Hey my fellow Investigators!

I just received my copy of Dunwich Horror today, and started by integrating all cards into the base game (I also own Black goat of the woods, which I have also integrated, even though I rarely play the herald variant). I'm playing a hungarian base game with english Xpacks by the way, so whenever someone draws an english card, I assume the part of loremaster, and read it out for them, which works surpsingly well for creating atmosphere.

Anyways. I played a game with my father today, who has abyolutely no experience in AH, or RPG board games in general, so we played without using DH mechanics and the Xpack board. At one point, I drew a DH mythos card, opened the gate, moved the monsters, placed the clue, and then noticed that the headline text referenced a point on the DH board. I know, many would say that separating decks is a must, but for me, the facts that it adds arkham encounter cards as well, and that DH other world cards reference AH worlds as well, argue immensely against separating them, and thus depriving the base game of many enhancements, even if I don't play the expansion. What I did (since by the time we noticed the mistake, we forgot where the monsters moved from), was simply drawing another card, and resolving the headline text without the rest (gate, movement, clue, etc). Has anyone else done the same with all-in decks? In the future, I'll probably simply draw another card altogether, but it seemed to be a good ad-hoc solution

For in-town encounters, you can probably leave in the DH cards. Only rarely will they reference an effect or item (Rail Pass) that you do not have access to. At that point it might be better to draw again.

For Mythos cards, I would highly recommend leaving the DH cards out , as they have tons of referenced locations that will not be in use without the board.

Items/investigators/AOs are all usable without the DH board, but I would recommend avoiding the AOs for first-time players because they are so difficult.

I just wanted to add my agreement here that while you can leave most elements of the expansion packs in with the base game experience, you should definitely separate out the Mythos cards.

The reason is for things exactly as you are describing. The biggest problem is spawning gates in locations that are not in play, as well as spawning clues that are supposed to be in places that are not in play. It's not very difficult to separate out the mythos deck, which I do, but you can leave the other elements in for more flavor.

Also, as pointed out above, I would definitely stick to base Ancient Ones for new players as well. Some AO's can be downright brutal even for experienced players.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I may separate the mythos cards later, but usually, it does not cause a problem, as it is possible to just disregard the inapplicable card, put it at the bottom of the deck and redraw. It has to be done with gate cards of inapplicable colors anyway. I simply forgot to look at the text before resolving part of the card I think simply redrawing would have the benefit of an easier teardown while still being able to use the DH mythos cards that reference the main board. Has anyone been doing this? The reason I am so opposed to separation is that setup and teardown time is a major aspect for me. So if the issue of inapplicable mythos cards can simply be solved by looking/redrawing when inapplicable, I would prefer to do so.

Also, has anyone ever played the game with people who did not speak the game language fluently? I have some experience in role playing, and we have found that me reading encounter cards out as a loremaster leads to a very focused and atmospheric game

So many possibilities for customization <3

Indeed, you may discard cards that cannot be resolved and draw a replacement, no probs in this (you're not the only one doing so, it's something that keeps on returning on this very forum since, as you said, setup and teardown are quite longish)

As for the language... two of my closest friends who are into Arkham speak a very minimal English. By reading the cards, and with external help, they managed not only to understand the cards and enjoy the game, but to slowly increase their linguistic skills. So, if you have some time to invest in this, I'd recommend it

In actual fact, I am a linguist by profession, so teaching them some english is also a welcome addition, even though I'm not an applied linguist Very good point indeed

Just a warning, tear down and set-up times only increase with additional expansions. You will have decks upon decks upon decks if you continue with expansion purchases. By the end of the madness, it's hard to say whether leaving everything in and increasing shuffle time etc is more efficient than breaking everything down into their separate components at the end of a session.

I'm always torn on this one, hahah.

I think that leaving everything integrated is still more time efficient than tearing down. Reshuffling before every game will take significantly more time if decks are kept separate and the chances of incomplete/bad shuffling is also higher unless you spend a lot of time doing it. Will see how it goes with Kingsport added to the mix Thanks everyone!