I just played my second game using Innsmouth (and ALL other expansions of course!).

The GOO was Quachil Uttaus, doom was at 5, we had 3 seals, very few monsters out, only two open gates, all investigators well equipped and doing fine, plenty of clues still to gather. Seemed like a sure fire win.

We lost to the Third Act :-) Act I was drawn very early, so we just ignored it as usual. When Act II came out a couple of turns later, we only had one seal, so we were forced to let it happen. First time I have ever seen Act III.

I don't get why people use all of the expansions together. I use just a few to fit the theme. I don't see why the black goat (herald of Shub), Dark Pharaoh (herald of Ny), Dagon and Hydra (heralds of Cthulhu), Tulzscha the jester of Azaloth would be attacking all at once. The Outer Gods hate each other. Infact Metzen named the world in the warcraft universe after Azathoth. We just found out in Lich King that Yog Saron (named after Yog Sothoth) has been manipulating Azeroth. This isn't suppose to be a huge family reunion of Outer Gods and Old Ones lol.

But hey...what ever floats your boat. I personally don't mix all expansions together just so that the game doesn't get diluted and repetative. My store likes only having one major threat to focus on. King in Yellow is one of my favorite expansions, because of th theme. The whole idea of the play coming to town is nice. Adding in the exhibit coming to town a tthe same time just seems to coincidental and not very Lovecraft like.

darkkami said:

Wouldn't bigger decks (esp. Mythos) make it less repetative? And realistically, even when using less than everything, you're not seeing more than 20 Mythos cards in a game (rough estimate), would you count having a bigger deck than that waste?

@darkkami

People don'T use more than one herald at once, they just use the expansion cards. Even within a single expansion you will find multi-factional cards, in particular the Outer Worlds. Speaking of Which, R'lyeh and Carcosa are also good examples of this sort of thing.

Your ideas about the Outer Gods hating one another is false. Or to be more precise, in the hundred or so Cthulhu Mythos stories that I have read, this has never been mentioned. I have not kept up with the old gods of World of Warcraft, but they aren't exactly canon, and are a separate group unto themselves anyway (although there was a "K'thun" in Lovecraft's story "The Horror at the Museum". It is only mentioned in name, so we don't know much about the entity. As far as I know, the line was reproduced in another story by Lin CArter, adding no new Information to the entity as such (though its spawn was linked to the Hounds of Tindalos, if I recall correctly). Also, Azeroth is not Azathoth, merely named after it. Unless there was something new about Azeroth being an insane foaming old god that I missed, what Yogg-Saron does to the planet has very little bearing on what Yog-Sothoth hasn't done with Azathoth (whom pretty much no-one except Cyaegha and Nyarlathotep interact with).

Arkham Horror isn't very Lovecraftian as far as the "coincidental" stuff goes, so I don't really think that's a good reason to exclude expansions (the base game already has way too much going in a regular game). Personal preference is a sufficient reason to exclude them however.

I know you don't use more than one herald unless playing with Dagon and Hydra. I guess I wasn't clear by how having more cards dilutes the theme for me. I mean if you keep playing with the same decks then every game ends up being the same story. King in Yellow is in town, Cult of 1000 needs to be stopped, the deep ones are rising, a weird exhibit is in town, old man Whatley is on the lose. Oh and Kingsport may need help from time to time.

I understand how my origonal statement sounds confusing hopefully this help clear up my thoughts. By playing with the same decks every game the theme is the same. You may eventually get bored of the cards and then what? ...wait for a new expansion to add more cards to the decks? At lest if you play one theme at a time then you can switch it up and not hav ethe same encounters. Like I said before. It is whatever floats your boat.

I was just pointing out how the TC didn't get to see the 3rd Act until now because he has way too many cards for the King in Yellow expansion to matter. I am not telling people how to play, just trying to figure out why you would even add an expansion's components that may never see play.

darkkami said:

But that applies to pretty much any-sized Mythos deck that has more than 20 cards. No cards beyond that are likely to see play. If you want the full-KiY, use it in the Temporary/Visiting manner.

Also, sounds like you prefer to Act III appear frequently.

You have a point, but I am sure I read some where that Yog and Azathoth are enemies. I got to thinking maybe both would attack Arkham at the same time to prove who is better at destroying the world fastest. Jus tin general beings of chaos do not usually form super villain groups or make coordinated attacks.

Oh and not true. I don't like losing, but, if I have to lose I do not want it to be because some random event happened. Like all of a sudden Act III.

anyways got to go for a bit...thanks for trying to clear up this idea of adding everything to the game is somehow justifiable.

I'm aware you weren't telling people how to play - hence my remark about personal preference. It's just that your reasons seemed to be founded in a misunderstanding of the Cthulhu Mythos (since you did state a few wrong things about it), so I cleared that up.

As for things getting boring with all expansions in play - the dilution effect actually takes care of that in so far that only some combinations of threats come into play some of the time. So the gameplay is very varied, and one isn't prepared for what sort of threat might come up in a game. In the literal dozens of games I've played with my group, we haven't gotten bored of it.

The bad thing about playing with all expansions is that dilution hurts the Dunwich Horror and the King in Yellow. Tibs has some ideas on this forum with how to deal with that sort of thing, however.

As for Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth being enemies, trust me, it doesn't exist. Yog-Sothoth is the enemy of Nodens, however. Azathoth is simply mindless. In some stories (August Derleths. I don't like these), Azathoth and Ubbo-Sathla led the other ancients, including Yog-Sothoth, in a rebellion against the elder gods. In newer fiction this conflict has been relegated to myth-status, but it's basically a matter of personal choice when it comes to that conflict.

Since you use the term "beings of chaos" - that does apply to Azathoth. Azathoth cannot form plans or have allies, so yes, he cannot get together with the non-chaotic Yog-Sothoth to do any sort of Tag-teaming. However, Arkham Horror ignores such things anyway. Using just the base game, Cthulhu always plays a role as soon as a gate to R'lyeh opens. Using just the King in Yellow, this is even more problematic since Hastur and Cthulhu do share a rivalry. With just the DArk Pharaoh set we have Cthulhu, Ithaqua and Shub-Niggurath all rolling in for some fun with Nyarlathotep. Kingsport features so many different references to so many different stories that you basically have an army of old gods working in the background. Every Ancient One in Innsmouth Horror except for Ghatanothoa doesn't fit with Innsmouth when looking at it with such a view.

And the Monster Cup of any combination has a load of beings in it which you will never realistically see fighting side-by-side.

Remember, all I'm saying is that the "team-up = illogical" is not a valid reason for separating expansions. Wanting to experience a single expansion more fully, or simply having personal preferences for doing so, is perfectly valid.

I see your point and I guess I will have to go back to my dagon site and re-read the tales. I have not read Lovecraft in a very long time, so I conceed that you are most likely right. You did bring up a very good point that I must make.

I guess it really depends on the play group. If the group wants to just ake one what ever threat comes up and try to adjust, then I can see how mixing it all up would still be fun. If your group hates randomness and like to know the main threats and goals a head of time then mixing all the the expansions would not be fun.

I think Yog hates Yig and conciders the Serpent an enemy. I don't remember all of the specifics (been a long time), but I think Azathoth opened the Demension of Yog Sothoth freeing Yig. Maybe this has lead to my confusion of Yog hating Azathoth for allowing his enemy to roam free. Yog is stated to be assumed more powerful than Azathoth and more wise than the all seeing Yib.

I was not aware that Hastur hates his half brother. I thought they are more like rival siblings out to prove to mother who is better.

EDIT: Nevermind I forgot that in order to make the game more interesting Call of Cthulhu RPG (which I used to play with in the dark with glow in the dark dice) has Hastur representing the Air Element and Cthuhu the water...also much confusion as the RPG also mixed the creation of the universe with the greek gods and the GOOs. My bad, my appologies on the slaughter of the lore.

The KIY was the first expansion I bought and even after numerous games with just this expansion, I never got to the Third Act. Kind of funny that I only got it once my Mythos deck was 4 times bigger :-)

We play with everything mixed in exactly because we don't want the game to be predictable. We never know if Innsmouth/Dunwich/Kingsport will be hive of activity, or totally deserted from one game to the next. The threat is always there, but Arkham is always the main focus.

I don't have a problem with 'dilution' - for me this is more like subtlety. Arkham is a reasonably big place, and I find it a bit 'in your face' if almost everyone I meet in game is talking about the KIY. I much prefer to get hints of the KIY, the museum exhibits, the BGOTW. For me this gives more of an impression that the investigators are in a real, thriving place, with lots of things happening behind the scenes, only a small part of which they get to see (just like real life).

Plus, I'm far too lazy to sort out my decks :-)

I agree, the surprises and dangers of facing the unknown outweigh the limited appearances of the Dunwich Horror and the Act cards, in my opinion. But I understand why one would want to play a themed game every now and then. I have done so as well in the past.

@Darkkami

Your Apology is accepted, and the following isn't a personal attack, but your post is so fractally and categorically wrong it would make Kant spin in his grave to the song of peter. That obscurantist joke nonwithstanding, on with the corrections:

I have never heard of Yog hating Yig, or any of this Azathoth freeing Yig business. Yig is still entombed in the pit of of Ngoth as far as I know anyway. Anyhow, Azathoth isn't called the blind idiot god for no reason: he lacks intellect. His not just dumb, but he cannot think at all. Any freeing of other entities would therefor had to have happened by accident on Azathoth's part. Surely Yog-Sothoth, who is indeed 'wiser' than lowly Yibb-Tstll by the virtue of being omnipresent, would know this, assuming that these beings have any sort of human emotions at all (they certainly don't, though equivalents sometimes ocur in the less powerful or intelligent beings such as ever angry Yig or ultra hateful Cyaegha). I also do not know of stories where Yig and Yog both played any active roll, but I assume that it isn'T unlikely that such a story exists, though I doubt it would contain said mythological tidbit.

As for Hastur hating Cthulhu - I didn't say that they did, merely that they have a rivalry. It is even entirely possible that this rivalry only exists within their cults. As a further correction, though you were most likely joking, they do not share a 'mother', though to be fair, attributing genders to such entities is silly. Their shared parent is Yog-Sothoth, by the way. (That's if we even want to get into this lineage of the gods hijinks anyway. Though Lovecraft and Klarkashton did get into these sorts of things, they are by far one of the less important aspects of the mythos).

Your edit made me pretty queasy I must say. Not only has it been tradition in the cthulhu mythos to equate mankinds gods as misunderstood, watered-down versions of the ancients since the 1930's, and not only had the invention of elementals also been introduced by August Derleth in, I think, the late 30's/early 40's, but you push these ideas onto the call of cthulhu RPG creators, which in their very words had this to say about them in the rulebook, and I quote:

"What we left out: The designer has taken it upon himself to ignore a portion of the current Mythos which does not appeal to him, and which he feels was not in Lovecraft's original concept. He has left out the "war in heaven" in which the Great Old Ones battled and were defeated by the Elder Gods, supposed deities of good opposed to the cosmic evil of the Great Old Ones. The idea of a cosmic war is never found in Lovecraft's own works; more alarmingly, it vitiates some of the stark horror found in the original ideas. Carrying Elder Signs around like crucifixes and holy water and always having the white-hat Elder Gods in the background, ready to save one's bacon if things get too bad, greatly weakens the original horror of the bleak uncaring universe, to which mankind is left naked and defenseless.

He has also left out the concept of the various Great Old Ones being somehow connected to the Greek elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air (exemplified by Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, Cthugha, and Hastur, respectively). This idea falls apart under close inspection (if Cthulhu is a water god, why is he currently dead due to being under the sea?), and weakens the premise of the Great Old Ones being monstrous alien beings.

Naturally, if these conceptions seem good and well done to the keeper, use them at will. Call of Cthulhu is your game."

One can blame Chaosium for several things, but not for such denigrating inanities as propagating the Derlethian Heresies which you seem to have attributed to them.

Also, to save you time on re-reading Lovecraft, you will not find any of the following in Lovecraft:

- clear definitions for the terms Old Ones, Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, Ancient Ones, Elder Things.

- The concept of the Elder Gods

- rivalries between gods, although you can at least see soem stories where the cult of Tsathoggua was detested by other cults, most notably in "The Mound".

- the aforementioned other inventions by August Derleth, i.e., the war in heaven, the elemental hypothesis, human emotions in ancient ones (with the exception of Yig, the great pissed-off-one, and even then it is just in tales about Yig as opposed to Yig flipping out and killing people for dropping a spoon in a restaurant)

If you are looking for some specifics on the Cthulhu Mythos, or an entity/concept in general, I'd be willing to point out online/book sources for you to read. While this post does coem off strong (it was meant to, more or less), I would like to again remind that I simply wished to stamp out your errors, not the speaker of said erroneous information.

...as an additional comment, there is one other story with cult rivalry, back in the days of Mu the cult of Ghatanothoa was embroiled in a religious conflict with the allied cults of Shub-Niggurath, Yig, Nug and Yeb, as seen in the story "Out of the Aeons". Can't think of any others at the moment though.

Man you really had to lay the smack down on me. *points to throat* Have at it.

I called my old Game Master up and he started to laugh. Most of the stuff he claimed was true for the RPG, was so that we could better play our characters and he wouldn't have to worry about meta gaming. This is the source he used for the Yog and Yig thing and that derleth guy for the War in Heaven theme. He kind of forgot to tell us that he was making it all up. Which is funny because for our Exalted game, nothing could be said or created without consulting the billions of pages for facts on the cities, cultures, and lands. We woul dusually have sessions put off so that he could read a just released book.

Lovecrafts short stories don't really explain anything about Warin Heaven or the Hastur and Cthulhu rivals. Infact I think that was why Lovecraft was able to attract so many. He never went in to the exacts on what Shib looked like. His writings are from other peoples eyes and minds. He wanted to make sure I guess that the things these people saw really could not be described or explained. Falling into an angle that acts like a different angle for instance.

I can see you are a little more into this stuff than I am. I don't have time to study the in and outs of Lovecraft. I just read the short stories back in high schooI and rehash with the wiki on the new GOOs and AOs int he expansions. Most people that suffer night terrors don't wake up and start writing what they dreamed. Most victims of this disorder don't even wake up after the terror nor remember them when they finally do wake up. Yet, this mastermind somehow was fortunate enough to not only remember but was also a smart lad, spooky coincidence.

BTW this is the site he still uses for ideas in his groups Call of Cthulhu RPG games. http://www.templeofdagon.com/public/ unfortunately he didn't use the factual side of the site.

the creation stuff is here http://www.templeofdagon.com/public/viewstory.php?sid=34

Trus tme....I wish I still lived next to this guy. I would punch him so very hard. One, for making me look like an ass and Two, for getting me interested in the truth behind the GOOs and AOs.

Just encase you want a verbal punching bag or victim...I will stick around.

EDIT: heh I forgot how much of a push over Cthulhu was. Ram boat into head...Cthulhu goes back to sleep.

No problem dude. Temple of Dagon is a pretty good site for several things, though their selection of Lovecraft works isn't complete. For a more complete list, you can look here:

terror.snm-hgkz.ch/lovecraft/html/

Being vague on his descriptions is indeed a hallmark of Lovecraft that drew many in. The success of the Cthulhu Mythos itself, detached from lovecraft, is probably more due to people finding it interesting just how many gods and books seem to overlap in the various stories of the mythos. At least a few of the people that I know of have become involved with the mythos due to this aspect of it. Though I'm sure the tentacles monsters help too!

As A Call of Cthulhu GM, or Keeper as it were, I have also taken liberties witht he Cthulhu Mythos; (well, I invented an important ritual offering and had the cults of 3 Great Old Ones - Yig, Cthulhu, Chaugnar Faugn - vie for the rights to perform it. I did this so I could cobble together a campaign out of published scenarios that featured these three.) it's a GM's job after all. As a player it is always good to remember that if it isn't a published campaign, the GM has probably made up any details as he has seen fit.

As for the Yog and Yig thing - if he did get it from the Temple of Dagon site, then it might be from either the essay material, in which case it could have something to do with elementalism, or it was from some of the original fiction from the site members - which I would count as canon; the whole Cthulhu Mythos is large dump of inter-referencing stories of various quality and there are contradictions present (like the war in heaven, which isn't taken seriously anymore by most modern authors. So to some, in the stories, it is mythological, to others it is fact and to yet again others it is a bit of both!).

Anyhow thanks for taking the time to check your sources - I'll have tot ake some time and look into this Yig/Yog thing - hopefully it doesn't have to do with jealousy though. Both were liasons of Shub-Niggurath.

i have often played with the KiY and BG heralds in play simultaneously. they don't contradict each other in any meaningful way and keep the pressure up.

"i have often played with the KiY and BG heralds in play simultaneously. they don't contradict each other in any meaningful way and keep the pressure up."

WHAT!?! But that's against the rules. Until the dice show 6 one day, in the Dreamlands you must stay.

Well , he did say they don't contradict each other in any meaningful way. Pretty much all Heralds can be added to the game that way. Haven't tried it personally though.

NO NO NO! The rules state in the setup to pick ONE herald. Only exception is Dagon and Hydra. LOL if you want to add more heralds why not just skip the entre and go right for the desert? Play with TWO or more Ancient Ones.

darkkami said:

Actually two of the Arkham League 2 scenarios do have 2 AOs at the same time...

Adding extra heralds is something I'm not against...but I don't think I could handle yet. BG and KiY? Sheesh...just thinking about it makes me cringe.

darkkami said:

...exactly. The FF rules police won'T stop you from doing it, so might as well give it a shot if one wants to.