Those of you who play with only one or two expansions at a time, which cards do you take out? From reading the forums, it sounds like injury/madness cards and epic battle cards are almost always used. What about items and encounter cards? Or blights?

If you play without Dunwich, does that mean that you just remove the board and the mythos cards that have Dunwich locations? Or do you remove other cards too?

If you play without King in Yellow, I'm guessing that you probably take out the Next Act Begins cards. What about mythos cards that contribute to the theme, but not the mechanics, like Intermission and Off Broadway? If you leave in the encounter cards, do you ignore encounters if they involve King in Yellow actors?

Sorry to be pesky, I'm just curious.

avec said:

I leave almost all items and encounters in. I have thinned the spell deck a bit. Basically I divide the number of spell cards by half and round up. So if there are three spells of particular type, I use only 2, for example. But this has more to do with the size of the spell deck.

Epic Battle cards. I use them if I think the investigators have a good chance of beating the AO. Call me sadistic.

Blights are a herald. I actually made monsters out of the heralds as well as all the allies and added a few that should have been there like Carl Sanford and Bill Washington. However not everyone is up to having extra irritating backsliding insane citizens back-stabbing them. My favorite is the Sheriff who've I've made into a stalking monster with a -3 Horror check that if you fail you are arrested. He's also physcially resistant (shoots back) and has 3 toughness. I think he has a -3 awareness. Mosts of the other insane citizens are elusive however--usually +0 or -1.

Generally however I use neither blights nor insane citizens.

Dunwich. I leave everything in but the Mythos cards and the board. I do not remove the other cards.

King in Yellow: All King in Yellow mythos are not used. The KiY encounter cards have not been a problem and we use them.

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. Same as Kiy. Sometimes this results in an Exhibit items. I hate to redraw cards so we play encounter cards as is.

Kingsport. There is one encounter card at the Train station that sends you to Kingsport. If that one comes up we do ignore it. Otherwise I haven't seen any problems with encounter cards.

All Investigator cards, unless they are:
(a) philosophically unsound (Join the Winning Team, Call the Ancient One, etc.)
(b) Dark Pharaoh, except for the Allies, a few Spells, and 5 Exhibits to use if Sarah Danforth is acquired.
© Black Goat Cult cards

I only use Arkham Encounter cards that come with the Expansion being played (with the Base Set). However, I also include any Dark Pharaoh Encounter that grants any DP Ally specifically by name; and if not playing with Dunwich, I will also include these DH Arkham Neighborhood Encounters:
(a) ones that offer Rail Passes or Sheldon Gang Memberships
(b) ones that mention the Dunwich Conditions
© ones that grant John Legrasse, Ryan Dean, and Thomas Malone, the three Ally Encounters conspicuously missing from Innsmouth’s Encounters
(d) any that involve Injury or Madness cards
(d) random draws to bring totals of 4 DH cards to each of the 9 Arkham Neighborhoods.

All Gate Encounter cards from Dunwich, Kingsport, Innsmouth, and any from any small box expansion being used, as well as the three Dark Pharaoh Dual-Color cards. Using dj2.0’s advice, Kingsport and Dunwich boards (if not being used) are tucked under the Arkham board so just the Other Worlds are visible.

I only use Mythos cards from the Expansions being used (with the Base Set), with a couple of exceptions:
(a) Dunwich Mythos have adopted the three double-doom cards from Dark Pharaoh.
(b) Innsmouth Mythos have adopted Black Goat’s Arkham Gate Bursts and Strange Sightings.

All monsters, except:
(a) only 2 Formless Spawn, unless playing Tsathoggua.
(b) only 3 Nightgaunts, unless playing Yibb-Tstll.
© only 3 Mi-Go, unless playing Ghatanothoa.
(d) only 3 each of Shoggoths, Proto Shoggoths, Deep Ones, and Deep One Hybrids, unless playing Innsmouth (or all Aquatics if playing Kingsport).
(e) only 4 Dark Young and 3 Goat Spawn, unless playing with Black Goat Herald (which is almost never, now).

Anything Herald- or Guardian-related is selected if chosen randomly at players' agreement. Epic Battle Cards are decided to be used by First Player before Ancient One is selected.

You can always customize your decks the way you want , its your game after all

Thanks. It's interesting to see how other people do it.

For me, I usually throw everything in together except for the mythos cards. I made tables that tell me how to best combine mythos cards for any given combination of expansions. For example, if I'm playing with Innsmouth and King in Yellow, I take out 5 random Innsmouth mythos cards and 75 random "other" mythos cards. I then shuffle in the six Next Act Begins cards. This gives me a 31.91% chance of drawing an Innsmouth mythos card, a 6.38% chance of drawing a Next Act Begins card, and a 61.70% chance of drawing an "other" mythos card. When using Innsmouth alone, there's ordinarily a 33.98% of drawing an Innmouth mythos card and a 66.02% chance of drawing an "other" mythos card. When using just King in Yellow, there's a 6.38% chance of drawing a Next Act Begins card and a 93.62% chance of drawing an "other" mythos card. So all the percentages are preserved fairly evenly. I've never had a problem with getting too few (or too many) Dunwich, Innsmouth or Next Act Begins mythos cards.

I was curious to see if there was something to be gained by weeding out the item decks or encounter decks. It sounds like different people do it differently.

avec said:

The only thing I'm "gaining", as it were, is a lack of consistent groaning. And by consistent, I mean every time this particular card was drawn, regardless of who actually drew it--and my cult varies from combat thugs to ooo-new-card seekers--there was a distinct indication of groanishness. No one likes Join the Winning Team, or even For the Greater Good; however we go out, we go out as a team.

No one wants to wake the Ancient One early, because the ONLY reason to do so is to give the Investigators some kind of advantage during the Final Battle, or lessen an anticipated disadvantage. That's "Clue-Shotgunning" (or in the spirit of) or giving up; bad form either way. And some Spells just suck, even to those who enjoy Spells. In the old days, I wouldn't have filtered it down, for fear of "tipping the deck advantage", but now, there are a LOT of Spells, and having 2 Fists of Yog-Sothoth instead of 4, or losing the Wracks, isn't tipping anything.

As far as the Encounter decks, Dark Pharaoh is the only expansion that offers new Ally Encounters on the Arkham Board. I can't figure out why those three particular AH Ally Encounters were not duplicated in Innsmouth; with any one expansion combined with the base game, there should be 2 per AH Ally. I wanted the Conditions, Rail Passes and Sheldon Gang Memberships available to all games. And then I would prefer to have the same total amount of cards for each neighborhood. I can't tell if that's really "gaining" anything, but like Nyarlathotep's Masks, it's always fun to see one show up from time to time (even if you can't afford the Ally, Rail Pass, or Condition at the time).