"Good evening... Welcome to the Black Morn estate, where evil dwells, and the Unknown creeps, and crawls, and slithers through the dark of a moonless night." - (Opening sentence to the rules of "Chill: Black Morn Manor")

Originally released in the mid-eighties by the now (and long) defunct, Pacesetter Games, "Chill: Black Morn Manor" is a real gem and truly one of my favorite games to date!

The basic premise is that there is an evil being (or beings in the case of a certain card or two) referred to as "The Master" that haunts the halls and grounds of Black Morn Manor. Under the evil influence of The Master, one player takes on the role of "Minion", and this player's job is to help defeat the other players and keep The Master alive. The other players take on the roles of "Envoys" (a carry-over from the "Chill" role-playing game in which players work for a supernatural investigative organization called S.A.V.E.) and it is their job to find a particular item that The Master is vulnerable to, take it to a particular place in Black Morn Manor, confront The Master and (hopefully) defeat him/her. One interesting twist in the game is that Envoys can be turned into Minions and vice versa via a few different events or maneuvers.

The game board is made up of a series of square tiles that the players place during their turns. Some tiles must be kept together as "sets" while others can go most anywhere. The resulting "board" will be a square composed of 48 tiles featuring Manor tiles (chambers) and Grounds tiles (topiaries, lawns, etc.)

The game has everything: Cards that feature bizarre encounters or powers or healing abilities or items, combat (between Envoys and Minions and Envoys and The Master), tile-laying, side-switching, etc.

Setting this one up at conventions ALWAYS draws interested parties which typically means 6-player (maximum) games!

Why no one has re-released this gem in a new edition is beyond me!

A couple negatives: The rules are a little sloppy. There's not too much here to stumble around in, but some aspects of the short rulebook are a little vague resulting in a few house rules. Another problem (and this really has only happened once) a 6-player game I once participated in went on for almost three hours, and even then, we had to pull the proverbial plug and end it because we were all getting a bit frustrated. Basically, any time a Minion would almost win, he would somehow be made good again or vice versa. Again, I have only seen this happen once.

All-in-all, "Chill: Black Morn Manor" is a well-themed, genuinely creepy game that I will certainly revisit again and again!!!

Scott Alan Woodard of the San Fernando Valley Gamers (#116),

I agree on what you say, but I would like to add some other drawbacks:

1) As you mention, the rules are a little bit too short (though short is normally nice). We had to add a couple of rules of our own to the whole tile placement mechanic. The house is a tough one to set up (good) rules for. Sometimes it is hard to know what is an illegal placement, when it may take another 10 tiles to realize that "_that_ one must have been illegal".

2) One of the best things with the game is the whole chilly mystery atmosphere, built up by that envoys don't know which ghastly being is "the Master". Since the original Minion pretty easily is "Cured" (by the card with the same name), that mystery is quickly revealed. Since the Minion is now an envoy, of course he would tell everyone else everything about the Master. The envoys seldom have to make it all the way to the crypt before getting to know the facts in this - as I see it - spoiler way.
We have added a rule to "cure" this problem or at least make it happen less often:
'Until the first Minion has already been an Envoy, he is not effected by the card "Cured"'.
In this way, the envoys and the Minion have to meet before the Master can be revealed in the "spoiler way".

Despite these to drawbacks, Black Morn Manor is an excellent game with a whole lot of replayability!

Nirkit (#19137),

I definitely agree with what you're saying. The rules leave out a few important points. For example, playing by the rules it's entirely possible to surround an incomplete manor with yard tiles so that the remaining manor tiles cannot be legally placed. If the Master's favorite haunt is among the remaining manor tiles, the envoys can't win! It's easy enough to patch this up by adding a rule or two and bending others if necessary.

I also agree with your second point. Usually the minion is cured before the envoys reach the crypt to discover who the Master is. This kind of bothers me too. The same thing happens with the Master Appears card, which usually reveals the Master's identity way before the envoys have reached the Crypt. We have just accepted it as part of the game so far, but your fix would be interesting to try.

A couple of other quirks I've noticed. There are two Master cards that have two instead of one Master on them. These are terrible because they make the game last forever. We never play with them. Also, since players switch sides a lot and have their game objective completely reverse, the game can last forever sometimes. We've had a few games where we just had to quit after a couple hours because it was just going back and forth too long.

All of those complaints aside, I think this is one of the very best horror games there is. The rules are not perfect and the components could be better, but the atmosphere is incredible and that's what a good horror game should be all about.

Nirkit (#19137),

I don't own this game, but I'm familiar with the rules and it seems fairly obvious that the original minion switching sides is usually going to be the first source of information about the master, as you suggest.

I wonder if it would seriously unbalance the game to simply declare that the original minion cannot be "cured" and must spend the whole game working against the envoys. This would have several beneficial effects as I see it:
1) It'd ensure the mystery of the master lasts until an envoy vists the crypt.
2) It'd ensure that the (admittedly unlikely) position of everyone playing envoys could never arise.
3) It'd marginally lessen the number of times envoys switch to minions (since the original minion ignores this effect) thus lessening the likelyhood of it turning into a marathon game.

Anyone tried this, or got ideas on how it'd work?

MattDP (#19309),

I don't think it would really change the game that much. It certainly wouldn't unbalance it (the game is not necessarily balanced to begin with). I personally enjoy the drama that the side switching creates, so I'll probably stick to the regular rules, but it would be an interesting variant to try.

robartin (#19330),

The solution to revealing the Master early is that anyone that knows who the Master is may not tell any one else. Just consider it a spell that will disallow your character from speaking about it. This adds so much more to the game.

Also, I play where while certain tiles must be played together when able, after those tiles are blocked off players may start say... an orchard again somewhere else, otherwise I feel it holds back the progression of the game.

Nirkit (#19137),

If I were the original minion, and I was cured, I wouldn't share that information with my team. I would start walking on graves and hoping to lose my willpower points to become a minion again. This behavior is actually pretty common in the games I have played, given that most of us grew up playing Diplomacy. Heck, playing Dip warps the way that you play most games

We always just built a second "house" if the initial set of house tiles got surrounded. The justification: "This over here is the manor house, so this is the guest house! And these are a servant quarters. How they can afford that piano we'll never know. I think they're stealing from us!"

It worked.

Yep, been playing this game for over 20 years and our house-rule is that the Original Minion can NEVER become an Envoy.

House-Rule, yes, but better to keep that 'evil' opposition in the game - makes for a 'chilling' time!