I’m a relatively new player and I just played a game with a friend yesterday that lasted 8 hours long. We both used two investigators and the AO was Azathoth. I have played games solo that have also taken at least 4-6 hours (took several nights) against Azathoth and with 4 investigators.

The game just dragged on forever and I'm trying to figure out if I’m doing anything super obviously wrong. The game yesterday saw the terror track hit 10 after tons of monster surges, it was stuck at about 5 open gates, we had 4 sealed gates for a long time and the doom track was one or two away from annihilation during the second half of the session.

Has anyone had this happen before? This is with just the base game, I have all of the expansions minus Kingsport but I wanted to get my money's worth out of the base game before adding the expansions in.

Woops, answered my own question I think. I didn't start adding doom tokens after the terror track hit 10. That would've ended it a lot quicker. Live and learn!

Walsh said:

Theres a lot of that in Arkham. As you get more familiar with it all, your game length will compact.

yea at first it will take time as you decide what to do, run around after stuff, try and explore and at the same time, close gates, and keep looking at the rules, games will im sure get shorter, but they will all have a good time about them, i think thats one good thing really about it, its not a quick flash in the pan

It gets a LOT quicker once you've got more of it "memorized"... for example, once you know what specific monsters do without looking at their combat side.

I've played some three-player games recently where all three of us know all the cards and counters really well, and some of those games have lasted only about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Tbh, that's a bit dissatisfying though... it feels like less of a struggle.

With the right AO and decent monster-fighting investigators, It is possible to get the game into a sort of 'sweet spot' where you've got a few seals down and a few gates open, and new Mythos cards will hardly ever add a Doom token or result in the Terror level being raised. In those circumstances, a game can easily last eight hours or more.

I wonder what the average playing time is for AH. For my group, it's probably about 2 hours.

thecorinthian said:

Almost the same here corinthian, maybe more than you actually : two hours when my woman and I (2), three hours when 1 to 2 friends added (3 or 4 people that is). But 8 hours... man, no, never. Keep on playing, you'll get this lenght shortened, shortened, shortened... and, er, oh yes : don't try TI3 a sunday evening

Hem: We have the same issue with (Super) Catan actually. The only time my friends ever have the desire to play is 6pm on a Sunday. In fact, they're due to call within the next half hour to arrange a game. I think for once I'm going to be smart and say no.

Ahah, poor Tibs. If you can schedule better times, definitely say no, yeah. I remember once : at a big party, it was exactly midnight, and then I had the so bad so bad idea to say "hey guys, I ve got my Arkham horror box with me (was back from my family where I had brought it), may I make you discover that wonderful thing ?" .... we played with 5 people, oh man, it was the first and last time I saw an AH game with more Zombies AROUND the board than ON the board we were in bed at six defeated by yog... but me friends liked it. I think......

thecorinthian said:

Fact is: I need a full 30 minutes to even set up the game, i.e. before the first turn starts.

Actual play time is from about 1.5h (taking high risks in a nasty league scenario) to about 6h (going for six seals with a 'slow' AO while suffering from several gate bursts). When not playing solo it's closer to the 6h mark than the 1.5h mark. On average it's probably around 4h.

does the terror track advance whenever there's a monster surge?

Jambly Ho-Tep said:

Normally no. In a 8-investigator game, town at monster limit, Outskirts limit is 0, +8 to Terror from a monster surge . But that's due to Outskirts overflowing 8 times.

I'm definitely too dumb to say "no." A bunch of newbies wanted to play at like 11pm. We did Nyarlathotep with 5 investigators (3 of whom were brand new to the game) and the King in Yellow expansion. Took a long time... we finished between 4 and 5 IIRC. At least one of them loved it and would do it again though. Next time we're going Yig, as he's nice and fast, and with Epic Battle makes for a very fun final combat.

I think it's a deterrent for a lot of new players if they have a really long first game. It's hard to convince them to play the game that lasts 4+ hours, even though they might be willing to play other games that are much shorter again and again for 4 hours.

As the owner of the game, you should learn as much as you can to avoid looking at the rulebook. You should answer most questions/or make decisions almost immediately when they arise. It's another deterrent to new players if they see the person most experienced has to refer to the rulebook all the time. If you know the answer to most questions, the game moves much faster.

Even though there might be many new players, avoid having all of them playing together at once, especially if some of them are slow learners . More players mean more time to make decisions and when everyone takes a long time to make those decisions, your game will never end. If many of them are new or new-ish, I would recommend the total investigators be less than 5-6. Anything more than that is way too much bookkeeping and explaining.

Try to shoot for 2-2.5 hours. If you can tell people that the game can finish in under 2 hours, they are more likely to join.

mzonic said:

Yig/Rhan-Tegoth with BGotW Herald should come in under that time frame .

Yig or Rhan-Tegoth, with Dagon and Hydra heralds, and the Kingsport and Innsmouth expansions.

They'll never know what hit 'em.

Tibs said:

I beg to differ. A gigantic eff-off snake-headed god and his two batrachian buddies would hit them. Repeatedly.