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 There’s nothing quite like Tragedy Looper. Originally a Japanese board game, it was released in English in 2014, and did well enough for itself that its two expansions were brought over too. After playing it at a local game club once or twice, I decided I’d like to play it even more, which is where you, the LP subforum, comes in. It’s also Anime As Hell, so if that isn’t your thing, turn back now. In normal play, one player takes the role of the Mastermind, while one to three players play as the time-traveling Protagonists. The Mastermind’s role is to lead the NPCs on the board to a gruesome end, while the Protagonists’ aim is to stymie the Mastermind’s plans for as long as possible. Confused? Don’t worry – there’s a longer explanation in the post below, and an even longer one linked within it. Update: A Reference Sheet has been tossed up on Google Docs, so as to make playing the game a little easier. Please read the Rules before you read this reference sheet, or a lot of the information contained within won't make any sense. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Mar 22, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 21:23
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Rules This post is intended to be a fairly brief overview, so anyone stumbling upon this thread isn’t completely lost. A more comprehensive set of rules is linked later on. (and yes, I am fully aware the image quality is Not Great. Consider every image tagged with that disclaimer from now on. The more egregious offender may eventually be replaced if they prove to be genuinely unreadable.)  At the beginning of the game, the Mastermind chooses a Script, which specifies the characters to be set up on the board, the Plots and Subplots in play, and the hidden Roles that each of them plays in this particular drama. The players receive a stripped-down version of the Script, which tells them how many days they have and what Incidents will trigger on which days. The Mastermind’s objective is to trigger at least one of the loss conditions of the script before the end of the loop. The players’ objective, in turn, is merely to stay in the game – if they can make it to the end of a single loop without losing, then they win the game.  Neither the players nor the Mastermind are actually represented on the board. The characters on the boards are NPCs, which both the Mastermind and the players manipulate through their cards. The cards affect four variables – the characters’ movement, their Intrigue, Paranoia and Goodwill. Intrigue – Used by the Mastermind to trigger Bad Stuff. Most loss conditions are caused by letting too much Intrigue pile up on the wrong character/location. Players cannot add or remove Intrigue, but they can prevent the Mastermind from adding more with the right card. Paranoia – If the right character picks up enough Paranoia to surpass their Paranoia Limit, they have a chance to trigger an Incident when the time is ripe. This is usually bad for the players, but not always – which is why both the Mastermind and the Players can add and remove Paranoia. Goodwill – If a character picks up enough Goodwill, the Players may choose to use their Goodwill power if circumstances allow it. Goodwill is not consumed when this occurs, but as with all other resources, Goodwill resets at the start of every loop. As with Intrigue, the Mastermind may not add or remove Goodwill, but he may prevent it from being added with the right card.  If the Mastermind is half-decent, winning within the first loop is almost impossible – the players won’t even know what their loss condition is. When a loss condition is hit, the Mastermind informs the players that the loop has ended (though not what caused it to end), and resets the board to its starting state, moving all characters back to their starting zone and clearing away all resources. With failure comes experience. All Players have a copy of this handy help sheet, which lists, among other things, all possible Plots and Subplots that may be in play. As the game goes on and Players begin figuring out the various Roles in play, they can work backwards to decipher the loss condition(s) in the current Script, and from there they can start actively working to stymie the Mastermind. If the Players still fail to prevent the tragedy from occurring in every single loop, they are offered one last reprieve: they may attempt to guess the hidden Role of every character on the board. If they can correctly deduce every character’s Role, they win. That’s the basic concept of the game. It’s nowhere near enough knowledge to actually play it, however, so if you haven’t been scared off yet, take a gander at the Rules for more in-depth information.  If you’ve returned here from reading the Rules, congrats! That sure was a lot of info, but luckily as players, the bits you really have to remember are summarised in these handy help sheets here.  Additional Notes: - In the case of a regular 1v3 game, each player plays their facedown card in silence, and are only allowed to discuss their thoughts in between loops. This would probably make for a boring thread, so for now, here’s what we’re going to do: SAMPLE posted:Alright, we should probably watch out for the officer, and try not to let the Hospital rack up any more Intrigue. Feel free to state any speculation or questions you have ‘out loud’, but spoiler tag the cards that you want to be played (and do try to play along with this). Since there’s hopefully going to be a little more than three people playing, and I want to keep the game moving, every player will state three cards they want played – one from each of the player decks. The results will be tallied and in the case of a tie, the earliest replies take precedence. Players are free to discuss what kind of cards should be played from which decks, of course. This should hopefully keep the game moving along for now, and we’ll see if the rules need reworking later on. - For the first game or two, I’m playing it safe and Masterminding a couple of scripts provided with the base game. No doubt some of you who have played the game before will be familiar with them, in which case I’m going to have to ask you to play fair and not give too much away under the guise of ‘speculation’. If this thread works out, custom scripts, expansion content and allowing other players to Mastermind games are possibilities worth considering. - Updates should be once every day or two, maybe more or less, depending on how life goes. And with that, let’s get started! Inadequately fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Apr 16, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 21:23
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This is a fairly simple script meant to ease new players in the game, and is fairly easy to counter once figured out. Let’s see how fast you lot can manage it. Tragedy Set – First Steps Days/Loop – 4 No. of Loops – 2 to 3 Incidents – Murder on day 2, Suicide on day 3  Initial characters in play – Boy Student, Girl Student, Doctor, Shrine Maiden, Office Worker, Police Officer Mastermind cards – One card played on Police Officer, one card played on School, one card played on Girl Student
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Mar 20, 2018 21:24
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As I've already played the game, all I will say is it is fantastic. It's simple and the player's and mastermind's actions are well defined. I look forward to seeing the thread tackle the game.
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Mar 20, 2018 21:41
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Ah, this game! I bought it a couple years ago but never got a chance to play it, wasn't able to get enough other players for it. I ended up selling it not long after without having played it once, unfortunately. I don't remember much of anything from this game so I'm more or less playing fresh. Deck A - +1 Goodwill on Office Worker Deck B - +2 Goodwill on Police Officer Deck C - +1 Goodwill on Boy Student
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Mar 21, 2018 02:25
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So this looks interesting and I'll give it a shot. Still don't entirely understand how things work even after reading everything a few times (Just thought I'd mention that having an example of play would be pretty helpful in putting all the information together), so I'll just experiment and see what happens. Deck A Vertical move police officer to Hospital (I assume this is correct? Not entirely sure and movement isn't described in the example) Deck B +1 Goodwill on Doctor Deck C +1 Goodwill on Doctor (Can I double up like this?) I dunno if you're supposed to look at my cards Inadequately, but I indicated some things I'm not clear on with the cards I selected.
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Mar 21, 2018 09:47
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An example of play would probably be pretty useful, which is why we're generating one now. I figure jumping straight in and clarifying doubts as they arise is quicker than trying to cover every hypothetical, and this scenario is pretty much tailor-made for that - it's a tutorial mission designed to be quickly blitzed through just to get a feel for the game.As for your actual questions: 1) Yes, playing the Vertical movement card on the Police Officer would move him up to the hospital. If it was played on him while he was in the hospital, he would move down, into the City. 2) Doubling/tripling up like that is fine - after all, in real life, player B and C wouldn't know each other's cards and thus would have no way to avoid it. The exception is Forbid Intrigue - multiple Forbid Intrigues played on the same turn cancel each other out, regardless of where they were played.
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Mar 21, 2018 10:51
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Hope I'm doing this right! A: +1 Goodwill, Boy Student B: +1 Goodwill, Shrine Maiden C: Vertical move, Police Officer
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Mar 21, 2018 17:58
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This reminds me of Time Stories. That too involves time travel and puzzles in a board game setting. It also kinda loses playability once you beat it. Did this come with more than one scenario in the box?
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Mar 21, 2018 18:20
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:This reminds me of Time Stories. That too involves time travel and puzzles in a board game setting. It also kinda loses playability once you beat it. It does but even better: once you understand how to do it you can design your own scripts.
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Mar 21, 2018 19:33
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There's something that's not totally clear to me - which cards can be played on locations, and which on characters? Some of the rules mention 'if played on a character' so it seems the alternative is possible. Not playing this round since I already peeked at the other players' decks.
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Mar 21, 2018 20:01
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Kangra posted:There's something that's not totally clear to me - which cards can be played on locations, and which on characters? Some of the rules mention 'if played on a character' so it seems the alternative is possible. To clarify, any card can be played on locations, but the only resource that locations can rack up is Intrigue - any non-Intrigue related cards on locations are ignored during the card resolution phase. A non-Intrigue card on a location can be a good bluff - players will be more likely to burn their Forbid Intrigue cards on it, allowing your plans to proceed unimpeded elsewhere.
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Mar 22, 2018 00:27
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This looks like a super weird and interesting game idea, I'll be sure to follow along! Might I suggest adding the descriptions of the characters in play (or primarily their goodwill abilities) to the first post of the script so we don't have to go back to check the rules post if we need to be reminded? 
Covski fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Mar 23, 2018 |
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Mar 22, 2018 00:42
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Some of you have asked for a clearer reference sheet, so a Reference Sheet has been added to the OP. It contains all the summary sheet info (and a little more), but separated into different portions. Now then, let’s keep the game moving!  Card Resolution Phase Police Officer: [M] Paranoia + 1, [A] Vertical Movement, (B) Goodwill + 2 The Police Officer hears of a mysterious break-in at the Hospital and moves to investigate, but no one there seems to know what he’s talking about. While there, one of the Protagonists buys him a sandwich for lunch. It’s a really nice sandwich. Girl Student: (M) Vertical Movement The Girl Student overhears that the Shrine is giving especially lucky fortunes today, and decides to stop by after school. Boy Student: [C] Goodwill + 1 One of the Protagonists lends the Boy Student their umbrella during an unexpected shower. The gesture is appreciated. School: [M] Intrigue + 1 Someone has spraypainted what looks like a gigantic deer carcass onto the school courtyard at night. The school quickly cleans it up, but not before the students catch sight of it.  Current state of board Hospital Doctor Police Officer – 1 Paranoia, 2 Goodwill Shrine Shrine Maiden Girl Student City Officer Worker School – 1 Intrigue Boy Student – 1 Goodwill Mastermind Phase Nothing happens. If the Mastermind has any abilities, he has elected not to use them this time. Goodwill Phase None of the characters have enough Goodwill to trigger their Goodwill Abilities yet. Goodwill Phase skipped. Incident Phase No Incidents are scheduled for Day 1 of this Loop. Day End Phase She shouldn’t have been at the shrine that late, but lost track of time? Why weren’t any of the street lights around here working, anyway? A shadow darts across her path, and she almost screams before she sees it’s just a little black cat. She never saw the other shadow, nor did she see the knife.  The Girl Student is dead.  ~A Tragedy has occurred. Aborting Loop. Resetting Time Spiral~ Well, that certainly was a nasty surprise! But hopefully, the cause of your loss should be pretty obvious, and once you’ve worked backwards from there, you should be able to figure out some way to lose slightly less quickly this time. Even if you haven’t got all the pieces yet, preventing that exact confluence of events from happening again would be a good start.  Tragedy Set – First Steps Days/Loop – 4 Loop Number – 2 Incidents – Murder on day 2, Suicide on day 3 Day 1 of the Second Loop. The board returns to its original state. All resources from the previous loop are cleared. Mastermind cards One card played on Office Worker, one card played on Police Officer, one card played on Girl Student.
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Mar 22, 2018 17:37
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And so it begins.
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Mar 22, 2018 17:51
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This is the best Cthulhu simulator boardgame. The Masterming may be an androgynous anime pretty boy, but playing the game the Protagonists feel like they are facing a completely unknown, evil intelligence whose purpose you cannot grasp. Also, turn one loses 
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Mar 22, 2018 17:53
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So unless I'm misunderstanding things here, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the Girl Student is a Key Person and that the Shrine Maiden is a Serial Killer, meaning those two can't be allowed to be left alone together. Sounds reasonable? Deck A: Girl student - Horizontal movement Deck B: Boy student - Vertical movement Deck C: Police officer - +2 goodwill
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Mar 22, 2018 18:15
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I own this game and I know the first four scripts, so I can't play until the fifth script forward. I'll still spectate the first four games. Anyway, two rules corrections: 1) The protagonists can not play a card on a character or location that another protagonist has already played on. So the police officer getting both a vertical movement and a Goodwill +2 was an illegal move. 2) A loss condition does not automatically mean the loop ends. In this specific case it does, but in most cases you keep playing until the loop ends and then announce that the protagonists lost.
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Mar 22, 2018 18:31
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Fat Samurai posted:This is the best Cthulhu simulator boardgame. The Masterming may be an androgynous anime pretty boy, but playing the game the Protagonists feel like they are facing a completely unknown, evil intelligence whose purpose you cannot grasp. There's even a Cthulhu Mythos expansion for it, to heighten that feeling: Cosmic Mythology.
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Mar 22, 2018 18:50
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Covski posted:So unless I'm misunderstanding things here, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the Girl Student is a Key Person and that the Shrine Maiden is a Serial Killer, meaning those two can't be allowed to be left alone together. Sounds reasonable? Sounds reasonable to me. So the objective should be just keep them away from each other. Before I place any cards, how are we handling this?: Crystalgate posted:1) The protagonists can not play a card on a character or location that another protagonist has already played on. So the police officer getting both a vertical movement and a Goodwill +2 was an illegal move. Unspoil the places where we're placing the cards, but keep the nature of the cards hidden? That seems to fall in line with how the game works.
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Mar 22, 2018 19:00
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I've played the poo poo out of this game on Tabletop Simulator, and it's a great way to get introduced to the ruleset in a live setting. Great game, can't wait to see where it goes
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Mar 22, 2018 19:05
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Crystalgate posted:I own this game and I know the first four scripts, so I can't play until the fifth script forward. I'll still spectate the first four games. Whoops. I'll edit the rules later. Lord Justice posted:
I think it's fine as it is. Since each person is playing for all three players, every entry should be valid with regard to internal consistency. When the votes are tallied, I'll just pick the next valid move if a winning vote would be illegal.
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Mar 23, 2018 01:27
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Covski posted:So unless I'm misunderstanding things here, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the Girl Student is a Key Person and that the Shrine Maiden is a Serial Killer, meaning those two can't be allowed to be left alone together. Sounds reasonable? Yup. Deck A - Horizontal Movement on Girl Student Deck B - Goodwill +2 on Office Worker Deck C - Paranoia -1 on Police Officer
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Mar 23, 2018 02:36
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Inadequately posted:I think it's fine as it is. Since each person is playing for all three players, every entry should be valid with regard to internal consistency. When the votes are tallied, I'll just pick the next valid move if a winning vote would be illegal. All right. Deck A: Horizontal Movement on Shrine Maiden. Deck B: Diagonal Movement on Doctor. Deck C: +1 Goodwill on Doctor.
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Mar 23, 2018 09:40
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Lord Justice posted:All right.
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Mar 23, 2018 20:39
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Crystalgate posted:I think you misunderstood something. You played a card from Deck B and another from Deck C on the same person. That's what you're not allowed to do. You can only play one card on any given character or location. Also, Diagonal Movement is solely a Mastermind card, so you can't play that either. Oh, my mistake, sorry. Didn't double check the rules enough last night. Deck A: Horizontal Movement on Shrine Maiden. Deck B: Horizontal Movement on Doctor. Deck C: +1 Goodwill on Girl Student. Still struggling with how to play this optimally, so apologies for my mistakes and bad play.
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Mar 23, 2018 20:52
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I think I'll go with this. Deck A:Vertical Movement on Police Officer. Deck B: +2 Goodwill on Boy Student Deck C: Forbid Movement on Shrine Maiden
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Mar 24, 2018 05:20
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Lord Justice posted:
It's cool, we're all learners here. That's why we're playing this practice game, anyhow. Speaking of which, rules updated to be slightly less incorrect.
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Mar 24, 2018 06:46
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I've been the mastermind for this very first scenario and I had players who pretty much played optimally. I got completely wrecked. The first loop worked out the same way as here, but then the protagonists efficiently prevented me from doing pretty much anything useful. I could have played better, but the first scenario is not made to challenge players who play optimally. Anyway, once the first game is over, unless Inadequately does it, I think I'll go over the tactics for that scenario.
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Mar 24, 2018 11:11
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Don’t forget that now you know two Roles, you can start to identify the Plot, and thus what other Roles exist.
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Mar 24, 2018 15:57
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 Card Resolution Phase Police Officer: [M] Horizontal Movement, [C] Paranoia - 1 The Police Officer strolls over to the school to patrol the area. While on his way, he overhears a couple of students discussing some kind of murder cult, but dismisses it as the talk of children. Girl Student: (M) Intrigue + 1, [A] Horizontal Movement The Girl Student drifts off to sleep during a boring lesson and wakes up screaming, having had a vivid dream of being stabbed to death. Somewhat rattled from the experience, she decides that shopping in the City would probably help take her mind off things. Boy Student: (B) Vertical Movement The stresses of student life can really wear you down. The Boy Student decides to spend the afternoon at the nice, relaxing Shrine. Office Worker: [M] Paranoia +1 Small things keep going missing. Documents placed down a second ago disappear and reappear in completely different rooms. Everyone denies responsibility.  Current state of board Hospital Doctor Shrine Shrine Maiden Boy Student City Officer Worker – 1 Paranoia Girl Student – 1 Intrigue School Police Officer A couple of notes on card playing: - While the exact cards you play must still be spoilered, you may still talk in general terms about what you want to do – load up the police officer with goodwill, keep the Doctor free from Paranoia, ensure the Office Worker doesn’t build up too much Intrigue, etc. - In case anyone is wondering, the current method I’m using is to count all the votes, pick the top three voted-for actions and assign each one to a deck. In the case of a tie, which is fairly often, a valid action from the first person to reply is picked. If someone has two of their plays picked, a valid action from the next person is picked, so the first person to reply doesn’t completely monopolize the game. - Someone voted to play a Forbid Movement on the Shrine Maiden. While the logic is sound, the Shrine Maiden isn’t moving anywhere without a movement card played on her, and there were no cards played on her that round. Even if there were effects/abilities that would move her later on in the day, the Forbid Movement card wouldn’t affect those. Mastermind Phase Nothing happens. If the Mastermind has any applicable abilities, he has elected not to use them this time. Goodwill Phase None of the characters have enough Goodwill to trigger their Goodwill Abilities yet. Goodwill Phase skipped. Incident Phase No Incidents are scheduled for Day 1 of this Loop. Day End Phase Why didn’t they ever fix the streetlights around here? He shivered as he walked down the street, the once-relaxing scenery growing dim and oppressive in the darkness. Why, that shadow behind the tree almost looked like -  The Boy Student is dead. Dawn of Day 2  Loop Number – 2 Day – 2 Scheduled Incident – Murder Current state of board – Hospital Doctor Shrine Shrine Maiden Boy Student - DEAD City Officer Worker – 1 Paranoia Girl Student – 1 Intrigue School Police Officer Mastermind cards One card played on Girl Student, one card played on Doctor, one card played on Police Officer. Inadequately fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 07:06
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So since there's a serial killer, we know there's a conspiracy theorist as well, and with that Office worker nearing his paranoia limit, and two people potentially moving in, I don't think we want out very important girl anywhere near that mess. Really unless any intrigue gets placed on the school we just want to keep that girl away from anyone and everyone. A: Horizontal Movement on Girl Student B: +2 Goodwill on Doctor C: Vertical Movement on Police Officer
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Mar 25, 2018 08:37
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All subplots of the First Steps has a conspiracy theorist, so we knew that from the very beginning. However, I think this is the sort of thing those of you who play need to discuss, what possibilities there are and aren't. You said that you only need to worry about the girl unless intrigue gets placed on the school. Why is that a worry and not two intrigue on any other location? I think you should post why, even if you think the answer is obvious.
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Mar 25, 2018 11:11
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A Place To Protect has not been disproven as potential Main Plot.
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Mar 25, 2018 14:06
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I think it's less important we move the Girl Student, and more important we prevent her from racking up any more Intrigue, since the Killer only needs the Key Person to have 2 Intrigue to strike and we haven't disproven that plot as a possibility either. We can move the Office Worker instead, that will accomplish the same goal. Deck A - Forbid Intrigue on Girl Student Deck B - Horizontal Movement on Office Worker Deck C - Vertical Movement on Police Officer
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Mar 25, 2018 15:12
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Crystalgate posted:All subplots of the First Steps has a conspiracy theorist, so we knew that from the very beginning. However, I think this is the sort of thing those of you who play need to discuss, what possibilities there are and aren't. There are only two plots with a Key Person, so either it's a Place to Protect and we can't lose unless the Mastermind plays cards on the school (Provided we dodge any incidents/killer shrine maidens on the Girl), or it's a Murder Plan and we need to keep the girl safe since we've already got some intrigue on her and we can't exactly get rid of it. So our best bet there, I think, is to keep the killer and girl from ending the day in the same place. We can, meanwhile, prevent any intrigue being added to the school if we're careful, since there's only two possible days for that now. And the Girl is safe from suicide, so if we dodge the murder we're good. Also we get bonus style points if we manage to feed the Killer/Cultist to the Shrine Maiden. Rules Clarification: What exactly does 2 or 3 loops mean? Do we have another chance if we fail here or not?
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Mar 25, 2018 16:34
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I still don't know what the gently caress's going on. Now we have people who've played talking about stuff we apparently should know and I'm still figuring out how to actually vote. 
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Mar 25, 2018 16:52
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:I still don't know what the gently caress's going on. Now we have people who've played talking about stuff we apparently should know and I'm still figuring out how to actually vote. I feel you, and we're kind of in the same boat. Since that's the case, hopefully I can explain in more relatable terms from my own understanding: The Girl Student is the Key Person for this game. In short, the Mastermind wants her to die, and we want to keep her alive. In effect then, our strategy is just keeping her away from anything will kill her. Based on previous experience, we know the Shrine Maiden is a killer, so we want to keep her away from there. We also know the Office Worker is being manipulated by the Mastermind on some level, so we probably want her away from him as well. I believe the idea is to send her back to the school and away from anything that could kill her. Given how the game works and how Inadequately is processing the votes for actual play, we want to be playing the same cards that work to our greatest benefit. So, in this case, the greatest benefit would be moving the Girl Student to the school, so you would want to vote for that. Beyond that, just use the rules as a reference for what cards to play and go with whatever you feel will work. It doesn't matter too much right now I don't think. Cards: Deck A: Horizontal Movement on Girl Student. Deck B: +1 Goodwill on Police Officer. Deck C: Vertical Movement on Doctor.
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Mar 25, 2018 18:14
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Since the Shrine Maiden is a killer, the safest possible place for the Girl to be is the City, however. A: Forbid Intrigue on City. B: +2 Goodwill on Girl Student C: Vertical Move on Shrine Maiden Kangra fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 18:19
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The detective work aspect of this game can be a bit tricky, true. I actually wrote a teaching script for it, but I couldn't link it because it gives away the first Tragedy. The first thing to bear in mind is that, even if you play this game with descriptions like an RPG (which you totally should because it's fun) the Mastermind is not the GM. They have no right to fiat anything; everything is done by rules. The second thing is that this sheet is the key to everything:  Start by looking at the Roles table. This tells us what secret ability sets are in play that characters might have. You'll notice they're listed as Mandatory and Optional, which determine if the Mastermind can choose not to use them or not. Now, we know that the first loop ended when the Shrine Maiden killed the Girl Student. This isn't just a random thing - you notice that the Boy Student just got killed and it didn't end a loop. So looking at the Roles, you can see that the only Role which gives the ability "loop when this character dies" is Key Person. So the Girl Student is the Key Person. Also, the Shrine Maiden killed her. Look at the Roles again for who can kill people. There's only two: Killer and Serial Killer. Killer can kill the key person if they have 2 intrigue; but the Girl Student had no Intrigue when she died, so it's not that. So it must be Serial Killer. So the Shrine Maiden is the Serial Killer. It's worth noting that the Serial Killer ability is Mandatory and activates whenever they are alone with someone. So if someone important to the Mastermind gets identified, it's totally legit for the heroes to sic the Shrine Maiden on them and get them murdered. Now look at the Plots list. Just like the actions of characters, the Mastermind doesn't get to choose what Roles are in play for funsies; it's set for them by the script in the book. In this case there's always one Main Plot and one Subplot in play. Each plot lists what Roles spawn in the world when that plot's active. You'll see that the only plot that has anything in the Serial Killer column - meaning the only plot where a Serial Killer appears - is Shadow of the Ripper. So Shadow of the Ripper is the active subplot. That means that there is a Conspiracy Theorist, because Shadow of the Ripper spawns one of those too. It also means that there isn't a Curmudgeon or a Friend, because they appear only in A Hideous Script and if the subplot is Shadow of the Ripper it cannot be A Hideous Script. By the same fact, the fact that there's a Key Person tells us that the Main Plot is not Light of the Avenger. It could still be Murder Plan, or A Place To Protect. If it's Murder Plan, there's a Killer (not the same as a Serial Killer), so we have to avoid either the Key Person (Gool Student) or the Killer (?) accumulating intrigue. If it's A Place To Protect, we'll lose if there's too much Intrigue on the School. So to spot this: if we identify a Cultist, we know it's a Place To Protect. If we identify a Brain or a Killer (which is not the same as a Serial Killer), it's Murder Plan. These, unfortunately, are trickier to identify - their abilities are optional. So the Mastermind can choose not to use them and try to keep the heroes in the dark.
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Mar 25, 2018 20:29
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