Hi there,

I would like to know from you guys what you would think if FFG develops an expansion featuring the short storie "at the mountains of madness".

For me I really like the idea... They could do a rather small board just featuring three or four new places (base camp, the mountains, the beach ...) which the players reach by plane or ship and a whole set of new cards...

The other expansions are like that, and always connected via the train station

I believe there at least a couple of threads on this idea already in Fan Creations.

I personally would love to see an 'official' one - could easily be done as a small box Xpac with a small folding board. It could also include extra location cards for the 3 big box expansions. Reckon it would sell really well.

Recently, I had a similar thought: Almost each of the original 8 AOs has an own expansion, except Azathoth, Ithaqua and Yig. I think for the latter 2, an expedition expansion would be an option, which allows to travel a little farther than the nearest towns w/o using the other world mechanic.

Another expansion I would be interested in is a Dreamlands expansion, which somehow would replace the other worlds Dreamlands, Abyss (?), Leng, Unknown Kadath and adds connections between them, other Dreamlands locations and maybe the Arkham board (except gates leading to Dreamland areas).

...however, I'm not sure I really need more boards after Dunwich, Kingsport and Innsmouth. ^^

HëllRÆZØR said:

I've adapted a small board (1/3rd of a small board), inspired by the work of others, and used it several times, but the timeline bothers me. I think of each turn in Arkham as a day and my board allows someone to complete the Trek and encounters in as few as 3 days. Only one investigator goes. For that reason, I've quit using it.

So what I'd like to see is a stand alone game or semi stand alone game or at least a game designed to be able to use the components from Arkham but not require the Arkham board. Small stand alone games for the other places you've suggested sound good to me too. Maybe play them in a hour or so. $20?

HëllRÆZØR said:

Themes from Lovecraft's Dream cycle were a heavy influence on Kingsport Horror. With the added dreamlands locations I'd consider that the Dreamlands expansion. A lot of encounters in the town and in the new Other worlds reference situations, places and characters from Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, among other novels by HPL that are considered part of the cycle.

I wouldn't mind a mountains of madness expansion. I'd certainly get it if they made it but a mini game might be nice on that theme too. Something along similar lines as the Call of Cthulhu lcg in which you have to investigate stories to gain successes.

Bel-Shamharoth said:

You're right, there's much influence in Kingsport, you can even become the captain of the white ship, or meet a cat / Zoog ally. However, that's not enough for me; a "real" Dreamlands expansion has to have a stronger theme, IMO, like free movement in the dreamlands, permanent connections between the locations there, a few quests and a sure way to activate them (I don't speak of a simple go to X and sacrifice Y here), location cards for every single area, some advanced interaction with Ghouls, cats and Nighgaunts, and no rifts which distract you from your quest. ^^

mageith said:

I'd also enjoy a new Cthulhu Mythos standalone game based on something like that. That being said, I'm also looking forward to the Dark Brotherhood game, which I haven't checked up on in a while.

...but the reason I wanted to actually comment: think about the Other World encounters. Those are really, really short by comparison to what happens in Arkham. If it takes a day to do what one does in Arkham in one turn...well, one does not trek through the cold wastes to Kadath in that amount of time. So the time it takes for people to go on an expedition wouldn't necessarily have to be too long. Yes, it takes less time to wander through a gate than to go by ship to antarctica and back. But traversing the other worlds to find the gate back is probably an unusual amount of time. We could say that the gates somehow distort time, but that would be disingenious (especially given the existence of the "Another Time" Other World).

Basically I am advocating time abstraction. Geographically speaking, a train ride already takes much more out of a day than walking down a street, yet it is both just 1 movement point. And going from Innsmouth to Dunwich takes the same amount of time as going from Innsmouth to Kingsport via boat - which is odd, given the latter two are coastal towns. I don't recall their exact locations to be sure, but I'm reasonably sure that Dunwich and Arkham are closer to one another than, say, Arkham and Innsmouth/Kingsport.

Just commenting, after all, I don't think I've seen your Antarctica idea (unless it was the one with the small rectangular board, more wide than high, with three to five locations on it).

Victimizer said:

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it was vice-versa (Dunwich is more distant than the other two towns). However, even if Innsmouth is nearer than Dunwich, it'll take some time using the bad bus connection, so it probably takes a similar amount of time to travel to both towns (Kingsport takes probably less time).

Victimizer said:

My mostly stolen derivative Antartica Expedition is not published anywhere. It only has three locations.

There's lots of time abstraction in AH to be sure. For the Other Worlds, you're not necessarily investigating the whole world. Just learning enough the gain the secrets of shutting off its portal. In Mountains of Madness you have to take a long boat trip and then a long Polar trek. I think there's enough in the story to easily make a new game pretty much using the same mechanics, characters and investigator cards, etc. Anyway it bothered me a bit, though it didn't bother many of the other players.

I'm not sure what Movement points actually represent. Many of the slow women have high heals?!

Really, Movement points are the worst abstraction in the game ranking up with gate travels. In the 1920's 20% of people had cars.

@Mageith

Yeah, I agree and can see where you are coming from.

@Heyl-Raiser

I think you're right - I don't have a map on hand at the moment though (shameful, I know). In any case, the time abstraction point, as you point out with the bad bus route to innsmouth and the regular route to Kingsport, still stands.