Hey all. I've been stressing my mind a bit lately, trying to reconcile my love of mixing all the expansions with that of the diluted Dunwich gates and Next Act cards. With Innsmouth on the way, I figure the Innsmouth gates will become a problem too. Well I had an idea.

I'm sure others have had this idea before (I've seen close ones), so I don't want to spin this as brand-new. But I do want Dunwich/Innsmouth/Next Act to be as close as possible to their one-expansion frequencies, without having to add any complex new rules.

• Frequency of Next Act cards with just the King in Yellow expansion: 1 card in 15.5
• Frequency of Dunwich-location gates with just the Dunwich expansion: 1 card in 4.08
• Frequency of Innsmouth-location gates with just the Innsmouth expansion: 1 card in 4.08*

The Story Continues is not counted, because it makes you draw another card immediately.
*Innsmouth has the same number of Mythos cards as Dunwich does (36), so I assume there will be the same number of Innsmouth location gates (25). Unless the actual number is MUCH different than 25, this shouldn't affect my variant.

So what if you made a deck by itself, made from:

• All 25 Mythos cards showing Dunwich gate locations
• All 25 Mythos cards showing Innsmouth gate locations
• All 6 Next Act cards
• The Story Continues card

Then, whenever you're supposed to draw a mythos card, roll a die: on a 1-2-3, draw from the "normal" deck. On a 4-5-6, draw from the new Dunwich/Innsmouth deck. Now the probabilities of the events are:

• Frequency of Next Act cards: 1 card in 18.7 (instead of 15.5)
  
• Frequency of Dunwich-location gates: 1 card in 4.48 (instead of 4.08)
  
• Frequency of Innsmouth-location gates: 1 card in 4.48 (instead of 4.08)
  

Not exact, but pretty **** close. Close enough that all the added threats will overwhelm the players, so that the (-1 investigator for each board expansion used) will actually balance the game instead of helping the players too much. And if you leave the decks separated from game to game you won't have to sort them out.

Some other unintended consequences of this variant:

• The chances of drawing The Story Continues jumps from 1 in 223 to 1 in 114 (nearly double). This puts it significantly closer to the 1 in 89, for those who lament the lack of Beloved of Bast ability.
• The issue with abuse of Arcane Insight with both Kate and Daisy will be largely reduced. You can look at the top 3 cards from whichever deck(s) you roll the dice, but they may not necessarily be the next 3 cards you get!

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For issues with the dilution of Other World-specific encounters, you can just make a separate deck with only Dunwich and Kingsport cards, and the Stars Are Right card. Draw from the "normal" deck if you have an OW encounter in the Arkham OWs; draw from the "new" deck if you have an OW encounter in any of the expansion OWs. If you somehow run out of cards from the "normal" deck, reshuffle it and continue drawing. This variant wasn't done in the interest of any statistics, but of theme.

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For issues with the Allies, make a deck of 11 "Ma's" allies, and put the other 23 into a "General Ally" deck. Each time an ally is supposed to be removed from the deck, take 1 from the Ma's deck and 2 from the General Ally deck (this still counts as 1 ally for Glaaki). Ma's allies can only be acquired from buying them from Ma's. Every other function that relates to allies refers to the General deck. This puts your chances of an ally being available during an encounter at about 2/3 which is the same as if only Dunwich was being used.

Thoughts everyone?

The problem with making a seperate deck of the new ow's is that you will never have the encounters of the "regular" other worlds, for example: gate cards of another time, underworld etc. also have encounters for r'lyeh, dreamlands etc. and if you only draw from that deck in a new ow than you will never have new regular encounters (other than small box expansions, but still). I think my solution is the best: Whenver you have an encounter in any other world besides another dimension, if the first color-matching card you draw isn't of your other world, discard it and draw a gain until you draw a color-matching card. If the second card is your other world, great. If not, do "other". This methods dramatically increases the chances of having a specific other world encounter. It nearly triples the chances if my math is right (well, your math lol. or was it frank's?). Two issues, though: Gloria- No changes; she simply draw 2 color-matching cards and chooses one of them. Jim: Doesn't follow the house rule. So far it worked pretty well.

Well yeah, the purpose of my post was more about the Mythos deck issue. The gate idea was an afterthought. I know that "Other" encounters from Dunwich and Kingsport would be restricted to Dunwich and Kingsport gates, but that also means that "Other" encounters from small expansions are restricted to the base game OWs. But if your interest is location-specific encounters, then that's not much of a loss really. I personally don't mind the official huge-deck.

I think your idea for the Mythos cards is sound. I have seen similar ideas for livening up Dunwich a bit; I plan to try that sometime before Innsmouth comes out. Unless your math is really messed up, this should keep the Dunwich and Innsmouth boards hopping.

I don't think the variants for the Gate deck and the Allies are really needed. Gate cards are Gate cards -- they never seem to suffer from dilution, at least that I've ever noticed. Encounter cards that grant Allies already have alternate rewards built in, after all.

I am pretty much doing what you suggest right now without the Innsmouth stuff obviously and a roll of 5-6.

However, one note: You are missing one card for the special deck IMHO: "Old Debts come True" or whatever it is named. The card that kills players that have a deal with the black figure. I'd suggest putting that one in whatever deck is the smallest as well to keep some tension.

A suggestion for more cards that you should add the small deck:

*The monster surge cards with no gate

*Double terror level

*all the cards that release monsters in kingsport, dunwich, innsmouth and that return monsters from these boards. I realize that would make it a possibility to draw from the small deck a gate that opens in arkham, but I think it's fair considering there's 50% chance to draw from the small deck. This will balance it.

I left out the cards that add/clear monsters on the expansion board because I don't need them. I also don't need the monster surge cards; they're too common as it is. And often they're relieving, because they won't open any gates. The Intermission card should be a rarity.

No, the "extra" deck is specifically to increase gates on expansion boards and Next Act cards, which will drive core expansion mechanics. If I add any more cards to it, the Next Act cards particularly drop too much in frequency. Although the Old Debts card is an interesting idea.

I mean, another way to approach it is to add all those cards and then draw from the deck on a 4 to 6, but then the other expansion stuff (black goat, dark pharaoh: double-doom cards and the like) then get downplayed too much.

I don't think the variants for the Gate deck and the Allies are really needed. Gate cards are Gate cards -- they never seem to suffer from dilution, at least that I've ever noticed. Encounter cards that grant Allies already have alternate rewards built in, after all.

The gate deck thing is more from the fact that you get too many Other encounters. Not a big deal. However, when you can never seem to acquire an ally because it was never in the deck of 11 to begin with, and you always have to settle for the compensation prize—that's annoying.

Intermission should be a rarity? well so should old debts. Fail. Also I believe that mixing the cards that spawn monsters in kingsport is aboloutely essential otherwise it would be empty all the time, and I really doubt innsmouth would fix that. I still believe that aquatic movement would be rare, no matter how many aquatic monsters innsmouth would bring.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and came to the following conclusion. The main reason we're trying to adjust the dilution is cause the gates in Dunwich don't open frequently, correct?

With just the base game, you'd have a 24% chance of a gate opening in Dunwich (25 DH mythos locations / 103 total mythos cards). That seems to be the intended amount. With all current expansions mixed in this is reduced to 13%.

But with the release of Innsmouth this will change. Let's assume we have the same ratio in Innsmouth: 25 of the 36 mythos cards are Innsmouth locations. This means that the chance of drawing a non-Arkham location in the mythos phase is again 24% (50 for DH + IH / 204 total mythos cards). And that's the whole idea if you ask me. Yes, each of Dunwich or Innsmouth is only 12%, but it doesn't matter if the gate will open in Dunwich or Innsmouth. As long as new gates keep opening up it should be fine right? So I don't think you'd have to do anything after Innsmouth is released.

Your solution will increase the non-Arkham gates from 24% to roughly about half the time. You'd have to equip all investigators with motorcycles to keep all those gates in check.

Imho you can do the best of both worlds: take the 50 non-arkham mythos cards and mix them with other random mythos cards to create a deck of 139 cards (total AH, DH and IH mythos cards). This is the equivalent of playing the Dunwich and Innsmouth expansion at the same time. You'd have a 36% chance of drawing a non-Arkham mythos cards. (As it turns out, this is the same ratio of any Dunwich card in a mix with the base game (36 / 103)).

So people asking for FFG to release an expansion to combine all other expansions: Innsmouth is the solution.

Of course this isn't a solution for the act cards. One solution might be: take the top 90 cards from a mixed mythos deck and mix the 6 act cards in afterwards (96 = 67 for Arkham and 29 for KiY). That would be the correct ratio.

100% agree except for the next act part. Counting 90 cards every game is too much of a chore. Just let them mix in the whole mythos deck. What will happen is this: Whenever a next act card is drawn, it will be ignores because there aren't many chances of another coming out. That's how it's gonna be every game. BUT, every now an then, in a very rare occasion, all 3 would be out and it's game over.

Problem is: you can pay for the first act. The chances of 4 next act cards is way to small.

One should be raterded (no offence) to pay 2 doom tokens for the first act. The chance really are slim to none to draw 3 and it's not worth sacrificing a game for that small chance. Sure, about every game out of 100 games a next act would lose you the game, but that's just one game. why ruin all the 100?!

Hmmm... I'm for don't play all expansion... really getting all next act cards, gates in Dunwich, double doom tokens, etc will make things blow outta proportion... their suppose to be rare for that reason! It's like having everything on a pizza then complaining there is not enough bacon, then when more bacon is punt on you complain there is not enough mushrooms so on and so fort... rant end

MrsGamura said:

Hmmm... I'm for don't play all expansion... really getting all next act cards, gates in Dunwich, double doom tokens, etc will make things blow outta proportion... their suppose to be rare for that reason! It's like having everything on a pizza then complaining there is not enough bacon, then when more bacon is punt on you complain there is not enough mushrooms so on and so fort... rant end

Exactly. (Well not really exactly, adding stuff to Pizza is still usually very good!) Nearly every game is going to be a Dunwich Game. If you only get an Act card 1 out of 15.5 times, its going to be a rare game when you get 2 and a really rare game when you get three. I had a game last night with 21 turns, the longest since I've been keeping records.

It's amusing to hear all the ways to make all the expansions relevant. I gave up on that idea a long time ago.

Back to the Pizza. If every Pizza had everything on it, Little Emily would never eat Pizza (her favorite food with the right ingredients). The Anchovies would just ruin it for her as would the mushrooms. So that's how it is for us with all expansions added.

Eddie, though I think your interpretation means well, it has a few flaws:

• The issue is not non-Arkham gates, it's Dunwich (and likely Innsmouth) gates. The appearance of the Dunwich Horror is driven by gates in Dunwich. Innsmouth gates picking up the slack for missing Dunwich gates won't help the Horror appear. There's probably a similar issue with Dunwich gates taking away from Innsmouth's special danger.
• If non-Arkham gate activity is close to 24%, then that's great... but that's the danger offered by one board expansion alone. It wouldn't be fair to subtract player count based on two boards if you are only getting one board's worth of dangers. If you're using two gate boards, you should have twice the outside activity, not as much. You see what I'm saying.
• I can get by with diminished Dunwich activity better than many players. But my primary concern is the Next Act dilution. As it stands, Next Act is not a threat anymore. Its original concentration was 1 card in 15.5. With all expansions, it will be 1 card in 37. It's stupid to wager that it will end the game and add the doom tokens, and it's a fluke if you do get all three acts. The element of Risk isn't there, as it should be.
• Kroen, seriously. Be a little less judgmental. Intermission doesn't offer a special event. Old Debts does. It makes sense to raise the Old Debt's frequency so that making a deal with the Dark Man is risky (as it should be). Intermission is a cool card, but it has no associated risk factor. Succeed.

Innsmouth could surprise us and have vortexes. Whenever a monster enters a vortex on either board, it adds the progress token to both boards. This would work perfectly in that non-arkham activity would remain at 24%, but the threat would be double when using both boards. Thematically it's a little wonky, but so is Kingsport's entire board mechanic, and it works fine regardless of expansions used.

I could shuffle the Act cards and Story Continues in with 87 other cards, but that seems like a pain to do each game. I want a huge mythos deck.

This is a cool idea and all, but c'mmon, let's be honest with ourselves. Are you really going to excecute it? Really? You said so yourself that what you like about playing with all the mythos cards is that you don't know what's coming from it. Danger can strike from every corner.

Btw I think that a much more elegant solution for Next Acts would be for FFG to release a unified expansion that will include, among other things (innsmouth+dunwich gates, new gates cards etc.) around 10 next act cards or whatever number it takes to bring it back to the original odds.

Anyway, the only un-dilution house rule I'd ever use would be the double draw in other worlds. Never goona deal with two mythos decks.

You also don't want to dilute Arkham itself. With the base game plus Dunwich, gates open at Arkham approx 75% of the time. If gates are supposed to open at Dunwich 25% of the time AND gates are supposed to open at Innsmouth 25% of the time, then in order to preserve those ratios you'd need to have gates open in Arkham only 50% of the time at best. (It would actually be lower because of double doom cards etc.) You don't want to make Dunwich and Innsmouth hopping and Arkham itself boring.

You can squeeze in both Dunwich locations and NAB/Intermission cards to the mythos deck without too much trouble because their ratios are 24% and 7.5%, respectively. But if you add in another set of cards that require a 25% chunk (the Innsmouth cards), then the percentage that can be allocated to the remaining cards is going to take a serious hit.

I think it will be interesting - and for me worth waiting - to see how many unstable locations there are in Innsmouth. Arkham has (counting from memory here so I could be wrong) 11 unstable locations and Dunwhich has 5. If Innsmouth has exactly 6 unstable locations then that would make the amount of unstable locations inside Arkham equal to the number outside, I therefore would have no problem with the idea of a seperate Dunwhich/Innsmouth deck with a 50/50 chance as to which deck you draw from. You could also take the non-gate opening cards and split them between the decks in order to restore some sort of numerical balance between the two, it might reduce the activity slightly in one place or another so if it does then just move the cards around again.

Nice job Tibs, this is the best suggestion for all-expansion mythos play I've seen yet. Even though I don't use all the expansions at once, if I ever do I will definitely try something like this. Dilution is public enemy number one imo!

Tibs said:

You are correct. That's the biggest problem I've overlooked. But personally I'll be going with something in between: a 36% chance of a Dunwich or Innsmouth location (as if you where playing with only the Dunwich and Innsmouth expansions) instead of your 50. Cause I think Avec has a point that you don't want Arkham to become boring while Dunwich and Innsmouth are full of activity. Arkham is at 64% in my case keeping it more busy. It will probably take some time to find the correct balance. It's quite possible that 50% is the way to go. But I'll have to try it first when Innsmouth comes out.

kroen said:

You might find it retarded. Then again, you where also the one complaining you had a hard time winning games.

Kroen, do you even have the King in Yellow? Isn't that the expansion you're missing? Have you ever actually played with the Next Act Cards, and if so, what was your experience?

A good point has been made about the activity in Arkham. You don't want that to decrease either. Notably, the gate bursts that release monsters into Dunwich might deserve to be in that deck of yours. They do a wonderful job of keeping investigators on their toes. Finally, if you concentrate too much on increasing Dunwich/Innsmouth activity, you could easily find yourself opening too many gates, due to the sheer diversity in the Mythos Deck. That will happen sometimes anyway, but it is something you are very definitely inviting. Tread carefully with this other aspect of game balance.

Tibs said:

I'm not too crazy about the idea of tampering with the way the ally deck works (because it tilts the essential game rules in your favor— and I prefer to tilt the game the other way around).

The problem with OW draws was already mentioned.

As for the mythos decks :') I think the idea of splitting the mythos deck into two decks is a great idea. Granted, it will make the game a bit more burdensome (in terms of non-Arkham mythos glut— I'm worried that players will be overwhelmed by the gate limits), but you could fix that by making the draw from the expansion only deck only take place on 5/6 or 1/2 (i.e. I'd want it to have 33% odds of being drawn, rather than 50% which is overdoing it, I think).

An interesting unintended consequence of this setup is the ease it can provide for giving games an Innsmouth or Dunwich feel (all you have to do is weed through a deck of 50ish cards for non-expansion gates, and wallah, you've got the old feeling back). Of course, you'll then also need to decide if you want to weed out some of the Next Act cards ;') or if you want their appearance to make your game utter hell. I would consider cutting three of them if I cut out 25 of 50 gate cards— they'd still be a threat due to the smallness of the deck and the reshuffle card.

Oh.

I just had an idea for a potential OW fix. What's the normal ratio of drawing non-other encounters? Assuming you're only playing base and exp? Can someone do the research and math? Once someone does that here's my idea about how to potentially solve that. House rule that when you enter the first area of an OW, you roll a die and on certain numbers (representing an approximate probability for drawing a non-other gate prior to multi-expansion dilution) you keep drawing OW cards until you draw an encounter for that specific OW. There ;') problem solved (once someone else does the math).

kroen said:

10 or 11 Next Act cards (maybe each showing a different unstable Dunwich or Innsmouth location) would be an awesome solution. But it's really a pipe dream. And I'm sure as hell not buying two more copies of King in Yellow just for the Next Act cards.

I would execute it, sure. I guess I don't have any real problems with a large and small mythos deck if it will actually maintain the threat of the Dunwich Horror AND of the Next Acts.

Double-drawing for the Other World wouldn't be so bad if you didn't sometimes have to dredge through just to find the first card. I could see it getting very annoying with Gloria Goldberg.

Hey everyone. I re-did my math.

Roll 2 dice when you're supposed to draw a mythos card. If you roll any 5s or 6s, draw from the "special" deck made of Dunwich/Innsmouth gates and Next Act cards. If you roll no successes, draw from the "main" deck.

• The odds of getting a Dunwich gate are now 1 in 4.03, as opposed to 1 in 4.08 with just the Dunwich expansion. VERY close.
• The odds with Innsmouth gates should be the same as with Dunwich.
• The chances of getting a Next Act card are 1 in 16.8, as opposed to 1 in 15.5 with just the King in Yellow expansion. Also very close.

If you don't have Innsmouth yet and want to take advantage of this variant, then make the small deck out of just Dunwich gates and the six Nect Act cards (and The Story Continues). But when you draw a mythos card, roll one die and draw from the "special" deck on a 5 or 6. The odds of a Dunwich gate are 1 in 3.72, and the odds of a Next Act card are 1 in 15.5 (exactly the same as using just King in Yellow!).

Tibs said:

Okay, you seem to have really put your back into this. This has effectively chipped away at my wall to allow some of your rats in. I believe I will try this---first, without Innsmouth, then eventually with--and see what I think about "all expansions" then.

I suppose congratulations are in order, Tibs. You came at me with math instead of "oh, just do it!" emotions.

(But I'm going to change your "roll a 5 or 6" to "roll a 1 or 2". It feels a bit more thematic to draw from the more punishing "special deck" if you FAIL your "Mythos roll".)