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A borrowed ruleset. A common theme. A genuine good time.
In 2019, I was a bit Lovecrafted out. I still had a couple games on the shelf that engaged his universe(s) like Cthulhu Wars, Lovecraft Letter, and Fate of the Elder Gods, but there were many more proliferating at that time and I wasn't at the point where my head was going to be turned by another one. So, when Cthulhu: Death May Die was announced in 2019, I took a look but decided that I'd pass, not least because the game was essentially just an adaptation of another game that I already had everything for: The Others. I've written extensively here about that game and it just didn't seem like there was much more to be drawn from it. In truth, I'm slightly more of a fan of The Others' cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic themes than I am of Lovecraft's cosmic horror, so I felt like I had already landed in the right spot in that respect, too. But in the last year or so, I've had a revival of my HPL appreciation. I've found many of the old Chaosium story collections and have gone back to weaving some of those horror themes into our Webcomic (that were really there from the beginning, but that's a long tangent) and decided I'd reengage on the gaming front, as well. The latest Tiny Epic showed up, I traded for a complete copy of Elder Sign (love it), tried the Arkham Horror card game (didn't love it), and finally delved into C: DMD. And I have to say: I coulda done this sooner.
There can be little debate that Rob Daviau, as lead designer, basically went to Eric Lang, creative director at CMON at the time and said something like: "Hey, I want to use your rules for a different game." They're not identical, of course, but the similarities are too stark to ignore. But Daviau definitely expanded upon the foundation that Lang had set. Whereas each FAITH team member has one ability and gains enhancements through gear/loot that can be found, in DMD each character has three abilities which can all be enhanced by the Sanity (Corruption in The Others) system. It's a smart adaptation in that two of the abilities are common throughout the characters of the game, while one is, like the FAITH teams, unique to that hero. But just like in The Others, the more each character engages with the forces arrayed against them, the more powerful those Investigators become, but the more vulnerable to a game-ending moment they become, as well. That's a storytelling angle. In The Others, it just means that you'll be taking more wounds. In DMD, it engages the second way by which Investigators can be lost from the game, due to going insane from the horrors that they're confronted with. In that way, DMD bends a bit more toward the adventure side of the average dungeon crawler, rather than the combat/systemic focus that is The Others.
DMD's scenarios (Episodes) also contribute in that direction. Whereas The Others has missions, said missions don't deviate from the three types and three scenarios of each type, plus a conclusion. But DMD has an ongoing story looped through the six Episodes of each Season. Certainly, any of them can be played separately and there is no conjoined thread required in the manner of a campaign. That much freedom it retains from its predecessor. But each Episode still contains different mechanisms by which to disrupt the ritual and also includes distinct components in the form of cards and tokens that make each game it's own story. Those cards include both different approaches by the enemies, but also companions and items that may help or hinder (or both) the success of the players. That's a key element that brings DMD back toward its antecedents in the form of Arkham Horror and similar among the better Lovecraftian games; more concerned with telling the horror story than with deilvering an efficient puzzle. That, of course, makes it a game right up my alley/tunnel/gullet of a Cthonian/whatever.
On that note, it can't be denied that the HPL universe is one of special attraction to a lot of fans. While I'm content squaring off with the Seven Sins of The Others and their variety of approaches to destroying us, there's no denying that it's just as entertaining if not more to be squaring off with Nyarlathotep and some Hunting Horrors and Deep Ones. That each Great Old One comes with its own monsters and its own deck of cards, just like the Seven Sins, is another distinct borrowing from one game to the other. The fact that the games of the former generally end with destroying the Avatar, while the games of the latter always end with the destruction of an avatar of the GOO is yet another. But, like the Sins, the GOOs function distinctly enough that it's possible to tailor each game to the kind of adventure that the players would like to have. Given that DMD is a full co-op, as opposed to The Others' one-vs-many will often make it easier to get a game together and, of course, enables solo play, as well.
The downsides? Well, co-ops are co-ops and once you've solved the puzzle of an Episode, you're sometimes reduced to trying it with a different (and perhaps more difficult) GOO or with a less optimal group of Investigators if you're not picking randomly in the first place. Since the base game only comes with six Episodes, you're semi-obligated to keep handing CMON (and, now, Asmodee) your money if you want some variety in your monster fightin'. Its predecessor had some difficulty with that, as well, but also alleviated some of it with the varying maps for the missions included with the additional FAITH teams (still spending money) and picking up all seven Sins (still spending money) meant that you weren't going to run out of variety anytime soon. Another valid complaint is that some base abilities, like Arcane Mastery and Toughness, are simply better than others, like Marksman and Stealth. Finally, the game is prone to some characters reaching a destructive level that, uh, accelerates the game state. As in, it can be argued that most of the Episodes can get in a cycle of waiting around to build up significant power and then ending it in two turns of explosions.
The counterpoints to those are readily available, though. No one should've gotten into a CMON (Cool Mini Or Not) game without thinking that they'd be spending a considerable amount of money on all that genuinely cool plastic. It's perfectly viable to get a ton of good and varied plays out of the 10 Investigators and 2 GOOs included with the base game and those 10 Investigators cover the gamut of base abilities. If you've found that Toughness and/or Arcane Mastery are too much of a Grinding Axe situation (Descent reference), then the best thing to do is either choose Investigators without those skills or, even better, choose a random team so that you have to figure out how to work with what you have. Finally, almost all of my games that have ended with a couple massive turns of damage to the GOO have also ended with Investigators dead or insane and/or the still living only barely hanging on at the end. That would seem to indicate that the game is working exactly as advertised, even if the stats indicate a pretty healthy winning margin for most Episodes.
So, just like that (ahem) other game that I keep referencing, I thought I would do this as a three-parter, covering the basics of the game in this first part, the Investigators in part two, and the GOOs in part three. So, next week, we'll take a look at all the people trying to stop the darkness from entering (or persisting in) our world and how some random guy named Gonk is just as cool as Rasputin, Albert Einstein, and Bloody Mary.
