Can you choose to encounter some, and not others, or must you encounter all monsters when choosing to do so upon returning to Arkham?

Last night, Luke returned from the dreamlands with 5 clues and ended up at the woods, where he faced a leng spider, a proto shoggoth, a warlock and a ghost. He took them all on, but could he have opted to choose which ones?

You can fight just some, but you'll have to evade the rest. And yes you can choose which ones to kill first and which to evade afterwards.

My opinion is that you only deal with monsters during Arkham movement. When you return from an Other World, that's during Other World movement (you started movement in an OW) or during another non-movement phase, which is why you don't deal with monsters then.

I know that's only my interpretation, and I don't want to convince anyone that this is how it should be played - just wanted to mention it.

HëllRÆZØR said:

That is correct. If you get thrown out into the streets where monster awaits during Arkham phase, you don't fight that monster this turn, but only the next. And monster will be waiting...

Adrian said:

Except that's a different phase. Movement phase = regular Arkham movement and OW move. Getting tossed out into the street happens via encounters during the Arkham Encounter phase.

As to the OP's question, I've always gone with either take the freebie pass on all monsters (if you return in phase 2) or if you want to deal with one monster, you need to deal with all monsters in that spot (fight or evade). No cherry-picking.

Sorry, I guess I have to explain my point of view a little better: My interpretation is that you never deal with monsters when you leave a gate, even if you want to - because I think you only deal with monsters during Arkham movement, but not during Other World movement (the kind of movement you do when you start in an Other World - not to be confused with the Arkham Encounters phase, Adrian ).

HëllRÆZØR said:

I may be wrong here, but while there are two kinds of movements, there aren't two movement phases. The rules state something to the notion that you don't have to encounter any monsters when you return. It's phrased in such a way that you could encounter them, if you like. We didn't notice this until recently, but sometimes it makes a lot more sense to just deal with the lone Cultist the turn you get back rather than losing a turn. It can be risky though, since there's a chance you might get knocked out and lose your time spent in the Other World. We allow cherry-picking, but that's just us.

Well, I think I beg to differ. The rules state that you don't have to encounter monsters on returning from another world until the next round. They don't say you can't. We always understood that to mean you kind of get a free evade for every monster you don't like. So we played that you could encounter monsters directly on returning when you wanted to. That meant we did indeed sometimes choose monsters to encounter. Yes, it's a bit soft on the players, but it's hard enough as it is.

Just my $0.02.

RAW:

"During the turn he returns to Arkham from an Other
World, an investigator does not have to evade or fight
any monsters in the gate’s location" (p. 18).

You don't have to deal with any monsters. That's not the same thing as saying, "you can deal with as many monsters as you want"

avec said:

Okay, but there's a bit of a jump between "not having to deal with any" and "having to deal with all of them if you want to deal with any."

Having the deal with all of the monster is the default situation. When coming out of a gate, a new choice is added: not dealing with any. There is no mention made of dealing with some monsters, but not all of them. Therefore, that choice is not offered by the rules as written.

Well, avec, to each his own, and if I can't convince you, I won't try :-). But I do like to point out that the sentence in question "an investigator does not have to evade or fight any monsters in the gate's location" only means "you have to fight or evade all or none of them" if you want it to. Especially the word "any" points to there being different choices possible. Otherwise "you don't have to fight or evade monsters in the gate's location" would have sufficed. I agree that it's not the normal state of things and I also agree that FFG's rules are not always very clearly worded, but there is room for debate in the wording of this one.

You might argue that traditionally the harder rules are chosen since the game is meant to be difficult. Alright, you've got a point. But that's just a different kind of interpretation. I think without a clarification the rules as written can easily mean both and the players have to decide what they do.

I might go on cherry-picking, but I would also like to point out that in my opinion the case is extremely rare. Usually there is only one monster at most since others have moved away by the time someone returns from another world. It would take a monster surge while you're out and probably also a stationary monster to achieve more than that. Unless you're playing the Black Goat or some such, of course (I think that was the one with the extra hex monsters? There are more yellow borders there than with the rest.) And in my experience, if a player decides to fight on returning, he usually can also take on two monsters.

Anyway.. have fun!

Personally, I don't see a semantic difference between "you don't have to fight or evade monsters in the gate's location" and "you don't have to fight or evade any monsters in the gate's location." But I agree, to each his own. The point is to have fun. If your group prefers playing a certain way, then that's the right way to do it.

mattherobot said:

That's correct, and that's what I wrote.

mattherobot said:

That's an interpretation. Literally, the rules only imply that you can choose to ignore all monsters, then, and anything else is speculation.

Huh? What are we disputing, I'm a little confused. I think we've established that you can definitely encounter monsters the turn you come back -- the question is whether you have to take all or nothing, or you can pick and choose. I don't think anyone is arguing that you absolutely can't deal with monsters when you return. Otherwise, why would the rules say you don't need to, instead of saying you may not?

We interpret the rule that you can ignore the monsters on a gate when you move from the Other World in the same turn, like it is: an exceptional rule.
If you want to deal with the monsters, you deal with all of them, just as you'll have to do the next turn.

mattherobot said:

I don't know why the rules are worded like this, but "you don't need to do X" only means that, and doesn't automatically imply that you can do X, if you want. Wether you can deal with monsters when returning from an Other World depends on wether the part "Evading Monsters" (p. 6) refers to movement in general, or only to Arkham movement (it seems to be listed under Arkham movement).

Anyway, after reading that part from page 18 again, I guess I changed my view:

"[...] This rule only applies during the turn he returns to Arkham; [...]"

If my interpretation was correct, it would just be a clarification, not a rule, so I guess my interpretation was wrong. Well, sorry for the confusion.