I was reading some ideas for livening up Kingsport on BGG, and was inspired. In the spirit of Innsmouth's Deep One Rising Track, if a Rift Progress Token is prevented from being placed (because that particular Rift Progress Track already has two tokens), place a monster at one of the locations depicted by the tokens on that track. For a harder game, place a monster at BOTH locations. This way, you don't have to interfere with the Rift Mechanic at all: Rifts will still open in Arkham (or Innsmouth/Dunwich), but leaving the full Rift Progress Tracks alone carry a risk.

All I need now is a defined Kingsport Monster Limit, and a consequence for what happens when a monster is supposed to be placed, but the Kingsport Limit has been reached. (No more dumping monsters in the "Kingsport Zoo" without PAIN.) Send them to Arkham's Outskirts? Add a doom token instead? Pop the rift? I kinda don't like the last one, because then you can't do anything with that Rift's Progress Tracks until is tokens are all removed.

Ideas, comments, threats?

Sounds good - this means Kingsport will be a deadlier place than before.

As far a monster limit, neither Dunwich or Innsmouth have limits, so why should Kingsport?

Also there are already 2 mechanics that would keep people from just letting Kingsport be overrun with monsters. The first are the green bordered monsters like cthonians that do nasty stuff to everyone when they are activated. The second is the rule that if the monster cup is empty the AO immediately awakens. You will want to try to thin out the monsters so you can recycle them back into the cup. Also by recylcing weaker monsters you can reduce the odd the the nasty monsters will be drawn at a bad time.

Both of you have good points, but my goal isn't just to stuff Kingsport with monsters. Let's face it: without a monster limit, sooner or later Kingsport will be a bloated "Terrible Experiment" that just won't be fun if all your Investigators are sneak-thiefs and Will-3s.

No, my goal is to revive the Rift Mechanic that so many have complained is "weak". They don't want to wander in stable location Encounters, and they don't find even an open Rift to be all that threatening. "Bah, half the time you can't even place a Rift Progress token because the two-spot track is already filled." But if a monster comes into play after just such an incident, AND any monster that gets bounced back into the Cup because of the monster limit adds a doom token to the AO, you better believe people will get off their duff and into Kingsport to have some "stable encounters". And if there are a few monsters to interfere with them once they get there, it might not be so boring being there.

But I don't want to make it crushing. Too many doom tokens and this mechanic will only please the masochists. It might be better to do something like: Any time a Rift Progress Token can't be placed, place a monster at each location on the two tokens of the full Rift Track that was blocking. Monster Limit = 4. Any monsters that can't be placed go directly to the Outskirts. This way, the Terror Track gets a serious boost, and the monsters recycle so Kingsport doesn't break the Cup (just like the vortex mechanics do). It also allows for things like Aquatic and Flying monsters to be bounced and recycled too.

Eh, it was just a thought. And it's probably too late since so many have written off Kingsport anyway. It's still no Innsmouth.

Many Monsters in Kingsport would be a problem for whoever is "rift-guarding" if the start failing sneak checks, delaying the rift explorations. A limit may not be needed as there is already a reason to try to avoid leaving non-elusive monsters in Kingsport.

Like the idea, by the way.

It sounds workable and nice.

I think reason Dunwich and Innsmouth don't have monster limits is because they have vortexes which keep the numbers down, and create a motive to specifically go after critters in these towns.

For KH a similar motive could be created by e.g.:

"if there areX (say three?) or more monsters in a single Kingsport street or loaction at the end of the mythos phase then the Terror Track increases by one"

That's just by way of example, terror track needn't be the target, could be doom or add an extra rift token etc etc. The trigger could be worded differently so it doesn't fire every round once X monstesrs are together :

e.g. "whenever a monster moves to a location that already has Y or more monsters" (which I think would work better).

or, e.g. if there are X or more monsters in a single Kingsport street or location at the start of mythos and one of their symbols moves, then..."

I have generally relied upon scenarios to (a) encourage visits to stable locations, and therefore Kingsport, and (b) get monsters into Kingsport.

In fact I use Kingsport most often in conjunction with Dunwich for one such scen where hidden wizards that add monsters to the board have to be found (1 is in kingsport). But then I like looking for stuff/bad guys

BTW on eof the things I really dislike about the new forum is the way that the subforums such as fan creations seem to be ghettoised. I liked the old system better, with stickies for things like new AOs in the main (only) forum and everything else posted as threads: There cane be only one (forum!)!

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Nice rule. I'll definitely have to try it out