I am a self-proclaimed curmudgeoned grognard, "Hey! Get off my lawn, you crazy kids!," so I can already declare that I will not be purchasing the new Mansion of Madness 2nd Edition because of the requirement to play with an app. I am opposed to bringing technology to my board games. I have everything published for the first edition of Mansions of Madness, and I love playing as the Keeper. I love the "many versus one" aspect of the game. So, for me, MoM1e is not broken, and does not require a new edition. But, what I would like are more adventures to play in the game.

So, will the new adventures published for MoM2e be compatible with MoM1e? Will there be maps and cards and plots and epilogues available for a Keeper to run those adventures with MoM1e components without the app?

If not, will the new adventures be available in two flavors? Can a consumer purchase either a MoM1e version of the adventure, or purchase a MoM2e version of the adventure?

Personal musing... I wonder if anyone will be playing MoM2e and suddenly their tech device crashes for any given reason. Do the players just suck it up and quit? Does the app auto-save the player's position in the game so the game can be restored when the device and/or app becomes functional again? Bad call to require technology in a board game.

Not backwards compatible.

I'll take the opposing view: I will likely be picking this up entirely because of the app. Why? Because I play co-op games due to lack of dedicated play group. I have no problem playing Edritch Horror, Elder Sign (physical or digital) and Eldritch Horror since all of them are co-op. I even don't have a problem playing both sides of a competitive game provided there is no truly game breaking hidden information. Sadly, that's precisely what Mansions of Madness has in the way of the Keeper. Having an app take on that role seems ideal and frees me up to try this game.

Officially no, but there are a bunch of fan made stories available on BGG.

You can bet those BGGers will use the 2nd edition tiles, monsters and characters to create 1st edition stories.

I'll take the opposing view: I will likely be picking this up entirely because of the app. Why? Because I play co-op games due to lack of dedicated play group. I have no problem playing Edritch Horror, Elder Sign (physical or digital) and Eldritch Horror since all of them are co-op. I even don't have a problem playing both sides of a competitive game provided there is no truly game breaking hidden information. Sadly, that's precisely what Mansions of Madness has in the way of the Keeper. Having an app take on that role seems ideal and frees me up to try this game.

Additionally, since the app works as the keeper, I'm hopefully expecting an easier setup than 1st edition

Owner of all 3 big boxes of MoM and a few PoDs, and played about half a dozen user made scenarios.

My group will enthusiastically be getting 2nd Ed, though I'm sure we'll still play 1st every now and then, haven't played all "good" scenarios yet.

To OPs question, it is likely an enterprising person could adapt a 2nd edition scenario to first, if they were willing to put forth the effort.

I'm more curious to if they will allow fans to make their own 2nd edition scenarios that work with the app. I doubt it, but who knows.