Mansions of Madness: Second Edition rules refresher

Read the refresher

Mansions of Madness is fully cooperative: you all win or lose together by exploring the mansion and piecing together enough evidence and clues to solve the scenario's mystery. The app runs everything. It reveals rooms, voices people, generates monsters and events, and asks for skill tests. Your group moves figures, rolls dice, and decides what to investigate next.

Now, setup. Shuffle the Damage deck and the Horror deck separately and keep them facedown. Sort the Common Item, Unique Item, Spell, and Condition cards alphabetically into faceup stacks so you can find specific cards quickly. Sort the map tiles by size, and make sure every monster figure has its matching monster token slotted into its base. Start the app, press New Game, and pick your scenario together. Each player then chooses an investigator, takes that investigator's card and figure, and enters the choice in the app. The app hands out starting possessions to the group as a whole, and you split them up however you like. Read the prologue aloud and listen closely, because it can hint at what is coming. The app then has you place the starting tile, the investigator figures, and the Search tokens, Explore tokens, and anything else it calls for. Once that is done it moves straight into the first round.

Here is how play flows. Each round has two phases: the investigator phase, then the mythos phase. In the investigator phase, investigators take turns in whatever order you choose, and each one performs up to two actions. Those actions are move, explore, search, interact, trade, attack, and component actions granted by cards or items. When everyone has taken a turn, someone presses the end phase button in the bottom right of the screen. In the mythos phase, the app generates mythos events, then activates each monster, then has each investigator resolve a horror check. After that someone presses end phase again and a new round begins.

Let's go through the actions, starting with moving. A move action lets you move up to two spaces, one adjacent space at a time. Solid white or yellow lines are borders, and you can cross them. Dashed lines are impassable borders, and brown walls block you too, unless an effect says otherwise. Doors are gaps in walls, and you can move through them. A room is a group of spaces sharing one name.

Explore, search, and interact all go through the app. To explore, tap the Explore token for an adjacent room and confirm the Explore option. Place whatever tiles and tokens the app shows, and then you may move in as the app instructs. To search, tap a Search token in your own space and confirm Search. To interact, tap a Person or Interact token in your space and pick an option marked with the action icon. Tapping any token just to read it is free, even if the token is far away. Choosing an option marked with the action icon is what costs an action.

Trade lets you give any number of Common Items, Unique Items, or Spells to each other investigator in your space, and receive any number from them. In the same action you may also pick up or drop any of those cards in your space.

Component actions are printed on cards after the bold word Action, and only the investigator holding the card can use them. Some items are used through the app instead. Open the inventory with the button in the bottom left, select the item, and choose the option with the action icon.

To attack, open the monster drawer, select the monster, and press Attack. Then choose an attack type: Heavy Weapon, Bladed Weapon, Firearm, Spell, or Unarmed. The app gives you an effect, usually a skill test, and tells you how much damage you deal. Record that damage on the monster with the plus and minus buttons. A weapon or spell with the melee icon can only hit a monster in your space. One with the ranged icon can hit any monster within range. Range is at most three spaces and can't be counted through walls or doors unless an effect allows it.

Skill tests appear as a skill icon in the app's text. Roll dice equal to that skill on your investigator card, adjusted by any modifier, and always roll at least one die. Each success result counts toward your test result. After rolling, you may spend one Clue to turn one investigation result, the magnifying glass, into a success, as many times as you have Clues. If a number follows the skill icon after a semicolon, that is the difficulty: you need at least that many successes to pass. When an effect lets you test to negate Damage or Horror, each success prevents one. Some tests ask you to enter your successes with plus and minus without telling you the target. The app remembers what you have already rolled, so later attempts need fewer successes.

Evading matters constantly. If you are in a space with a monster and try to leave, or try any action other than attack or move, you must evade first. With several monsters in your space, you evade only the one with the highest awareness. Select it from the drawer, press Evade, and resolve the effect. You then carry out your action normally unless the effect says you forfeit it. Forfeiting means the action is lost with no effect at all. If you were moving, you lose the rest of the movement and stay in your space.

In the mythos phase, resolve each mythos event as the app directs. If there are no monsters on the board, the phase ends there. Otherwise the app activates each monster one at a time, telling you how it moves and whom it attacks. Then every investigator within range of a monster resolves a horror check against the monster in range with the highest horror rating. Select that monster from the drawer to do it. An investigator with no monster in range skips the check.

When you suffer Damage or Horror, draw that many cards from the matching deck and take them faceup unless told otherwise. A card marked Resolve Immediately is resolved at once, usually by flipping it facedown. A card marked Keep Faceup has a lasting effect while it stays faceup. When your total Damage, faceup and facedown together, equals your health, you become Wounded. Take the Wounded Condition and discard your facedown Damage. While Wounded, you can take the move action only once per round. If you reach your health in Damage again while Wounded, you are eliminated. Horror works the same way against your sanity, but you become Insane. Take an Insane Condition, discard your facedown Horror, and read the back secretly without showing anyone. It may change how you personally win or lose. If the card's required number of investigators, shown in the bottom corner of its back, is more than you have in the game, discard it and take a different copy. Reaching your sanity in Horror again while Insane eliminates you.

A few card types are worth remembering. You take item cards art side up and may read their backs any time. When you gain a Spell, take a random copy art side up, and don't look at its back until an effect flips it. Casting a Spell flips it, and you resolve the back right away, which usually means discarding it and gaining a fresh copy. Conditions are status effects you gain when told to become something, such as Stunned.

Each monster token shows its awareness, its horror rating, and its brawn, with any special abilities on the back. The app may assign an ID token to a monster; put it in the base, and it stays for as long as that monster is in play.

The square feature tokens don't use the app. A Barricade can be pushed against a door, or pulled away from it, as an action by an investigator in its space. Nothing can move through a blocked door. A monster trying to get through rolls dice equal to its brawn, and on two or more successes the Barricade is discarded and the monster moves on; otherwise the monster doesn't move. In a space with Darkness you can't spend Clues to convert dice or to buy extra puzzle steps. That restriction doesn't apply if you are in or next to a space with a Light Source or Fire. Fire deals you one facedown Damage whenever you move into its space or perform an action there. A monster takes one damage when it starts its activation in Fire or moves into Fire. As an action you can test agility to fight a fire. Each success lets you discard one Fire token from your space, or from a space you move into if you move as part of your second action or later in the round. At the start of every mythos phase, fire spreads: if any space has Fire, add one Fire token to a space next to a burning one. Secret Passages count as adjacent to every other Secret Passage.

Puzzles are played entirely in the app. When told to attempt one, you get puzzle steps equal to the named skill, plus one extra step for each Clue you spend. If it isn't solved when your steps run out, press Close; your progress is saved for you or anyone else to continue later. In a slide puzzle, each step swaps two adjacent pieces to rebuild the picture. In a lock puzzle, each step slides one piece along its own direction, with no overlapping or passing through other pieces, and you win by getting the special goal piece out the far right side. In a code puzzle, each step is a guess, and pieces can repeat. Each success symbol means one piece is right and in the right spot. Each magnifying glass means one piece is right but in the wrong spot. The in game menu also has a message log, so you can reread anything the app has said.

As for how it ends, there is no score and no tiebreaker. The scenario's true objective is hidden at first. Once your investigation has progressed far enough, the app reveals it as one final task, and you all win the moment the investigation is complete. Take too long and the objective may change or get harder, and if you keep dragging on, you all lose. If any investigator is eliminated, they drop all their possessions in their space and their figure comes off the board. The survivors then get exactly one more investigator phase to finish the investigation. If they don't finish by the end of it, everyone loses, and you select Investigator Eliminated from the in game menu. An investigator with an Insane Condition may instead win or lose by the terms on the back of that card.

A turn, played out

It is round 4. You stand in a space with a Search token, a Darkness token, and 2 monsters. One monster's token shows awareness 3 and horror rating 1. The other shows awareness 1 and horror rating 3. You hold 2 Clues, and your investigator card shows agility 3. The space next to yours, through a doorway, holds a Light Source. You want that Search token. Searching is neither a move nor an attack, so you must evade first. With 2 monsters here, you evade only the one with the highest awareness, the awareness 3 monster. You open the monster drawer, select it, and press Evade. The app shows the agility icon, then a semicolon and 2, so you need 2 successes. You roll 3 dice and get 1 success, 1 magnifying glass and 1 blank. Darkness would normally stop you from spending Clues. But you are next to the Light Source, so you spend 1 Clue to turn the magnifying glass into a success. That makes 2 successes, and you pass. Your Clues drop to 1. Now you carry out the search. You tap the Search token, confirm Search, and the app hands you a Common Item with the ranged icon. For your second action you try to move toward the Light Source. Leaving a space with a monster means evading again, so you test against the awareness 3 monster once more. This time you roll 3 blanks. The effect says you forfeit the action, so you lose the move and stay where you are. Everyone has had a turn, so someone presses end phase. The mythos events resolve, and then each monster activates. Both stay in your space and attack you. Then comes your horror check. Both monsters are in range, so you check against the higher horror rating. That is the awareness 1 monster, with horror 3, and you select it from the drawer. The app has you suffer 2 Horror. Your sanity is 6, and you already hold 4 Horror, faceup and facedown together. The 2 new cards bring you to 6, and you become Insane. You discard your facedown Horror and draw an Insane Condition. You read its back secretly. Its bottom corner needs 4 investigators, but your group has only 3. So you discard it and take a different copy.