The Symphony of Erich Zann

I’m just waiting for my printing service to send this then I will let you know how it plays

Do you have a project file you could share for the printed card setup?

I don't know what a project file is I'm sorry. I just spent hours taking screen shots of individual card pictures and uploaded them to printer studios.co.uk. I will share what I did once I see final outcome it was a ball ache uploading them to make sure the right front card had the right back lol. Im sure there must be easier ways of doing it

Do you know what type of format would make it easier for you next time? I thought you could use the individual card images for the website. I can try to provide the correct files next time.

Also, thanks for trying it out and hope you enjoy the scenario!

individual card pictures are needed for uploading to the print service I use. I think they may accept pdfs with several cards on but I had to go on the site and arrange each individual picture so that each card had the right pic on the reverse side. it comes as a pack of ready made playing cards not sheets that have to be cut and folded

ignore my remarks on individual files you did supply them im getting confused with another scenario I had to upload and get printed that did not have individual file pics

Did you proofread the files? Advise to wait until you know all the typos are fixed.

the Scenario is absolutely amazing! The only fuzzy part was the gallery. I assume the extra clue you get from the investigate action on that location is taken from the token pool? If not, I can see just getting stuck.

But I would emphasize that is a minuscule question about a masterpiece! Amazing work! I love what you did with the performer investigators. And the scenario begs to be played with “symphony fantastique”.

Hi Mike, thanks for trying it out and I'm glad you enjoyed it!!

The action on the Gallery is supposed to just be clue acceleration and grab the clue from the Auditorium (thematically you have the high ground can see what's going on from there). There should be enough clues in general, not counting the locations with only 1 clues. (2 per on the Gallery, 2 per on the Auditorium, and 1 per in the lobby). The first act costs 3 per, the 'second act' fight doesn't actually remove the clues from the game, since it puts them on the location, and then to enter the backstage only costs 1 per clues.

Thinking back on it, it might be possible for the 'second act' boss fight to need up to 3 per clues at once to win if you reach agenda 3 too fast, so that would indeed make it significantly harder, you'd have to simultaneously spend all your available clues, grab some of those clues you just dropped, and then spend them again in one round. (for groups of 3 or more only). I may have to take a look at how to prevent that from happening because it wouldn't be really fun to get stuck so early.

Anyways, let me know if I forgot something obvious about the locations! Sometimes you just don't see things when you look over them too long.

Thanks again! Symphonie Fantastique is the perfect piece to play on! It even has the Dies Irae segment!

Printed out the content, found more typos. If I made a list would you be willing to update?

I will gladly! I might wait a bit for more feedback before making a big update, but I'm grateful for any feedback!

If it's just typos it would be great to have them sooner rather than later. I saw a few minor typos as well, nothing that breaks the game, but it will be nice to have a typo-free version before ordering a print :) Anyway, just my two cents. Thank you for creating and sharing this!

That's fair! I'll go over the story text again. If you could point out some of the mistakes you saw to me I'll fix them and try to bring out a bugfix version as soon as i can.

If it's the interspaced french words in the intro of the scenario guide, that's just me trying to evoke a French accent from the conductor, althouh I don't think it works too well.

It's been updated with fixed typos that people pointed out to me! If you see anything else let me know!

Thanks for the update. I think Kos got all the typos I noticed. Haven't read the back of agenda/act cards though, I don't want to spoil it for myself :)

TSoEZ errata (following the pdfs from first to last:)

1. Beyond the Curtain:

• to ward something off -> to ward off something
• slip out of your bag and drift along -> slipped .. drifted
• chill does not transport, -> icy vent
• illimitable is legal but measureless is more common nowadays

2. Overture

• home of .. -> home to one of..
• in search of -> in search for

3. Crescendo

• missing when you would exceed the maximum

4. Opus Magnum had sprung up -> persist = present -> sprang up (or has sprung up)

• drift along the music -> drift along with the music's rhythm

5. The Possessed Conductor

• He is dripping with uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey -> Twisted like a monkey, heavily dripping with perspiration ... (dripping -twisted doesn't feel right; uncanny perspiration is wrong: uncannily sweating is conceivable but not uncanny plus noun)
• you must -> you need to bring him back to his senses!
• Objective: would be defeated? is defeated probably. would be is an estimate of future events.
• seemingly -> appears to be

6. Difficulty: Hard/Expert

• dot at the -3 section

7. The Window to Nothingness

• I believe doom and agenda should be capitalized.

8. Polymorphia:

• grew -> grows. Agendas are present tense.
• chaotic pandemonium -> pandemonium. All pandemonia are chaotic, it does not add anything.
• Spawn a set aside copy of Ears of the Void -> had to read this 3 times. Spawn a copy of Ears ot the Void that has been set aside. Matter of taste perhaps. first read spawn a set; then aside copy = ? -> spawn one copy of Ears of the Void at Entrance hall. Shuffle the other copy back into the Encounter deck, along with the encounter discard pile and all copies Heard of Something that were set aside

9. Call of the Void: how is a symphony desperate, it is an abstract concept -> remove desperate

• you think you hear - you start to hear (you think - not tied to situation)

10. A Moment of Silence: shutters -> shudders (shutters are for shutting off externalities)

11. La Fratta's Piano Key:

• remove space before ")"

12. Auditorium

• is discarded -> has been discarded.

13. Entrance hall

• fluff: something cannot be at the same time eerily quiet and have a humming soundtrack playing. -> would be eerily quiet if not for the all-pervading humming soundtrack - or something similar.

14. Gallery

• nothing gives a sense of vertigo. -> Looking down you are overcome with vertigo

ps google "labyrintine vertigo", unfortunately the space on the card does not allow its usage :-(

15. Anechoic chamber

• fluff: more than a few moments is a bit much. Prolonged stay can drive a person insane,

16. Instrument Closet:

• remove the space before ")".
• fluff: the entire world -> an entire world (but this is subjective)

16. Recording Studio:

• Gramophone -> phonograph. Also see wiki: Phonograph - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone Gramophone, as a brand name, was not used in the United States after 1902. It is now 193x.

17. Auditorium

• music and performances -> doesn't feel right, music was played or performed -> remove and.
• the duchesses .. -> disconnect from previous sentence -> add: it is easy to imagine the duchesses ..

18. Backstage Room:

• add a final dot (x4)

19. Main Lobby:

• fluff: feel like -> feel as if

20. Deafening Brass:

• agenda -> Agenda
• chaos token -> Chaos token (I need to verify this)

21. Nicole Page:

• cardtype -> card type (also need to verify with official)

22. Main Lobby:

• song as if -> song, as if

23. Percussionist's Muse:

• text starts with Song Yin. The party doesn't know his name yet. Describe the maniac then have him introduce himself. See also 24.
• choose to put the set aside Yin's Drumsticks -> this set aside is very ambiguous.
• card does not explain what to do if Yin's Drumsticks are not in the set aside deck.

24. Violinist's Muse:

• viol -> violin; viola also possible, but violin is more consistent with the card title
• mentions finding -> mentions having found.

25. Endless Echo:

• the location with the most -> mechanically there can be 2+, so -> a location with the most (unless FFG uses "the" location with the most)

26. Heard by Something:

• gains a surge -> gains a Surge (but do check with rulebook).

27. Skittering Rats

• horror -> Horror (but do check with FFG material)

28. Overwhelm:

• gets +1 -> gains +1 (but do check FFG material)

29. Waltz of the Spheres:

• the location if there is only one; otherwise a location.

This is perfect! I'll be fixing these and uploading a new version possibly within a week. (Making the files takes a bit of time)

A few notes:

1. Illimitable was used in the original short story, so I'll keep it

2. The original parenthesis in Agenda 1 was just a reminder of the special rules detailed in the scenario guide, there wouldn't be enough space on Agenda 3, so I decided to only put the reminder once.

3. I changed it to "with the rhythm" instead, to make it fit in the space.

4. "The player was dripping with an uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey..." is straight from the short story again, so I'll keep it that way even if it feels wrong.

5. Doom and agenda are both not capitalized usually, you can see both examples in the Ancient Evils treachery.

6. The original Lovecraft sentence has a desperate viol, and I liked that expression so reused it with symphony. It is strange, but I like it.

7. This one is based on existing card text. See Smite the Wicked using "until an enemy is discarded".

8. all-pervading is a great word!

9. labyrintine vertigo ties in really well! Could try to reference it on a new treachery.

10. It's a bit much but i like to think Arkham's universe is a bit more exaggerated than ours.

11. I wish I could remove the space in front of the parenthesis! There's a bug in the card designing program that makes it so anything in italics leaves a space after the word. In this case, the parenthesis would be bold and italic as well, making it look much worse.

12. (Record Studio). Nice catch on the record player terminology.

13. Both of those are lower case on existing cards.

14. I'm following the use of cardtype from the new "Haste" card.

15. We actually meet his enemy side first, but I'll change it anyway because it's awkward to read. In regards to Yin's Drumstick being set aside. It has to be set aside at this point. It was set aside at the beginning of the scenario, and this is the only way to get it.

16. Erich Zann was a viol player, while Nicole is a violinist. Their relationship is kinda awkward I agree.

17. This is FFG's way. Per ruling, if there is more than one option, the lead investigator can decide which one to choose.

18. Keywords are usually lowercase when mentioned by other cards. "Gains aloof." "activates the hunter keyword"

19. Horror is also lowercase usually.

20. I believe most cards 'gain' keywords, text and icons, while they 'get' difficulty, shroud, and skill values.

21. Same as 25, the lead investigator could choose in that case

Agreed. Thanks for sharing. Just remember the h in "labyrinthine vertigo". This text you keep referring to was that Lovecrafts writing?

Indeed! The scenario is loosely a sequel to Lovecraft's The Music of Erich Zann!

About Surge: found in another campaign that FFG does not capitalize game effects in AH:LCG, so it should be gains surge, not gains Surge - while I don't prefer it, specific in-game internal consistency beats general boardgame conventions.

I haven't played AH:LCG in quite some time, so some details were foggy, highlighted in the points below. Hope you find them of some use ;-)

Hey! Thanks a bunch for your comprehensive list! You caught on a lot of sneaky mistakes and questionable wording. I'll be fixing it shortly and uploading a new version hopefully sooner rather than later.

I was wondering how you were so proficient at English? I honestly would never have noticed some of these.

Thanks! And thanks for asking - I was raised bilingual Dutch/Greek, which helps, along with a talent for natural language. My parents read me bedtime stories as a small kid. Nowadays I do pro bono* rulebook proofreading of a lot of kickstarters**. As a mathematician by study and programmer by trade I am used to choose precise wording where others fail. *) it is in my interest to have something as good as possible. **) as of late, also hobby expansions for WQ:ACG & MD.

Amazing! I would never have thought that English wasn't even your first language. I'm working on a new scenario, when it's ready, would you be willing to help proofread the cards before I post it on Arkham Central? It would make the whole process a lot simpler.

You can find me on Reddit by the username MedicalNote.

Also, while it may not be convention, if I were to design a card with duplicates, I would vary each copy a bit on the stats, so they feel more like an entity instead of an element of a set. It would impact player agency as well. One card with more eva, but less batttle and so on. Just my 2$.

This is always fun! My favourite scenarios are always the ones with a bunch of unique enemies / locations to meet and explore. That's why I made multiple different musicians with different mechanics to explore!

The design problem with too many unique encounter cards is that it makes the encounter deck much more unpredictable, and hard to play around. If you know how a Swarm of Rats look like you can better prepare for it when a second or third one appears. This is much more important for more difficult enemies or treacheries like rotting remains. In the case of this scenario, each double of a music treachery needs to be the same so that the players know how to deal with it when they need to find the specific type to defeat a musician. Other than that, most of the encounter cards are doubles.

But it is certainly more fun to encounter more variety if they don't change much of the player expectations. (Even just different flavor text would be a fun idea!)

I did plan on replacing the rats with something more interesting when I eventually make a big update, but we'll see about it.

Anyways, have you designed any scenarios before? You definately should, it's fun to play around with and theorize. I'd be interested in taking a look!

Haha sorry my design talent has been neglected for too long. I wouldn't know where to start.. The only thing I would love to create is a card based version of Lord of Destruction that is actually fun to play, modular, diceless, Dragonhold style.

Personally, if the original work were deemed shoddy and sloppy I would have no qualms whatsoever if I could improve the wording. I play AH:ACG withOUT replacing Chaos tokens - because it is a flaw in FFG design. Some games should have memory. AH bathes in memory.

On recognizing and counting cards, keep the title but vary the numbers would give tactical richness if there were two enemies of the same kind on the board. One you could take on, the other you could evade better. But I totally respect your decision to keep copies exact copies.

Now I cannot wait to see your next iteration!

The scenario has been updated to it's tentative final version (1.1) with fixed typos / wording changes and added replayability!

Let me know if there's any mistakes, but this will probably be the last version unless I make a 'Return to' in the future.

I’m still waiting for my printed copy to arrive so too late to change anything. Not bothered by typos but what have you changed to add replayability

Hey!

I've just added two new locations to randomly pick from - so nothing too major.

I've added a single encounter card with surge that adds a bit of uncertainty.

I've changed one of the abilities on a reward card to be slightly more interesting.

Finally, I've reduced the difficulty by a little bit, it was pretty harsh so be prepared for a challenge! If that doesn't bother you then nothing else is different!

Hope you enjoy! There were no game-breaking bugs or anything so it should generally play the same.

Which printer service did you use? I have been using makeplayingcards.com for my previous printings, but I just received an email from them saying that some of these images are having their text cut off when uploaded. Anyone else have these issues?

Tried out this afternoon, Overall a good game experience, a really good background story but the gameplay is a bit fuzzy and overly complicated sometimes.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, with all the treacheries are kind of annoying to keep track of everything. Glad you had a good experience though!

I played this two weeks ago on TTS. I noticed a lot of typos, but skimming the comments perhaps they've been fixed, but not on TTS.

I will say it was really enjoyable for me. I think you did a great job.

We did a four player game of Marie, Lola, Patrice, and Winnie. I like that you incorporated the Performer keyword, but I wish there was also a beneficial payoff to playing a Performer other than being assigned a weakness.

The largest criticisms from the group were:

1. it felt like there were too many things to keep track of at a certain point with the number of music treacheries and the enemy types that interact with them. I would suggest changing the art on the enemies that gain and lose Aloof so it's easy to distinguish them. I personally liked all of the music effects, but in 4 player it became tedious to figure out everything.
2. The vortex felt heavy handed to some of the players. Playing Marie and the end mechanic involving doom took away most of my options.

Thanks for playing! The number of things to keep track of is the most annoying part of the scenario for sure!

Were we playing it correct, that if you advance the final Agenda 3a while still in Act 2a, the only option is to resign? This unfortunately prevented us from seeing many of the "set aside" locations, but perhaps we just played extremely poorly. :)

Unfortunately that's correct! I thought the doom threshold would have been long enough for most parties. Did you feel like you were running out of time or the boss fight took too long? I know if you don't rush it the number of music treacheries will stack up and make it much harder.

Thanks for playing! Feels bad that you didn't get to my favourite part of the scenario but I hope you still enjoyed it.

I accidently used my reddit username to reply- MedicalNote is me, the creator.

Think Mae also was chatting with you about our session. I think we just got bogged down early on based on some unlucky combos and were super-slow getting clues for Act 1. At that point, it became very hard to catch up. Might have to give this another go to actually get to the Stage Hall.

Just gave it a try. You have really put some neat concepts into this scenario. The ACT 3 synergy between the enemies and the treacheries was really creative. Kudos. I too had some confusion with the clues. It seems like you have to have a near perfect play in terms of getting clues fast enough to get through ACT 2. I do admit that I misunderstood the directions and thought to defeat the ACT 2 boss I needed to spend the clues, which made clues really in short supply and made ACT 3 super rough and also require perfect clue gathering (I didn't make it...) Maybe I had an old version because I saw the clarification below and that takes it from impossible to just "very hard". Perhaps after a rest I will visit the symphony once more!

Hi! Thanks for playing!

I think the majority of people who played spend the clues instead of placing then down. In the older playtesting versions, you did have to spend the clues but there was infinite clues on the auditorium! I kinda wish I kept it that way since most people who play seem to get this part wrong. (Which is perfectly normal because we are so used to spending clues in Arkham Horror, i realized i did the same mistake of spending instead of placing clues in another fan made scenario too haha).

Anyway, thanks for trying it out! The act 3 musicians synergies were my favourite part to design.

Changelog

20/8/2020:

The Symphony of Erich Zann has been updated to version 1.2

• Updated act 2 so that it's both easier and less confusing
• Reduced the complexity by a bit
• Fixed some typos
• Added a credits page with design notes
• Added Isabel La Fratta as a bonus investigator
• Changed all font to Arno Pro
• Added bleed images for printing services

Hi you have a strange eons files ?

Hi can you have a strange eons files ? I have to translante your expansion ! Big Thanks :)

Hi, there are already a french and german translation on the way for the next update. You can contact me on discord ( Axolotl#4672 ) or reddit (MedicalNote) and i can send the eons files over!

Updated to Final Version! 1.3

Changelog:

• Switched The Window to Nothingness into a treachery so that it's easier to play with and doesn't need extra rules,
• Fixing some formatting and collection number / encounter set numbers
• Adding some story text and an extra stretch goal if you play with Isabel La Fratta

Thanks everyone for all the feedback! This will be the last update for the foreseeable future, any extra changes will be erratas or with a "return to" in the future.

Hey all! This is kinda awkward haha. I'm working on a blog that will let anyone post FFG style articles for their custom content - mostly for more informative descriptions about scenarios and eventually design notes and guides for creating content. It seems like WordPress automatically comments because I linked it in my blog post, which is interesting but might get spammy?

Anyway, it's not meant to be a hosting website like Arkham Central (which is why that post links back to here), but just a place to write good looking articles. The blog and website is still in its conceptual phase, but if you have any feedback or want to contribute please let me know!

That's excellent news. Looking forward to try it out!

I'll do my best to provide intelligent feedback once I've played it, but right now I just want to celebrate your rare decision to offer individual cards with bleed in the download folder. I get that casual players or players on a budget enjoy using printer, scissors, and glue, but I am among the players who want to use a print service to treat the fanmades with seriousness. I uploaded and ordered it through a print service and now I can't wait to get it and play it. I will certainly say just from handling the cards for the upload that it looks really beautiful and intriguing; I'll provide more thoughts later. Thank you for your hard work on this!

Probably the best fanmade scenario I've tried. It just delivered on setting a theme and actualizing it. Bravo.

Hi Axolotl.

I was on the point of building the print and just found you had released a version 1.3. Great to see this work being maintained!

A few very minor details:

Scenario book p5

• was the Lovecraft's best story -> was Lovecraft's best story
• or of the -> or the (ref. nature of the threat; have answer as to the nature)
• to most of the game -> either remove it or replace with -> into this game. (what is most of the game is irrelevant)

Agenda 2b

• that was not from -> (style, suggests the title) -> not from Agenda 3a
• Opus Magnum -> Magnum Opus
• As you persist -> While you persist
• Coda ultimatum -> Coda ultimata (coda is a girl, see https://www.latin-english.com/latin/coda/) in title and text.

Auditorium

• the empty auditorium -> but the image and Gallery suggests it is not empty at all.

Trumpeter's Muse

• reassure him -> (it's his job) -> reassure the trombonist

Pianist's Muse

• at her scars and blood -> (scars are from wounds long ago, perhaps better:) -> She looks down in surprise at her battered, bleeding hands and blackened fingertips

Violonist's Muse

• from him / She throws -> (lacks flow, where were the sheets and how did they get here... insert) -> Waving the sheets in her hand, suddenly she grabs them, tears them to shreads and tosses them ..

oh yeah. Before I forget: Great story, and thank you!

We played this mission with 4 investigators as part of a NotZ+side missions run. It was definitely on the better half of the side missions we did -- the encounter set is extremely thematic. Information gets increasingly spoilery as we go:

There are some effects which apply to Musician investigators. The mission is of an average length compared to other missions. The mission does a good job of letting you solve problems in multiple ways, although does have certain points which require you to either fight or clue your way through. Although the encounter cards are cool, some of them do involve a lot of mental overhead which can be a little bit frustrating. The mission does involve a new mechanic but almost everything is extremely well explained. The enemies are very interesting -- it wouldn't be a bad thing if a couple of them were just stat blocks instead of having these extra effects though.

Some of the difficulty of the acts scales with the current agenda, meaning that tempo-based decks may have a slight advantage. The final act kind of comes out of nowhere and is a little anticlimactic. The rewards from the mission are very interesting and fun (I like the Piano Key!) -- but there's quite a few of them and each has a strong risk of bordering on overpowered in certain decks.

Asking the designer, they have said that their intent is that you should not pay the cost of putting Yin's Drumsticks into play as part of the reaction trigger. Macabre's dancers forced trigger is potentially ambiguous if you damage them from afar.

Deafening Brass is a little too deadly in easy mode (6 skulls in the bag) compared with the others

Has anyone created a master PDF of this so that it can just be printed on regular paper? I typically am able to print 9 cards/sheet but it's quite time consuming to format everything

Hi Axolotl, this scenario is very very cool!!!! I love it and I'm thinking to translate it in Italian. Very good work!!

Any suggetions for a deck and maybe what investigators? I have core,dunwich,Edge of earth, and carcosa investigators

Hello! Is it possible to have the strange eons' files? I would like to translate it in italian!! Thank you very much!

Is there any way to get this faster? I have this on download but it's at a 10-30KBps speed.

Goes full speed here? perhaps your connection is unstable?

That gave me some idea and I tried a VPN and it downloaded fine, thanks :)