I have two fresh cultists to sacrifice over the board They are coming from Heidelburg next month and are keen gamers but have never played AH. As keen gamers speculating on whether or not to buy AH, they want to see ALL the expansions. I have not recommended it for all the widely recognised reasons but they are keen. Perhaps I can persuade them to play with only 1 or 2, a couple of times.

Most times I have played alone or with a partner, so 4 will be a novelty for me, do any of you have some advice on what makes a good, 4 player game for newbs who want to see as much of the game as possible? Dont worry about roasting them, they've read HPL and played Cthulhu rpg so they know the deal.

I'd go for a game with Cthulhu as AO (long, long domm track, which should ensure the possibility of a long game, and thus to explore some special situation / abilities deeply instead of fighting against time almost all the game long) + Hydra as a Herald (not as devastating as Dagon, but still enjoyable for understanding how Heralds might boost an AO). And probably not use all expansions because of the card dilution, but the most significant in terms of mechanics, thus base game + Kingsport (although it has no unstable locations, which might be a flaw under certain points of view, the game mechanics of rifts is very cleaver and newcomers and passionate HPL readers would love the opportunity of becoming Captain of the White Ship or meeting Nodens in the High House in the Mist) + Innsmouth. I'll cut off the smaller expansions and Dunwich (although it's a wonderful expansions, the vortex mechanics is the same of IH). In this way you should avoid having thousands of gates opening in different boards, and your players will enjoy the suffering pleasure of having some strong activity to face (in my little experience of the game, I've often found more enjoyable playing only with IH or DH at one time, instead of having both boards available. Maybe it's just a matter of personal likenings, but I prefer having some serious troubles on a board rather than having a couple of gates in Dunwhich and another one in Innsmouth)

And maybe a pool of decent investigator to play with, avoiding the worst ones. It can be a challenge playing with crappy characters, but if your friends have to learn how to play, maybe it's good to have some characters working in any case.

Don't play all the expansions. Use elements from all the expansions (e.g. expanded monster cup, spells, items, Encounter cards, Mythos cards), but stick to two boards - I'd suggest base plus Dunwich. Remove Lily Chen, the Spy and Wendy Adams. Give your new starting players an easy investigator like Joe, Gloria, Mandy or the expedition leader.

Treat the game as if you were running it as an adjudicator - handle anything complex yourself, so that your players can concentrate on making decisions about how to stop the AO from waking. If you play, be prepared to play a pawn sacrifice investigator who will fling himself in front of that big gribbly monster for the team.

For newbies, on a 4 person game...

IMHO: Use Dunnwich and DP expansions (and maybe BGotW)

Guardian: Hypnos

It keeps Clue tokens on the board (so if a newbie doesn't know what to do you can always suggest picking up another clue token) and gives them a chance to see more of the encounters which is a really fun aspect of the game

Herald: i'm not sure on this one..

i'd avoid the BGotW or Groth though. The Dunwich horror is pretty good as is the Dark Pharoah, The king is yellow is cool but can be a real jerk...

AO: Ithqua

a pretty good size doom track and a Simple "Slumber" mechanic, having played the game i'm sort of numb to the amount of mechanics involved in playing but for newbies some simple reliable mechanics are easy to learn. And if the game goes to Final combat there is an OK chance of defeating the AO. This AO makes the game pretty good for newbies, Not too challenging but not a cakewalk either (because newbies will make mistakes or make some dumb decisions)

Note: I Advise AGAINST using Cthulhu... It immediately makes the Sanity and Stamina numbers on the cards "Wrong" cause they right away, he is super tough and if you have to fight him in final combat, good luck with that!

Isn't Azathoth supposed to be specially designed for newbies? At least I can't think of any other reason to use him.

Yeah, but Azathoth is LONG. I'd rather introduce newbies to Yig: the game is over fast, and if they're longing for more you can follow through with a Nyarlathotep or Ithaqua game (which tend to be short too).

Thanks all for the responses and your time.

Julia: Cthulhu was my first choice too - he is the most recognisable foe, the classic, with a long slumber and simple game effects. But the handicap to max worries me - i dont want them to spend half the game in the asylum. I also worry about some of the investigators for reasons other than scores of 3. I will probably cave in and use all the boards, but I want to have something new to show them for next time (gotta keep them pressing the button for that seed). I like Hydra as a Herald, but im not sure if they will be one of the 'new' mechanics i hold back, along with guardians. Ill always play with a full monster cup and item decks though.

Jake: Excellent advice, very helpful thank you, I am in need of advice like this because i play alone so often. I see the reasoning behind base + dunwich, innsmouth can be horrific if you are still trying to cope with how you win the game. I will remove some of the wackier characters (along with some of the 3 scores if playing Cthulhu) but these are gamers, they want to choose their character, so fixing that upside completely is a no-no.

Lord Nerdhammer: Ithaqua is a very good choice, my second after Cthulhu given a day of thought. But I think they can handle having the wrong nubers on their sheets, especially if i keep an eye on it and remind them. One of the advantages i will have is that I know the rules and all the nuances of this game pretty well having been around here since 1st edition, I have hung out here a bit and i know the mistakes people commonly make. And I watch everything like a hawk and run it like clockwork by force of habit and obsessive-compulsive disorder

avec: yes, i think he is, but i want to teach them about final combat too.

Tibs: and yes hes LONG, and so is Cthulhu, and I really like the idea of slapping them a bit with Yig before a long drawn out slugfest with Cthulhu, we will have the time, and playing 2 games will show more clearly how the different AOs influence the strategy, and give them more cards to look at and more investigators to try on. Nice, thank you

So right now i think it will be Yig, with Dunwich, using mythos and boards from AH, KH, and DH, plus maybe a small expansion to water gate bursting down further (my favourite is the KiY for the acts cards).

Then Cthulhu, maybe with Hydra as Herald, AH, KH and DH or maybe switch it out with IH board, again with possibly a small expansion to water down innsmouth or Dunwich further. hmm, probably leave innsmouth out entirely until next time...

Any more thoughts?

dj2.0 said:

If you don't mind leaving out Innsmouth, I'd say leave out Innsmouth (I'd also say don't bother with Hydra since it's just another thing to keep track of, and it doesn't particularly add to the fun of the game). Yig then Cthulhu seems like a good idea. You might want to make a preselected investigator pool. Don't let them pick out of all of them, just pick a few that you think are pretty well balanced. That way you won't have to worry about a 2 sanity investigator against Cthulhu as fun as that is for me, it might not be as much fun for newbies.

I wouldn't use KiY. You don't want to risk an anti-climactic instant game over from Act Cards (unlikely as it is). You don't really need to water down the gate bursts. So what if one gate blows open during the game? It'll still probably happen even if you add in a small box expansion.

AH KH and DH should be fine. Lots of encounters, not too many boards.

Excellent points. I had already decided to modify the character pool, and quite heavily for cthulhu. I think i will actually leave out the heralds and IH and KiY too, which will also allow me to hit them with the KiY herald and the acts next time (probably with IH board and mythos).

Will let you all know how it goes, they are coming in a few weeks if all goes to plan. Cant wait!