Hello all,

I'm a first-time poster on these boards and I love Fantasy Flight's thematic and simply awesome board games. I've come to ask for some advice or opinions on a certain matter concerning Arkham Horror and all of its expansions.

The way I play with my friends (usually 2 other people, and we sometimes use 2 investigators each) is by using all the expansion permanently integrated into the game. All the extra board expansions are in play, meaning that all the horrible penalties for doing so come with them. Gates opening everywhere, Moving rifts, monsters everywhere in every town...

My question is, do you guys feel overwhelmed at the situation at times? Do you find the need to split your people up to "take care" of certain areas, which in a way eliminates any cooperative gaming? I know it's part of the game to feel this way, especially if the Great Old Ones are going to destroy the universe--but how do you manage this kind of gameplay?

In other words, should I even be playing with all expansions at once? I do so to get the "complete" Arkham experience.

Thanks in advance!

Some folks here will recommend that as the only way to play.

Personally, I never use more than one big box expansion and one little box expansion at a time, which helps keep the expansion content relevant and undiluted. I keep everything shuffled into the decks though, and just keep drawing until I get an encounter from the expansions I'm using.

Also I always use all the investigator cards, as well as the mechanics from expansions not tied directly to the expansion boards, like epic battle and personal stories, and I keep all the monsters in the cup.

zombipuppy said:

With all the boards, that's 20 unstable locations in play. The biggest Doom Track available is 14. You could very well draw 14 Mythos cards with 14 different locations, so even if you were closing like mad in order to prevent too many gates being open, the Ancient One's awake anyway. That's not counting double-doom Mythos, nor is it counting anything ELSE you're trying to stop, like monsters in the street, or a Rift, or the Deep One Rising track, or rumors...Hmmm. Maybe it is a little overwhelming.

I call this Speed Arkham, and I really dislike it. You have no time to do anything but grab clues and seal gates, and your game is over in 15 turns. It kills the atmosphere for me. I like fighting monsters. I like monster surges (tend to be much rarer in Speed Arkham games). I like looking around.

The "Complete" Arkham Experience is a million different things to a million different players. I don't believe such a black-and-white quantity exists. But if how you're playing now feels too much like playing naked in traffic, try putting a couple of expansions away and see what you think. Usually this will focus the thematic feel of the game, and make some things harder (monster surges, Terror Track movement) and some things easier (eases up on the Doom Track by 5 or so turns).

At present, my personal recommendation is using just the Innsmouth board and cards, with the Black Goat Mythos cards shuffled in (for Arkham Location Gate Bursts). The difficulty level remains relatively consistent without the extra-frenzied rushing around.

Welcome to the Carnival, Zombipuppy!

Aye, thanks for the well-thought-out responses, fellas. I will definitely try shaking things up a bit to find a good balance! Now I must separate the cards into their respective expansion piles and figure things out....

I did this and spent a long night sorting (and counting) all my cards and finally seperating my "bloated" game into managable chunks.

This game is amazing on how modular it really is and the diffrent setups you can come up with.

Not pointed out yet (and someone always will) is that some components like madness/injury go well with everything so mixing it in without the rest of the expansion is a good idea.

Currently I am getting to know my expansions better rather then having a "Grand Adventure" type of game (doing everything apart from Innsmouth with 8 people burned me out badly).

I tend to set up theme based games, my next planned one is a 2 player Dark Paroah, its much simpler to weed out one or two expansions again. After that I am planning on giving Dunwich a go with 4-5 players and testing out the King and Goat expansions in solo games, after that its Kingsport for the second 4-5 player game (without Dunwich) to let the players try a game with a diffrent flavor to it.

I should have Innsmouth later in the summer so I am also planning on giving that a go with 4-5 players (without anything else added).

Mixing both a small and a large expansion will dilute things a bit, but I plan on doing it for a 5-6 player game or combining a couple of large expansions.

I played alot of games with everything mixed in but I recently realized that I dont really have a good feel for most of the expansions. I wanted the "complete experience" but instead it feelt like a sampler dish instead of a full meal. Using just one expansion gives the game a much stronger narritive.

I agree on the overwhelming thing, basicly some investigators ended up being "sentanced" to deal with the extra boards while the gate runners had the most fun back in good old Arkham. Parts of the expansions would take off for a moment, then dwindle into obscurity as related cards where not drawn again.

North_Wolf said:

Excellent idea on having themed gameplay, varying from session to session. I feel like it allows for more intimate 'story-telling' each time the game is played.