--- title: "How to organise Mansions of Madness" subtitle: "Cards and tokens" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-05-12 08:00 date: 2025-05-12 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've been playing a lot of **Mansions of Madness** lately, and I've noticed that I spend way too much time sorting through game assets. A character gains a clue, and I grab the container of interaction tokens instead. A character uses a spell and has to draw a new one, and I grab the Conditions deck instead. There's a special item in the room, and I grab the insanity deck by mistake. I must spend 20 minutes out of an hour just juggling decks and tokens. But after 3 years of play, the correct organisation scheme has finally occurred to me, and it's made a world of difference. I'm explaining it here, just in case you're struggling with all the assets in the game. ## Things and ideas Some cards and tokens represent things or ideas that a character can gain. These are usually physical objects or currency (such as clues or evidence). Well, this is **Mansions of Madness** so even positive things can sometimes be harmful, but These are: * Common Items deck * Unique Items deck * Spell deck * Clue (and keys, from an expansion set) tokens Place those 4 asset types in one area of your gaming table. Any time the game tells you to gain an item, spell, or clue, that's the pool of assets you draw from. ## Conditions and penalties Some items represent conditions and penalties that are usually imposed upon a character, willing or otherwise: * Horror deck * Damage deck * Condiition Because these get used so frequently, I also include assets that help build the board: * Search/Interact tokens * Explore/Sight tokens * Wall, Door, Barricade, Secret Passage tiles * ID tokens Group these assets together in an area of your gaming table apart from your other assets. When you're setting up a new room, or your character has been afflicted (or benefits from a positive condition, like Focused or Fearless), this is the place you reach for. ## Infrequent components Finally, there are some tokens that don't get used consistently: * Person tokens * Fire tokens * Special tokens from expansions Group these assets in a third area of your gaming table, and bring them out as needed. ## Muscle memory Sort your assets this way, and within a single gaming session you develop muscle memory and visual recognition of which area holds what broad type of component. Sure, I still might grab the Search/Interact tokens instead of the Explore/Sight tokens, but that's partly because I keep them in near-identical containers. Even when I do, switching to the correct container is a matter of just picking up _the other similar container_ instead of also picking up the clue tokens and the person tokens and the fire tokens, and so on until I get lucky and pick the right one. Seeing the assets in 3 distinct sets also makes the game setup in general feel less intimidating. Yes, there are a lot of assets, but a big, impenetrable, all-inclusive pile is greater than the sum of its parts. Split them into smaller categories and you trick your brain into believing there are only a few assets to keep track of. Next time you play **Mansions of Madness**, give it a try.

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