I'm sorting through the AH cards, and I was wondering:

What cards are expansion-specific? In other words, you must be using that expansion to use them.

For example, the cards in the Dunwich Horror Mythos deck are definitely specific to that expansion, because they reference locations that would not otherwise be on the board. On the other hand, it looks like all the cards in the Other Worlds decks aren't expansion-specific: you just use 'Other' if you're not in that location, and none of them seem to require elements from a specific expansion.

Also, there are decks like the Exhibit Deck that are obviously expansion-specific. (Although even then, they're dependent on Encounters to cause you to draw cards.)

Those are the decks I've looked through. What other cards are expansion-specific, where I -have- to make sure I pull them out if I'm not using the major elements of that expansion?

I'm always agonizing over this, since I dislike most of the miscellaneous small cards that aren't part of decks.

The most annoying thing about the expansions is that usually when they add new encounters, they can't resist referring to lots of tiny little extra cards, which means I have to have a huge stack of miscellaenous tat beside the board.

Dunwich Horror - has some Arkham Encounters which make you flip over the 'special condition' cards. (In my experience, the conditions are almost completely pointless. Darke's Blessing and the Coded Messages are the two which are potentially useful, but they're not so great that it's worth intentionally trying to get them activated.) And regarding the Other Worlds: like with Kingsport, there's always an 'Other' option on the encounters, but that tends to homogenize the OWs a bit, so I always cut the cards that refer to worlds that aren't on the board.

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh has numerous encounters which require the 'Barred From Neighbourhood' cards - surely the most pointless small cards ever. It also has several encounters (in Arkham and Other Worlds) which give you Benefits and Detriments. The good Benefits aren't good enough, the bad Detriments aren't bad enough, and none of them are common or game-changing enough to make up for the faff of putting the cards beside the board in the first place. So I usually cut any encounters which refer to those cards, mainly out of protest at the inelegance of the design...

King in Yellow has the spells whcih create 'Magical Effects'. These aren't so bad, although it's a mystery to me why the full effect wasn't just crammed on to the spell card itself.

Black Goat of the Woods - there are about ten Arkham encounters whcih give you a Cult membership, scattered across three or four unstable locations. Even if you're only using the encounters from the base game and Black Goat, the chance of ever getting a Cult membership are slim, and it's not like a Cult membership is particularly good anyway. If you use all the Black Goat Arkham encounters, you need to use Cult memberships, which means you need to use the Cult Encounters deck, which means you need to use the Corruption cards. And the only way to make any of this absurd appartus DO anything is to use the Black Goat herald itself, in which case you don't need the Arkham encounters since everyone will be swamped with Corruptions anyway (and Corruptions are the interesting part).

Mostly, it seems like AOs were probably meant to be 'expansion-generic', i.e. you can usually use them with just the base game and they'll still work. Investigators are a bit more particular, though: the Librarian, Musician, Martial Artist, Soldier and Bounty Hunter all have fixed cards from their respective expansions.

The Sailor is (I think) the only investigator who makes specific reference to an expansion component in a special ability, and although it doesn't require you to use Innsmouth, the investigator is strongly targeted at playing with boards which have more aquatic locations.

Cool, thanks for the comprehensive answer!

I guess the big issue isn't really mechanics, but dilution. It seems like the only thing I -need- to separate out is the Mythos deck - the rest just depends on how much I want a particular expansion's theme to come through.

Currently, I'm using everything except 2 expansion boards and the mythos cards from that expansion (as well as the location cards refering to that board, of course). In addition, I add the DH and KH Other Worlds (I place these expansion boards under the other expansion board I'm using, so that only the OWs are visible). If a location card would be completely pointless without a certain expansion board, I replace it by drawing a new card. If it is partially resolvable, I just ignore the impossible part.

thecorinthian said:

I just leave those rarely used cards in the boxes, and don't add them until a card asks for them. That works for me.

thecorinthian said:

I don't know them all, but there is a spell (some kind of "flame") which you can cast to draw an effect card. Then you can pass the spell to another investigator, while paying 1 sanity each turn to retain the effect, so multiple investigators can have the effect card while only one player at a time has the spell. This wouldn't work well if the effect was just printed on the spell card.

HëllRÆZØR said:

Afraid not - all the magical effect cards say to discard them if the spell is either refreshed or leaves your possession.

I think they're probably on separate cards because you need to keep the spell exhausted to keep the effect, and it's more convenient to have the effect on a face-up card while the exhausted spell is face-down.

thecorinthian said:

the Athlete, Rita Young's ability specifically references Injury and Madness cards which aren't part of the base game, even if most of us who have that expansion use them whether we're using Dunwich or not.