Game resources in Arkham Horror LCG
In a previous post , I presented the Arkham Horror LCG as a game where the players looks to trade the resources under their control to advance toward their goals. In this article, I will expand on the notion of game resources. For each one, I will look at how it impacts the game, how it is obtained and spent, and how players can interact with it.
Game resources definition
To start, it is important to properly define what I consider a game resource. An Arkham LCG game resource, for me, is an element with the following properties:
- Present in the Arkham LCG game: quite obvious.
- Quantifiable: it means that some number(s) can be associated to it.
- Impactful: plays a role in the outcome of the game. Flavor text is present in the game but is not a game resource. Though great for the enjoyments of the game, it’s not relevant in this context.
- Player agency: Some game elements, such as the events on the back of an Agenda cards, are impactful but out of player control. Players cannot affect the writing on a card. A game resource should be somewhat controllable by the players.
- Modified by a card effect: Arkham LCG is, after all, a card game. Game resources should be created, modified, manipulated and/or removed through card effect. This de-facto exclude everything that happens between scenarios. What happens between scenarios is very important to create the unique structure and feel of a campaign, but way to specific for a general model.
Inventory of game resources
As per the definition I chose, a lot of game elements can be identified as game resources. The following section lists all these resources. For each one, I will present:
- Quantification: how can the resource be quantified during the game?
- Player agency: how easy is it for the player to interact with/control/modify the resource? How frequently does this interaction occurs in game?
- Interaction: what in game mechanisms affect the resource?
- Persistence/Quantities: can you stack the resource? Can you keep it at the end of a round? How high can you stack it?
Resources
Yes, the first game resource I introduce is called resource, how confusing… Yet, it is a fairly simple one: they are the resources materialized by resources tokens in the game.
- Quantification: number of resource tokens in a player pool.
- Player agency: very high/very frequent. Players have to take a resource during upkeep phase, unless playing Dark Horse. Some treacheries, scenario effects and weaknesses target the pool, but outside of these instances they can spend the resources how they see fit.
- Interaction: resources are acquired at the beginning of a scenario, during upkeep phase, by player card effects, resource basic actions, or some scenario actions. Resources are spent to play assets and events cards, to activate some card effects, and for some scenario actions.
- Persistence/Quantities: resources in a player pool do not reset when the round ends. The resource pool of a player has no upper limit in how many resources it can contain.
Player cards
Player cards are already a more complex game resource. Player cards can be in a players hand, deck, discard, in-play and in some rare cases out-of-play.
- Quantification: easy. One can easily count the cards in a player hand, deck, in-play and out of play.
- Player agency: high/very frequent. Players have a large control of where their cards are through draws, plays and commits. There is however restrictions. Players can normally only draw from the top of their deck, cannot voluntarily discard a card from their hand, etc. Card draw is a bit unique as a resource as its effect is randomized: drawing a card will always add a card to your hand, but the card itself is random.
- Interaction: the only non story player cards that enter play mid scenario are bonded cards, and the only ones that leaves play are exile cards or cards that removes themselves from the game. If we focus on how players get cards in their hand, it is either at scenario start, during the upkeep phase, by card effects, draw basic action, and some scenario actions. Cards leave a player’s hand when played, committed or discarded.
- Persistence/Quantities: cards remain in a player hand when the round end. However, the total amount of card in a player hand is limited by the hand-size check in the upkeep phase (usually 8 cards).
Actions
Actions are very straightforward resources.
- Quantification: trivial.
- Player agency: very high/very frequent. Players can decide how to spend their action, and do so in every round of the game.
- Interaction: 3 actions are given to each investigator at the beginning of each investigator turn. Additional actions can be granted by card effects. Actions can be spent performing any of the basic actions types, or to activate card effects with an action cost. They can also me removed by scenario card effects.
- Persistence/Quantities: unlike cards and resources, actions do not carry over to the next round. Even rare card effect such as Borrowed Time and Bide Your Time require you to spend the action, and then grants actions during the next round.
Health/Sanity
Health and sanity are not interchangeable resources, but have the exact same characteristics, so I will address them together.
- Quantification: easy. Health and sanity are numbers printed on an investigator card, or on some assets player cards.
- Player agency: low/rare. The game rarely modifies health/sanity values. Some rare cards, such as Five of Pentacle or St Hubert’s Key can modify health and sanity.
- Interaction: Investigators health/sanity are printed on the investigator cards. Assets health/sanity is also printed on their card. Some rare player and scenario card effects can increase or decrease health/sanity of investigators or assets.
Remaining Health/Sanity
Remaining Health and Sanity are not interchangeable resources, but have the exact same characteristics, so I will address them together. This section also covers damage and horror, as one point of damage/horror is almost equivalent to one less remaining health/sanity.
- Quantification: quantification of remaining health/sanity require to discuss the difference between investigator remaining health/sanity, and player controlled assets in play with health/sanity remaining (commonly named soak). They are not exactly similar, as depleting a soak asset only causes the asset to be discarded, while depleting an investigator health/sanity causes the investigator to be defeated. Moreover, some card effect specifically target one or the others: direct damage/horror being an example.
- Player agency: high/frequent. Players have lots of way to impact their remaining health/sanity, positively and negatively. However, unlike previous resource types, remaining health/sanity will not be modified every turn.
- Interaction: a lump sum of remaining health/sanity is granted by the investigator card (minus the traumas) at scenario starts. Players can then gain remaining health/sanity with card effects such as soaks or heals. Remaining health/sanity are mainly removed by scenario cards effects (such as treacheries and enemies attacks). Some player cards effects can also cost the player remaining health/sanity.
- Persistence/Quantities: remaining health/sanity are carried over when round ends. Player remaining health/sanity is however capped, as their value cannot exceed the respective investigator health/sanity and soaks health/sanity values.
Base Skills
The four base skills of investigators are governed by the same mechanics and will be addressed together.
- Quantification: trivial. One number per skill.
- Player agency: low/rare. Few game effects interact with base skill values, and only a few player cards.
- Interaction: base skills are determined by the investigator card. They can be set to a higher value by rare card effects, such as Trial by Fire or to a lower value, by rare card effects such as Hasty Repair.
- Persistence/Quantities: base skills are often fixed values across a whole scenario. Modifications of base skill values are almost always temporary.
Skill modifiers
Skill modifiers mechanics are the same for the four base skills, and will addressed together. I exclude from this discussion chaos bag token pulls, they will have their own category.
- Quantification: easy. Each modifier is a number that stacks and adds to others. It’s one of the main math mental exercise player makes in Arkham LCG.
- Player agency: very high/very frequent. Players have at their disposal tons of ways to modify their base skills. How to modify the tested skill is a question that pops up nearly every skill test.
- Interaction: skills are increased through the effect of played assets and events, activation of asset abilities, cards committed to a skill test. Skills are reduced by some weaknesses and encounter card effects, as well as a few player card effects.
- Persistence/Quantities: skills modifiers are tricky. Asset based skill boosts are applied as long as the asset remains in play. Other skill boosts are only applied for one turn, and most often for one test only. Their is no upper limit to the value a skill can be increased to, but a skill cannot be decreased bellow 0.
Investigator Clue pool
Clues are present on the map from the beginning of a scenario. They are mostly transferred to investigator and removed once spent.
- Quantification: the number of clues controlled by an investigator is a number easy to track.
- Player agency: very high/frequent. Players can add clue to their pool by multiple effects. It’s also something they seek to do as often as possible to advance the game. Clues are the same wherever they originate from.
- Interaction: clues are transferred from location to a player pool upon success in an investigate action, either basic or performed on a player card. They can also be obtained without test by direct card effects. Clues are mostly spent to advance the act deck. They can also be removed by treachery effects, either transferred back to the location or removed entirely.
- Persistence/Quantities: clues remains in a player pool when the round ends. The maximum number of clues a player can hold is capped by the number of clues available for grabbing in a scenario. Their is no absolute cap.
Enemies stats and printed health
Enemies enter play with a base fight, evade, damage and horror values, and a printed health.
- Quantification: each stat is a number.
- Player agency: low/frequent. Enemies making roughly 1/3 of most encounter decks, they enter play quite often. Usually, the stats are fixed but in rare cases are set by a scenario effect. Players have just a few cards that modifies enemy stats, temporarily or permanently.
- Interaction: enemies stats are set by their card print. They can be modified by scenario effects and a few player cards.
- Persistence/Quantities: unless actively modified, enemies stats remains the same until they leave play.
Enemies remaining health
Enemies remaining health is close to equivalent to player inflicted damage, as X amount of damage will decrease an enemy remaining health by X, unless X is strictly superior to the enemy remaining health.
- Quantification: the remaining health of an enemy is equal to its base health minus the amount of damage on it.
- Player agency: high/frequent. Players have multiple ways to modify an enemy remain health.
- Interaction: enemies health decrease when players inflict damage. Damage can be inflicted by players through successful fight actions (either basic fight actions, or on a player card), or by some card effects that inflicts testless damages. Some rare scenario effect restore some enemies health.
- Persistence/Quantities: generally, enemies remaining health carries over when round end. Its value cannot exceed enemy health.
Doom
Doom will designate the total amount of doom that contribute to advancing the agenda deck.
Quantification: doom is usually just the sum of doom token in plays. Doom over the agenda threshold is usually irrelevant, and some rare effects prevent some tokens to contribute to advancing the agenda.
Player agency: low/very frequent. Doom changes every round. Some player card exists that add or remove doom from the board, but these effects remain rare.
Interaction: one doom is added to the agenda deck every round. Some doom can also enter play through enemies (like Cultists) and treacheries. The player card pool has a few cards that can add or remove doom in play, prevent doom to enter play or hide existing doom from the agenda deck.
Persistence/Quantities: doom carries over when round ends. It is removed from play when the agenda deck advances. This effect caps the total amount of doom that can be put in play.
Chaos bag
The chaos bag is the list of token it contains. This includes numeric tokens, symbols, frost, and bless/curse tokens.
- Quantification: the chaos bag can be described by the number of each token of each type it contains.
- Player agency: medium/uncommon. Players can tamper the bag during a scenario through some card effects. These effects remain uncommon in the current card pool.
- Interaction: Tokens can be removed from the bag through Sealing card effects. Bless and Curse tokens can be added/removed from the bag by card effects. They are removed from the bag after resolution.
- Persistence/Quantities: the chaos bag starts the scenario with a total of 15-20 tokens. Up to 10 bless and/or curse can be added to the bag. They leave play once resolved in a skill test. Sealed tokens leave the bag until released.
Resource Trading
Now that we have a list (maybe non exhaustive) of existing game resources in Arkham LCG, we can take a step back and think about our game model.
In the previous post, we saw that the game was about trading game resources for XP, and favorable resolutions, while preventing defeat. Delve too Deep is a rare example of occurrence of a card that lets player directly trade resources (one card, one action, one encounter card per investigator) for one of the primary goals of the game.
However, most of the trades players will perform will trade some game resources for other game resources. And the trade will be performed through the effect of a card. Emergency Cache, for example, trades one action and one card for 3 resources. Promise of Power trades one card and an added curse token for a one time +4 skill modifier.
So, if Arkham is about trading between resources, being able to trade efficiently is key for success in the game. What makes a trade a good trade?
Rate:
It’s the easiest to evaluate, and why I will look into it first. The rate of a trade is how much resources you are spending, versus what resources you are getting out of the trade. This rate is usually printed on the card, and thus static (independent of the current game state).
Value:
If rate is the price you are getting on your trade, value is how this trade would affect the game state and your success chances. The best fight event in the game might be worthless if what you need is to grab a clue to finish the act. The value of a trade is very dynamic and dependent on the game state. Finding the best value trades is where dwells the real skill to win at Arkham.
Toward an Arkham trading rate model
While value is the most important when looking at trading resources in Arkham, the rate of a trade remains very relevant.
Consider you have 3 resources in your resource pool, and decide value for you is to get more resources. You are looking in your hand at an Emergency Cache and an Hot Streak(4). Both cards trades exactly the same resources, but Hot Streak offer a better rate and will be the correct play. Of course, Hot Streak costs XP, so it is expected to have a better rate than Emergency Cache.
Most of the players cards can be characterized by a trade type (type of resources exchanged) and a trade rate (number of resources consumed/created). In the next post, I will look at the card pool to estimate what each type of resource usually trades for. I will also try to understand how this rate change with the XP level of the card.
It is too hard of a job to evaluate the rates of every player card for every types of resources. However, we saw earlier that some resources are either rarely traded, or these trades rarely controlled by the players.
To limit the scope of the model, I will only address the resources listed here that players have a lots of way to control, and are frequently traded. These are:
- Resources.
- Player cards.
- Actions.
- Remaining Health/Sanity.
- Skill modifiers.
- Investigator Clue pool.
- Enemies remaining health.
Player cards that trade between these resources makes the large majority of the pool and are a good support for a generic trade model, which will be the goal of a later post.