Chronicles of Crime: Welcome to Redview
Chronicles of Crime: Welcome to Redview Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
- 15 Location Boards
- 6 Character Boards
- 4 Dice
- 30 Character Cards
- 10 Special Item Cards
- 12 Energy tokens
Chronicles of Crime requires a free application, which you can download from Apple's App Store or Google Play (currently requires Android 4.4 or newer, iOS 8.0 or newer, this may change in the future). You only need to have the app installed on one phone or tablet to play. It's impossible to play without the app. Once downloaded, the app doesn't require any internet connection during gameplay. The language can be changed within the application.
Setup
Welcome to Redview is an expansion of Chronicles of Crime. You will need the base game to play it.
Set up the game like the base game, with the following changes:
- Location boards, Special Item cards and Character cards are specific to Redview. You can easily spot the Redview Cards with the baseball cap icon. You need the Evidence Category cards and Evidence board from the base game to play.
- Each player chooses one character and takes the relevant Character board.
- Each player takes as many Energy tokens as the number of circular Energy slots on their Character board. Energy tokens should be placed face up on the Character boards (energy token icon).
- Each player takes one die and places it next to their Character board.
The Town and Home Location
All four scenarios of this expansion take place in Redview - a small American town in the 1980s.
You play as a group of teenagers. You call yourselves "The Redview Mystery Gang". Your Home location (house icon) is the treehouse. The difference between the base game and Redview is that you cannot play during the night! You are kids, so every day at 10pm you have to go back home before your parents freak out.
To finish the day, go back to the Home location (house icon) and press the GO TO SLEEP button.
Don't stay out too late at night! Your parents will worry and your final score may be lower because of that!
Role Playing
You are not some anonymous investigators but teenagers who take a keen interest in the town's mysteries. Inside the box, you will find 6 Character boards with different strengths and weaknesses. Each player needs to select one of them at the beginning of each scenario. Try to build a balanced team so you will be able to pull through different types of events.
Have fun with your character and don't hesitate to act as if you were the character!
Each character is defined by three Skills:
- Fitness represents your strength and agility. (running icon)
- Speech represents your ability to interact, bluff and read emotions. (speaking head icon)
- Mind represents your wits, knowledge and perception. (lightbulb icon)
Tests
In Welcome to Redview, you can't call any Forensic contacts for help. Smartphones won't be around for at least another fifteen years and the Internet is only a good sci-fi theme. Thankfully you are resourceful kids and you will be able to overcome many obstacles by using your three skills: Fitness, Speech and Mind.
When the app displays one or more skill icons, it means that you can perform some special action. If there is more than one icon available, you should discuss among yourselves and choose one action which fits with how you would like to approach the situation, or which corresponds with the Skill you feel is strong in your team.
Press the chosen skill icon on the screen and perform the test.
To do the test, each player rolls one die and adds their character's corresponding skill value to the result.
- A result of 5 or 6 means one success.
- A result of 7 or more means two successes.
Players perform the test simultaneously.
To pass the test, you need to obtain a number of successes equal to the number of players.
After the test, you will have to press the right button in the app to find out the outcome of your success or failure.
Test Difficulty Levels
Some tests are easy (green running icon) or hard (red running icon). When such a test appears, you need to modify the value of each die rolled by:
- +1 in easy tests.
- -1 in hard tests.
Energy
At the beginning of the scenario, each player takes as many Energy tokens as indicated on their Character board. You can spend an Energy token to perform the test again. You can spend as many as you want, but only for your own rolls!
The order of actions during the test is:
- All the players roll one die each and add modifiers (skill value and -1 or +1 if the test is hard or easy).
- The players check how many successes they acquired.
- The players decide one by one if they want to use Energy tokens to perform additional Energy rolls.
- Any additional success acquired through an Energy roll is added to the group's number of successes until the test is passed or until players decide not to spend any more Energy tokens (therefore failing the test).
Whenever you use an Energy token, you should flip it to its inactive side (inactive Energy token icon).
At the beginning of each new day, all players flip all their inactive Energy tokens to their active side again.
If the group is forced to use an Energy token, one player has to flip a token to its inactive side.
If all of your Energy tokens have already been flipped to their inactive side, the game continues without any further penalty.
Example of a Test
Alex, Victoria and Sarah decide to solve a situation using the Speech skill. It is a hard test!
They all roll one die each. Alex gets a 3. Unfortunately, her Speech skill value is 2 so she fails the test (3+2-1=4, which is lower than 5, the minimum required to succeed).
Sarah rolls a 6! Her Speech value is only 1, but she succeeds anyway (1+6-1=6, which is enough to succeed).
Victoria rolls a 3. Her Speech is 3 so she succeeds! (3+3-1=5)
The group has only obtained two successes so far, so the situation is tough. Alex does not have any active Energy tokens left, so she can't try to perform the test again. Sarah knows that doing the test again is not a good idea because her low Speech skill value gives her little chance of getting another success.
Victoria's high Speech value is the best chance for the group. She decides to perform the test again using her only Energy token left. She rolls a 5, which gives her two successes (5+3-1=7).
The group therefore obtained four successes in total (Sarah got 1, Victoria first roll got 1, Victoria Energy roll got 2) which means they passed the test since they needed at least three successes total.