I haven't played in a while but so far the following rules have been applyed in my group:

• When you pick objects at the shops you can decide to buy none, even if you have enough money for one
• When we play with expansions we create one mythos deck per expansion and each turn draw from a different one in a predefined sequence
• There is only one copy of Arcane insight in the spell deck, if any
• Daisy Walker R.A.W. is not allowed

The following official or semi-official rule are routinely applyed

• Injuries and Madness
• Personal stories
• Aquatic locations

The following rules are under testing:

• Ferry services (an alternative to train that moves within aquatic locations)
• Travelling by road (2$ and exausting a vehicle to move between two town endin the movement in a street area)

We are also working on trimming down the various objects decks and revising Dexter Drake to make him a little more playable (possibly not necessary with the personal stories)

I'd like to introduce Gate bursts in the base game. Referring to the expansions' Mythos card, calculating the number of Gate bursts vs the "normal" openings and then applying the same perchentage to the base game cards. Then, everytime you draw a AH Mythos card , roll a die. If you roll lower or equal to the given %, then treat the opening as a Gate burst (and record it on a separate sheet, since there will be a maximum number of Gate bursts possible).

I'll try to do some maths in the w-end and then post here some data.

And I'm thinking on how to improve the mosters' movement in Innsmouth. Last time we played, a Formless spawn danced for 15 Mythos cards along the streets of Innsmouth, carefully avoiding any Vortex.

If you want to do Gate Bursts in a game without any, try this:

If a gate opens on a seal, flip the seal to the doom token side. But it is still a seal.

If a gate opens on a doom-token-side-up seal, it is a gate burst!

That solves your frequency problem, and no dice are necessary.

After a couple of games we decided to merge the movement and Arkham Encounters phase into one singular phase. For some reason it just feels right.

Julia said:

Eh... I was just discussing how the base game sucks with someone a couple days ago. Gate bursts won't solve the problem (they don't add doom). Just add a doom token ever 8 or so turns. That'll make the base function with a challenge (even though the AOs will still be weak in final combat).

Avi_dreader said:

I've actually worried we've been playing incorrectly somehow with the base game as, in the three sessions we've played, the terror track has barely moved and the Ancient Ones we've played against - Hastur and Nyarlathotep - have been handily defeated without a single investigator loss. I'm CERTAINLY incorporating Monster Surges in all games from now on, but it seems as if the expansions will be a great help in ramping up the challenge as well.

My wife and I have played two of those times using two characters apiece. You start getting two monsters per gate at five characters, of course, and it has occurred to me that maybe the four character number makes the base game easy enough that maybe two monsters would be better off enacted at maybe that number, instead.

Rovin said:

Umm, Monster Surges are not an optional rule, it is just the term for the base game rule for when a gate is about to open on a location that already has a gate and you draw a number of monsters equal to the number of gates or investigators (whichever is higher).

If you want difficulty with the base game, play with 3 random investigators against Yog-Sothoth or Cthulhu. If you beat them both, go for expansions.

-Villain

Villain said:

I'm not sure if it's not called that in the base game manual or something, but I swear I recall it being in the Dunwich Expansion manual under the name Monster Surge and not in the base game manual.

"B. Location Has Open Gate
If there is already an open gate at the location, a monster
emerges from every open gate currently on the board.

This is called a monster surge. When a monster surge
occurs, the number of monsters drawn and placed is equal
to the number of open gates or the number of players,
whichever is greater" (p. 9)

Dam said:

Ah. Thank you.

Rovin said:

While the rule has always been in the base game rulebook, the actual term "monster surge" wasn't used until the Dunwich Horror manual came out (it has then been included in the revised base game rulebook as well), so you're partially correct. But the rule has never been optional, it's one of the most basic game concepts.

-Villain

Villain said:

In all honestly I had a great deal of trouble figuring the game out from the manual alone and found myself relying more and more on the Dunwich Horror's index on the last page, a couple of video tutorials, and a flowchart that was recommended.

Tibs said:

Ah, I love that. Simple and effective.

we play with all expansion cards in

Pick investigators, (and take personal story card at each players discretion). then

check for towns, roll 1 die on a success there is another town (5 = 1 extra town, 6= 2 extra towns). roll die 1-2 dunwich 3-4 kingsport 4-6 innsmouth.

check for herald, roll 1 die on a success there is a herald, roll randomly for the herald as for towns against those allowable given choice of towns.

check for guardian, roll 1 die on a success there is a guardian, roll die 1-2 bast, 3-4 hypnos, 5-6 nodens

pick GOO randomly ie all cards face fown.

when drawing mythos cards ignore all cards from the dunwich, kingsport, or innsmouth expansions unless the corresponding board is in play.

play the game with the intention to seal or close rather than tool up for the goo from the outset.

Tibs said:

It's definitely a good and simple rule; the main problem with this is that two hits and the seal is gone. Which isn't exactly what I was searching for. I mean, the ideal is that a seal can resist to tons of opening, or suddently break. That's why I'm thinking of probabilities. Anyway, I'll try to do some maths next friday, more or less, in order to fix it. But thanx anyway for the suggestion!

Avi_dreader said:

Very true. Maybe the moving gate dynamic from the upcoming LatT could solve this problem. Don't know, but it would be fun.
It's strange... when I started playing Arkham, I thought it was impossible to win before final combat, and none of us was brave enough to choose Azathoth as the AO since it was impossible to win a game against such a tough enemy. We, little kids still in the garden with toys...

Julia said:

::Laughter:: my first game was against Azathoth with Mandy (only). The terror hit ten. I lost. Eventually.

Rovin said:

The base game is pretty easy if you know what you're doing ;') especially if you skip monster surges.

Avi_dreader said:

Yes indeed. We had everything figured out this time and played a session with the Black Goat of the Woods expansion no less, which made it harder. It was a very satisfying game strategically and such, though BG doesn't seem to have its additional elements implemented all that well (the corruption cards that were obtained were all dead-end or useless - "Ask around if anyone would like to join the cult" for example, which no one wanted to do) the continual cascade of dual monsters made for a fantastic game. I've implemented the injury and madness cards from the Dunwich expansion and the Epic Battle deck from Kingsport and really found them a lot of fun to use.

On thing I didn't like - and I know you're not SUPPOSED to like it, of course, as a player - is the "Game ends immediately, everyone is devoured" card in the Epic Battle Deck. While I understand why it's there and all and don't really disagree with its purpose - I'm a Cthulhu Mythos fiction fan and that's what really lead me to this game, after all - it just feels really anticlimactic. If we wage the battle and lose, fine. If we wage the battle and win, fine. But it came down to a very narrow margin and that card felt very party-pooperish.

Rovin said:

That's one of the Red cards. Really, your final combat took 9+ rounds???

Dam said:

Yes, it actually did. We had two characters with quite a few monster trophies - I think I had something like ten on Joe Diamond as I had him basically killing beasties keeping the terror track under control while another couple of characters focused more on gates. I had the "Dreamer" fellow from the Kingsport expansion as well, but after he got out of the Dreamlands he just ended up stifled for the most part with bad luck. As for the other two - one was devoured in round 1, and another was devoured around round three or four.

It went down to the wire. In fact, Joe Diamond would have been devoured at the next round had we not drawn the card that dropped a Dark Young on him, with victory meaning loss of a doom token. S-N only had one DT left, Jack beat the Dark Young, game was over.

1.Any hero that seems obviously, to the players, not going to cast any spells may take a different skill if...oh what its called. The skill that gives you a reroll on spell casting.

2.If you draw the Alien Statue or any of the missions from Dunwich Horror you may discard and draw another unique item in its place.

3.Sister Mary's blessing does not get rolled for until the third turn.

Rovin said:

Heh... I agree with you on BGotW's corruption implementation. I made a custom herald that's a bit more fun than the one the game comes with (unless your idea of fun is setting up a separate monster cup and running around frantically or being pulped). It's the third picture, it's also called The Black Goat of the Woods.

http://s622.photobucket.com/albums/tt307/avi_dreader/

And yet... I do like End of Everything.

Avi_dreader said:

You've got everything implemented into this very nicely. I'll definitely give this herald a run next time I run Black Goat. Thanks!

You're welcome :') feel free to try the other stuff (and check out the heralds section in the fan creation section, there are several really good things there, there's been a boom of activity in the last few months too) and to send me a session report ;'D