Arkham Horror: Arkham's Colour Pie (Drawn to the Flame email)

This week, Drawn to the Flame, a podcast for Arkham Horror the card game released an episode about Arkham Horror's 'colour pie', a term originally coined in Magic the Gathering to refer to the abilities that each faction within the game has access to. Their cast was building off an email I'd sent them about my thoughts on the topic, and a couple of people have asked to be able to read that email in full. You can find it below. 

Please bear in mind that this email was intended to be read by two people who are already very familiar with Arkham Horror, as a prompt for discussion. It probably won't be meaningful if you're not already a fan of the game and it doesn't really have a thesis in itself. I recommend listening to the episode if you want some better put thoughts on the topic.

Definition of the Colour Pie

(Not sure if you want to discuss or explain what colour pie philosophy means in this context for the benefit of the listeners, but my quick definition is that its an understanding of what each faction in your card game [in this case Arkham, with the factions being Guardian, Seeker etc], gets as its card effects or investigator abilities. Sometimes, people disagree about whether a particular card, real or hypothetical, should be something that a particular faction should get access to. An example might be Blood Rite, a Seeker card that lets them discard cards and pay resources to do testless damage to any enemy. One might argue that this effect doesn’t feel right for Seeker – or to put it another way, that it shouldn’t be in their colour pie).


Summary

Arkham is definitely not strict when it comes to its ‘colour pie divide’ every faction is allowed to do everything, provided their approach ‘feels-right’ for that faction – while Guardians deal damage in a straightforward and efficient way, Seekers get to do it using clues or discard, Rogues do huge chunks of damage provided they over-succeed, etc. We’ve already seen development over the game’s lifecycle too – Rogues had no Clue Discovery cards in the Core Set, but have since massively expanded in that direction and are now arguably the number two clue grabbing faction.


Point of discussion for the cast

I’d be interested to hear how the two of you feel about Arkham’s colour pie split, in terms of what you see as the core philosophy of each faction, how you feel they’ve developed, and how it sits now. How have the new multifaction cards affected your understanding of Arkham’s colour pie? What do you think of as the role of Neutral cards, as cards that can be taken by anyone regardless of faction?

As a quick hit question, are there any cards you’d like to nominate as feeling wrong for the faction/s that they’re in?


My full thoughts

Something I’m particularly interested in is the idea of a ‘strict’ colour pie division vs a ‘feels-right’ approach to the colour pie. An example of the former might be from Magic the Gathering’s early days; once they’d figured out their colour pie split, Magic had some pretty strict rules about what colours could and couldn’t do; for example, Black, the death magic faction, couldn’t interact with their opponents ‘Artifact’ cards, the idea being that because they could drain the life out of them, they were a problem that they’d have to work around instead of dealing with directly. Colours had distinct strengths and weaknesses, and if there was an effect that your colour didn’t have access to, you’d have to ‘splash’ another colour to deal with it.


Broadly speaking, this approach is appealing to game designers and hardcore fans, who want their faction choices to be difficult and meaningful; you’re always giving up something when you pick a particular faction. This approach might be less appealing to more casual fans however, or players who really enjoy a particular faction. They might want to play nothing but that faction, and will find it frustrating that there are some problems that they just can’t solve.


More recently, Magic has been more permissive with the effects, recognising that the latter group of players were unhappy with stricter separation. Nowadays, they have more of a ‘feel-based’ approach to the philosophy – any faction can do anything as long as its presented and dressed up in a way that feels like it suits their vibe.


Arkham has been more ‘feel-based’ from the beginning. Its certainly possible to imagine that Maxine and the FFG team that designs Arkham had instead been stricter – they could have decided that Guardians were never allowed to discover clues, as they were more about fighting and protection, or that Seekers were never allowed to deal damage, as the reclusive scholars. Right away it was made clear that each faction can do all of the things that you need to do in Arkham – literally the first player card is Roland Banks, a Guardian who is allowed to discover clues, provided he’s killing something. Seekers are allowed to kill things, provided it involves discarding cards or having clues. This allows people to stick to their favourite investigators and factions while doing a bit of everything. Its also particularly important for Arkham because of true solo – while there are always going to be factions and investigators who are better at playing solo than others, I think that it would be rubbish if some factions just couldn’t tackle solo at all.


Arkham has already seen some development in its colour pie too. Rogues are maybe the most obvious example; in the Core set they didn’t have any ways to discover clues, but since then they’ve been given a lot of efficient, powerful tools for doing so, and are now arguably the number two clue grabbing faction after Seeker. I’m not sure if there are any obvious examples of a faction getting something in its colour pie early and then seeming to lose as the game goes on, but maybe that’s unlikely anyway, given that Arkham lets each faction do a bit of everything.


Neutral cards and multifaction cards are another consideration too. In the DttF Discord people have expressed some dissatisfaction with Timeworn Brand, a straightforward weapon that feels very Guardian like, or maybe Rogue, but can be taken by anyone. For the most part, I think that the multifaction cards managed to achieve their stated goal of belonging to each faction that they’re in, but there are misses; if a Guardian uses On the Trail (1) for its Clue discovery effect instead of its Move effect, I’m not sure that sits right with me. Maybe Timeworn Brand and On the Trail are design mistakes for this reason, allowing Investigators access to effects that don’t feel right for the faction they’re in.


I don’t have any big conclusions or hot takes in this area, but I think its interesting to discuss, and hopefully the ‘strict’ vs ‘feels-right’ framework is useful for understanding and discussion of this topic.


Love the cast


Alexander White (vinegarymink)

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