Random games or players choose?

[abomination]

We generally do a random board, and usally the hero player gets to pick one of their heros.

[munkymuddface]

Initially, we started with choosing the Scenario, but boards and characters were all random. Having played through all of the Scenarios available, we do everything Random.

[Esturk]

We do all random. Everyone chooses their heroes face down, Scenario the same way, then each hero player chooses an L board face down.

[Diskhotep]

All random, all the time... unless it's a demo/first-time player group, in which case I'll typically set up the board for Manor House or one of the item search scenarios.

[Rullys]

A combination. We always choose the scenario and characters, then we randomly lay out the game board.

[Garaile]

Definitely random, though for most of my friends we end up running Escape in the Truck, simply because I find it the easiest to explain to new(er) players.

[Wasteland Jack]

I don't have LNOE just ATOE and FanG so the random board thing doesn't come into play. However we always choose villains/vile organizations randomly. Heroes are a little different. In ATOE, we usually let each player take two hero cards face down at random. They then choose from the two who they feel is the best one for the villain. For FanG, usually we just pick at random but I always remove Zhukov from the deck. If you have read my post in the FANG forums, you'll understand why.

[Bokya]

Choose Everything except for the boards. I normally pick a Scenario for my group to play that hasn't currently been done. After that they choose their heroes.

[StayPuft]

For myself and my group, it tends to vary. Having only gotten then game in June of last year (after only playing it once a few months before with friends who owned it), I am still fairly new to the game. So, we tend to choose scenarios so we get a chance to play them all, or because maybe there is one we particularly want to try that day.

We almost always pick heroes randomly, though sometimes we may choose if maybe there is a particular hero or heroes we just felt like using that time. In particular, as I get new heroes, I plan to either specifically select some of the new ones to use in a game. Since getting Growing Hunger, I've only played once thus far, and that was as zombies.

So, what I might do when I first play as heroes is to split the two sets and then take half of however many heroes I am getting from the new set, and half from the original. Or, if we have 4 hero players and I am just therefore getting one hero, I'll select randomly from the new set. That way I get a chance to play as the new heroes.

As far as the L shaped board pieces, we pretty much ALWAYS choose randomly. Whereas playing as the different heroes, or playing the different scenarios can make things very different, we find that the L shaped pieces you pick don't make that big of a difference. I mean, granted you could wind up with better pick-up abilities, but overall it doesn't really feel very different. So, we just always pick the board pieces at random.

[kassle]

We play the following:

*Group chooses most appealing Scenario.
*Random drawn of Boards.
*Individuals choose their own Hero.