An Explorer Diary from “It Belongs in a Museum”
It's a new day and a new adventure awaits. There's just one problem, you don't have 2 shekels to rub together. How are you supposed to go exploring the south American rainforest or the deserts of the middle East without funding? Time to get on your hands and knees and see what the museums are offering.
You find yourself talking with the Head of Special Collections at the Smithsonian museum. He's heard of several rumors for artifact hunters like you but it's the Seal of Solomon that sounds particularly interesting to your team.
The museum leadership says they'll sponsor your expedition and pay your logistics cost if you'll bring the Seal to them - any extra trinkets you find on the way are yours for the taking. That sounds like a reasonable deal so you hire a guide and buy some supplies and you set off with your team in tow.
The expedition winds its way through the desert sands but you're delayed by a massive sandstorm. One of the guides is lost in the storm and another falls to his death when climbing a cliff face but you press on despite these setbacks. You’ve spent weeks marching through the desert, dehydrated and with blisters on your feet. In the misery of the journey you wonder why you do it; Why put yourself through this hardship for some old junk? And then you see it; Rising out of the desert sands is the lost temple and your adrenaline starts to pump.
Upon reaching your destination, you find the ancient temple is riddled with traps. Spiked pit traps and poisoned arrows injure you and your compatriots as you navigate it’s gloomy corridors. But something is out of place that you struggle to put your finger on.
Eventually you find the inner sanctum and the resting place of the Seal. A plain wooden box rests on the dais at the far end of the room but there’s an enormous cavern between you and it. With a little ingenuity and some good old fashioned resourcefulness, you tie some vines into a makeshift swing and make it to the other side.
You’re just about to open the lid of the wooden box as the realization hits you - there were no cobwebs in the corridors and there’s no sand on the box. Someone has been here recently. Your fears are realized when you discover that the box is empty.
You’re discussing the situation and deciding on the next course of action when your researcher comes offers a drastic solution. He tells you he has enough reference material that he could fashion a forgery and you could deliver that to the museum and they’d be none-the-wiser. It’s a bold move and one you’re reluctant to take, but the shame of coming back empty handed is a hard pill to swallow. Eventually you agree and make your way back home with your “prize” in hand hoping that no one looks too close. After all, the artifact will likely go in a display case as soon as the museum gets it. What they don’t know won’t harm anyone and you’ll still get the fame and glory of the retrieval.
It has been several weeks since your departure when you arrive back at the museum, but it looks like the museum has had trials of its own. A massive explosion has ripped apart the exhibit hall and several artifacts have gone missing. The Head of Special Acquisitions informs you that they were raided by a group known as "The League" and they've stolen several powerful artifacts. There’s a war brewing and he believes that the perpetrators were government agents out to support their countries war efforts.
You hand over the Seal of Solomon to the museum. With all that’s going on you hope it’ll go on display quickly when they get the exhibit hall back up and running. Hopefully the validity of the artifact isn’t questioned and they’ll be happy with the retrieval.
The next day you get a telegram from the Head of Special Acquisitions and your heart sinks. You’re sure you’ve been found out for your dishonesty but as you scan the page it’s to inform you that he knows the location of Pandoras Box and he wants your team to retrieve it. He goes on to say that it simply must not fall into enemy hands and time will be of the utmost importance. All expenses have already been paid and to ensure delivery he tells you he’s coming with you. You leave tonight!
I wrote this to give you a taste of the stories you’ll find yourself in the middle of when you play It belongs in a museum. The theme is really strong and there’s lots of room for player creativity. If you haven’t read it yet, there’s a whole page set up to explain the teams and roles so make sure you check that out over on the dukes website. Here’s the direct link for that.
This game plays a maximum of 43 players - that’s 10 teams of explorers with 3 players on each team, 5 museums of 2 players each (except the Japanese get a third) and 2 news reporters who will get into as much trouble as the other players. If you sign up as a pre-built team of 2-3, I’ll definitely make sure you’re on the same team as your friends. I’ll be sending out a pre-game survey in a few weeks where you can pick your preferences on which team you want to play as and I’ll do my best to match you up accordingly (though no promises).
^ One of the explorers bragging about his adventures (Image curtesy of Becky Becky Blogs).
It’s also very control heavy - in fact it’s the highest control count we’ve ever had. There will be 11 of us so a huge 1:4 ratio of facilitators to players. That’s really important in this game because expeditions work a little like RPG dungeons where you’ll be led through the story, rolling dice and solving problems as they arise.
I’ve been working on components this month and there are over 2000 cards to print out which contain expedition encounters, equipment, museum hazards and artifacts to name a few. There’s also a map so you can track where each expedition is going in the world and see where your competitors have been. I’m going to let teams bring their own map markers so they can personalize their game. I’d love to see things like pirate gold or shark teeth used as expedition markers.
The game also requires dozens of puzzles and mini-games that you’ll have to solve/win when you want to research or at the end of an expedition. Many of these are physical wooden-block puzzles or children’s dexterity games that we’ve repurposed and rebalanced. For example, you might find yourself grabbing the artifact from an Egyptian sarcophagus where the last challenge is a round of Bed Bugs where you have to use tweezers to remove the “scarab beetles” as they’re bouncing around.
^ One of the mini games used in the UK run (image curtesy of Becky Becky Blogs)
Anyway, I hope that’ll whet your appetite for this game, I’m really excited for it and I hope you’ll join us. Please consider picking up your tickets sooner rather than later so we know how many players will be attending and we can get the pre-game survey out.