https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3175613/arkham-horror-card-game

I guess the third scenario has a few copies of the Arkham Woods and not all are used in the scenario. Gives me hope that other locations will have multiple copies to help with replay value.

Since it's the woods, my guess is that they are all in play, but the reverse sides are different (cf the Lost Island cards in the current LotR cycle). So, you're exploring the woods, but you don't know exactly where you need to go.

The OP for the picture thread comments below picture that not all woods are used in the scenario. Seems to me that means you have to randomly choose a certain number.

How would multiple location copies improve replay value?

How would multiple location copies improve replay value?

more variation = less chance of repeats= less predicatble= keeps the game fresh.

My guess is that only 1 of them is the correct path and the other 3 are dangerous or dead end paths. Perhaps in easy mode you only need to setup the correct path but in higher difficulties more would be used.

How would multiple location copies improve replay value?

more variation = less chance of repeats= less predicatble= keeps the game fresh.

Variation will be based on the scenario design, not how many copies of a card are included? And so far it sounds like scenario setup is pretty static. Even then, additional copies of the card aren't what will create variation, it's more locations (or whatever) than is needed for a given setup. Warhammer Quest had no duplicates but the locations provided plenty of variation.

In the first scenario once you've played it you know that the basement is dark and has a high shroud value, on subsequent playthroughs you will save your flashlight for the basement. The scenario loses some of the surprise and is less enjoyable.

Alternate versions of the same location means it could be a dark/flooded/rat infested basement. That increases replayability because there is more variance each time it is played.

How would multiple location copies improve replay value?

Multiple copies of a card called 'Arkham Woods' - not multiple copies of the same card called 'Arkham Woods' - so each copy has a different side.

This leaves a ton of design space for replayability/variability of scenarios.

One option...as an example... easy mode = one location, standard mode = two locations, hard mode = three locations, expert mode = all four locations. (or whatever the difficulty modes are called).

One option...as an example... easy mode = one location, standard mode = two locations, hard mode = three locations, expert mode = all four locations. (or whatever the difficulty modes are called).

From My understanding you won't be using all 4 copies in one play through you just randomly select one as others have stated. Which in fact creates some replay ability as you wont know what's under the location.

So I don't think the different difficulties will affect how many of one location you will use. Locations just seem like a way to farm for clues to advance the scenario before the enemy does. So having more options isn't necessarily harder unless the scenario specifically states you must find all clues on all given locations, which seems tedious and boring.

I am however curious to see how big some areas will get with the different locations without being overwhelming, given the ability to travel to and from different locations using the bottom chart on the card.

I dont think is "tedious and boring" just having a couple of locations more.

Edit = Another option not so "tedious and boring" is having one Arkham Woods for each investigator in the setup.

Edit = Another option not so "tedious and boring" is having one Arkham Woods for each investigator in the setup.

That seems more likely. Normally, the number of clues at each location scales with the number of Investigators. If each copy of Arkham Woods has a fixed number of clues, you get the same scaling effect with the added bonus of forcing the party to split up.

Multiple copies of a card called 'Arkham Woods' - not multiple copies of the same card called 'Arkham Woods' - so each copy has a different side.

This leaves a ton of design space for replayability/variability of scenarios.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but if they're not the same card, it's not multiple copies. "Multiple card variants" increases replayability, "multiple copies" really doesn't

But that explains what people were thinking would give more replayability, and does clear up the confusion.

Multiple copies of a card called 'Arkham Woods' - not multiple copies of the same card called 'Arkham Woods' - so each copy has a different side.

This leaves a ton of design space for replayability/variability of scenarios.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but if they're not the same card, it's not multiple copies. "Multiple card variants" increases replayability, "multiple copies" really doesn't

But that explains what people were thinking would give more replayability, and does clear up the confusion.

Multiple copies of a card called 'Arkham Woods' - not multiple copies of the same card called 'Arkham Woods' - so each copy has a different side.

This leaves a ton of design space for replayability/variability of scenarios.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but if they're not the same card, it's not multiple copies. "Multiple card variants" increases replayability, "multiple copies" really doesn't

But that explains what people were thinking would give more replayability, and does clear up the confusion.

It's like in Eldritch Horror, where there would be multiple cards with the same name and same effect on the front, but a different effect on the back. So you would have two different shriveling spells, but I wouldn't find it unreasonable to refer to them as "two copies of shriveling."

I dont think is "tedious and boring" just having a couple of locations more.

Edit = Another option not so "tedious and boring" is having one Arkham Woods for each investigator in the setup.

I wasn't saying that having more locations would be tedious and boring, I was commenting on your idea of difficulty (or your new option) that adding more locations of the same name in the same scenario doesn't really make any sense unless, to complete the scenario, you have to find all clues on all locations. Which in turn would be tedious and boring,

As stated before, from my understanding watching demos and such, you will only ever use one copy of a location and the multiple ones are their for variety, to entice replay ability or the use of the same location like the Arkham Woods in other campaigns.

Clues on locations scale based on Investigator and the actual difficulty modes seem to only interact with tokens and the encounter deck to my knowledge.

I believe you put them all and you can't know what each location is going to do until you travel to them.

Just because they are all called arkham woods on the back doesn't mean they are the same location. They could be "cabin in the woods", "blasted stump", "quiet clearing" & "circle of stones" on the reverse.

They used a similar exploration mechanic in a mansions of madness 1st edition scenario.

It's like in Eldritch Horror, where there would be multiple cards with the same name and same effect on the front, but a different effect on the back. So you would have two different shriveling spells, but I wouldn't find it unreasonable to refer to them as "two copies of shriveling."

Not unreasonable, but I wouldn't think about it that way Hence the confusion behind my initial question.

I believe you put them all and you can't know what each location is going to do until you travel to them.

If you put them all into play, then metagaming becomes easy because you'd know, every time you play, that you'll be facing card X and card Y and so on. For this reason, often a larger than needed pool of cards is created. It happened with RuneBound, where you have 8 out of 10 story cards in play during each game, for example. So, when I see something like this, I'd expect that at least one card is left out during the setup, so that a certain margin of uncertainty is left.

As for having a number of cards equal to the number of players: could work for scaling, but doesn't work for other reasons. Thematical reasons first: it's not realistic if the size of the wood changes with the number of players exploring. And then mechanical: soloing would mean that you have only one card that should grant you all the resources needed to advance, thus, all cards are the same in terms of clues, and you lose replayability.

So, the only logical solution for me is having a pool of X cards, and each time you play you use Y cards, with Y=constant and lower than X.