The Cauldron Revisited

Ok, I admit I’m on record as being anti-Cauldron. After digging in to this fan created expansion and forgiving some artistic issues from earlier versions, I’ve gotta admit that this expansion has kinda grown on me.

I know that Handelabra is adamant about not adding this expansion, but I think with some heavy duty playtesting and some tweaks that the expansion would be an amazing addition to an already amazing game.

I would love to see Baccarat or St. Simeons Catacombs in the game some day although that may just be wishful thinking.

They've always said Steam Workshop might be a thing way off in the way way distant, entirely theoretical future! I figure that's the only way we'd get Cauldron digitally, anyway.

Legally this can not and will not ever happen unless >G bought full rights to the fan made creations and I don't see any reason why they would need or want to do that.

Fan made stuff is great for the community. I've never played a Cauldron deck but I know what they are and have appreciation and respect for the community around them. However, they don't really belong in official channels and can't be endorsed

+1

I personally feel like we have so many choices, I don't need more. 

On the other hand, I've had the creative bug hit me and actually have some of my own fan-made decks that I enjoy, so I definitely understand and appreciate how much fun it can be. 

I understand the legal issues. And I agree, to an extent, that community made expansions don’t belong in official channels.

I love SotM. I own the first edition, Enhanced Edition and every expansion including Villains which I never play. My biggest issue with it is the fiddliness involved with the tabletop version. This issue makes the Villain style games unplayable for my group.

Normally I play the game with friends or play on the app. This weekend I decided to break out the cards and go solo. 3 hours later after playing a single game and losing I questioned my life choices.

I guess my point is that while I’m really coming around to the Cauldron, it’s not something I’ll ever really get a chance to play, which is a shame. For me, I would love to have these decks in an application mainly for the book-keeping so that I could actually play them.

If Handelabra does eventually add a Steam Workshop option that would be great.

What was your setup that took 3 hours for a loss? Vengence format? That's rough going for a solitare day.

I’ve had similar experiences before which is why I rarely break out the boxed set unless playing with friends. The time before this I was playing with the Dark Watch team but can’t remember the villain or the environment.

This time around I was playing around with the Cauldron decks. Using Baccarat, Starlight, Malichae, and Necro versus Dendron in St. Simeon’s Catacombs. It didn’t take long to get a feel for the heroes, villain, or environment. Most of my time was spent tracking hit points, damage reduction, damage bonuses, immunities, etc.

There's been an agreement with Greater than Games to allow printing of the cards at DriveThruCards, so it might not be impossible,  especially as the "greater multiverse" is expanding.  

There was even a discussion around the time of the Season 2 Kickstarter where Mathew Bishop gave his tacit OK for folks to code it up in Steam Workshop if that option ever emerged on boardgamegeek:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1447511/cauldron-second-edition-new-logos/page/8

But I'd back a Kickstarter for a digital Sentinels of the Cauldronverse Season 1 in a heartbeat...not that there's any lack of new material for the near future.  But good to keep all the irons in the oven hot,  and they did mention they are getting caught up with the currently available Sentinels of the Multiverse material, so... :)

Considering GtG is already working with Green Ronin to make Sentinels of Earth-Prime, I don't see why they couldn't do the same in the future to bring an official Cauldron set to us. The creator has already published a game called Norsaga so they are an official company now and thus could possibly work something out, though most likely with new artwork not featuring any SotM content so it'll be its own standalone game like Sentinels of Earth-Prime, just using the SotM "engine".