--- title: "Gates of Silverwood Manor" subtitle: "Mansions of Madness scenario review" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-04-24 08:00 date: 2025-04-24 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: haunted-house-1600x800.jpg show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [ gaming, modules ] --- I'm playing through all the **Mansions of Madness** scenarios I own, and reviewing each one as I go. **Gates of Silverwood Manor** is a 4-star difficulty scenario from the expansion set **Beyond the Threshold**. In the scenario, police officer Tetsuo Mori asks for your help with some missing persons cases. It seems that people go into Silverwood Manor and never come out again. So obviously your first move is to go into Silverwood Manor to investigate! This review contains no plot spoilers, but there are some spoilers about new mechanics. My short review for those who want to avoid all spoilers: This is a strong scenario that I'd happily use as an introductory adventure to the game. It's got the exact right mix of exploration to combat, and a nice steady increase in challenge as the scenario progresses. ## The odd parts I don't have anything bad to say about this scenario, but there are 2 notable quirks. First of all, officer Tetsuo Mori feels pretty pointless. Maybe to someone new to Lovecraft and new to the game would find him helpful but I felt like every conversation I had with him was a waste of my turn. He's the kind of **Mansions of Madness** NPC that really exposes the weakness of having an automated game master. Even though he clearly has only 1 thing to say, the app never stops providing new conversation prompts as if though he has more to impart. It feels like an intentional part of the game design, a trick to get players to throw away an action. If it is intentional, it's a mechanic I don't enjoy. If it's not intentional, then it's broken. That said, it's a minor problem, and possibly not a problem at all. I'm pretty well invested in Lovecraftian fiction and games, so I don't need prompting to go stop occult rituals from happening. But maybe somebody else needs Mori there to stare at them all glassy-eyed while droning on about closing portals. Secondly, this scenario has a surprisingly dynamic board. Without going into spoilers, the board definitely changes more than even in [Rising Tide](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_review-mansions-of-madness-rising-tide). It keeps you on your toes as a player, but also it's extra work. There's a lot of board maintenance in general in **Mansions of Madness**, between setting up tiles and placing tokens and dealing cards and clue tokens, so this is yet more to do during the game. It's not bad, and in fact it's pretty exciting, but it is a little extra effort. ## The good parts If you'd never heard of it before, and I invited you to play a game called **Mansions of Madness**, this scenario is exactly what you'd imagine. It's set in a mansion, and the main character of the story is the mansion itself. The mansion is doing strange things, maybe eating people, maybe stealing them away to an alternate dimension, maybe transforming them—you don't know what, but anyway it's up to no good. What you end up witnessing inside the mansion makes no logical sense. It's threatening and unsettling. This scenario perfectly embodies the very title of the game. The story strikes a perfect balance between exploration and conflict. To find out what needs to be done, you have to explore. And then you have to explore more to find the objectives you've identified. Along the way, of course, there are threats both physical and mental. Sometimes that involves a horror check, other times it's combat, and still other times it's something special for this adventure. During my playthrough, 2 of my 4 investigators went insane. One almost died, but did manage to survive through some cautious play. The **Beyond the Threshold** expansion introduces a new token type, called a _key_. A key token doesn't represent a literal physical key for a lock, but a conceptual key that's significant to the mystery at hand. At least in this scenario, you gain items that can't be dropped or stolen from you, and that you can use to add successes to certain dice rolls. It's not a game changing mechanic, but it does feel like a nice iteration on the concept of _evidence_ from scenarios like **Cycle of Eternity** and **Escape from Innsmouth**. There are advantages to both the evidence and key mechanics. Evidence can be dropped, so keeping evidence safe is a strategic consideration when the win condition depends on you possessing a certain amount of evidence. A key is permanent, and it plays a role during the course of the scenario, not just as a win condition at the end. This makes for 2 new mechanics in this scenario: A dynamic board layout and key tokens. If don't feel the need to justify the purchase of an expansion, but if I did then I think this adventure feels different enough from the main game's scenarios to be worth the price. The mechanics and new storylines are obviously just part of the value. There are also 2 new characters (Akachi and Wilson) and a new monster miniature, and a new spell (Poison Mist, which is really good). ## Actual rating This was a fun scenario. I'll absolutely replay it, probably at least enough times to get each investigator through it. I have no complaints, and strongly recommend this as either an introductory scenario, or as yet another delve into an evil mansion for experienced players. * **Combat**: Medium (chances of combat throughout, with a ramp up at the end) * **Investigation**: Medium (you must explore your way to the solution, but the solution is obvious) * **Horror**: Medium (the usual monsters) * **Difficulty**: Medium (a nice steady ramp up in challenge throughout the scenario)

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