Earlier today, in a game I was running, one of my players got an encounter at Arkham Asylum that gave him the option to take three clues and enter the Dreamlands. There happened to be a Dreamlands gate open with nobody currently inside so he chose to take that option. In the Other World Encounter phase, I drew the gate card that says: "You've completed your task, now you must escape before the portal closes! Pass a Speed(-2) check to return to Arkham. If you fail, you are Lost in Time and Space. In either event, you automatically close the gate you entered through."

Since he didn't actually enter through a gate, when he passed the roll I ruled that he came out at the open gate but that he would have to close the gate himself. Was this right or should this have been handled differently?

Wow, this is a tricky one. But I think you played it right.

Since the first part says to "return to Arkham," and not specifically to return to "the gate you entered through," you would return to the open Dreamlands gate.

But the second part says, "close the gate you entered through," but there is no such gate, so you would ignore that part.

But what if his OW encounter would have been different? I mean, a "normal" OW encounter. Next round he should have moved to the second area, have an encounter there and then (if no more problems occurred), he should have been back to Arkham. Shouldn't he have obtained an explorer marker even if he never phisically entered that gate?

once he came out of the gate he would get the explored token. Instead of the gate closing itself he now has a shoot to seal which is nice

Right, he still gets the Explored token and can try to close the gate next turn. But the gate doesn't close itself via the Other World encounter's text, because he did not enter through the gate.

But wouldn't that be a nice encounter to turn up if you had a gate box on you?

Yakumo said:

Yep you played it right.

Tibs said:

Ok, got it! A subtle observation, friend!

I don't understand why ? Why would it not be closed automatically ? I mean, I'd say that the "the gate you entered through" is just a wording, just considering it obvious that someone arriving in that OW made it via a gate. I mean, did the encounter he first had in Arkham mention to go over DL via a gate, or without opening any, or...?

Hem said:

You don't necessarily enter the OW through a gate. Especially Dreamlands has plenty of encounters where you go there for a quickie and then come back, usually the text mentions something like you fall asleep, you doze off, etc.

Hmm, maybe we played it wrong so far. Every time an AE card said "you go over that OW", we always searched for the appropriate gate and put it where the invest had his AE and then put the invest on the OW...... maybe we should look more carefully if that process is mentionned or NOT. Gee.

Hem said:

Unless the encounter reads "a gate appears" (usually with the full "a gate and a monster appears"), no gate opens. You'd have gates at Stable locations if you are fishing for the gates, IIRC Library and Train Station are two locations where I've gotten a Dreamlands visit encounter in.

The encounter in question was at Arkham Asylum, and read "A doctor working on dream therapy asks if you'd be willing to venture into a patient's nightmares; he seems to be beset by dreams of animal-headed men, blinding sand, and strange pyramids. If you agree, you gain 3 Clue tokens but immediately move to the Dreamlands. " There is no mention of a gate in the encounter and Arkham Asylum is stable, gates don't open there. The only reason the guy bothered to take it was because a Dreamlands gate was already open somewhere else, so he wouldn't end up Lost in Time and Space. Therefore, he didn't enter through a gate.