Hey all,

Love the game and am new to the forums. Like the title says, I'm curious about the patrol wagon. Technically, I suppose, the rules say that only the deputy, or whomever the deputy trades the patrol wagon to can make use of it... but can multiple players use it? Here are the two things that lead me to think the case is arguable:

A) the gamebox cover shows MULTIPLE people in the car

B) pragmatically, what police station would ever build a wagon that only seats one person?

Still playing by the more technical rules and only allowing one person to use the wagon, but personally it seems to make more sense for multiple (but not unlimited) people to use the car simultaneously. It came up in a game the other night where we wanted to get to a gate in independence square and the streets, and its surrounding streets, were blocked with monsters.

I can see where you're going, but despite some appearances to the contrary, AH is still a board game - and not role-playing or storytelling. A lot of the rules in the game don't work when viewed realistically, but they have to be the way they are to make the game work. So from a games and rules perspective - no, you can't take anyone along for the ride in a patrol wagon.

That said, there's not much harm in house-ruling that you can share the patrol wagon with other investigators in the same location. So if you want to play that way, feel free!

A lot of things in the game don't work when you try to apply this kind of logic. Especially when it would assist the investigators, I would advise against modifying the rules in any way like this. And besides, if you start ruling things this way, then, for example, you might then want to rule that having Tom "Mountain" Murphy around doesn't make your shotgun any stronger (6s don't count as two successes with his bonus Fight).

I agree with you all and had the same opinion; but, still the gamer in me sees the break in logic and wants to see what can be done. Maybe it'll be a house rule when I'm much more certain on the basic rules.

I'm pretty new to AH, only been through 4 games or so and have lost them all. My wife and I started playing ourselves without anyone to show us what's what and we've only had one investigator apiece. The game is so hard! We're always making mistakes or forgetting to do something.

Hang in there, loosing is part of the fun of Arkham Horror too! We all loose our fair share of games

First of all, the box is NOT showing the Patrol Wagon. The guy with the Tommy Gun is in the back seat, which would be enclosed for prisoners if it were the Patrol Wagon. (If you ask me, it looks like Jenny, Joe, and Michael stole a car.)

If you look at the Patrol Wagon card, clearly it does only seat two people, as it is this rickety 1920s municipal piece of crap that Arkham PD was lucky they were able to scrape up the budget for. Because these are "strange times", the Sheriff is willing to overlook his Deputy passing off the Patrol Wagon to one of his weird associates until the craziness dies down, but there is NO WAY he is letting that budget-sink out of the sight of the Deputy's assigned driver. You can't put non-prisoners in the back: that violates regulations, and Arkham is small enough that misuse of the PW will get back to the mayor's ears. And you definitely can't hang people on the side! One corner with an unbalanced load will topple that rattrap over at 15 mph!

So...Patrol Wagon = police-payroll driver + one Deputy (or Deputy's pal).

The beauty of the piles and piles of production value and theme that AH provides...is that you can make the "story" say just about anything. (As I'm sure many have already come up with a dozen holes in mine.)

Welcome to the Carnival, Truenappa! You're officially an Arkham Horror player, since you have (a) lost a few games (proving that you refuse to give up ), and (b) made mistakes (my first game, I traded Clues, and to this day, I still often forget to check for Environment penalties).

Thanks! I feel like an AH player. My wife and I have played Call of Cthulhu. I teased her by saying "F'thagn Cthulhu" at various times much to her displeasure (I know it's in the wrong order).

And we do the same thing of making up story elements and trying to add in our own personal flavor text for our phases, seems like most or a lot of people do the same thing.

And finally on the paddy wagon: if we hold to the your story, wouldn't that mean that as the terror level rises the mayor and others would skip town and thus remove the need to only have one person in the car? Like, once the terror level hits 6 and the second shop closes suddenly you can have two people and limit the movement to account for the slower driving speed? Maybe the max distance on the Arkham board minus 2 or something and that'd be the speed. I think those people whispering to the mayor would be willing to overlook an extra person in the wagon if it saves them from the ancient one, a gate, a monster, or whatnot.

*shrug*

It just seems fun to get more than just the driver in the car and some of my favorite memories from CoC is loading up a car and trying to get away or get something.