I loved it! I have long been a player who generally played with all the expansions, and for the first time the other day I tried just Innsmouth and the base game. It was so much richer! there are so many different atmospheres to lovecraft (Other Realms, Innsmouth, The Undead, Science, Dreamlands, Desolate Countryside, secrets of the woods, subterranan worlds, space travel, time travel, corrupt cults/politicians/1920's style Noir stuff, etc forever and ever.) that I now realize that when you play with all the expansions you dont get the pleasure of truely indulging in one feeling, and all the cool atmospheres get spread thin. King in Yellow has very much the 1920's gaslight, people dressed up in suits to see a play while a gumshoe searches through the rainy night streets for clues. Curse of the Dark Pharoah has the atmosphere of expedition brough in from abroard, but a gypsy stands outside Miskatonic protesting its arrival, and soon the 10 plagues of egypt will render Arkham destroyed and Nyarlathotep will rule. Dunwich has the mysterious woods feeling of "something isn't right... something is very wrong... but I cant place my finger on it". Black Goat of the Woods has a very classic Lovecraft feel, very "Welcome to our Cult... you shall know the servants of the Black Goat!". Kingsport for me is very dreamlike, as though its only on the edge of exisiting while you walk the misty streets in the cold morning air as the sun rises. Innsmouth has the feeling of utmost horror and conspiracy we have all come to know and expect from Lovecraft's classic story, aswell as the masterpeice videogame Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (which Innsmouth Horror actually uses characters and references from). In my last game I really experienced that decrepit sense of dread and unsure foreboding that accompanies Innsmouth, and I really, really, really loved it. Our set up was:

Expansions:

Arkham Horror

Innsmouth Horror

Ancient One:

Cthulhu

Herald(s):

Dagon

Hydra

I've been playing Arkham for 4 years, and I haven't done just one expansion since I just had CotDP, I had forgotten how good it was to do that. If you are an all expansion player (which is fun sometimes for megagames, I will admit) then I urge you to try just 1 expansion!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Yes, just one expansion does have a nice flavour to it, but I wouldn't call any single expansion, with maybe the sole excepion of Innsmouth Horror, very...well...Lovecraft.

Every set incorporates ideas from a variety of sources, so you don't ever really have one 'theme' (also, I'm not sure Lovecraft wrote about corrupt politicians, unless you count his relatively repugnant short story "The Street". That one has Communists, iirc. I'm also unsure...but I just woke up...if he wrote a story that played for any significant amount of time in the woods, unless you count that outing into the swamp in "The Call of Cthulhu") as far as Lovecraft goes. Also, I don't see how Dunwich has a mysterious 'woods' feeling.

I disagree on Kingsport being dreamy. I mean, in the lore, it is supposed to be. Looking at the board, it looks that way. But from the encounters, it is all over the place. Mind you, I love the Kingsport encounters - next to Innsmouth Horror it is my favourite expansion - but the amount of story content that got squished into the ally deck alone is a bit telling about its diffused theme.

I'd also like to know which characters/events are featured from Dark Corners of the earth that aren't featured in the story "The Shadow over Innsmouth" or the RPG campaign book "Escape from Innsmouth" upon which it was partially based. I'm generally curious - I haven't looked at everything in Innsmouth yet and I like knowing where certain things come from to put them into perspective content-wise. (Also, I totally agree - for a non-adventure Cthulhoid game, Dark Corners was pretty darn awesome. It was the best of its kind that I've played so far - haven't tried Penumbra yet - even though it got all actiony-shooty at the end/middle.

Nevertheless, yes, playing with a single expansion gives you a good taste for that expansion's theme.

Slotff, thank you. That was a rousing testimonial to that which makes me believe I'm not crazy for "leaving stuff in the box".

Happy Investigating on your new themes!

I love using all the expansions. However, since getting Innsmouth, I've found that the combination of board size, setup time, and game time (as I must take at least 5 investigators into the game to stand a chance) have become daunting. But, I also don't wish to choose what expansion I play. I think that I may begin playing just random combinations of expansions in the near future, and see if I can breathe even more life into this massively customizeable game.

One drawback to playing this way is that I'd have to retire my (highly effective) Anti-Dilution method and use just one mythos deck. On the plus side, this would make the threat of Dunwich Horror, Deep One Rising, and Next Act different in each game.

I am fairly sure that Brian Burnham does not appear in either the RPG, and nearly certain that he is not in TSOI.