The Wonderful Thing About Triggers

Wendesday, November 2, 2016

The unique mechanics in Mummy's Mask include a whole bunch of things you've never seen before. One of my favorites is the Trigger trait, which turns the most basic of activities—reading cards—on its head, maybe forever.

The general theme of this Adventure Path (at least early on) is that you're exploring a magically protected tomb that's built for adventurers to ransack, but not without danger. We wanted there to be lots of tricks and traps, the kind of things you want to know about before they go off. Many of our players pick characters with examination powers—Alahazra, Estra, and Zadim in this set—to scout out those surprises. Lots of boons get you help along those lines. Even some banes.


Three very different ways to examine cards.

With all that examining going on, we don't want examiners to be invulnerable to our surprises. Hence, we needed a way to nail them too. So we came up with powers on cards that go off when you peek at them. We first seeded a version of this into Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Deck 4: The Midnight Isles, on the card Blasphemy Demon.


Everyone's favorite Wrath card!

It worked well there, so Liz, Paul, and Gaby built it out in full in Mummy's Mask. To make sure you don't miss these powers, we've given these cards the Trigger trait, and because we want you to know it's there the second you look at the card, we've put it at the top of the list and highlighted it in red. When you examine such a card, you'll find that the first power begins "When you examine this card," and quite often, the words after that are meant to cause you pain.

Here are some examples of that sort of pain.


Fun fact: We didn't make up the word "bonecrusher." It's a real type of hyena!

Those are all horrible. I mean, in a good way. Okay, mostly in a horrible way. It's not all bad, though! Plenty of cards have a Trigger that you might like! Or at least might not hate so much.


I dunno, she still looks pretty wrapped to me.

And do you think we'd send you into that blender alone? Nah, we've got some cards that can take the sting off the Trigger trait for you.


I like to dream...

So what's really going on here? Is the goal of the set to stop you from examining cards? No! We give you lots of ways to examine cards before you explore, and we expect you'll want to use them. But we just want to put a little fear of the gods into you before you do so.

All of that examine-and-encounter might also seem frightening, but wait! That's a free exploration. It's not a free exploration you can control, mind you, but any port in a sandstorm, right?

As you can see, it's a balance. As you'll see in later blogs in this series, just about everything in Mummy's Mask is a balance. After all, if you're walking around a tomb full of traps and treasures, it's best not to get too overconfident.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Mummy's Mask Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
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Silver Crusade

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First off, I've now played through the B scenarios twice as Alahazra, and I think triggers are kind of fun. Unless they undo my scouting entirely. Then they are Asmodeus incarnate.

Also, is it just me, or are the pictures in this blog not working?


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Did goblins steal the pictures from this blog? :O


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What? PACG Blog on a Wednesday? Not unlike a trigger, I didn't see that coming.


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... Is Triggers are wonderful things...


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I thought this was going to be a much more horrible kind of blog for a minute there.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
Also, is it just me, or are the pictures in this blog not working?

Nope, they're all face-down. We must send the party rogue to 'examine' them...


I can't see the pictures too ^^

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Malcolm_Reynolds wrote:
... Is Triggers are wonderful things...

Their topsides are covered in poison.

Their bottoms are made out of springs...


Cannot see pics! MUST SEE PICS!


Um... I can see all the pictures....

Lone Shark Games

Huh. I can't see any of them, either. I'd assumed it was a site problem, but that could be a caching or internet problem, instead.

Either way, I wouldn't expect things to look better until a more west coast friendly time.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So many awesome pictures! How on earth did they get the border on those question marks so blue, and the golem on the redirect! Magnificent detail!

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I can't see them either. When I click on one it says the url does not exist or I am not authorized to see them. :(

Grand Lodge

If we're pitching in, I can't see any images, either.

Lone Shark Games

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I suspect it's probably safe to hold off any further weigh-ins on lack of image. They'll trigger at some point later today :)

Scarab Sages

I'm liking the Triggers so far. They're a good addition to the game and help tamp down the rampant awesomeness of Augury (and other scouting cards) without removing it completely. Really enjoying the balance that Mummy's Mask is evidencing so far.

Grand Lodge

For some reason, Locate Objects makes my friends nervous.


... this card to examine cards from your location deck until you examine one with the Trigger trait.


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Calthaer wrote:
I'm liking the Triggers so far. They're a good addition to the game and help tamp down the rampant awesomeness of Augury (and other scouting cards) without removing it completely. Really enjoying the balance that Mummy's Mask is evidencing so far.

On my first visit to a trader, I declined an augury. I was so ashamed.

Lone Shark Games

James McKendrew wrote:
For some reason, Locate Objects makes my friends nervous.

Locate Object is great! I've proposed using it on locations with no boons before just to sweep up all the banes with triggers ;)

I mean, I didn't do it, but I definitely proposed doing it.

Silver Crusade

Keith Richmond wrote:
James McKendrew wrote:
For some reason, Locate Objects makes my friends nervous.

Locate Object is great! I've proposed using it on locations with no boons before just to sweep up all the banes with triggers ;)

I mean, I didn't do it, but I definitely proposed doing it.

This makes a question occur to me. We know that you examine all cards at once and THEN deal with the triggers. Do we get to pick the order we deal with the triggered cards if there are more than one, or do we have to deal with them in order?


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
Keith Richmond wrote:
James McKendrew wrote:
For some reason, Locate Objects makes my friends nervous.

Locate Object is great! I've proposed using it on locations with no boons before just to sweep up all the banes with triggers ;)

I mean, I didn't do it, but I definitely proposed doing it.

This makes a question occur to me. We know that you examine all cards at once and THEN deal with the triggers. Do we get to pick the order we deal with the triggered cards if there are more than one, or do we have to deal with them in order?

Opposite: you examine cards one at a time. As such, all triggers occur in order. This was made more clear in the MM rulebook, there's also a Vic post about it lying around somewhere (search his post history for "Blackjack Dealer")

Silver Crusade

skizzerz wrote:
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
Keith Richmond wrote:
James McKendrew wrote:
For some reason, Locate Objects makes my friends nervous.

Locate Object is great! I've proposed using it on locations with no boons before just to sweep up all the banes with triggers ;)

I mean, I didn't do it, but I definitely proposed doing it.

This makes a question occur to me. We know that you examine all cards at once and THEN deal with the triggers. Do we get to pick the order we deal with the triggered cards if there are more than one, or do we have to deal with them in order?
Opposite: you examine cards one at a time. As such, all triggers occur in order. This was made more clear in the MM rulebook, there's also a Vic post about it lying around somewhere (search his post history for "Blackjack Dealer")

Ah, okay, I misunderstood. Thanks, Skizzerz.


Vic's quote about examining


Am I the only one with no problems viewing the images at all?

Shadow Lodge

I'm seeing the pictures just fine.


I still see no pics here at all. When I click on where one should be, it feels like I should not have...that message makes me feel like I'm being scolded for porn! Seriously.

Silver Crusade

Hello! Paizooooo! No pictures for me also. =(

I tried with Chrome and Micsosoft Edge browsers, with and without AdBlocker.

Sovereign Court

Yeah, I'm looking from Chrome on Android, and I see nothing.

Lone Shark Games

I still get no pictures from my laptop, in either chrome or safari.

Chrome on my desktop - which only tried to load it for the first time today - works. Also from my phone.

Cleared cached data and images on the laptop, no change. My laptop is VPN-ed in, so might appear to be from a different part of the country than my desktop (and I can't un-vpn it at the moment, sorry). If Paizo caches images on different servers using any sort of distributed service, my theory was that only people routed through certain providers have the problem.


Hmmm.

I see everything fine using Chrome on Windows 10 on my personal laptop at home (ISP: Verizon).

I don't see any images using Chrome on Windows 7 on my work laptop at work. Nor using Chrome on my Android phone (T-Mobile).

This is interesting.


I can see everything with both firefox (windows/linux) and with thre default browser of my android phone.


I can't see it with my Mac but it all shows up on my phone. :-)


I can't see anything with neither Firefox nor Opera on Windows 7 laptop.


elcoderdude wrote:

Hmmm.

I see everything fine using Chrome on Windows 10 on my personal laptop at home (ISP: Verizon).

I don't see any images using Chrome on Windows 7 on my work laptop at work. Nor using Chrome on my Android phone (T-Mobile).

This is interesting.

Same thing but with Firefox ^^


I can't see them using Chrome or Internet Explorer on either my work computer or my Galaxy s7edge.

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm sad it took me so long to figure out the reference in the title. Now I have the song stuck in my head. Ah, childhood.

Lone Shark Games

Once I kill VPN, or switch to a different vpn, my laptop works fine for the pics. So, yeah, it's not a browser or OS type thing. It's just a question of where you're connecting from.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Keith Richmond wrote:
Once I kill VPN, or switch to a different vpn, my laptop works fine for the pics. So, yeah, it's not a browser or OS type thing. It's just a question of where you're connecting from.

So, you are saying you can only examine these trigger cards from certain locations?

Lone Shark Games

Hawkmoon269 wrote:
So, you are saying you can only examine these trigger cards from certain locations?

Yeah, other times my examine is wasted!


Keith Richmond wrote:
Hawkmoon269 wrote:
So, you are saying you can only examine these trigger cards from certain locations?
Yeah, other times my examine is wasted!

My location is in a whole different scenario (or are continents Adventures?), so I hope they fix this without me having to cast "Summon VPN"...


Longshot11 wrote:
Keith Richmond wrote:
Hawkmoon269 wrote:
So, you are saying you can only examine these trigger cards from certain locations?
Yeah, other times my examine is wasted!
My location is in a whole different scenario (or are continents Adventures?), so I hope they fix this without me having to cast "Summon VPN"...

I hope not, I'm pretty sure "Summon VPN" has the evil descriptor.

Silver Crusade System Administrator

One of our web servers was having some issues and they should be cleared up. Thank you guys for letting us know. Let us know if you still see issues.


Looking good now!

Lone Shark Games

Still invisible to me, sadly.

Lone Shark Games

Mike Selinker wrote:
Still invisible to me, sadly.

Never mind! I cleared my cache and all is well. Pretty pictures!


Ah, MadDog Marrn: "banish an Animal or you're dealt 1d4 Combat damage"

Now, I'm sure Vic had some post in recent weeks that specified how all possible "OR" conditions should be parced, but I can't seem to find it. So, can I *chose* not to banish an Animal, if I have one, and directly take the damage?

Hawksignal activated!


Pretty positive you get to pick. Hence the "or". Unless you can think of an example of a previous card that contradicts that behavior?


Vic post clarifying "or" conditions

Indirect Hawksignal response: Hawkmoon gave me the link on an earlier thread.

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