Tibs said:

Just as an fyi, it was mine. Thanks again for the positive feeback.

Actually, while I do think the newer stands look better, I prefer the old ones. All of my investigators are without stands; I just apply them to the characters I am using in a game. I put my thumb in the center of the bottom and "pry" it open slightly so that I can place the investigator inside without damage. The new ones cannot do this.

Plus I have a ton of unused stands that i can use on the doors in Doom. They're the same type, but one stand isn't enough!

avec said:

Whoops! Sorry. I must have read it in Mariana's comment. Good idea though.

A small-box expansion of the scenarios, DH and Curse Heralds, etc. would be a fine idea. For one thing, the expansion would be a *revision* of what's available online, and would contain new components that didn't make the "print and play" format (eg. cards). We have plenty of cards in the printed expansions, but no campaign.

The CoC RPG rarely had gates, and had more investigation. I'd like to see a casebook expansion set for AH. Online "print and play", which would include fanmade cases, would work fine.

Then there's Dreamlands and the Other Worlds. IMO, the OW's could use more fleshing out.

And, of course, FFG printing one of the fanmade expansions would be great, too.

would i be stark, staring, raving, mad to include

a pocket sized magnetic travel arkham horror, (with all of the components and cards in miniature)

Tibs said:

Not to boast, but I think if you cast your mind back Avec, then you may recall that the idea came to you in "a dream".

I don't think I need propound further.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

The Thing In The Attic said:

This would be wonderful. Especially as those little travel games always jam shut until too much force is used and all the components fly everywhere. Putting AH back together again could fill an entire holiday:

"I think I'm still missing some sanity"

"Yeah, you and me both. But I'm short of stamina, so lets just call it a day, eh?"

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

The Thing In The Attic said:

I actually also thought about this. There's no hope that FFG would ever release such a thing, but I was just thinking about how it would be possible to make a set like that and still basically leave the game itself intact. You'd need to re-design a bunch of the cards and pretty much exclude all the theme.

Being a lazy old guy I would very much appreciate computer version of AH with all the expansions (check/uncheck which components you want to use in current game), open tomore downloadable content and mods, playable solo, hot seat and multi via internet.. Mmmm... Wouldn't it be nice?

Mariana the Ex-Nun Cultist said:

I was under the impression that Tibs was referring to my idea, which was "maybe other investigators may spend [Patrice's] clue tokens for skill checks only, not for sealing gates." Your idea was "Patrice may share clues at upkeep (only) using a point of focus for each clue shared." The link is here. Apologies if I misunderstood Tibs' post.

ced1106 said:

Most of this sounds like great ideas, especially campaigns, casebooks and Other World Expansions, even player expansions.

But I think the best thing would be to fix and/or balance some of the weak and strong investigators and Old Ones, fix the goofy cards in the in some of the expansions, including the healing stone, add a bunch more OW encounters for the 4 in the expansions that hardly ever come up, publish with the final FAQ and other rule clarifications and print them out.

Anyone with Strange eons can print out and/or create scenarios and heralds, etc. But printing the fixes on offical card backings is something that takes lots of work and still isn't probably fully integratable.

I have the name of the Expansion too: "The Repairer of Reputations".

avec said:

Eek

Avec, it's myself that should apologise. My post quoted above was intended as a joke. It didn't occur to me that it would be read as serious.

I was making claim to have sent you your master plan through controlling your dreams. You can take a girl (ok a boy) out of the cult, but you can't take all of the cult out of the girl (boy). queue evil laughter.

Apologies for being unclear.

Cheers - Marina the ex-nun cultist

mageith said:

Now that's cute

Mariana the Ex-Nun Cultist said:

D'oh! Sorry I didn't get it. I can be a little dense sometimes, especially online. That is a really funny joke, even if I didn't get it the first time.

avec said:

No worry Avec, these things often fall flat over the web. And lets face it, whilst "really funny" is very kind of you, it does somewhat oversate the merits of the "joke".

cheers - Mariana the ex-nun cultist

New investigator: Translator/Interpreter.

And furthermore: Street Encounter deck. Tired of getting stuck on the street with nothing to do in the Encounter phase? Pick a card with minor results from the generic Street Encounter deck!

Whitmire said:

Getting stuck on a street just means you planned your movement poorly . Why are you stopping in the street anyways? Not enough movement points? If you're looking ahead for next turn, positioning your investigator for a dash-and-splash (run to place X, trade with another investigator, run to place Y with open gate, possibly more trading if an investigator is returning) or are going to pay for a Rumor, then I'll end on a street, otherwise, I prefer to be indoors as much as possible (hey, that applies irl as well ).

Because fighting a monster on the street stops any movement, right? At least that's how we've played it.

1. Investigator moves

2. Investigator meets Maniac in Downtown streets

3. Investigator hacks Maniac apart

4. Movement ends in Downtown streets

5. Investigator doesn't get an encounter, because he's in a street area.

That's how I've interpreted the rules, and it's the only thing that makes flying monsters any good... at all! Or are you suggesting that flying monsters are there only to see whether a player ends up on the street due to an encounter?

Ithaqua's GOO ability would be pretty weak too, come to think of it.

Continuing the off-topic here with a line of text from the rules:

"Once an investigator begins combat with a monster for any reason, his movement is over. Regardless of whether or not he wins the battle, the investigator loses the rest of his movement points and must remain where he is."

That's pretty self-explanatory and has a HUGE impact on the game. Don't tell me you've been playing a completely different game all this time?

Whitmire said:

Sure it does (movement stop when you enter combat), but monsters are a distraction from the main show, i.e. closing/sealing gates. Maniac has a -1 modifier, if you want to evade, you should be able to. If I absolutely have to get past the Maniac (gate at Independence Square perhaps) and have no alternative but to fight, first thing to check is the turn order, to see if another investigator can be "sacrificed" to take out the Maniac, then the other investigator can freely move to the gate. If there is no reason to move through Downtown streets, I leave the Maniac there, take another route. If tougher monsters block other paths, then move to Downtown and take out the Maniac (if I'm heading for the Asylum and don't want to get there by going insane against a tougher monster). In these cases, I don't care/mind that an investigator stops in the street and gets no encounter. I only fight monsters (in the street) when combat is absolutely necessary. Even on gates, I prefer to evade if I can get 3 or more dice for the evade check, or wil spend Clues if I fail an evade and can't take out the monster in combat (Dark Young and no magical weapons or can't take the Sanity hit if I fail the Horror check).

Indeed, there are several ways of evading monsters, Evade or taking a different route, but I wouldn't put it down to "poor planning" if you do end up on the streets during the movement phase. Some monsters are difficult to evade, sometimes a different route is not available and at times you need to remove a monster either because it is a threat or because you need a trophy. There are many instances where you may end up on the street with nothing to do in the encounter phase, and most of these are not due to poor planning.

Whitmire said:

This reason only applies with some Personal Stories for me (and even then have to think about whether I'm actually going for the Pass clause), no other reason (not even against Shub-Niggurath). Also, poor planning had a smiley after it, so it wasn't meant as a too serious of a comment.

Whitmire said:

At least if you fought a monster in the streets you had an encounter of sorts with the monster albeit not an Encounter.

It isn't very exciting to sit in the street without an enounter, but I suspect that not havingt he chance to find goodies is a deliberqte aspect of being in the street. As much as possible I try to avoid ending up in the street unless it is to fight a monster, I'll duck into any location for an environment halfway to my destination if it will be a two turn trip (unless to do so will add an extra turn to the trip). Not getting an encounter is fine if I spent my trun clearing a path of monsters.

It wouldn't be difficult to come up with a table to roll on, just like the Sheldon gang. But there would have to be negative outcomes possible such as "delayed" or "monster appears" to balance out any good stuff, and all that is going to do is keep you in the streets for even longer.

Another problem is that if there were encounters available in the street that were equivalent in value to location encounters, then the rarely visited/used locations will be even less visited. To overcome this the street encounters would (IMHO) have to lean towards being obstacles, which would make being in the streets more of a pain.

In other words whilst there is an immediate appeal for street encounters, I think there is also a down side to their development. If they are developed I'd like it specifically as a variant used in a similar manner to a herald (i.e. sometimes) rather than used as a patch such as injuries/madness cards (ok which are also variants but not really quite in the same way as a herald).

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

I agree with the ex-nun. Street encounters should be quickly resolved, generic in nature (so that you don't have street "locations", you only have on Street Encounter deck) and minor in consequences. Being delayed on the street is not minor in my books, but yes, it could be the worst-case scenario (as well as "A Monster Appears!"). The rewards would also have to be minor, with the very best encounter being something like receiving a Common Item or a Unique Item if you're feeling extremely generous.

The balance is quite nice at the moment, so I'm not saying that the game is missing a Street Encounter deck. I think the idea behind there being no encounters in street areas is the reduced downtime: the player who encounters a monster on a street first of all spends a while at the Upkeep phase planning his fight, which slows down the Upkeep phase; then he moves his character and finally resolves the combat(s). This often takes longer or at least the same amount of time than moving to a location and resolving one Encounter there. Therefore getting an encounter on top of this would increase the other players' downtime.

However, players entering locations with monsters tend to have long turns, so this would not be something extraordinary, especially if Street Encounters were quickly resolved: little to no fluff text, limited die rolls, direct results - and most of the cards would read "No Encounter". Even a simple deck would make turns where all you get to do is bash in the head of a cultist somewhat more interesting (and more difficult to predict).

I've begun on plans for the ultimate AH travel boxes.

The main box is 24" wide, 12" deep and 12" high. It has two counter drawers that have enough compartments for every counter that exists so far and room to spare. On top of one drawer is a card rack with space for 16 different small card decks and another drawer with four compartments for sanity/stamina/clue and elder sign (or whatever you like). Above the other drawer is another card rack with room for 12 large decks. On the back are compartments for the game boards, rule books, investigator and goo cards. Between the two card rack/drawer combos is a dice tower.

The second box is dedicated to the mythos and other world decks, the monster cup and storage for more decks, both large and small. I've designed it in a 3D program so far and will next translate that to 1/4" foamcore artboard for final construction. Once it is complete, the entire AH set will fit into two boxes and can travel anywhere.

Before you ask, yes, I will post pics of it in progess, and detailed plans if you feel like making one for yourself.

On the left is the small card deck rack. Below it is the small, four compartment drawer. Below that is one 25 compartment drawer. In the centre is the dice tower. On the right is the large card rack. Below that is a second 25 compartment drawer. Excuse the image fuzziness. This shot is from a short animation I did of the box to see how it looked 'in the real world'.

I will also construct lids for both of the boxes. Details on the second box to come.

Why is the picture fuzzy? Did you actually render an animation of the case, and this is a still frame?

Welcome to the "intense hobby: board game dedication" club.