There is an interesting conversation going on in the Arkham Horror the Card Game Group on facebook and I was wondering what people's thoughts were about it here.

I'll quote the post (it's not mine, you can see the original in the facebook group if you're interested):

I love this game but I have one minor gripe. I'm getting tired of seeing dissonate voices and ancient evils in every other scenario. There's a few scenarios that have both sets and is starting to make the scenarios a LITTLE samey. It's kind of like how in LoTR I got tired of seeing Forest Road at first. The good thing there was that the nightmare decks mostly took that card (and many other repeats) out of the early scenarios. So I have some questions for you guys:

Do you guys think we'll see nightmare versions of scenarios to "spice them up"? I know we already have a nightmare mode with the chaos bag but I'd like to see some different encounter cards.

Do you think we're going to see the same encounter sets from the core set throughout the life of this game? I really hope not.

I actually had the same thoughts as the OP just the other day as I was building the 2nd to last scenario of the Dunwich cycle.

Someone else in the thread replied with:

I couldn't agree more with this post. Especially the lord of the rings analogy. Imagine if we were still seeing Dul Guldur Orcs in the Sands of Harad Cycle? I would have quit the game by the Ring Maker cycle.

I feel the opposite. Those are good generic sets that are fun to see every once in a while in the different scenarios. I love/hate the Ancient Evils card, but it is a great set to add if they need that extra fear of the encounter deck. That's one of the things I didn't like about Lord of the Rings, that they never really went back and used old encounter sets. I wish that they would keep doing this going forward, and even use some of the Dunwich generic sets in Carcosa, but I don't see that happening as they don't want to require people to buy Dunwich to play Carcosa.

There was only 3 scenerios in the core, so I am glad they at least added them to some Dunwich campaigns so we could play with those sets more often.

Well, the reason we didn't see Dol Goldur Orcs by Ring Maker wasn't so much that they were getting repetitive, but that they were obsolete. By ring maker, pretty much every deck could deal with Dol Goldur orcs no problem. In the Core set, they could still sneak damage through, but because of power creep they became relatively pointless pretty fast.

If Arkham has a similar power creep, then I imagine we'll see the retirement of Ancient Evils and Striking Fear.... but so far I feel the game has done a fantastic job in limiting power creep, so there isn't really a need to retire these cards yet. Though I sort of hate to see Ancient Evils when it comes up, it helps to spice the game up so that you can never be 100% sure when the agenda is going to advance. Striking Fear seems to do things to investigators that will always be annoying, so I don't see that going away any time soon either.

I kinda like seeing some of the old standbys. It lets me feel like I'm still getting a lot of value out of the core set encounter cards.

18 hours ago, zeromage said:

I couldn't agree more with this post. Especially the lord of the rings analogy. Imagine if we were still seeing Dul Guldur Orcs in the Sands of Harad Cycle? I would have quit the game by the Ring Maker cycle.

Well, the Ringmaker cycle was the fourth for LOTR, so it seems we've got at least three more campaigns before it becomes a problem?

I actually look at it the other way. Reusing the core encounter sets in Dunwich does mean you see those more often, but it also means you see the Dunwich ones LESS. You'll get less duplication as you play through a campaign.

The size of the encounter sets actually matters too. Arkham's sets are much smaller than the LOTR sets. That allows them to be more micro-targeted, and it also means that even when they're included more often, the repetition doesn't feel as bad because they're a relatively small portion of the deck.

We know that Carcosa will continue this trend. It hasn't really bothered me personally - I can see it doing so, but probably not for another three campaigns or so

I am fine with Ancient Evils. You always need that little bit of potential Doom showing up to keep you on your toes. It is also generic and only takes 3 cards.

I dislike Striking Fear because it is 7 cards. It shows up a lot. And they are in so many of the scenarios.

I hate ancient evils, lol. But I also agree to an extent. I wish there was more of a variety of generic decks. I kind of want the Path to Carcosa to introduce more "generic" decks and then maybe going forward a selection of those be chosen at random at the beginning of each scenario that needs 'filler' cards. Perhaps revise/errata it to include them in the dunwich box.

It actually makes me wonder if they will be used at all in the Carcosa campaign. Perhaps there will be 'new' generic cards for that story in the base box.

The only problem with new generic cards in the Deluxe Packs, is it makes the Deluxe packs a requirement for the future. Example if they needed mobsters in one of the Carcosa scenarios, if they went ahead and used Naomi's Crew, it would mean you would have to own "The Dunwich Legacy". So far in all of the LCGs there has never been a requirement to own another expansion, (except of course the start of a cycle in this one). I would have like to have seen even more generic cards out of the core set, so they wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time they wanted to use the same effect, monster.

I expect there with be "encounter cards" for the Path to Carcosa cycle in the deluxe set, just as there were in The Dunwich Legacy.

Doesn't bother me at all. I think it's a smart way for them to be able to design encounter decks for scenarios.

The encounter sets are so small in Arkham Horror that it isn't such a big deal. I've never played a scenario in Dunwich Legacy where I thought "The core set cards are breaking the immersion of this scenario."

6 hours ago, MrCee said:

I expect there with be "encounter cards" for the Path to Carcosa cycle in the deluxe set, just as there were in The Dunwich Legacy.

Yeah, they are part of the leak. And like with Dunwich, there are 2 encounter sets that will only be used in the packs.

I haven't had a problem with it. The encounter sets that get recycled tend to be general enough to fit the theme of the scenario. I still see plenty(and sometimes too many) of the scenario specific cards.

Yeah, I'm also in the 'doesn't bother me' camp. I'll play the scenarios repeatedly, and it's nice to learn their particular flavours, Striking Fear and Ancient Evils included. Yes, I'm familiar with those cards, but that's still part of the fun.