Hi, my name is Paul Grogan and welcome to the first in a two-part series of gaming rules videos where I'm going to be helping you learn how to play Gloomhaven, a fantasy cooperative adventure game with linked scenarios and an evolving game world. In this video, I'm going to be covering the overall campaign setting, how you create a party of adventurers and interact with the campaign map. You will learn how your character levels up and how the city of Gloomhaven grows as the campaign progresses. If you want to see how a scenario plays out in detail and how the combat system works, then you'll need to watch the other video in the series by clicking on the link just up here. However, you will need to watch both videos to get a good overview of how the game plays. When you start a game of Gloomhaven, even if you're just going to play one individual scenario, you first need to create your party of adventurers. Each player chooses one of the characters available, taking the character map, the ability cards and a character sheet to record information. When you start a new campaign, all characters will start at level 1 with zero experience points. You also start with 30 gold pieces, which you can use to buy your initial equipment from the city. At the start of the campaign, only items 1-14 are available to you, so let's say you spend your 30 gold on buying some leather armour and a minor stamina potion. These items are placed beneath your character map. Every new character also starts with a personal quest. Draw two cards and choose one. This is your character's primary goal in the campaign. A group of characters who have adventure together form a party, and certain pieces of information about the group are recorded on the party sheet. One important piece of information on here is the party's reputation, which will rise or fall based on the things that happen during the campaign. Reputation affects the price of items from the shops, but it can also have other effects to the campaign too. When playing a scenario, the core mechanics involve the playing of ability cards, and each character class comes with a wide range of them. When you first create a character, the only ones you can use are marked as either a level 1 or level X. This recommended for your first game to use only the ones with the 1, since the ones with the X are more complex and situational. As your character levels up, you will gain access to higher level ability cards, although you don't just add these to your deck. The number of cards you play with in a scenario will always be equal to the number shown here on your character map. So for each new one you add, it replaces one of your existing cards. This is the campaign board, which is used to track things that happen in the world. The numbered circles are potential scenario locations, which are unlocked through the course of the campaign. And at the very start of the campaign, you'll be instructed to add the first sticker to the board, meaning that scenario 1, the black barrow, is unlocked. As the campaign progresses, more and more stickers will be added to the board, unlocking more scenarios. Whenever your party travels to a location, a road event must be resolved. You'll be able to top card from the road event deck and follow the instructions on it. You'll be presented with a choice, and once you have made your decision, flip the card over to see what happens. Once an event is resolved, it's either placed at the bottom of the deck, so it could occur again later in the campaign, or if it has this icon, it's removed from the game instead. One cool thing about the road event deck is that it evolves as the campaign progresses, with extra cards being added into the deck based on choices that you make during the campaign. Once you have completed a road event, you then set up the chosen scenario using the scenario book. This 122 page book contains a map of each scenario along with story text to tie the scenario in to the larger campaign. Completing a scenario will give you specific rewards, which could include achievements, which may be required to play other scenarios. Party achievements are tracked on the party sheet. And global achievements are tracked at the top of the game board. Now I can't say too much about this without giving any spoilers away, but when a global achievement is unlocked, a sticker is placed on one of these spaces. At the bottom of the campaign board is where you track the prosperity of Gloomhaven. Certain events or scenarios will increase the prosperity of the city, and when it reaches a new prosperity level, new items become available at the shops. For example, when Gloomhaven reaches prosperity level 2, items 15 through 21 are added to the city's supply, giving you new shiny items to purchase at the city. At various times during the campaign, your party of adventurers will want to return to the city of Gloomhaven. If your character has the required number of experience points for the next level, they can level up in the city. Leveling up does three things. First, your characters' hit points increase as shown on your character map. Secondly, you gain access to other ability cards, as mentioned earlier. You can use a card if the level number on it is equal to or lower than your level. And finally, each time you level up, you can mark one of the perk boxes on the right side of your character sheet. These perks allow you to permanently change your attack modifier deck, which is used during a scenario. I'll explain this deck more in the other video. Also in the city you can buy and sell items. You sell items at half the listed price, and remember that the items available to you depend on the prosperity level of Gloomhaven. Once per visit to Gloomhaven, the party may complete a city event. These function in the same way as road events, but have a generally better outcome for the party. This one, for example, gives you the opportunity to either help the town, or maybe not. I mentioned your character's personal quest earlier on in the video. Now, once you've completed this personal quest, the next time you return to Gloomhaven, you must retire the character. Now, this isn't a bad thing, because every time you retire a character, some new content of the game is unlocked, opening an extra one of these character boxes, for example. Also, the prosperity of Gloomhaven goes up by one, and you get to open the secret town records book the first time a character retires. When you create a new character, it comes into play at the prosperity level of the city, so you don't have to start back at level one when everyone else is a much higher level. And that's a very short overview of how the campaigning Gloomhaven works. There's going to be a lot more details on how the actual scenarios play out in the second video. But if you've got any questions, feel free to ask. And if you like what you've seen here, and you want to see some more of my other videos, then please subscribe to the channel. Until next time, take care, and thanks for watching.