out yet.
- It is only possible to travel to adjacent locations in the four cardinal directions;
- The two locations have to be connected by a travel arrow (so for example we can't travel from Location 105 to Location 109).
- Travelling to a new location normally costs each character 1 Energy .
- Some locations are marked with a small lightning symbol . Anything marked with this symbol needs tobe resolved as soon as we enter the Location.
- The art and flavor text on the cards can give you an idea of what we can expect when travelling there.
- Locations outisde the range of an Active Menhir are engulfed in wyrndness and hidden from us (each Menhir only reveals the 8 Locations that are either cardinally or orthogonally connected to it). We still know that there is something there, if there is a Travel arrow, though.

bagrada posted:

Seconding this pair, they look like a good balance. I tried backing this but my bank at the time refused to authorize a payment to England due to all the fraud complaints they were dealing with. A friend of a friend got it with all extras, but I missed that session and it turns out they didn't much like playing it. So I'll be interested to see it in action.

Omobono posted:

WHY are there forced no answers to "Do you want an adventure"?

yamiaainferno posted:

Joining the Maggot and Aieli train. Looking at Aieli's outfit annoys me, though. Granted no one in this bunch seems to be fully dressed for whatever reason, but the poor woman is basically wearing a bikini and a push-up bra made of leaves. Why??

malkav11 posted:

I'd be interested to know how you made your own mod - I have several games (including Tainted Grail) that aren't on TTS and the tutorials I've seen seem mostly about prototyping games, which is not anything I care to do.

I take it you don't have Niamh? (who is the dedicated jack of all trades as she has her own specials and cards, but otherwise slots one of the four colored decks the other characters use.)

malkav11 posted:

Probably not worth complicating the vote at this stage, but I do have Niamh and could try importing her stuff into TTS if you ever want to do a second run (the game has significant branching, so it would support it).

Omobono posted:

Is that required by the scenario or merely a really good idea? Because that's what I would have voted for first action anyways.

quote:

(Do we know what's needed to recharge the village menhir right now?)

Kobal2 posted:

Interesting concept. I wonder if it influenced 7th Continent or vice versa.

Ailei posted:

Starting at 7, Ailei has the highest initial Energy pool of all the characters. She only has room for 1 Bonus Energy point, though. Her lack of Aggression makes her a poor fighter, but her high Empathy makes her great in non-combat interactions. She starts with 3 Food and 1 Rep. Neante, the Priestess of Cuanacth (one of the 5 heroes the introductory blurb mentions) and her mentor has left her a letter before departing for her quest:

Maggot posted:

Maggot starts with 1 extra Health compared to Ailei. His lack of Practicality also makes him a somewhat weak fighter - although his Magic can carry the day, it is a limited resource. He starts with 2 Food and 2 Magic. Lord Yvain, leader of the previous expedition, has left him a somewhat scathing letter before leaving:

Our adventure begins in Cuanacth Farmhold (Location 101). This is the village we currently live in, and it was the starting point for the doomed(?) expedition that preceeded ours.

Every Location card in Tainted Grail contains plenty of lore, secrets, or tasks, and Exploration is our primary way of discovering them. Each location points point to specific parts of a sizeable book called the Exploration Journal, that contains all the CYOA style sections of the adventure. The character that starts to explore a location usually has to pay 1 Energy (and we can tag-team the other one in by paying 1 Energy too if we want them to take part in the unfolding events). Our Energy allows us to keep readin until we reach an “Exploration ends” point; if we want to continue exploring, we'll have to pay more Energy .

If we are in a Location with a Menhir (3rd icon below our current location's Name), we can check what it'll take to rekindle it for free. This is Cunacht's Menhir:

Exploration: Cuanacth Farmhold posted:

Intro:

Whenever an entry says "If you have > go to Verse X" you have to do so immediately. We don't have any of these entries for now, so we can start by asking about the previous expedition. Reminding everyone of their allegedly dead family members seems like a nice ice-breaker.
Verse 1:

Ailei has not just 1 Empathy, but 2! We can over the ankward conversation topic without the need to get people drunk.
Verse 2:

Remembering information we are given is a key piece to our success during our exploration of Avalon. We have also gained our first Status! Statuses are a way for the game to keep track of our progress; they are often checked to see if we have access (or if we are prevented from accessing) specific numbered sections in the CYOA. We mark this Status down on our save sheet and move on.
Since we have reached an "Exploration ends" point, we have to pay an additional Energy to proceed. Ailei spends 1Energy ! (current: 5) We're going back to Verse 1, and this time we ask the villagers for help.
Verse 3:

Success! When we need to have certain resources to get a result, we can pool the Party's; and we only need that total amount to proceed. We remind the villagers that our friend, Maggot, is also part of the expedition. Maggot spends 1Energy ! (current: 5) We both get 2 Food and we receive a random Item from the pool:

Those effects makes it more difficult for us to travel, so ignoring them is a good thing! Items fall in different categories and, of course, we can only equip them if it makes sense (so we can't for example use 4 weapons at the same time, or 2 sets of armor on the same character. Some items don't have any keyword (like the one we just got), so there is no limit to the amount we can equip. Some Items also contain a “C” symbol – these are the Craftable Items, the only ones that may be manufactured by player Characters; certain events will instruct us to draw a specific type of item from the pool.

Vote Options posted:

A) The Chapter card suggests we end our first day in Cuanacth, to experience the (potentially) prophetic dream available at this Location. If we chose this option, Ailiei will gain some Rep, Maggot some Magic and both of them will be able to bank some of their leftover Energy for tomorrow. This option will give us more insight into Dreams, Location Actions, Characters Actions and Energy Management.
B) We go North to 102 and gather some Food. This option will introduce us to Location Actions, Combat and Dreams.
C) We go North to 102 and Explore. This option will introduce us to Tasks and Dreams.
D) We go East to 104 and Explore. This option will introduce us to Combat and Dreams.
E) We go West to 103 and Explore. This option will not introduce new mechanics.
F) We go West to 103 do a Combat Trial. This option will introduce us to Location Actions
G) We go South to 105, buy 1 Item and Explore. This option will introduce us to Location Actions and Dreams.

Omobono posted:

Is the village Menhir on the clock right now or does the start of the game take mercy and its decay is assumed to go at the speed of plot (until something happens)?

Anyways, changing my vote to A, follow the out of character hints and stay in place. It won't be optimal, it won't gently caress us over.

Expedition Log posted:

Tasks: None!
Active Menhirs: Cuanacht Farmhold (101): 7 days left.

Location and CharacterActions posted:

Location Actions
Most Location cards contain one Action, clearly visible on their front.

Activating this Action is possible whenever a Character is present in this Location, and is not involved in some other Action (like an Exploration in progress). Location-based Actions are important, as they often let you gather or exchange critical resources; certain Location Actions can be repeated at will (as long as you can pay its activation cost), while others are marked as “once per day” (like the one in Cuanacth).
In a Party: We may activate a Location Action as a Party. In this case, we pay the cost only once and receive the output of the Action once. However, characters in the Party may help each other pay costs, splitting them any way they want, and if they trigger an Encounter, they resolve it as a Party too.

Character Actions
Every Character has a personal Action on their Character Tile. Activating this Action is only possible outside of Encounters and Exploration.

In a Party: only the character owning the Action can use it, but Party members may help pay the cost. However, the character performing the Action must ALWAYS pay at least 1 .

End of Day posted:

The day Ends when all Characters have Passed or run out of . When this happens, we perform the following steps for every Character:
1) Rest. Eat 1 Food. If we do, we restore 1 and lose 1 . If we don’t have enough Food (or we don’t want to eat it now), we drop our to 0. If our is already at 0, we lose 1 instead.
2) Restore Energy. By default, we restore our to the initial value at this step. There are a few exceptions:
- Our limits the total amount of we can recover (we can never have more than );
- If we are Exhausted (our marker is in one of the red slots) we recover only 4 points of (this leaves us with very litte effective for the following day, if we don't want to keep getting Exhausted; it is Bad, although there are certain strategies that revolve around this);
- If, instead, we are not Exhausted and we are at full , we become Well Rested and we can bank up to our Bonus level (+1 for Ailei and +2 for Maggot). NOTE: this is another popular homerule, and it's going to be really useful for the asynchronous nature of this LP.
3) Advance our Characters: If we have any Exp points, we may now spend them to raise our Attributes, gain new Skills or add new Combat & Diplomacy cards to our deck (more on this once we do have some Exp).
4) Build our Characters decks: we can modify our Combat or Diplomacy decks by adding or replacing cards. More on this after our first Encounter!
5) Experience Dreams: If the Location we’re in has a Dream icon , we can read the Dream section in the Exploration Journal. If our marker is on one of the red slots and (we are Going Insane), we read the Nightmare instead of the Dream. Dreams often provide helpful tips or reveal more of the lore and story.

Vote Options posted:

A) We go North to 102, Hunter's Grove.
B) We go West to 103, Warrior Fair.
C) We go East to 104, Charred Conclave.
D) We go South to 105, Forlorn Swords.

Kobal2 posted:

go north to the mound

Kobal2 posted:

Speaking of, since the food counter is a d6, I assume we have a max reserve of 6 ? Can we gain d6s ?

Start of the Day posted:

1) Remove expired Menhirs: A Menhir that is already at "0 days left" on its duration at the beginning of the Day becomes inactive and goes dark. It is removed from the Table. This causes the land around it to be reclaimed by the wyrdness; in case there was any doubt, this is Bad for us:
- We have to remove from the map any Locations that are no longer in range of an Active Menhir - an Active Menhir reveals the 8 Locations that are either cardinally or orthogonally connected to it. We are allowed to put the Locations back if we manage to rekindle a Menhir that is in range of that Location;
- All Characters present on any removed Location card immediately lose 2 , gain 2 and are moved to the nearest remaining Location card (if there are several Locations the same distance away, choose the lowest-numbered one). This is not a Travel Action.
- If the last Menhir on the map goes out, we do not remove the last remaining Location cards. We may continue to play in these Locations, but each Character loses 2 and gains 2 at each Start of the Day - until they die or activate one of the Menhirs.
2) Reduce Active Menhir(s) duration: At the beginning of a new day, the flame in each rekindled Menhir gets a bit weaker. We lower the Menhir duration by 1, to a minimum of 0 days left.
3) Reduce Time counters (Dials): certain events will ask us to start a "timer" to keep track of the passage of time; each day, these trackers go down by 1. NOTE: these counters are remove when, at the beginning of a new day, they are set to 1 (instead of 0 like the Menhirs).
4) Reveal and read a new Event Card: we then draw a card from the Event/Chapter deck. Most events will stay in play only for the day they are drawn in; Quest Events, instead, remain active until the relevant Quest has been resolved.
5) Choose Equipment: this is where we decide who equips what, if we have multiple items with the same Keyword. We cannot equip new items during the rest of the day!

Expedition Log posted:

Tasks: None!
Active Menhirs: Cuanacth Farmhold (101), 6 days left.

Travel posted:

We are Travelling to Location 102. Each party member spends 1 Energy (left: 7 both).
New Locations revealed::
- Fore-Dweller Mounds (106) and Whitening (107)

Combat rules posted:

Combat in Tainted Grail is a turn-based confrontation between a Character (or a Party of Characters) and an enemy, represented by the Encounter card. Together, Characters build a long line (Sequence) of cards, with the aim of gaining enough markers in the Combat Pool to defeat the Encounter. These markers represent the total progress Characters make against their opponent, such as their tactical advantage, wounds they cause, and the opponent’s exhaustion.
To simulate the ebb and flow of Combat, enemies are often on the lookout at first, but become more dangerous as the encounter progresses; some may attempt to Flee if they feel they are in mortal danger.

The main Combat Sequence is as follows:
1) All characters involved in a Combat draw 3 cards from their Combat deck - a character's starting deck contains 15 basic cards and is different from the others. It is possible to take a Mulligan by discarding the initial hand; you can repeat this, but each one reduces your hand by 1, so a starting character can only take up to 2 Mulligans.
2) The Active character (if there are multiple ones involve in the Combat) plays 1+ cards, as allowed by the rules. We check to see if the Encounter has been won, otherwise we proceed to step 3.
3) The Enemy makes an attack against the Active character.
4) Repeat Step 2 and 3 for the other character(s) if any, then go to step 5.
5) Each character discards down to 3 cards, then draws 1 card.

A Rat-thing! posted:

At a glance:
- We need to gain 4 to win the Encounter.
- On its turn, the Mist-Shaped Vermin is going deal 1 Damage to us (if the current count is between 0 and 2); or it's going to remove one of our from the Combat pool if the count is 3.
- If we don't play any card during our turn or if we want to escape, the enemy is going to perform an Opportunity attack. In this case, the Vermin is as brave as us, and if we try to run away (or if we don't attack it) it'll simply escape as well, denying us his delicious Loot.
- Mmm, loot. If we manage to win, we'll receive 1 Food. Mystery meat!
- On the right side, there are some Attribute keys that we'll use to try to build our Combat Sequence. I'll explain those below.

Let's have a look at one of our Combat cards:

On the left side, there are 2 rows of keys. Our goal is to match a key on the left row with one on the same "line" on the previous card (the monster card or another card we've played previously in the Sequence). The right row of keys opens up some connectors for the next card we'll play in the Sequence.
- At the top, we have 3 orange keys with the Combat attributes: Aggression, Courage and Practicality. If we manage line up the left one with one matching the same attribute in the previous card in the Sequence, we get the effect shown in the black box. NOTE: These keys can be present or absent from cards, or they can require 2 points in an Attribute to allow a match (the Attribute symbol will be doubled in the key if that's the case).
- Below that, there is a Blue key: that's Magic. To activate the connection and get the bonus in the box, we need to spend 1 point of Magic from our reserves. This key is present on most cards, but is missing from some.
- At the bottom, the Yellow key is the Bonus. This key is always present and.
The first card we play each round is "free" - we don't need to pair Attribute or Magic keys to be able to play it (we simply don't get any effect, Bonus aside, in that case). Following cards need instead to connect to at least one of the Orange or Blue keys, and they also need to have a symbol in a key we're connecting.

Finally, our Combat Cards have an additional effect if they are the Last card of the Sequence: if that's the case, we resolve the effect in the center of the card whenever it is triggered. I'll explain the rest as we encounter it, but you can also have a look at this Reference Cards if you are curious:

Exploration: Hunters' Grove (102) posted:

Ailei spends 1 (current:6).

Intro:

As funny as it would be to randomly deface a Shrine, we don't have the required Status to do so. We could steal some of the offerings, though. But first, since we don't have the Tracker Status, we are forced to go to Verse 3.
Verse 3:

If Lone Wolf has taught Goons anything is to always go left, never go near water and always vote Y to a "do you want to go on an adventure" choice (jokes aside, I will stop the update and ask the thread to vote if I think the thread should take ownership of the consequences of a decision).
Verse 5:

Decisions like this one, for example. In case it wasn't clear, 1 additional per Action is a massive penalty. The Dial/Time Counter is stuck with Ailei, since she was the one exploring and we cannot trade Dials/Counters unless specified; the manual doesn't mention anything about splitting Travel cost (cause they normally are 1 per Character), but I'd say it makes sense in this case to allow Maggot to pay part of the cost - as long as Ailei pays at least 1 point - to indicate that he, too, is helping with the dead weight. Even this way, we have the reamainder of the Today and tomorrow to find the Island Asylum and Explore it with doubled costs. Or...we could just ditch her on the side of the Road.

Vote Options posted:

1) Refugees: vote A if you want both Ailei and Maggot to give them 1 Food to receive Rep&Exp. Vote B if you want only one character to do so (please specify whom). Vote C to let them starve.
2) Bowmaiden: vote A if you want to attempt to help her or vote B if you want to say "sorry" and move on.
3) Delicious offerings? Vote A if you want us to dig into the offerings on the altar (and please specify who should do the pilfering) or B to leave them be. This will cost 1 for Maggot or Ailei if we ditch the bowmaiden; or 2 for Ailei if she is carring the bowmaiden with her. we cannot interact with the altar before encountering the Bowmaiden choice, and if we interrupt that chain of events we are not going to be able to go back to it, so we can't change the sequence of events to lower the cost.
4) Travel direction: This is going to be more of a free vote, especially since we are not exactly sure where this Asylum Island is. EDIT: also feel free to suggest if you want the party to split up; this is a tactical decision with positive and negative consequences (cover more ground, but do so alone), so it's not automatically right nor wrong. If we are NOT carrying the Bowmaiden with us, I'll follow the usual travel rules and explore/interact with the Locations we visit; if we she is with us, instead, I'll try to hurry towards the destination without any additional interaction unless the thread demands otherwise (we currently have 4 and 3 effective on Ailei and Maggot respectively, or two more each if we are OK with become Exhausted). If you want me to attempt specific interactions on the way, please specify what!
4a) Plan Kobal2: Go west, stick to the plan, get to them mounds that look decidedly mist-covered. We'll even have time to treasure hunt/recharge magic!
4b) Plan TravelLog: Ailei to 106 and Maggot (with the Bowmaiden) to 107. The event card says the asylum is "off the coast to the south" so I guess we can have Aielle loop back down to the left and Maggot do the same on the right, ultimately meeting back up in Cuanacht. The Charred Conclave also sounds magical (perhaps charred because magic went wrong?) so I want Maggot to go there.
5) Double Dip: thanks to the magic of asynchronous play, we can play "what if" scenarios. In this case, we could have used the Location Action in Cuanacth again before leaving (since it refreshes at the start of a new Day). Vote A to have someone do some chores (and please specify whom) or B to save some extra .

NOTE: feel free to add simple conditions to your votes (like "Vote 5A if we abandon the Bowmaiden, 5B if we decide to help her).

Narsham posted:

Not familiar with this game, but the combat reference card says Opportunist triggers if you don’t play 2 or more combat cards in Step 2, so wouldn’t the rat run away before you killed it given that you only played 1 card?

Omobono posted:

Soooo, where the gently caress is the Island Asylum and should we bother?

Omobono posted:

E: how bad an idea is splitting the party?

Omobono posted:

Am I missing something or does Maggot not care about exhausting, at the moment? He isn't recovering more than 4 energy per turn anyways.

Kobal2 posted:

Couldn't we have played defense for 0 gain in red cubes, then rat deals one damage because there's 2 red cubes on it, that dmg is nulled by Defense's bonus effect ; basically making it all a null turn but letting us get one more roll of the "dice" before having to suck it up and War Magic ?

TravelLog posted:

Do we not get to see location 113 (to our North)?

TravelLog posted:

Both have you draw a blue card, so that is a wash. 106 talks about hidden treasure, and I figure Ailei has as good a chance as Maggot to find it. Likewise, 107 is (supposedly) deserted, so just as likely to be a non-diplomatic encounter as not. I am also thinking ahead in terms of turns, as I want Maggot to hit 104.

TravelLog posted:

Are these switched? 107 is the one with the lightning bolt.

That said, I think I will stick by my picks though. You noted in the intro that looking at the locations will often clue you in to the kind of encounter to expect. A frozen over village seems to pose uncertain possibilities, and Maggot is better suited to that uncertainty. Likewise, if Ailei goes to 106, she can then swing down to the Warrior Fair, where I would imagine she could have an opportunity to diplomance (and it isn't like either her or Maggot would be suited to actually trying to compete in any feats of strength or duels).

quote:

About the event : what does the "add N random events to the deck" part of the event mean, in practice ? Are those typically worse or better than the base deck ? Is it a time management thing because Bad poo poo happens if we run out of deck ?

Kobal2 posted:

You're correct, but we can move multiple times per turn, the only limit being energy (1 point per "square").

Kobal2 posted:

Yes but that's fine, 105 would just be a potential destination inasmuch as it reveals the SW card.

Actually, now that I think about it, would moving to 105 reveal BOTH cards, even though there's no travel possibility ? 'Cause if so, then yeah sure, Maggot goes straight there, no questions asked.

Vote result posted:

1) We are going to help the Refugees with both Ailei and Maggot. Both our characters lose 1 Food (current: 4 both); they both receive 1 Rep (current A: 3, M:1) and 1 Exp (current: 1 both)
2) We are going to help the Bowmaiden. Ailei receives the Dial since she has more than Maggot. We have the rest of today and tomorrow to complete the Task before it expires (and the Bowmaiden with it).
3) We are going to leave the offerings be. We have decided not to gently caress with the Stagfather; or maybe we have just left unattended valuables be?
4) Maggot S>E to 104; Ailei move conditional to what's revealed. This was the trickiest decision and it was uncertain for a bit, but in the end the main idea was helping out the Bowmaiden, and this sounded like the plan most likely to produce results, since we should be able to scout the SE corner AND THEN if the island is not there, the NW one.
5) We are not doing "Chores for the Townspeople". We have decided to save our .

Expedition Log posted:

Current Location: Hunters' Grove (102).
Tasks: Bring the wounded Bowmaiden to the Island Asylum and Explore the asylum to find help for her.
Active Menhirs: Cuanacth Farmhold (101), 6 days left.

Travel posted:

We are Travelling to Location 104, through 101. Maggot spends 2 Energy (current: 3).
New Locations revealed:
- Island Asylum (109).

Hello fellow humans posted:

The Leonard J. Rats, Esq Encounter is going to play out very similarly to our previous Combat, hopefully. Maggot is not exactly a powerhouse, so a few bad draws may cost us dearly. We start the combat and this is our hand:

Oh dear.
- Charge would cause us to gain 2 and suffer 2 this Round, since we won't be able to attach any other card to it (we don't have 2 Aggression, and there are no "play 1 more" yellow symbol that line up with the Courage connector).
- War Magic would automatically win us the Encounter next Round, at the cost of 1 and 1
- Risky Attack can only be played as our first card this Round (since it doesn't have a "play 1 more" yellow symbol on it), and we won't be able to attach anything to it since we lack both 2 Aggression or 2 Practicality. 50% we get 3 , then lose 1; 50% we get 1 and lose 3
All things considered, War Magic is probably the best choice, but I'll take the risk and show the Mulligan mechanic here. We discard our current hand, and draw 2 cards:

We are rewarded for our risk with a better hand. Careful Attack is exacly what the doctor prescribed: it'll prevent us from losing any , gain us 2 , and set us up to win the next Round, thanks to it 3 available Key connectors, one of which is a 2x. Leonard J. Rats attacks us for 1, but we block it thanks to our Careful Attack:

At the end of the Round, we draw 1 card. This is now our hand:

Hex has a symbol on the Bonus Key, and by connecting it to the x2 Key on Careful Attack we get the 2 remaining we need to win the fight.

Exploration: Charred Conclave (104) posted:

Maggot spends 1 (current:2).
Intro:

Looks like Maggot got out of druidcraft just in the nick of time. Could this be Lord Yvain's doing? After all, in his letter to Maggot he mentioned how he wanted to have every druid in the land flayed alive. We are Maggot, so we have to go to Verse 10.
Verse 10:

This is an awkward work reunion to say the least. Let's hear what the charred bodies of our old friends have to say.
Verse 4:

I would normally leave you the choice for this, but this is Maggot's last effective for the Day and we strongly suspect a Secret to be hidden here, since the Dream mentioned charred arms and hands. The funky skulls at the bottom of the text require a Dial to be "decoded". They will send us to a Verse in the Book of Secrets.

Not exacly the DaVinci Code. We lose 1 (current: 7) and gain 1 (current: 3) and we go to Verse 111 of the Book of Secrets.
Verse 111 (BoS):

Travel posted:

We are Travelling to Location 107, Whitening. Ailei spends 2 Energy (current: 4).

New Locations revealed:
- None!

Inspecting a Menhir is a special Action and its cost is always 0 no matter what, so we can afford to do so even if we are transporting the wounded Bowmaiden:

Diplomacy posted:

Diplomacy is played out in a similar way to combat, with a few distinctions:

- We are trying to fill an Affinity Meter my moving a marker towards the top of it, while the "enemy" will try to lower it during their turn.
- By linking Keys with a symbol we'll get the bonus described in the Diplomacy Table on the Encounter Card.
- By linking Keys with a symbol, we'll move the tracker up the Affinity Meter by 1 per (if the symbol points down, it has the opposite effect instead).
- A diplomatic encounter may require multiple Stages to be resolved before it's over.
- Most of the other rules are similar to the Combat ones; you can always refer to this Reference Card if you need to:

Suspicious Guard posted:

We start by drawing out a hand of 3 cards, like we would in a Combat Encouter:

You can immediately see how Ailei is a much more accomplished Diplomat than Maggot is a fighter. In fact, we can win the Tutorial fight with 2 simple moves from our starting hand.

We play Soothing Voice first, since its "play one more card" symbol is lined up with Spirituality, which we lack. We don't get the card's central bonus cause the Keys are resolved before checking that, and by then the Affinity Tracker is already on the green since we have linked Double Empathy and got a as a result.

Then we play Misdirection by linking the Empathy symbol on top with a "play one more card". This nets us 2x on the Bonus Key and we win the Encounter before the Opponent had a chance to say its piece.

End of Day posted:

Rest:
- Ailei consumes 1 Food, recovers1 . Energy is set to full (7)
- Maggot consumes 1 Food, recovers1 and loses1 . Energy is set to full (6)
Advancement:
- Ailei current Exp is 1.
- Maggot current Exp is 2. Maggot can afford a Combat or Diplomacy deck upgrade!
Dream:
Maggot spins a Dial: gets a Grail! No Nightmares tonight.

Expedition Log posted:

Current Location: Charred Conclave (104).
Tasks: Bring the wounded Bowmaiden to the Island Asylum and Explore the asylum to find help for her.
Active Menhirs: Cuanacth Farmhold (101), 5 days left.

Travel posted:

We are Travelling to Location 107, Whitening. Ailei spends 1 Energy (current: 6).
New Locations revealed:
- None!

Exploration: Asylum Island (109) posted:

Ailei spends 2 (current:4).
Intro:

We do have the Tracker status, so we go straight to Verse 11. Nice of the game not to make us wander too much around on this weird island.
Verse 11:

From now on, I'll "decode" these puzzles straight away. As you may have already noticed, these are here more to prevent people from spoiling major developments by mistake, than to challenge the player.
Verse 147 (BoS):
The Bowmaiden reluctantly thanks you and hands you a small parting gift.

The text was split between two pages, so I just typed in the Intro myself. The Exp is nice, and the Stagfather Charm is situationally awesome, especially with a party like ours.

Bowmaidens are a Level 2 Green Encounter and we would otherwise have to run away from it right now, probably. I've transferred the Charm to Maggot, since he's the most likely to run into fights, but feel free to ask me to move it back to Ailei!

Vote Options posted:

We have 2 effective on Ailei and 3 on Maggot. Please vote on what we should do today and tomorrow.
1) We can explore the Island (specify whom): vote A to hire ourselves out as an assistant, B to tour the monuments, C to try and sneak into the depths of the asylum or D to leave this place immediately. You can vote multiple options (D aside).
2) Our next destination (today+tomorrow): vote A) to return to Whitening and explore it (107), B) Dig through the remains in the Charred Conclave (104, specify who should do so) C) to explore the Warrior Fair (103) and scout the SW location, D) to Explore the Fore-dweller Mounds (106) and check the Menhir there or E) to propose another plan. In case there was any doubt, we can pool our resources to activate a Menhir, but we currently have 0 Wealth.
3) Character Advancement: vote A to buy a deck Advancement (specify the deck and the character) or B to save up for now.

NeoRonTheNeuron posted:

Why does Ailei lose 1 terror during the rest? I thought her Traumatized passive would prevent that because Charred Conclave doesn't have an active menhir.

TravelLog posted:

That went wildly better than I hoped!

quote:

How easy is EXP to come by generally? Is it front-loaded or is the rate we are getting it generally indicative?

malkav11 posted:

That's confusing to me because Awaken Realms have officially sponsored Nemesis and Great Wall TTS mods and while I don't know if they've signed off on the The Edge: Dawnfall, and Lords of Hellas mods I've seen on the workshop they also haven't taken them down.

Maybe they just think something like Tainted Grail would be too easily spoiled by having a mod floating around? I dunno. (But also, there's a This War of Mine mod. And that's a story-driven game. So...confused.)

Expedition Log posted:

Current Location: Island Asylum (109)
Tasks: none!
Active Menhirs: Cuanacth Farmhold (101), 5 days left.

Exploration: Island Asylum (109) posted:

Ailei spends 1 (current:3).
Intro:

Verse 1:

Verse 10:

Well then. Apparently this place is full of people sick with the Red Death!

Exploration: Island Asylum (109) posted:

Maggot spends 1 (current:3).
Intro:

We'll try to see what's hidden underneath this Asylum...
Verse 5:

We roll a 3. We have 1 Aggression and 0 Practicality. Oh dear.
Verse 6:

The bad news is that we are now prisoners in this Asylum. The...worse news is:

Yes, we are (probably) now carrying the Red Death! I'm sure this will not have any negative consequences in the future.
The "good" news is that we can try to escape. The bad news is that we only have 33% chance of success since we have 0 Practicality - which is the attribute related to sneaking around, among other things. The stars are on our side, though, cause we roll a 6 and we can read Verse 12.
Verse 12:

We "finally" managed to escape. We have 3 now.

Vagabond posted:

A Vagabond is more dangerous than our tutorial fight, but it's probably the easiest encounter we could draw. He is Fast, meaning we can play a maximum of 2 cards during our activation - meaning that it'll be more difficult to defeat him without either getting damaged or risking him running away. We draw our starting hand:

Defend seems like a safe bet, especially cause we can play Entangling Trap next round if and draw a ton of cards - and also avoid bad consequences in the worst case scenario.

We prevent the damage, draw 1 card; then at the start of the following Round, we remove the time token from Defend and draw another one:

We play Attack, followed by Battle Cry. We gain 3 and draw 1 card. The Vagabond retaliates and we lose 1 (current: 6) and 1 . We will have to gain in a round if we want to defeat him without losing the Loot.

Bingo! We play Hold Guard, followed by Charge and we gain exactly 3 and win.

Exploration: Charred Conclave (104) posted:

Maggot spends 1 (current:1).
Intro:

Today we tried to sneak into an asylum, got caught and imprisoned, we were (potentially) infected with the Red Death, escaped and fought a random vagrant. Now it's time to pick through our ex colleagues remains. EDIT: Verse 10 sends us into a loop that eventually leads back to the Intro.
Verse 2:

Good thing we don't give a poo poo about other people.

End of Day posted:

Rest:
- Ailei consumes 1 Food, recovers 1 . Ailei is Exhausted! Energy is set to 5.
- Maggot consumes 1 Food, recovers 1 and loses 1 . Maggot is Exhausted! Energy is set to 5.
Advancement:
- Ailei current Exp is 2.
- Maggot current Exp is 4.
Dream:
Maggot spins a Dial: gets a Grail! No Nightmares tonight.

Ailei Dreams.

Vote Options posted:

1) Next Destination: This is an open vote! Outline your general plan for tomorrow, taking each character's into consideration. Only go into the nitty gritty if you want to (a "go to xxx" is enough!)
2) Aggressive Maggot: Maggot has enough Exp to level up his Aggression to 2. Vote A to do so now, or B to save for something else (most likely, Practicality 1).

malkav11 posted:

There are actually quite a few craftable items that are either one shot or can potentially break when used (e.g. snares for hunting food, a crappy sword). You've been very lucky in getting stuff that's actually good equipment. (And not drawing a craftable on an "any item" draw.)

Omobono posted:

E: hold on, did we finish exploring the conclave? Finish that first if not.