As promised, some footage of the board game Ghost Stories!
So after Matt and I pieced together the proper rules for the game, we finally won a round and then jumped straight into "Hell". "Hell" being the highest level of difficulty, though I must say, if you don't find "Hell" to be challenging enough, play the way we were!
No, we did not win on this level, but at least we lost knowing that we weren't playing like beginners.
So after Matt and I pieced together the proper rules for the game, we finally won a round and then jumped straight into "Hell". "Hell" being the highest level of difficulty, though I must say, if you don't find "Hell" to be challenging enough, play the way we were!
No, we did not win on this level, but at least we lost knowing that we weren't playing like beginners.
Since I haven't really done this game justice in explaining it, here's a brief overview:
In Ghost Stories, each player takes on the role of a Taoist Monk with a specific super power. You work collaboratively together to defeat the ghosts who have been unleashed by the evil Woo Fang, who threatens to rise again in one (or possibly 3) incarnations.
The board is made up purely of tile pieces. The outside frame is for players, thus they come in 4 different colours to specify which Monk you are. All tiles are two sided, so regardless of which Monk you pick to play, you have two different powers to choose from. So if you're selecting Monks randomly at the start, you need to pay close attention to which side of the player board you've picked. No two Monks have the same power, but when you play with fewer than 4 people, you may get to "borrow" some help from the non-playing monk, or the Neutral Board. In this game, I played Blue Monk and Matt played Yellow Monk.
In Ghost Stories, each player takes on the role of a Taoist Monk with a specific super power. You work collaboratively together to defeat the ghosts who have been unleashed by the evil Woo Fang, who threatens to rise again in one (or possibly 3) incarnations.
The board is made up purely of tile pieces. The outside frame is for players, thus they come in 4 different colours to specify which Monk you are. All tiles are two sided, so regardless of which Monk you pick to play, you have two different powers to choose from. So if you're selecting Monks randomly at the start, you need to pay close attention to which side of the player board you've picked. No two Monks have the same power, but when you play with fewer than 4 people, you may get to "borrow" some help from the non-playing monk, or the Neutral Board. In this game, I played Blue Monk and Matt played Yellow Monk.
Here's the view from my board, at the end of the game when we lost. But you can see the Blue board and how it looks different from the inner tiles. The tiles in the centre of the board are individual parts of a village, and thus called "Village Tiles". Each Village Tile has a special power to help you fight off of the ghosts and defend the village. Your Monk player tokens (the bright blue and yellow ones that have fallen over in defeat) always play inside of the village, while the ghosts (the scary looking cards) attack from the outside on your player board. Blue ghosts on the Blue Board, Green on Green, etc. As you can see here, I have 2 Black Ghosts on my board, one is a haunter (with the ghost figurine walking towards the village), and the other is one of the incarnations of Woo Fang (you can tell by his stylish top hat in the top left corner of his card).
So how the game works is in two phases, Yin & Yang. Yin is the evil phase. So if I am player 1, I have to look at the ghosts on my board to see if any of them will do anything evil before I can do anything good. At the start of you game you won't have any ghosts so you'll have nothing to worry about. Different ghosts can do different things, so if you want to know if they're going to hurt you, look at the symbols on the bottom of the card:
The center symbol tells you what the ghost does on every active turn. So this Black ghost has a haunter figurine that moves towards the village each turn. You can see here that he has moved off of the card and onto my board. The Blue ghost beside him has nothing in the bottom center so he's not one I need to worry about right now.
Now in this picture, my Blue board is completely full of ghosts, which means that I won't be bringing more ghosts into play this turn, but if I had an open space, such as what Red and Green have, then I would have no choice but to draw a ghost card from the ghost deck. Each ghost has a different colour - Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, or Black - so you have to match the ghost colour to the board of the same colour if it's possible. That's why I have a Blue Ghost on my board. But, if you cannot place a ghost on the right colour, either because it's Black and has no corresponding board, or, like in my case, the board is already full with 3 ghosts, then it has to go on the board of the active player. Thus I ended up with a Black Ghost and Woo Fang on my plate. At the start of your game, your board will look pretty empty, but it will build up quickly!
Now when you place a newly arrived ghost, you need to look at that bottom bar of the card to see if it does anything evil when it enters into play. This nasty ghost with the Haunter took away one of my life points just for being brought into the world - you can tell by the symbol in the left-hand corner. For easy reference, just read as you would normally, Left=start, Middle=middle, Right=end. The Right hand symbol refers to what happens when you kill the ghost. This nasty Black ghost will give you a reward, while that not-so-nasty Blue Ghost will try to curse you when you kill it.
When you start your turn and your board is full like mine is here, you die a little inside - literally. You typically start with 3 life tokens (4 on the initiate level), and if your board is overrun with ghosts, they hurt you by taking away one of your life tokens. It's extra motivation to do some village clean-up before your ghosts get out of hand. If you run out of life tokens, your poor Monk dies - but he's not out of the game yet, he might be resurrected if your other Monk friends happen to like you - or desperately need you back.
But let's say that it's your first round. There's nothing on your board so nothing nasty happens. That's step 1. Then you draw. It's a Red Ghost, so you put it on any of Red Board's empty card spaces. Maybe it doesn't have an icon in the left corner, so that means that this ghost isn't going to hurt you - yet. That's step 2 and the end of your Yin phase! Now you can do something good!
But let's say that it's your first round. There's nothing on your board so nothing nasty happens. That's step 1. Then you draw. It's a Red Ghost, so you put it on any of Red Board's empty card spaces. Maybe it doesn't have an icon in the left corner, so that means that this ghost isn't going to hurt you - yet. That's step 2 and the end of your Yin phase! Now you can do something good!
Your yang phase is where the strategy comes in. As the active player, you can decide what is the best action to take. You get one movement option, you have to go to a tile that is already touching your current tile, so diagonal movement is allowed. If you're in the center, like Blue is here, you can pretty much go anywhere. If you're off center, like Yellow, then you know that you cannot get near the Red Board in this turn, at least not without some magical assistance. You do not have to move, but you must do your movement phase 1st so you can't decide to move after your other action. The 2nd part of your turn is to decide if you are getting help or fighting. Remember I told you that each village tile has a special power, well if you're getting help, you can use the tile you're standing on to use that helpful magic that it has. I know this picture isn't easy to see, but the icons on those tiles will walk you through the possibilities. The tile that Yellow is on will push a row of Haunters back onto their cards and off of the board. The tile that Blue is on usually contains Buddha figurines. You can see that it no longer does because we've asked this village for help twice now so the Buddhas are on the board, protecting our empty card spaces from evil. Blue Monk can only ask for help from this location, unless he moves to a new tile 1st. Yellow also can only ask for help, but if a ghost occupied the player board directly in front of the Monk, he could choose to fight instead.
Imagine that I was not dead in the above image. If I were the active player, I could choose to fight this ghost. Do you see the top left-hand corner? Those two coloured circles tell me how tough this ghost is. This ghost needs 2 Black tokens to be defeated. We have 3 dice in play. Each of those dice have all of the ghost colours plus White as a wild card. I will roll all 3 dice and hope for at least 2 Black or White results. To better my odds, I can collect Dow Tokens throughout the game to supplement my dice roll results. If I equal the colour and number of toughness on this ghost, I kill him and get the reward. If I fail, he lives to haunt another day.
When you have finished your turn, the play continues clockwise. The player beside you has his Yin & Yang phase, which means that by the time your turn comes around again, you could have a whole new set of ghosts to deal with.
If you are playing with fewer than 4 and have a neutral board in play, you do not skip this Monk's turn. The Board remains active for step 1 of the Yin phase, any ghosts on it get to do their evil trick for the turn, but you DO NOT pull another ghost card for this board (this is how we managed to make the game so much more complicated than it needed to be). The Monk of a neutral board is not actually present, so that's where his turn ends, he can't run to villagers or fight ghosts, he just houses them.
If you are playing with fewer than 4 and have a neutral board in play, you do not skip this Monk's turn. The Board remains active for step 1 of the Yin phase, any ghosts on it get to do their evil trick for the turn, but you DO NOT pull another ghost card for this board (this is how we managed to make the game so much more complicated than it needed to be). The Monk of a neutral board is not actually present, so that's where his turn ends, he can't run to villagers or fight ghosts, he just houses them.
How to Win: By defeating all of the incarnations of Woo Fang and living to tell about it.
How to Lose: 1) By having no Monks left alive, which means that every Monk has somehow lost all of their life tokens. 2) By having 3 village tiles get haunted (this is why you don't want those Haunter figurines to reach the village).
How to Lose: 1) By having no Monks left alive, which means that every Monk has somehow lost all of their life tokens. 2) By having 3 village tiles get haunted (this is why you don't want those Haunter figurines to reach the village).
There are so many other details to this game, and this is very much a simplified rundown of how to play, so if you want any clarification, feel free to ask and I can go into more detail. This ended up being far more detailed than I was intending to make this blog post, as I'm sure you can tell by how I try to reuse the same 4 pictures. We might have to think about making some "How to Play" videos for our games in the near future. I do enjoy teaching game play.
Anyways, Ghost Stories, one of our favourites because it's an intense little Arkham Horror (our family staple) that doesn't go on for 4 hours (about 2 if you're close to winning, even shorter if you die early). But if your family staple is Monopoly, you may want to do a playtest run with people who are familiar with the game before launching into it head on. The rule book is not as intuitive as I think they meant it to be.
I'll try to post about our other games, and maybe do some video, or at least more helpful picture taking, of the games we play. Should have some fun stuff come out for Table Top Day. No idea what we'll be playing but we should go through several different ones. I'll keep you all posted!
Anyways, Ghost Stories, one of our favourites because it's an intense little Arkham Horror (our family staple) that doesn't go on for 4 hours (about 2 if you're close to winning, even shorter if you die early). But if your family staple is Monopoly, you may want to do a playtest run with people who are familiar with the game before launching into it head on. The rule book is not as intuitive as I think they meant it to be.
I'll try to post about our other games, and maybe do some video, or at least more helpful picture taking, of the games we play. Should have some fun stuff come out for Table Top Day. No idea what we'll be playing but we should go through several different ones. I'll keep you all posted!
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