I love Arkham Horror and i am happy about every expnasion. Also Fantasy Flight has added some absolut crucial elements concerning the look and feel of the game, like the injury und madness cards, so it's not like "sure, he's been to the hospital for the sixth time, but look at him, almost as new". Or the epic battle cards.

But one element has been missing since for one crucial element: The Clue Token. You need clue token for one of the most important things in AH: closing gates but also rerolls.

In AH you have so many places of the Lovecraft Mythos, you have all these characters and all these GOO's, but when you visit a location you just "recieve a clue". That bothered me from the start. Wouldn't it be great, to have a very short information for every Clue you pick up? Even betterm when they were specific to the location you are at?

An example. You pick up a clue token at the Science Building. immediatly after you picked up a clue token you have to draw (or chose to draw) a Clue-Story card with an according Color of this neighborhood (bright yellow). Since clues can only appear at unstable locations it is ust nescessary, to have these locations listed in the Clue-Story-Cards. There is a very short story to the clue you picked up:

" As you are in the Science Building of the Miskatonic University, you find deep in the exhibits of the dark pharao piece of metal that could not be from this world. Engraved on its front you see symbols you cannot read. Suddenly you realise, that you broke into exclamation of the name "Nyarlathotep" over and over again.

You gain one clue Token"

Also, the Clue-Story-cards can add additional events to the game:

"Stumbling though the Woods, you find the remains of something that looks like an altar. As you examine the remains, you find a mystic symbol referring to the cult of the black goat. In the distance you can hear voices calling... Iä! Shub-Nigugrath!

You gain one clue token

Also, you mus take a "one of the thousand" cult membership card" (if you are playing with the Goat expansion)

Or you can gain additional Clues, lose the clue at this location ("You got sidetracked by rumors that turned out to be false. You gain no clue tokens at this location.), pass checks, be confronted with difficult decisons (either you take the clue and be delayed, or lose this clue token).

Upside of Clue-Story cards: More atmosphear, more tie ins with the characters and GOO's (i.e. some namedropping), some more random effects

Downside: prolongues the game. Therefore it could be optional to draw a Clue-Story card.

What do you think, should such an expansion be released for AH? I sure would love this. I couldn't make this by myself, because i don't have such a deep knowledge of the Lovecraft mythos, but maybe other people are willing to do a fan pack like this?

Yeah, it's a good idea, and it's sort of been touched on before with variants for "Clue Cards". This belongs in Fan Creations, though, I'd say. No doubt a deck could be put together with Strange Eons.

Thanks for the reply! I check Strange Eons for it.

WintermuteZero said:

The idea sounds nice, but beware, clues usually appear at unstable locations, but they can even appear elsewhere, under special circumstances (I don't know whether you have all the expansions or not, so maybe what I'm going to say can sound a little odd to you). A Gate burst generally makes 2 clue tokens appear, one in an unstable location, while the other one can appear both in a street area or in a stable location. And in case you play with Hypnos as a Herald, well, every round you will have an extra clue that can appear in a stable location.

Actually if such a deck were done I'd work with the stable locations a lot. One could include clue cards at unstable locations that are worthless, but allow to draw two or more clue cards at a stable location(s) if and only if a regular encounter is taken there (no special text). A bit like the task cards if you will. This would also result in onvestigators having 'more to do' and people actually exploring stable locations.

I love the 'story' part of AH, but maybe I'm not seeing your suggestion clearly.

This is something I often do in my head, or muttering aloud to myself if sanity low enough, or out loud with others, often linking what goes on in an encounter in a location with a clue token I picked up (go to Silver Twilight Lodge and get token, have encounter where scap of something found on fence and you get a token) = narration "Ah there are mysterious deeds and cloaked toing and froing from the lodge, I see sinister figures entering and a scrap of parchment from one's cloak blows to the fence" (2 clue tokens).

Leaving some of story open (not in cards) allows customizing to different investigators, "that looks like one of my wife's killers" says George etc.

Rob

@valvorik:

True, you can do this by yourself. We sometomes do too. But as the game progresses, the games turns more mechanic on us, so we "need" clue tokens to close gates after a while. The Story-Clue-Cards would help to remind us, that there are strange things happening and we are following leads, and not just meet a condition for rerolls and gates closures. But you are right, in the end, the true story behind a game of AH is bound to imagination alone.

@secure/stable locations:

Then just add the secure-locations to the card descriptions, but we usually can't finde clues in stable locations. Or maybe i just never paid enough attention.but my gutfeeling asys, that most clues are found on instable locations.

WintermuteZero said:

Your gutfeelings are right, as I said, it heavily depends on which elements of the game / what expansions you use during your games. One guardian in particular, Hypnos (available only if you have the Kingsport horror expansion) makes clues appear even at stable locations

valvorik said:

I agree. Having story niblets for each clue would be cool, but I think it would be difficult to make them form any sort of coherent story. If anything, that would detract from my story experience, to have plot threads running off in all directions. I haven't checked out any of the aforementioned fan variants of similar tune, so maybe I'm way off on this, but I prefer just having the tokens and making up my own story for what the details of each clue are based on the current game position.

Edit: Double post. Darn it all.