The Crimson Crocodile – Initial Impressions Review (Patreon)

Potential Spoilers for:

• The Crimson Crocodile Showdown elements Levels 1 to 3
• Crimson Crocodile Hunt Events

This week we're going to take a surface level review of the first monster in Gambler's Chest Expansion (GCE); I can't fully explore monsters without many, many sessions and a full spreadsheet dissection of them, but I do think writing about the “player experience” is a very valid and useful thing to be doing right bow. This is why I'm slowly working my way through the GCE campaign and then breaking out reviews here and there between session reports; it just lets me give a raw set of experiences that are closer to the kind of ones someone who doesn't sit steeped in this game the way that I have to. I get the surprises that lack of knowledge delivers and I get to feel if I the surprise was a fair one that either I could have seen coming, or did see coming. I think in hard games which reward knowledge gained more than immediate skill there is a lot of value to having that “blind experience” with the hunts and showdowns so one can properly review it all further down the line.

The Crimson Crocodile (hereafter called the Croc) is the GCE's "White Lion", it's the first monster one encounters and it also has a similar fit into the campaign's narrative where it doesn't tie into the main story instead it has the function of existing as a part of world building, setting and mood.  What's important with a monster like this is how well its personality and behaviours are expressed, that text on the reactions in particular is an area where designers give the monster not just mechanical actions, but they also get to give a little flavour and spice to how those actions happen. AI cards in contrast tend to rarely have those kind of moments where one can savour the tanginess of who the monster is over what they do.

The thing that the Croc reminds me most of all as far as its personality is concerned is a Crocodile Disney animal villain. What I mean by that is it has this playful meanness with some silly moments that belay its threat, and it only gets serious when threatened. It's a goofy looking weirdo, but its still dangerous despite how it winks and giggles at the survivors. The contrast in how its reactions are described once you're dealing with a coagulated hit location is great. The monster switches from being playful goofball who's having a fun time to instead being a serious and threatened creature fighting to the death. The AI cards on the other hand do have some descriptive text, but these tend to be on cards like traits, moods and intimidates. Move & Attack cards are generally less about flavour and more about business/mechanics. 

One of the moments that I really liked about the expression of the Croc is that first AI card encountered during the prologue. The first AI card card is always an important card, because not only does it set the tone for the entire experience, it also in the prologue exists to teach players key mechanics for the monster. 21,000 Newton Bite does an incredible amount of work here; not only does it have a ludicrously high damage number that says “Hey the GCE isn't messing around.” but it also teaches players that insanity is an important point of protection when facing the Croc beyond just its normal functions like preventing brain trauma (while also hinting that the Croc will be using insanity as part of its main attack vector).

As an aside, because these are the kind of things I end up going down the rabbit hole on, the numbers used and how they are expressed are kind of interesting. For a start the way that this number is expressed is a little hard to get the exact context in respect to the power of the bite. Bite strength is an interaction between the size of the animal and its jaw power, so very small animals can have incredible bite force for their size and larger animals get larger numbers but the bite force quotient (BFQ) drops due to the relationship between them. (Also not using PSI here muddies the issue further).

Humans for example can typically have a Newton bite force in the region of 280-300N, but individuals who grind their teeth in their sleep, or habitually tense their jaw can get to over twice that. In the animal kingdom it's very hard to get accurate numbers because wild animals are not going to cooperate, but estimations can be found (based on analysis of bone and muscle structure). Some of the big hitters are:

• Hippo – 8,100N
• American Alligator & Shortfin Mako Shark – 13,000N
• Saltwater Crocodile – 16,400N
• Great White Shark – 18,200N
• Nile Crocodile – 22,000N

The T-Rex is in places estimated to be at 35,000N and the Orca/Killer Whale at 84,500N. While the absolutely massive and extinct Megalodon has been estimated to be somewhere between 108,500N to 182,000N. (These are all rough estimates and numbers can vary, so you may find others).

This means the Nile Crocodile looks like our closest real world comparison we can find (especially given they're both Crocodylidae). However, in order to consider this matter fully, we're missing the second part of the puzzle, which is the size of the biter. Our comparison real world crocodile, the Nile Crocodiles has a maximum size which seems to be around 16.4ft/5m in length and weighs in at around 600kg/1,300lbs). 

The Crimson Crocodile on the other hand is a considerably larger creature (well it's a miniature, but you get what I mean). As such an exact size is difficult to determine, but if we assume that survivors are around 6ft/182cm tall, then we can estimate that the length of the Crimson Crocodile is somewhere in the region of 36ft/1097cm in length and probably weighs around 1,500 to 2,000kg (3306 to 4409lbs). So now that 21,000N bite is looking a bit weedy for its size, don't get me wrong it's still a really nasty bite, it's just weaker than I'd expect for the size of the Croc and that was interesting to learn. One would expect instead a bite at over 40,000N instead. I wonder what made Team Death settle on the 21,000N total, maybe one day we'll find out.

To get back on topic however, I think this card does a really good job of setting astute players up to understand the value of insanity without being “all in” the way that the Crimson Snap and Basic Action are. One would expect a more dangerous prologue fight in this advanced KDM expansion, and we get one; with the monster showcasing a lot of different bite styles and also a range attack with Hail of Fingers. I think that the Prologue Croc is really well done even though it is a bit cheeky for the monster to have an Impervious hit location on top of its deck, it's a place for a Founding Stone chuck and it also lets the Coagulated Hit Locations get into the mix, or at least demonstrate that those extra hit locations are a mechanic that's triggered on critical wounds.

It's a good prologue monster for the kind of veteran player who should be starting the GCE and I think that its expression here, both through that fun campaign introductory story and the experience here is well done. No notes.

Going after the non-prologue Crocs brings the hunt phase into the experience and at this point it's worth noting that the Croc offers a way to get Inner Lantern in the Hunt Phase and Paint during the Showdown. Those are both interesting innovation gains because while they are absolute essentials for a settlement, gaining them early can stunt the settlement's growth by reducing access to the more powerful options that help the lower settlement limit world early settlements live in. For my first campaign I got Inner Lantern very early, but that has meant I am struggling to get Family, Clan of Death and Saga. I like these kind of spots in game design where something is a benefit for the player, but there are noticeable drawbacks as well.

The Hunt Events themselves are also a very interesting mix of insanity drain, punishment (focused around Immortal/Terrified, more on that later) and resource generation (including an indomitable resource). There's a host of notable occurrences, details and mechanics here and I'd really like to highlight the hunt card Lantern Mites, an event that puts Terrified onto a Survivor and they absolutely, cannot remove it. While this isn't a big issue if it is a scout with the Stone Face Cloak, it's quite a big one if this lands on your front line survivor. This is exactly the kind of hard that I appreciate, there's a real change to the texture of the showdown and a place where a serious challenge is thrown by the game, a fair, but difficult challenge. This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see the game throw at its players and I am here for it.

The showdown even without the “permanently” terrified survivor is a fun and engaging challenge to navigate, with the Croc assaulting the survivors on two fronts at the same time, the first being the usual physical attacks and the second being the terrified mechanic descending upon survivors who run out of insanity during the showdown. Terrified not only makes survivors unable to guard against attacks, but it also scales up the croc's attacks to devastating levels.

I also love the way that the Croc sets the tempo of the showdown to a high speed, not only does it have a lower toughness and the terrified mechanic, but it also has a trap that puts a survivor on a death clock and right at the top end of its power level the Croc will turn up the danger with a mechanic that demands either the survivors burst it down or weather a storm of swift teeth and absolute power (though you can hide a Scout to guarantee the win if you have the Stone Face Cloak, which can potentially save an otherwise lost cause. I love a monster that dictates the pace of the showdown to the survivors and the Croc is a masterclass in that.

This mixture of indomitable resources and collective cognition making higher level showdown fights worth the risk; and the monster's anti-stalling design combine with a fantastic selection of gear options to give us a monster that shows growth, development and understanding on the part of Team Death's approach to game design. Original KDM is still an excellent game, but monsters like the Crimson Crocodile highlight progression and improvement which means we're looking at a probably bright future for the game and only the pace of development can hold the game back. I for one want to see more Node 1 options on the level of the Crimson Crocodile released, it's the part of the game where the highest amount of the player base spends their time and the Croc is so satisfying on all levels that I want to see something like this monster released on a yearly basis.

So in summary. It's good, it's really good.

Next time we'll catch up on my first settlement's preparation for the arrival of Atnas!