Help with Arkham Horror vassal mod

I think I have most of it down...but can't figure out what the "Situation" and "Symbols" box do. Any help? They have a save function, but what am I saving?

Also...is there a notes function I am missing, or do I need to keep a pencil and paper nearby to keep track of my common item powers? I could dig out the cards...but that seems silly.

One last question...assuming I am playing with 3+ players...is there a way to stack the logs? Or do i need each player to send each file to every player after a turn?

Thanks for the help...and please add any other info you think one might benefit from.

PS:Anyone using the BSG mod? Looks swish

G'day Tommy. The Arkham module is great, four of us from the site are playing a pbem game at the moment and it is great fun and working perfect.

SITUATION box - this lists the open gates and monsters in Arkham (very useful).
SYMBOLS box - this lists the monsters by their type (circle, square etc..)

As for the items you open your Player box (P1, P2 etc) and keep all your shit in there, including stamina and sanity. You can adjust your stuff in the box (right click sliders to change abilities, delete tokens, flip cards when you exhaust them) to keep you up to date. And as for no text on the Common items we just use the Arkham Horror wiki site to save pulling all your cards out to read them.

Other automated shit in the game:
- the sanity & stamina values and Delayed/LiTaS status of your character marker (right click).
- Doom and Terror tracks (right click to add tokens or move marker)
- specific spots you can send Rumour and Environment cards to.
- DIAL box automatically shows you your Monster, Outskirts, and Open Gates limits.

You need to send your logfile to each player - not too bad, we are having no problems. How we are running - in turn order, each player does Upkeep and Movement first, then each does Encounters (obviously Arkham players first then Off-worlders), and the Mythos is done either by the last player after doing their encounter or the next first player before their upkeep & movement.
Apart from people forgetting they are up it has run smooth (apart from my dice rolling but you know all about that, I'm the only player to have lost their blessing ... on the first roll). The only downside is you have to read your own encounter thus you know the consequences if you have a choice to make, as opposed to how many play it where someone else reads your encounter and doesn't tell you what exactly the bad shit is.

There's also this version, which is a lot closer to the one I made for solo play. I've checked them both out and like that one better in some respects (even adapted a few ideas for my own module): www.vassalengine.org/mediawiki/images/0/...rror_Vassal_1_1.vmod

Includes Innsmouth now as well: www.vassalengine.org/mediawiki/images/1/...assal_Innsmouth.vmdx

It's terribly annoying that one has Arkham and the other has Innsmouth. Can't they get their shit together?

MattDP wrote:

It's terribly annoying that one has Arkham and the other has Innsmouth. Can't they get their shit together?

I'm not tracking the complaint here. Innsmouth is an extension to the v. 1.1 Arkham module, not a separate module. This is how Vassal handles add-able extensions so you can play some combination of base game and different expansions.

Edit: Oh--Or are there 2 different Arkham Horror base modules?

Dogmatix wrote:

Edit: Oh--Or are there 2 different Arkham Horror base modules?

Got it in one

There are three, actually. There's another I have a copy of that's not hosted on the Vassal site. It has the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion, and no others

Yeah - two different authors have done base modules and have done a different expansion each.
The alternate one does look like it has a few more features.

Dogmatix wrote:

MattDP wrote:

It's terribly annoying that one has Arkham and the other has Innsmouth. Can't they get their shit together?

I'm not tracking the complaint here. Innsmouth is an extension to the v. 1.1 Arkham module, not a separate module. This is how Vassal handles add-able extensions so you can play some combination of base game and different expansions.

Edit: Oh--Or are there 2 different Arkham Horror base modules?

Yeah, I noticed the 2nd one ( www.vassalengine.org/mediawiki/images/0/...rror_Vassal_1_1.vmod ) was added shortly after the first. I think a lot of people have probably created their own AH modules for private use, so when it became alright to share them publically (with the restriction of blank item cards), then it wasn't surprising that more than one would be posted.

I would share my module, but it's got all of the expansion stuff and a lot of other variant things added, and there's no way I'm going through it to make all of the cards blank. But it's definitely closer in layout to that second one, and I think that one is easier to use in general and laid out better.

MattDP wrote:

Dogmatix wrote:

Edit: Oh--Or are there 2 different Arkham Horror base modules?

Got it in one

There are three, actually. There's another I have a copy of that's not hosted on the Vassal site. It has the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh expansion, and no others

Yea, I'm a dope. I was emailed a link to the one with Innsmouth so I didn't even look at the vassal site. Duh...

Well let me know if anyone is starting up a new game! Looking forward to trying this for real! Solo runs have been quite fun.

ozjesting wrote:

Well let me know if anyone is starting up a new game! Looking forward to trying this for real! Solo runs have been quite fun.

I wouldn't mind getting in on some of this action too. Might be the only way to get my Arkham groove on seeing that my game group are pussies.

I just need to take some time to refamiliarise myself with the Vassal interface.

Turn sequence has been one of the most difficult things to keep straight with AH Vassal Mod but maybe your group will have better luck than a bunch of idiots trying to play with an American, an Austrian, a Brit and an old as dirt Kiwi living in England. Because the game is co-op we've been pretty flexible on who does Mythos and turn order in general. But we usually have the 1st player do Mythos (this gives everyone a chance to move monsters, add gates, etc). Here's the order we tend to play:

Player 1 Mythos, Upkeep and move
Player 2 upkeep and move
Player 3 upkeep and move
etc

Arkham Encounter 1
Arkham Encounter 2 etc

Outer world encounters in order

If you have trouble with setting up the Vassal files, Southernman made a nice zip file that worked great.

Southernman wrote:

As for the items you open your Player box (P1, P2 etc) and keep all your shit in there, including stamina and sanity. You can adjust your stuff in the box (right click sliders to change abilities, delete tokens, flip cards when you exhaust them) to keep you up to date. And as for no text on the Common items we just use the Arkham Horror wiki site to save pulling all your cards out to read them.

Doesn't this mean FFG are simply making it more irritating to use VASSAL modules? I mean if you can get card text from the wiki, what the fuck is the point of deleting the text in the VASSAL module apart from making players angry at the pettiness of it all?

andyinkuwait wrote:

Southernman wrote:

As for the items you open your Player box (P1, P2 etc) and keep all your shit in there, including stamina and sanity. You can adjust your stuff in the box (right click sliders to change abilities, delete tokens, flip cards when you exhaust them) to keep you up to date. And as for no text on the Common items we just use the Arkham Horror wiki site to save pulling all your cards out to read them.

Doesn't this mean FFG are simply making it more irritating to use VASSAL modules? I mean if you can get card text from the wiki, what the fuck is the point of deleting the text in the VASSAL module apart from making players angry at the pettiness of it all?

I think it is probably fair of them, they could have just done a Games Workshop and banned all modules for their products (SPI and Avalanche Press as well it seems). I probably shouldn't have posted about the wiki 8-(.

Who is the Austrian you are playing with?