Hey bought this game on DriveThruRpg but decided to buy it here to support the creator and also because I printed it out for two friends so we could try making it work for multiplayer seeing as we're big into Phasmophobia so we figured this game is up our alley.
First of all, don't let my many following questions deceive you, we all enjoyed the game, and we'll probably play it again, I'm just looking for some clarification on some of the rules.
I know it's a rules-lite so I'm assuming that means it's up to the player's interpretation of the rules a bit (we're noobs to pen and paper rpgs), but I thought I'd ask in case there was anything that we straight up misinterpreted. Also, I played this for the first time while trying to adapt it for multiplayer (there were 3 of us and 3 characters in the game), but since then I've tried playing it solo as well. I've included how we adapted it for multiplayer below as well.
Starting and Items:
1) Do I place character outside exit to start or on exit tile to start? (I tried it both ways but I think starting on the tile made the most sense)
2) If you roll 20 you get a potion and +1 condition right? Or is it saying the potion give you +1?
3) Do you have to purchase the items before you go in to the gauntlet, or can you purchase as needed while in the gauntlet?
Movement:
4) Can you backtrack as part of your movement? eg. Reach a split via a straight, there's a split to the left of me but the only straight in range is to the right, can I move to the right and then backtrack to the left as long as it's within my movement amount?
5) Also, say my character was already on a straight tile and needs to reach a split via a straight, does the straight I'm on count?
6) "freely move between exits" - Does exiting cost an additional movement? Eg. I'm on a straight tile that is an exit and I want to go to an exit that is a corner piece, would that count as 1 movement or 2?
Clues:
7) I'm assuming you have to get all clues even if you get a clue that is unique to a specific ghost(eg. hear crying for banshee) ?
End game:
8) If you lose by dying is there any specific place you're supposed to put the chamber like where you died? Or where there's a free tile? Or do you replace an existing tile?
9) If I exit the gauntlet to save my character and I haven't identified the ghost, do I get to keep my items for the next try? Also, do I get the starting VP again? eg. I play a 3 chamber gauntlet, I started with 3 VP, I bought 3 items, used 2 of them, now can I get 3 VP again even though I'm playing the same map?
10) When you roll to seal do you get to move again to reach the rolled location? eg. I roll salt to exit and my movement is 4 so as long as that is within my movement range and I have the item I can seal. Or do I already have to be on an exit for that to be a successful seal?
Adapting for Multiplayer:
Player amount: We had 3 players which worked nice because there's 3 characters. We decided to each roll a die and the highest picks their character first, second highest picks next etc.
Map creation: We picked a random tile to be our starting point and each took turns rolling a d20 to create our map. We did fudge it a little because we wanted to try playing with 3 chambers to increase the difficulty because there was more than one person playing, so any point where our path might end with either a final exit piece or a dead end, we re-rolled.
Items: We had 3 chambers so we said that each of us started with 3VP though I guess to make it more challenging you could have it be 3VP split amongst the players. We each bought 3 items, all different from eachother in case we got to the sealing stage, and we bought the items before entering the gauntlet.
Also, we agreed that if we needed to share an item you would have to be either on the same tile or adjacent to the person you wanted to give to, or you had to be passing them during your movement stage.
If someone rolled a nat 20 and got a potion, only that person got the potion, although they could give it to someone, but rolling a nat 20 would end that person's turn.
Movement: We rolled our d20s again to decide who went first and then just went clockwise in order. We didn't allow backtracking in the same move, but we did count the current tile you're on as something used as the via part of the objective. Eg. I'm on a straight and I have to reach a split via a straight, the straight condition is met, now I just need to get to the nearest split
Also I don't think we noticed the line about moving between exits so once we were in the gauntlet we were in until we gave up or died
Clues: We all shared the same clue list, when someone rolled to search we all got the clue, although if they rolled hunted then just the person who's rolling got hunted. We used that for all tables, hunts were individual to the player
Result:
We got the Unlucky ending, because we really wanted to risk getting to identify the ghost, and we kept rolling the same damn numbers. Makes me want to check the balance of my dice. You would think with all the dead bodies and bloody weapons we kept finding that we would have run away, but nope.
The duration of the game was longer than playing solo, also we were kind of interpreting the rules as we went so we would sometimes stop to discuss. We only played the map once so even though we all died we didn't add 3 chambers to the map, that might be a bit excessive for replay, but I guess you could add a chamber if you all die in that case.
Not sure if we just need to roll the dice with a better technique, or maybe next time once we get the same clue a certain amount of times, maybe we'll tweak the rules so we only allow one duplicate clue or something