Heroes must roll for their destination floor each time they enter the elevator or at the end of each movement phase they spend in the elevator without moving. The rules are unclear and may require clarification from the group. Some room tiles in Betrayal are special and must be placed in a particular way, such as the Mystic Elevator room with a single doorway that teleports around the mansion whenever a hero enters it.
All trait rolls follow the same rules, but players can attempt each roll once per turn, any time during their turn: before, during, or after movement. Players must first end up in the basement via coal chute, mystic elevator, collapsed room, or event card irc. They then explore for the room with stairs. Once in the room with a symbol, players must stop moving, but if they have items that require rolls, they can make those rolls before.
If there is already one or more explorers in the Mystic Elevator when a hero enters it and rolls a 0, all explorers in the elevator take damage. However, the tile moves only once during each entire traitor/monster set of turns, the first time either a traitor or monster enters it. Monsters and traitors can both use the Mystic Elevator to go wherever they wish without rolling, but the elevator may only be moved once during the game. Traitors/Monsters are not affected by the elevator’s rules except that it must open to an unused doorway.
Players can use the elevator only once a turn, and monsters can move anywhere in the Mystic Elevator without rolling. Once per turn, when entering a tile, players may roll two dice. The Mystic Elevator can be moved to an open doorway on 4+ – Any region; 3 – Upper Floor; 2 – Ground.
📹 The best scene of all time? Mad Men – Lost Horizons
“Don sits in a meeting, listening to the description of a Miller beer drinker, described as a man from Wisconsin. It’s the meeting he’s …
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sanitized board room, sanitized people talking about “stimulating imaginations” when doing precise opposite. attempting to narrow thoughts by placing this supposed “man” who there are a million of within a neartly defined box, and Don seeing the essence of his beloved industry boiled down to a horrific science, while he begins feeling like the very man being described in the presentation before him. because he’s now one of many totally indistinguishable creative directors, nameless, faceless, and being trapped inside a behemoth corporation without a soul. he’s inside the boxed lunch “with his name on it,” with a laminated sterile set of facts that are marketing to a simplified caricature robbed of any inner life. he sees the plane flying above and chooses that route instead, leaving his ubiquitous can of coke untouched, he’s flies away. the one place he could express himself at least occasionally in fleeting moments of connective brilliance disguised as an ad pitch — that world is now gone. he’s a living relic of a time abruptly and unceremoniously past.
This is the scene that finally made me realise exactly why Don was always so reluctant to work at McCann Erickson. It was never about freedom or liberty, but the powerlessness and lack of recognition associated with a big corporation. Don needs to fee wanted and valued because Dick Whitman never was, and in a company like McCann Erickson, he’d never feel like a respected individual
The scene where he looks out the window to see a plane. How many of us when we were in school, when we were fortunate enough to sit by a window, looking up to watch a plane/contrail go by, thinking about where it was going, or wishing we were on it looking down upon the ground, while not paying attention to the teacher?
Mad Men must have at least a dozen best scenes of all time. Cooper’s last dance, the carousel pitch, “New York is a marvelous machine, wound tight”, Lane firing everyone, Peggy & Don all-nighter and he learns of Anna’s passing, Rodger bribing Peggy, Betty finding out his secret past, Lane & Pete fight.. Connie Hilton… anything Cooper is in.. man, it goes on and on and on. It’s gotta be the greatest show of all time.
It’s fitting that Draper, realizing that if he is to make a difference in a place like mccann, he has to do something to elevate he and his position beyond the mcdrones he is now surrounded with. Retaining his dignity he quietly slips out of the meeting and hits the american highway, chasing ghosts and reliving his youth, only to end up in some new age hippy retreat for broken souls, of which he has become one. Only to return to mcann as the man who writes The Coke ad. Like any conquering hero, he has to get down before he gets back up. After all this is Don Draper we are talking about.
Best scene of all time is a bit steep. But I loved everything about it. The guy speaking is essentially Don in season one. And you see him creating a fake scenerio, a fake guy, a fake life, to drum up genuine emotion. All for the purposes of selling beer. You can tell Don is having an out of body experience perusal this guy, and it’s the catalyst to pushes him to leave to find what he should have found years ago: The free things that are the key to true happiness. Teds face was great too. He knew Don wasn’t coming back. And there was this look of admiration that Don was going to drop it all to do what he needed to do.
I think this poem by Walt Whitman also helps understand the scene really well: “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
McCann-Eriksen essentially received Peggy, Stan, Ted, and Roger. Joan moves on to become a Commercial Producer. Pete leaves for far greener pastures. Don breezes out to find his true self he’s been hiding his entire adult life. It’s funny how McCann chased them for so long, but did not understand who they were dealing with.
I can’t help but think back to Don’s conversation with Ken Cosgrove after Ken’s firing. Ken was sitting in the phone booth afterwords when Don came up to him. Ken told Don it was a sign that he was fired. “The life not lived,” as Ken said and that his firing was a sign. When Don looks out the window to the airplane, I think he remembers Ken’s words and then walks out. Wish I could do that.
As a sales manager for PepsiCo and Kraft I sat through hundreds of these meetings in 30 years! Once a VP suggested that our sales could be stimulated by a “stack in the back” meaning extra inventory in the back room! The sheep erupted into applause, I am so sorry I didn’t have Don’s courage and walk out or better yet, jump up on the conference table and take a shit!!
The way I saw this scene was the guy was describing Don too well, cause the more we think we’re different from the people around us, the more we really are just the same. Don looks at the plane as a sort of escape, wants to feel like he matters above the grand scheme of life. When Don escapes and gets to California he hugs the guy while they’re both crying even though the guy Don is hugging is the complete opposite of Don, but on the inside they faced the same issue, the inability to love themselves. When Don cracks a smile while he’s meditating it reminds of the scene where Ana Draper is reading him based on the tarot cards and says “The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone”. That’s when Don realizes no matter how tragic his life was, everybody eventually deals with the same things, in the matter of life and death. It’s where he gets the idea for the coke commercial and even though I don’t think it cures him entirely, I think he’s better off learning what his place in the universe really was. Don has always been good at creating the perfect ideal life in his ads, always websiteing his inner Dick Whitman for moments of vulnerability, but he always turned in Don Draper for all the relationships that really mattered to him. The end of the series is just him realizing he’s going lose everyone he’s ever loved and they have no idea who he really is and the only way he can connect to them with is to be honest. Throughout the series he’s been losing the frame of Don Draper slowly and slowly because the women he cared for never really knew Dick Whitman, they’ve only seen Don Draper.
I don’t think the board room is sterile or the pitch is sanitized. It’s not even an especially formulaic approach, at least not any more so than Don would have taken. In fact, it sounds a lot like a pitch Don would have given if SCDP had given the opportunity to pitch for this business. I think Don comes in that room already feeling lost. He’s already lost almost everything dear to him, except maybe Sally, but things will never be the same there either, and his ability to do great work. He’s had that almost the entire length of the show and he’s been complimented on it and reminded it of it pretty constantly. And then he realizes that supposedly your greatest skill and accomplishment is not nearly the thing he thought it was. They at McCann agree he’s great, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s a machine that has a shiny new little part, and it just keeps going. I think is just kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Don realizes that he’s a broken man and no amount of work is going to fix his true problems, and so he leaves. Anyway, I just finished the show last night, it was great.
Don can’t function like the individual that he is in that environment. Some look at that boardroom and see comfort with the big machine. Ted saw it as a place where he could just be an idea man and not have all the pressure and relax. Don saw it as a prison that cramps his style and stifles his creativity. It’s why he turned them down twice earlier in the series, and then staged a coup to actually start another company rather then go work for them. Ted’s expression at the end is so good. It goes from “what the hell is he doing” to “of course that’s what he’s doing”, from surprise/shock to admiration. Ted doesn’t really like his job, but is willing to trade that for the safety of McCann. He admires Don’s IDGAF attitude and his willingness to throw it all away if he can’t be himself…even if that means giving up what most people in that industry would consider a dream job.
Thank you. I have been searching all over on YouTube to see this again and finally I can. One of the best scenes of the entire show, sad and beautiful when Don looks out the window and wants to escape from that room, from the top of the corporate advertising latter where they’ve reducing so many lives to an idea of a market of a man. Even after this airing of this episode, as of last month, Miller, even as big as they were, were just acquired by AB InBev (the merger after the Dutch company InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch) for $104 billion in the largest beer corporate acquisition ever. It’s an endless subsuming of smaller companies by larger and fewer ones. Sad state of affairs, but I hope it will reverse if people awake and use the internet to its full potential. Anyway, thank you for uploading this clip; it’s the only upload on YouTube and I’m glad that you made the time to put it up.
I always saw the moment with Ted was more about how Ted saw Don as always trying to personally undermine him when they merged companies like when they had two juice companies or Don was late to his meetings. To Ted those always seemed to be personally directed towards himself. I think the moment he saw Don walk out during the meeting and do exactly the same things he used to do to him, he realized and felt a sense of relief that it was never personal between him and Don. Don was always treating him like he treats everyone. It was just who Don was.
I always felt this scene was about Don’s sobering realization that he’s not unique. The man giving the presentation is telling story much in the way Don would have and — back in the day — it would have seemed a fresh approach. But now Don sees it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s all just noise. And it doesn’t last long or resonate. Unless …. you come up with a catchy ad for Coke, that is.
Instead of the usual take which is to speak on Don’s need to stand out, be an individual, etc. I think it would also be cool to compare this scene with one of the final scenes when Don is in the therapy circle with the man who doesn’t feel heard. In this room, in advertising, they’re describing ‘a man that everyone knows’ almost like a statistic, they look at where he lives and other mundane facts, but they don’t care about that man as a person. In the therapy scene, that man has a nice car, couple kids, wife, the American dream, but alas he doesn’t feel heard or recognized. To the advertisers in the conference room he’s just another type that can be reduced via some stats and that’s all that matters, but he’s more than that and is complicated and, most importantly, he wants to be heard. I think comparing the scenes you see how these advertising agencies cater to consumers in such a robotic and impersonal way. Would add to the plethora of reasons why Don resonates with him so much because his whole career was based on only understanding these statistical facts of the man instead of listening to him as another complex human.
A lot going on here. One thing interesting is how male angst, or should I say white male angst, has gone totally out of fashion. This theme used to provide a decent reservoir of material. Lately you have to flip it on it’s head to sell it: make the protagonist a mob boss or a meth cook. Weiner shoots for real here and hits the target. It’s actually timeless.
This scene builds up off of so much of Ted and Don’s interactions and comments about one another and from those around them. Ted is constantly in Don’s rearview, as said by Don specifically at one point and shown in Ted’s aspirations at one day outdoing him. One of the major crisis that occurs for Don and co. is back in Season 3 when they sell the firm to PPL and Don refuses to sign the contract that they try to box him into. Much to the consternation of everyone around him. He knows that people want him, and he’s not willing to tie himself down. This is reflected in his private life and his business. When Don shows up to the meeting, his surprise isn’t at the number of people around him, it’s him knowing that they don’t want him. He’s just another emissary in the tie. Ted meanwhile tries to reassure the employee from Miller by agreeing that the hackneyed promise he’s been told by everyone else in the room from every different agency is also accurate with them as well. It’s unoriginal. Uninventive. It’s Ted. When Don looks at the plane and decides to leave, he’s doing so because he knows no one will notice nor care. Ted meanwhile just smiles to himself because at the end of the day, Pete was right. He’s just another sheep. He’s happy to go with the crowd and keep his head down. He’s not creative. He’s not Don Draper, and when he tried to be it ruined his life.
“Lost Horizons” a name fitting for what soldier Don remembers seeing. Did you notice how each man gets a white no name box (coffin) for lunch? Don looks out the window and then notices something, something familiar to him in what he saw during war, he sees a plane spraying/laying a chemtrail in the sky from one end of the horizon to the next. He stares at it, in deep contemplation, remembering, and then turns his head back around as he remains in deep thought. Notice what the camera is focused on at this moment? Its focused on his speckled neck. Then notice what the camera shows after this, a bottle of mustard behind him. (mustard gas). Don remembers during war how the planes sprayed mustard gas on them. He knows what this means and gets up and walks out. Mustard gas, or sulfur mustard (Cl-CH2CH2)2S, is a chemical agent that causes severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract. It can be absorbed into the body through inhalation, ingestion or by coming into contact with the skin or eyes.
this scene made the whole series, capitalism, the individual in the capitalistic world and the place that don has in the company. don realized he was one of the “npc”s that the marketing was targeting too. no matter how high you are, they still get you. but he does not accept it, he acts masterful storytelling.
I realized something completely new about this scene: The blonde man talking. This could easily be a Don pitch. It’s a variation of a thousand similar pitches he’s given. But the delivery is inferior. Don realized that good and “good enough” is indistinguishable in this environment. That’s when he looks out the window and plots his escape.
It was like putting Picasso or Van Gogh in a beginner art class. Marketing was Don’s “art”. You can make an advertisement that hits all the right demographics, or checks all the right boxes on paper….but Don wasn’t interested in that. He was equally happy with people who loved the ad and the people who hated it. The point was they FELT something. Don looked at that meeting like it was a soulless assembly line…..churning out a paint by numbers product. Just to add, people forget that Ted was a pretty damn successful ad man himself when u step back and look at it. His knowing smile at the end was a small acknowledgment that he “got it” and respected Don’s process.
a lot of people miss out on the “bring it up a notch” quip. Don scoffs a bit after hearing that because he realizes Hobart asked him to do that exact same thing earlier in the episode when they were at McCann. He realizes in a room full of the same people who do the same thing, his days are numbered. So he jets.
This scene alone? Not the greatest, but in the context of the show, having a room full of Don’s, listening to their “Don” creative exec, monologue and wax on about “this man we all know” stuff… that is what makes it such a great scene. That his methods, formulas, everything he has done to get to this point are indifferent to how others have. They are just as great in their own right. Everybody has the “High Life.” I’m doing a rewatch right now of Mad Men and this scene hits for Don’s story, and Ted’s face makes it all the better. Like perusal Captain Marvel watch Superman leave the Hall Of Superfriends. Shit I love this show.
The very first episode Don is approached by the research lady about cigarettes. Even in a situation where he has nothing and is desperate and afraid of coming up empty-handed – he drops the research into trash. He’s not interested in what the status-quo has to offer. He wants to paint a new picture, reveal some secret that is there for the taking and gets people excited about this new perspective advertising can offer. It just makes sense for him to be welcomed to McCain by a meeting full of creatives listening to research. A sausage-factory indeed.
Matthew Weiner has said before that Don is not “past his prime”. He’s not a “relic”, or a “dinosaur”. Don is “timeless”. Don is the kind of creative director at an ad agency who, according to Miss Blankenship, is “always asleep” inside his office. He throws away the cigarette research in the first episode, because the “death wish” doesn’t get to the root of people’s desires. The moment he sees the plane outside the window, visions of Rachel Menken (“you missed your flight”) come pouring back. Shirt-sleeves operations like the machine of McCann, with boxed lunches and tin-can researchers flogging *low calorie beer, cannot get to the heart of what people really want. What is a plane? A plane is like a carousel. It isn’t “a space ship”. It “takes us to a place where we ache to go again”. “Around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved”. After his Magical Mystery Tour, Don ends up in a white shirt, enlightened. He goes back and makes the greatest ad, ever. He walks out of this meeting because these types don’t get it. Don Draper is timeless.
I used to work for a large corporation and we had sales meetings on the 6th floor of a downtown office building. I would have fantasies of leaping out the window of the building to a very painful death during our sales meetings. But I would remind myself that I would want to play golf later on that day.
I’ve always thought that Don was an INTJ personality type, and this scene reinforces that. INTJs deeply relish their freedom to work independently; preferring to work on their own in a ‘lone wolf’ capacity or whatever will free them from restrictive role constraints. being an INTJ myself, and working in the marketing and advertising business myself, i would be absolutely revolted to know that there is all this bureaucracy – not to also mention that there are 10 or more senior professionals with the title of “Creative Director”. I suppose that is why I’ve always preferred to work at smaller boutique agencies. The Creative Director role is highly sought after and well respected position in a marketing or ad agency. its is a coveted role and carries a lot of status in the profession. most creative professionals would have at least 10-12 years prior experience in advertising/creative communications before being considered eligible for such a role in an agency. A role in which an agency has no more than 2. 3 at the very most. but that is pushing it. senior roles in my profession often come with very over-blown egos.
Don was always selfish in self-obsorbtion type of way. He heard the describtion of this “man” and how he is, and looked at himself as trying to uphold this position of a man. He wanted to escape it, the humiliation within his burden of being a man mounted as he saw he will be constricted to the parameters of mundane technicality. It is so much more beautiful when he later on sees this man..
I think this scene is just a switch that flips in Don. He has gone from the salesman pitching the ‘product’, to having the ‘product’ pitched to him. He’s a tool now, not an artist. Being aimed at an objective rather than having free reign of inspiration. So he leaves to find his own inspiration in California.
And with the 60s overthrow of old institutions such as church and politics deciding over the living room, the hippies did fall into the freedom trap of advertisement – and we all became products and services. By 1982 the government wouldn’t even spend anything unless it was reflected by production turnover, not peoples actual needs no matter how hard they scream for something. These ad men were the start of the neo-liberal age really.
Don Draper looking out that window from a long narrow box of a room reminds me of Dick Whitman looking out the train car window as his little half-brother welcomes the real Don Draper casket home thinking it is Dick Whitman. Dick Whitman should have gotten up and ran to his family in that terribly sad scene from an earlier episode, but he choose to cower down and stay in the box…….car. In this scene he summons up the courage to do what he should’ve done years earlier. He leaves the box. At least he is finally moving towards enlightenment at that retreat on the California coast. But it was all far too little too late for his little brother Adam. No success in life can ever compensate for what Dick Whitman did to Adam.
First, this isn’t even the best scene of Mad Men. That’s the scene where Roger fires Bert the second time. That scene is classic. If you want the best (TV) scenes of all time: Comedy: Taxi – Jim takes his written test (what does a yellow light mean?) Sadness: NYPD Blue – Dennis Franz learns his son has been killed. He goes to a bar and has his first drink again. Vengeance: Magnum P.I. – did you see the sunrise this morning? Unexpected: Hill St Blues – when the mayor’s captor is sniped (head shot) (mayor: what the hell just happened?) Ending / Closing the series: Mary Tyler Moore, last one out of the office (and Ted is the only one keeping his job)
I wonder, too, if Don listened to the description of the ideal customer and thought, “who wants to take money from that schmuck?”. the boxed lunch, the drones, its all the Glengarry Glen Ross world Don was trying to escape and elevate from, like perusal that plane out the window. the meeting was a chase of medocrity, and Don wants the Jaguar customer, the person who does fly regularly on an airplane–not another Dick Whitman.
You know, its weird that Ted reacted that way. Considering how hard Don pushed for him to stay in the business so they could go to McCann when Ted really wanted to give up. But at the end of the day it was Don that bailed. If Ted wanted to give up in the first place, when he was more independent, why would he be more content with just being a cog at a bigger agency? Or maybe him initially wanting to give up was just his emotional state at the time. Guess that shows the contrast between them.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they literally used the sets from season 1 Sterling Cooper offices all over again. Which of course is the point they were making about being absorbed into McCann Erickson was like going back in time. The “dog doesn’t talk” joke is a nice throwback to the outward sexism back in season 1 too.
I read once something that’s been living in my head rent free since, “Suicide is a luxury”, and when I watched this scene first time it reminded me of it, not everyone can afford committing suicide, it’s different and difficult when you have people relying on you, you can’t just leave them, that’s why it’s pretty common among younger people, as for this scene, leaving like that was a luxury that none in that room could afford, Don has nothing to care for anymore, he’s burned out, but how many of us had that moment, some of us having it everyday, to just feel completely done and fed up with your job, and just decide to hit the road, at this moment, Don could afford that, he was the most successful individual in Maddison Avenue, made a lot of money, and working somewhere where he’s not truly admired wasn’t possible. It’s a dream for many of us to be able to have that choice.. To leave.
Shows how you can love & hate Don at times but when your ‘in’ you accept the things that on the ‘out’ would infuriate you. This place, however successful, think they know how to run their staff, however Dons creativity comes from his somewhat chaotic life. The head guy I’m the new firm looks like his head will explode when Don isn’t back weeks later. Roger and Burt were such a good team, they knew how to manage people, like a well oiled machine, they often, in a sense, played people e.g. when Don wanted to fire Pete (the 1st time). Richard looked like he supported Don, Bert said not to fire him, Richard pretended to be annoyed, he wasn’t, that was people management, which was topped off by Richard telling Pete, Don fought for him to stay….such a great technique! Richard and Bert discuss this before, I don’t think so, it wasn’t their first rodeo and they had their positions to handle the problem locked in and knew what to do without saying a direct word to each other. /even Don didn’t see he was being played. Bert often thought moves ahead e.g his response to Pete telling him Don was not who he said he was, he knew in the future he could use this & he did when he needed Don to fall in line with something. He was so good at saying things without actually saying them directly. Richard and Bert really did a lot behind the scenes, they were just not roles that captured attention. Bert was better at handing the non recognition, Richard not so much.
Well, obviously aside from Don being used to treated like royalty, not a cog in a machine, I think Don felt like disconnected from everything there. The everyday man, they are describing, has everything he has not. Don has no power tools, no college memories, no dad, no favorite sports team. Don is incredibly indifferent to nearly everything, so when he loses his position as the legend of the office, what does he have? Those comments about him being in soulless corporation? Don doesn’t care about soul. He wants to be recognized.
Some notes: Coke cans everywhere in this scene and emphasized by the abstract painting in the background which foreshadows the coke ad in the last episode. Additionally, the placement of Parker Pens in the hands of the creative directors, which emphasize the “corporate uniform.” The lone French Mustard jar – not Ketchup- in the background of Don as he prepares to leave. And, of course, the McCann slogan “Truth Well Told.” Such mastery of art direction and product placement!! This meeting is not about “an exciting new beverage” beer, it’s really about Coke, in Don’s mind, and he eventually returns to this scene while he meditates and resolves and counters the “everyman” pitch with the idea of worldwide individuality. “It’s the Real Thing.”
I love reading all the different takes in this thread that could all be 100% correct. It just proves the many layers of very consistent quality writing in this show. It seems to me that Don has spent the better part of his life building himself into that man who is the epitome of the American Dream-the kind of man who they’d be selling this beer to. Don has analyzed and collected data on just the sort of man who had all of what America promised-appearing educated, but pulling himself up by his bootstraps, 2.5 kids, beautiful wife, dogs(they don’t talk) a picket fence,top of his game at work, yet somehow Don sees himself as exceptional, different from the crowd. Of course, the name on the box of many boxes is a glaring reminder that he is just one of many in that room. But Don’s persona that he created is above it all-he is like that plane flying above the filth and ordinariness of everyone else’s mundane life. Don knows better than anyone that the American Dream, much like Don, is a sham. What you have to do to get there decays and rots your soul. Don is the king of shit mountain. But he can reinvent himself if he wants. That’s what he’s good at. He isn’t the same sandwich in every box. He is whatever product he wants to be. So, this approach is never going to be for him.
Bit of a niche observation, but the craziest thing about this scene is that, not having worked in the US ad industry (which is obvs huge compared to other countries), I can’t picture possibly a meeting with like so many creative directors that one can just walk out and nobody gives a crap. (For show context, remember that the small agencies we follow throughout the show only had like 3 creative directors in the entire agency) Even the biggest meeting I’ve ever been in only had like…..maybe 4-5 creative directors in the room.
I don’t know why exactly….. but the shot at 2:06 …. I just keep coming back to it. They’re can be many explanations to the deeper meaning of it… some true, whether there is a “right” answer or not… but just the way that moment makes me feel, with the music and the shot and the tone, context not necessarily even needed in that span of a few seconds, I just FEEL something that I cannot explain. And I truly appreciate that feeling even though I admittedly don’t fully understand it. Mad Men does it better than any show I have ever encountered. I hope someone feels what I feel and what an accomplishment by the people who worked on this.
here’s every piece of brilliance from this scene: 0:06 implies that mcCan is such a huge darth vader like industry that their creative staff is, quite literally, spilling out of the room 0:40 mcCan guy says “so are you here to bring us up a notch, too indicating that, athough recently hiring 2 top creative directors from a smaller company – in the grander sense – only brings mcCan up a “notch” making them insignifcant for a huge company 1:33 don looks around realizing the man they’re describing doesn’t truly exist – but only exists in a commercial sense – simultaneously he looks around and realize all the ‘cookie cutter’ admen all turn to the same page – at the same time – almost robotically. 2:09 don looks up and sees himself as a metaphorical plane leaving an empire – the empire being him realizing what he’d just left behind at his own company: and realizing he’s being absorbed into this new company, making him insignificant 2:21 “it doesn’t matter because thats it and its not open for discussion” quite literally the narrator speaking dons thoughts while hes thinking them – which, coincidentally, are consistent with his thoughts about how he’s about to leave the meeting 2:50 it all hits ted that – despite his disliking of don and his ‘antics’ in the past – he realizes that he too has been put in the same boat as don – and he simultaneously feels loathing for don, but understanding, at the same time.
What Don really see’s here and needs to get away from is the corporatization and dehumanization of the job that he loves. Somewhere he could use his talent to be unique now is any old mcdonalds on the side of the road with the same patties and fries. This was becoming more and more apparent back then but here in modern times you can really see how these companies and corporate mentalities have taken over everything like a plague. Taking away our chances of happiness because we must work in industries that have almost completely lost their magic.
Don looks out the window and puts a strange look on his face “If this is the level of detailed strategy occuring in consumer marketing, what is the level of detail in Global human strategy?” as a plane leaves it’s trail in the sky, to dissipate into the air we breathe. “It doesn’t matter because that’s it, and its not open for discussion”
I guess that’s your opinion. Personally, I thought the best (so far) was when the wife went outside and started shooting at the neighbor’s pigeons. Talk about a statement. Gotta say all of the smoking they do in that series gets to me. Was a smoker (quit a long, long time ago), and can’t say I miss it at all and definitely am glad they stopped it in enclosed public places. Damn, that stuff stinks.
He finally becomes disillusioned with advertising… all the time his mind wonders into his past and all the unresolved issues that keep haunting him. He looks out for an escape. He doesn’t need to be there, doesn’t need the money but he’s deeply unhappy and needs to get out. With that discrete exit we enter a sad ending saved by the classic coke ad.
Its precisely that the game is so unpredictable that forces you to think in different way every time you play which makes it unique. This is why discussing strategy with other survivors is important. There will never be a guideline to help you secure a win as a traitor or survivor. There are tactics, but ultimately it comes down to the decision you make every turn and nothing is more rewarding then getting good rolls, making good decisions and miraculously making a win out of a loss.
I never thought people actually disliked this game because of the balance. I’ve been on both sides, I had a game where I was a survivor against the mummy, started with the girl in my room, started with the book and the ring, AND with max sanity. The haunt was over in only about 6 turns. I’ve also been the werewolf, where a survivor started with the revolver in the research lab. Favored or unfavored the game is still fun to play from start to finish. Excellent explanation and visuals
The problem with this game is the terrible terrible instructions. Especially the betrayers time. The instructions are so terribly vague and it’s not like you can discuss with other players to set house rules because then you give your objectives away! They really needed better professionals to write the instructions
I need to agree with this. The story is so epic. I played the game three times. And three times become the traitor. It’s always a clutch, as in movies. Where the bad guys win first, it seems like the heroes are about to lose hope. The horees are desperate and need to think hard to solve the problem. suddenly a miracle happens, then the heroes win the game.
this is by far one of my favorite boardgames. I love the story, the replayabilety. I have played the same haunts from time to time, but it can stil feel difrent, since the house is difrent, maybe i am more/less buff than previous time, or maybe we are more/less players. Sometimes the way the house is build and with the haunt can seem unbalanced( i had a game were i had to summon a demonlord, and apparently i as traitor got to start that time, i had to make some checks in the room a tile or 2 away, and i could make 1 check for each unused speed, i remember me being flash and summoning the demonlord before the players even got a turn. now i can see why that seems unfair, but that is 1 game out of many, and like you said in the article the way the house was build in this case made a big impact 🙂 ) Me and my freinds can find it funny to roleplay to aswell. imo i often find it balanced when 4-5 players
I do not agree. Balance is part of the fun. A predictable, one sided story is a boring story. Of course it will never be perfectly balanced, but each side at least needs to have a chance to win. I’ve played Haut 60 – Cat O’Clock with 2 other players, and it was baffling how this haunt is sided for the killer. They never stood a chance, even thought they completed the formula at lightning speed.
Since you’re an avid lover of this game. I have bought it but no one wants to play it. My question is, would you see yourself playing this game if it were in a VR senario similar to DEMEO, which is a game I personally have over 100 hours or more poured into? If you don’t know of DEMEO please look into it. Even if you’re not a fan of the game itself, look at the “board”, mechanics, etc. and let me know. I think it would fit perfectly into it’s ‘scheme of play’.
Yeah agreed. I had made someone tense because I was trying every way to undermine her as she was the traitor and telling others what to do. It was because of how it shaped our future dynamics that I realized the balance was not the point and realized the same points in the article. She was young and quick-tempered and held a grudge, but I myself could have done better.
So tell me, how does father rheinhart win haunt 66 Cardinal Sin? Went through that one last weekend and me and my friends couldn’t figure out how the traitor can win. It’s always the oldest male so likely white who’s super slow, hero’s can place the electors so they can put them near their characters and force the traitor to spend the first turn to two walking to the closest one by which time the hero’s have gotten 4 electors and won. Also, stats tend to go up more than down. Sure some events cause you to lose a point or 2 but there are enough special rooms and other events to bump that up, in said game haunt was after 7 omens and both blue and green had 7 sanity. What we’ve found is that we’ll play a game or 2 and them stop because none of us really enjoyed the haunt. For one side it’s not fun seeing you’ll lose and just waiting to see how badly while for the other it’s not fun cause there’s no challenge. Take the dragon for instance, all it takes is to have that thing puppy guard one item to win, or in our case immediately kill the player who got both and sit in that room while traitor walked around killing others. Yes the narrative aspect is fun but who wants to play a game where they can see inevitable defeat? It’s like a game of monopoly where one player starts owning half the board and double the money, sure someone else might win but the odds are stacked. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game and play it as much as I can but you have to admit the balance isn’t slightly off, it’s a curbside that is likely to leave everyone disappointed
My friends and I played and we wound up with the Seance, with yours truly the traitor. We decided to go Hardmode and make it so that the ghost’s sanity acted as health, rather than a one-hit on a successful sanity check. Team got some nasty rolls while I got some intense ones, killing two of four and nearly killing a third in the final battle. Fourth one was lucky I discovered a mystic slide early on because he was so far out that the mansion’s ground floor collapsed and blocked his only other way to the basement. This game is absolutely amazing – definitely two thumbs up recommendation to anyone who enjoys board games.
Great explanation. For real though about 60% of the haunts are unbalanced and wonky. Like you said the way the game is designed it is simply impossible for it to have been implemented in a way where there is a real sense of balance. I have heard that the Legacy version is a little tighter of an experience though. I have it but haven’t started that one yet, but for a narrative experience Mansions of Madness is my preference for creepy games because it is honed better. But Betrayal was my first game I bought when entering the hobby, so I’ll always look on it fondly, even though I don’t think it is actually a very good game anymore compared to other items.