It seems that every board has half its other worlds good and the other half bad, except for Kingsport.

Arkham Horror

Good

Great Hall of Celeano

City of the Great Race

The Dreamlands

(umm not sure what the forth is)

Bad

R'lyeh

Abyss

(not sure wheather Plateu of Leng is the good or Yuggoth)

Dunwich Horror

Good

Another Time

Bad

Lost Carcosa

Kingsport Horror

Good

(none)

Bad

The Underworld

Unknown Kadath

Am I missing something here?

I don't think that was the intention of the other worlds. Each has its good and bad encounters, but some have more bad encounters than others. The colors, however, seem to have a relative hierarchy of difficulty. I would venture to say that Unknown Kadath is the worse of the two, judging mostly that Kevin claimed R'lyeh to be the hardest OW and Kadath has the same color scheme.

The color heirarchy would be Green, Blue, Yellow, and Red. The Musician's special ability says that he can draw greens at any OW and this is an ability that I think goes underappreciated. About a year ago I went through all the OWs and broke their different aspects down (colors that appear there, difficulty to close, amount of monsters banished when closed, relative strength of monsters that are banished, etc.). It made for interesting results. Maybe I still have them somewhere.

Regardless, Celeano is probably the "safest" dimension. It has Green and Blue, can't confront any GOOs there, and most of the Celeano specific cards are somewhat beneficial. Its relatively easy to close, the only problem is that it only banishes Fire Vampires and Star Vampires when its closed. The Underworld as the same colors, but has two different dimensional symbols, meaning that it has the slight edge as you are more likely to banish something problematic.

Having said that, Unkown Kadath is a horrible otherworld that is extremely difficult to seal. I've found that if you have much stamina, sanity, and a few extra clue tokens, one can make it through Rl'yeh easily enough. However, Kadath doesn't kill you, it just keeps delaying you or sending you back to the beginning of the gate. I spent one game trying for five turns to get through Kadath. Sure you're less likely to die or encounter the great Cthulhu, but its still very difficult to seal.

Acebob said:

I certainly don't appreciate it. It only works in half the other worlds (the ones that don't already have the green color). For the remaining other worlds, it adds a third color, which means that there is only a roughly 1 in 6 chance of the ability being relevant in an other world situation. On top of that, not all green encounters are beneficial, so the likelihood that Jim would benefit from his "strange luck" ability is marginally lower than 1 in 6. Compare that with Gloria's ability, which is useful in pretty much any other world situation. Is there something I'm missing?

Actually I guess Gloria only gets an advantage from her Psychic Sensitivity power 50% of the time (i.e., when she chooses the second card drawn over the first). Still much better than Jim.

avec said:

Really? I always knew Celeano is a good other world, but I was under the impression that Dreamlands was the safest other world.

p.s. actually IMHO Another Time is the safest other world. I've read all its encounters and pretty much all of them are good.

I've never felt safe going through any Other World.

I had an encounter during the last league playing with Bob Jenkins at the Train Station. Go to the Dreamlands and have an encounter there, and I would have gotten something.

Dreamlands encounter had me make a Sneak Check or get DEVOURED. And it was a specific dreamlands check. I had no sneak, and only one clue. I was blessed, but unfortunately failed my roll and bye bye Bob!

It was pretty disappointing. I think we replayed that scenario.

kroen said:

Man, I seem to get hounded by the Hound of Tindalos encounter in Another Time.

avec said:

Doesn't Jim have a 1/3rd chance of pulling a green in a non green world? Now I see, you probably said 1/6th because he's only in a non-green world half the time? The other off color is discarded. Perhaps strategically he could choose non green worlds leaving other investigators to go through the greener pastures increasing the value of his power. Jim also has other powers vs. undead, which for me seldom come into play.

I think Gloria always has an advantage by drawing two cards, even if she rejects the second card. However, I am not impressed by her skill in comparison to Darrell's. She's only going to be in an outer world about 4 times in a 4 investigator game. My investigators always head to the Other World when they have enough clues and usually make it through and seal their gate (I'd say more than 90% of the time) no matter who it is.

Gloria is probably better than Jim, but they're both below average.

mageith said:

This is what we use Jim for. He has a higher chance of drawing a "benign" encounter than any other investigator when he enters worlds like Yuggoth, Rl'yeh, Unkown Kadath, etc. Because while Gloria would be able to pick from two different encounters, chances are they are both gonna suck. At least with Jim you have the chance of drawing a green one.

But that green card could still be harmful. Gloria at least can choose the one that will harm her less, increasing the chance to get through and seal the gate. Also, since you discard both encounters, she also just got rid of a harmful encounter she or someone else would have possibly faced on a subsequent turn.

Morgaln: Good point that Gloria's ability is helpful even when both cards suck. Also, if both cards require a skill test, there's a good chance that she is actually prepared for at least one of those tests. Like, if one card requires a Speed check and the other card requires a Lore check, she has a better chance of being prepared than if she had only drawn the card with the Speed check.

Mageith: "Perhaps strategically he could choose non green worlds leaving other investigators to go through the greener pastures increasing the value of his power. Jim also has other powers vs. undead, which for me seldom come into play."

True, though often my choice of which gate to go through is determined by other factors (usually the monsters that are guarding the gates). Jim's powers versus undead are most useful against Mummies and Wraiths, but the chance of running into those monsters is fairly low. It's sort of like having an investigator who is a designated Gug and Shoggoth killer. I can certainly see how it would come in handy, but I'd still probably pick a different investigator if I had the choice. The problem I see with Jim is that he is kind of a Gloria-lite and kind of a monster killer (very) lite.

Hmm, looks like this turned into a Great Debate! Which investigator's ability is better? Gloria's vs. Jim's!

jhaelen said:

Or which is less worse.

When dealing with the other worlds, Gloria's is better. It always works and can help her find the better encounter.

Jim's is nice, particularly in very unruly other worlds, but many times it does not even work at all. He does have another ability to make up for this though.

kroen said:

I haven't read any of the stories involving Yuggoth as of yet, but Plateau of Leng was definitely NOT a "good place." That was the lost city in Antarctica full of Elder Things from At the Mountains of Madness. I suppose the city might not have been evil prior to the arrival of Elder Things, I don't really know.

mageith said:

It would be ridiculous to claim that Gloria is better than Darrell. Nevertheless, my group enjoys her a lot. In my experience, even when she's in crappy other worlds, she can still eke an advantage out of it. In light of this, one strategy I pursue with her is to actually hang out in other worlds when no other opportunity is present. Particularly in the nice ones, she stands a good chance of getting stuff. Of course, she's not good at getting into the gates, owing to her poor combat skills. But once there, she's pretty much golden.

True, we don't play Jim a lot. True, his gate ability is far worse than Gloria's. But he has other advantages, and can be quite fun himself. His main problem, like Gloria's, is that it's hard to close the gates he really wants to be in.