I like this forum precisely because I don't see the sort of personal insults and foul language that pervade so much of the internet.

Joseph_Lavode said:

That's because the ghost of Lovecraft haunts us and enforces good manners ;') he's like an Emily Post who will eat your soul if you misbehave.

There is no such thing as a soul. Our bodies function purely on chemical reactions in the brain.

kroen said:

Wow, I hope it's a level. Avi was kidding. I'm not sure about you.

Avi_dreader said:

You guys play Arkham Horror over Skype? How does that work exactly? Do you each set up your board and reflect the other's actions on your own boards?

I set up the game and Avi tracked his characters on his side. Since I had no video, he had to keep track of monster and gate locations on a spreadsheet. Now that I have video... he still won't see anything because my resolution is not too good. It also took a long time.

Next time I do that with anyone I'd better be informed in advance so that I can minimize downtime.

Joseph_Lavode said:

Yep, Joseph, well said. We are all gentlemen (and ladies) belonging to a different time

Julia said:

Oh no were Lost in Time and Spaaaace!!!!

Dietch said:

I wasn't kidding ;') what are you talking about?

Tibs said:

Next time I do that, I want a map representation made in advance (I was drawing my map as the game was going on for the first hour or so). It was kind of funny.

Tibs: A gate opens in Dunwich.

Me: Wait wait wait! I need to draw Dunwich!

I also used arkham horror wiki (with loads and loads of tabs open) and a MS Word document with lists of characters and items.

I had two pieces of paper representing the boards. I'd mark monsters, investigators, and clues on them.

Here's an example of an investigator in my MS Word. BJ is not an insult ;') it's the abbreviation I was using to mark him on my paper map.

FIRST PLAYER
Bob Jenkins BJ
Stam 4
San 4
Money 5
Clues 8

Speed 4
Fight 2
Lore 2

Items Naacal key, elder sign, magnum 357 (+5), shriveling

Skill expert occultist
Trophy: ghoul, proto-shoggoth, witch

And here are a few notations I left for myself so I'd remember next time I tried doing this.

Mark skill modifiers next to skill in parenthesis.
Players on top of streets, monsters on bottom [this refers to the one or two letter abbreviations marking them on the map]
Monster abbreviation only, keep open window with monster tabs
Have a good pencil with eraser.
Mark important items (that you plan to use) in bold.

Dietch said:

I'm never kidding.

Avi_dreader said:

Oh dear, sounds like a rather time consuming process. And Arkham's a long game as it is. How long did it take you guys to get through the game?

Out of curiosity, why didn't you set up a board yourself and just mirror the the changes? It just seems like it'd be less frustrating and might save a bit of time. Or maybe not, now that I think about it, having to fish out the monsters and items that you'd need. And then there's also space availability. I forget that not everyone is using a laptop.

It took around two hours extra. Keep in mind, that was a trial run (I'd never done it before), and I hadn't thought out a number of issues, and I didn't prepare maps (I was actually drawing them during the game). I think once the process is better refined, it could probably be done without adding any extra game time.

Avi_dreader said:

Aah, I see. I suppose having to make it up as you go would slow things down a bit. Well, if you guys are ever feel like adding a player I'd be interested in giving it a shot. It'd be nice to play with someone other than the same people for a change. Not that there's anything wrong with my regular group, mind you, it's just refreshing to play with new people every once and a while.

kroen said:

Considering some of your later posts in this thread it's probably not even your fault. I bet it's the chemical reactions in your brain that force you to behave like this.

If you're unable to stay civil, please refrain from posting here. I'm not kidding, either.

I'm relieved to see the admins are keeping watch. Maybe, if you manage to offend a sufficiently large number of other users you'll eventually get banned (again?!).

Normally, I'd now add something that's actually on topic, but right now I'm too annoyed.

Well we can wrangle this back on topic. Does anyone now think that Cult encounters are worth the effort to get? Sure, never having "a gate appears" is nice... but is it (and other small net benefits) worth forfeiting monster toughness or stamina? I'm still not sure honestly.

"small"? you still haven't read the encounters have you? removing a doom token, searching the spell deck for any spell, gaining 3 clues without any check, gaining common items, unique items, money, blessing all without a shred of skill check is not small. You can't really judge the worthiness of cult encounters if you haven't read them. I will gladly knock myself unconscious if it meants getting a cult membreship. I won't sacrifice an ally, but stamina/thoughness? without a thought.

I'd say it's worth it for variety's sake. But there's no way I'd discard an ally to get a cult membership. I might discard a trophy or stamina if I didn't really need them.

avec said:

Neither would I, unless it's Duke or or its counterpart in stamina (forgot the name)

Removing a doom token and searching the spell deck are definitely great if you're lucky enough to draw those cards, but in general I think kroen is seriously underestimating the cost of corruption. It might be worth a gamble if you're only planning on doing one or two cult encounters--or if you're screwed anyways--but (especially) if the Black Goat herald is in play, those corruption cards can very easily lose you the game.

Meh. Once had a character with 8 corrptions. Didn't worsen him by much. Actually worsen him less than a single injury/madness. Not to mention it's fairly easy to get rid of corruptions, and some of them not always take effect.

What I really don't like about corruptions is that once about half a dozen are in play, they're really hard to keep track of. In theory, keeping track of corruptions shouldn't be any harder than keeping track of monster movement, but for some reason it's a pain in the ass.

I don't really have an opinion on the topic at hand per se, since I've never played with Black Goat of the Woods (I don't own it). But I would point out that "% of encounters which are "bad"", is not a particularly great measure of how good a deck of encounters is. There is a lot of variation among "bad" encounters, just as there is a lot of variation among "good" ones.

My own impression is that the Black Cave is a horrible place to visit; Woods and Unvisited Isle less so. The Graveyard and Witch House are also pretty horrible: I wonder if it would have been better if they'd been Cult locations?

Looking down the original list, I can only count 5 cult encounters that are purely bad (raise terror level, lost 2 sanity, discard 2 allies, monster appears, and discard 2 clues/2 stamina). An encounter for which the worst result is losing your membership cannot be regarded as "purely bad", at least not if you're trying to argue that being a member is a bad thing in the first place. Drawing corruption cards isn't purely bad either-in fact in general, it isn't bad at all. In addition, none of the 5 "bad" ones are really awful: in fact I'd say "lose 2 sanity" is about the worst overall. though the monster and/or terror raise may be worse under some circumstances.

YellowPebble said:

It's a down-and-dirty metric, to be sure. I find that it's useful in making a distinction between stable and unstable locations. For most stable locations, the vast majority of the encounters aren't bad, while for unstable locations, usually around 2/3 of the encounters are "bad." I originally used this metric with cult encounters to demonstrate to my gaming group that cult locations weren't effectively "stable" for cult members.

When analyzing encounter cards, there are probably two extreme positions that one could take. One extreme position is that all "bad" encounters are the same and all "good" encounters are the same. The opposite extreme is Kroen's stated position, which is that "gate opens" encounters are the only encounters to avoid and all other encounters are equally good since at least they don't open a gate. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

Of course, the irony is that the best way to obtain a cult membership is to camp out at one of the three cult locations. However, if you do that, you're much more likely to draw a "gate opens" encounter than you are to draw an encounter that lets you join the cult. So in trying to obtain protection, you have defeated your own purpose.

The other problem is that joining the cult only gives you an illusion of protection from "gate opens" encounters. In practice, someone with a cult membership is a lot more likely to move to a "non-cult" unstable location than to a "cult" unstable location. Furthermore, if there are (say) four investigators, and three of them do not have cult memberships, then if there is an investigator who moves to a cult location, it's probably one of the investigators who doesn't have a cult membership. In practice, cult membership cards have a negligible effect on reducing the probability of drawing "gate opens" encounters. The "certainty" that cult membership provides is just too highly conditional to meaningful.

avec said:

Don't forget that the corruption cards when they reach the red begin to have the chance of adding doom. Admitedly this is a little on the rare side but its there, just like the gate opens and the join the cult encounters.