Okay, so I'm probably not the first person to try this, but:

A small time ago I tired of mixing every mythos card together, and decided to just miss the base game mythos and one other expansion at a time, as per the reccomendation of members of this board. I found the quality and excitement of my games increased tremendously, and if you haven't tried this I heartily encourage it. The work required to shuffle decks together and then separate them once finished is really quite minimal.

Unfortunately, I grew addicted to the rush of the new, concentrated decks and started to require concentration in higher and higher doses. So I tried eliminating the base game's mythos entirely; playing only with the mythos cards provided by the expansions (and shuffling in The Story Continues just to make the rules work out okay). The results varied:

Kingsport: Without a doubt, this works the best. There are enough cards that the Mythos deck that I didn't have to worry about repeats, and they were all gate openings in Arkham, with a few bursts. Kingsport suddenly felt alive, as monsters appeared there, events happened, and rifts actually opened (thanks to headlines and rumors). It really brought the focus onto Kingsport, and this is now my preferred way to play with that board.

Black Goat of The Woods: This also works very well, though the mythos deck becomes awfully thin. Gate bursts and Arkham portals make for a nice, difficult game while keeping the theme in focus. Two double doomers are balanced out by strange sightings cards. Best played with Shub-Niggurath and The Black Goat of the Woods, for maximum theme.

The Curse of the Dark Pharoah: This deck alone suffers from a lack of seal bursts, but you'll actually use that dusty old exhibit item deck for once. The focus stays on Arkham, so I wouldn't use any expansion boards (they'll be awfully dull). The theme is good and concentrated, but you'll be nailed by that awful clothing drive environment quite often. Only time I like playing Tsathoggua. I find this game to be difficult, but not overly so.

Dunwhich Horror: This still works pretty well, and will provide for a very challenging game. It seems that gates open in Dunwhich about every other turn this way, so investigators will have to be permanently stationed there, enjoying the Shack's hospitality before rushing back into endless battle with a sea of monsters diving for those vortexes. Gate bursts are pretty common, so expect to slap down at least seven seals for a victory. When combined with the Dunwhich Horror herald an awakening becomes an almost certainty. These have been some of the hardest Dunwhich based games I've played.

Innsmouth Horror: There is a bit of a jump into 'not working well' here, I'm afraid. As Innsmouth contains only portals to Innsmouth, Arkham becomes a very boring place, used only to stock up on clues before desperately trying to stop the inevitable filling of the deep one's uprising track. Once all four portals open monsters will come spilling out constantly, rushing for the vortexes. Then, if you seal one (assuming it won't have a gate burst, which is devastatingly common) any gate opening there will add yet another token to the uprising track. Add this in to the fact that there are only four portals on the board, so you can't really win with seals, and you have a difficult, perhaps broken game on your hands.

The King in Yellow: This, i'm afraid, just plain doesn't work. Six of the twenty seven mythos cards are "The Next Act Begins" meaning it is very probably you'll run into four or five of them over the course of a game. So... y'know, 8-10 doom tokens, cut with removing elder signs or just straight up losing. The risk of losing by Third Act is extremely high, and throw in the double doom cards from the deck (two, I think) and you have a nightmarish, painful game. I've never won this way and I expect I never will.

So, your thoughts? Has anyone else been playing this way? What are your findings if you have? Am I just being a wimp about Innsmouth and King in Yellow?

Interesting, particular;y with respect to Kingsport. I suspect there might be limited replay due to the lower number of mythos cards, but this does sound like a way to make Kingsport more central to the game and more monster heavy.

Good to know that Dunwich works well too.

On the lack of gate bursts with some expansions, just come up with another mechanism e.g. roll a die for a burst to occur. It shouldn't be insumountable.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Graksnor said:

[indignant British old lady voice] "Well, I never!" [/indignant British old lady voice]

Clothing Drive is one of the best cards CotDP ever added ! Also, it shows us the true Father Michael !

Graksnor said:

Very interestesting. Been thinking of trying something like this.

Even more interesting is the only expansion actually desgined to work by itself is the one you evaluate to work about the worst. I've played the King in Yellow opening night (touring) version several times. I always add the 2 doom tokens for the first Acts card. On the average there's going to be an Acts card every 5.5 turns. My games tend to last about 16 turns (except Innsmouth seems to have added a couple more more turns), so usually that's enough. However I have been "Acted" upon a few times. Nevertheless I'd judge Innsmouth more difficult than the King in Yellow touring version. If you add in the Blight cards, its really a rough game.

Right now I play one expansion and one herald (often of my own devising) and roll a die so that 1/3rd of the cards come from the expansion. So far this is killing me. I've lost 9 of my last 12 games, so I've apparently made it too tough or I've forgotten how to play. Yesterday Kingsport beat me. Usually that's vacation land for me. However the first three gates were: Historical society, Hibbs roadhouse and Science Bldg. I've never had three minor gates come out like that. Then we got a double doomer! We got four sealed but that wasn't fast enough against Chaugner Faugn (12).

Graksnor said:

You know that you win if there's no open gate on the board, and the players have as many gate trophies as there are investigators? Just close gates until you have enough trophies ("enough" = a little less than required), and then close all gates at once.

The only cards from Dunwich that open gates in Arkham are gate bursts. Dunwich should lose some points for that.

@Hellrazor: Yup, I know. I just stink at closing victories, and very rarely get them. I always go for the seal, unless I'm facing the spider.

@Tibs: Huh. Never realized that. I always lose one, but never put two and two together.

Heh... Nice idea, and thanks for doing the playtesting for us ;'D

I don't think I'd want to try most of those, except for Kingsport and Dunwich and poooossibly CotDP (I'd need to see double doom frequency). I would really like to see a threatening Kingsport only game.

Oh, and hi everybody, I'm back :') but I probably won't be posting much for a while (unless I see something I really want to comment on), I need time to recover from the mind and body shattering horrors of travelling ;') Lovecraft would agree with me on this.

Edit: just saw Tib's post ;'D waaaah

Perhaps I'd combine Dunwich and CotDP cards only.

Well, at least one way to temper the solo King in Yellow or Innsmouth Horror games is to shuffle in several cards from the base game. There are (I believe) 36 Mythos cards in IH, so add somewhere between 20-40 base Arkham cards, depending on how harsh you want your game. That would temper the deck some, and add the Arkham gates that the game really does need, no matter how mundane they seem.

Do the same thing for the King in Yellow, or better yet, do it the way that the touring version of the Dark Pharoah suggests. That is, draw from the KiY Mythos cards first turn, then alternate turns with the base Arkham deck and the KiY Mythos deck. That would inject plenty of theme without making the Act cards an overwhelming threat. This plan doesn't work so well with the board expansions, though. Knowing when you can expect and Innsmouth gate is a bit of an advantage.

And you might do this with DH, too, for the problem that Tibs pointed out.

You might want to try Combining either Dunwich or Innsmouth with either Dark Pharaoh or King in Yellow (without using the base game mythos of course). The problems with Dunwich, Innsmouth, and King in Yellow would be canceled out by the deck you choose to pair them with. I included Dark Pharaoh in there simply for its lack of difficulty.

Come to think of it, King in Yellow would still have a slightly more active Three Acts mechanic than normal. But probably not so much that it's a problem.

Innsmouth would still be insane though.

That sounds like an excellent idea. I will be in Florida for the forseeable future, but after that I'll try to get the gang over and playtest a game using one of those combinations. I'll let you know how it works out.