So, rather than 16/18/20 gates, there's now only 12/15/18. That suddenly makes Tsathoggua a lot nastier if neither board expansion is in play - unless you can find another way to get rid of those gate trophies, their doom track is down to 12 at best. (Good, I think, since their 13 track makes them a little easy)

Another way that gates can move onto sealed locations - that BGotW environment that drags monsters towards the Woods.

Amanda's personal story fails if both R'yleh gates are open at once. Presumably the split gate counts for this purpose. (Conversely, assuming Silas picks the right other world, it makes failing his PS even less likely)

Veet said:

That would be an excellent encounter to have if you were going for a sealing victory and the gate you were exploring moved into the street before you came back. You could move it to an unstable location and seal the puppy.

a modest proposal on the whole vortex/gate thing (which honestly I never thought about before this morning)

re: the moving gate and the vortex

How about this? When a moving gate moves into a vortex, roll a d6. On a one the gate being pulled into the vortex immediately devours the investigator that went through it, if applicable, else the investigator with lowest current sanity gets devoured. On a two the gate being sucked away adds three doom tokens to the ancient one track, if there was an investigator in there they get lost in time and space. On a three no other effect except that an investigator exploring that gate is lost in time and space. On a four a monster appears at every location that an investigator is and an exploring investigator is lost in time and space. On a five every investigator is immediately reduced to one stamina and the exploring investigator is lost in time and space and finally on a six every investigator is immediately reduced to one sanity same old, same old for the unlucky bastard caught without a return gate.

Probably a ton of problems with that, but I kinda like it.

Feel free to tear it apart guys.

Tibs said:

There is also a Dunwitch, Inner Sanctum encounter with similar results but that one specifies that it can't move to a sealed spot, I would assume the same rule would apply to this one as well.

cim said:

I'm not sure a gate would be affected by something that alters monster movement.

Veet said:

I'm inclined to agree. Unless the gate is under the continuing influence of an effect that specifically says something like "this gate moves like a black-bordered monster until {condition X}" I would say the gate is not a monster and does not get influenced by monster-moving effects. In other words, it would only move as per the guidelines provided by whatever effect is making it move in the first place.

OK here is another question regarding gate movement, the lurker rules state that if a gate moves away from an investigator with an explored token the investigator loses that token, however if the gate follows the same rules for movement as a black bordered monster then when would it ever move away from an investigator?

From the Lurker rule sheet.

Moving Gate: If the dimensional symbol of a Gate with this icon is activated during monster movement, the Gate moves as if it were a normal monster.

I'd interpret that as including being affected by other conditions affecting monster movement, but not by other things that affect monsters.

That does, though, leave some ambiguity over gates moving away from investigators. Perhaps it should be read as if it said "the Gate moves as if it were an Elusive black-bordered monster", since the intent is clearly that they can move away.

As cim said, the text makes it sound like the implicit intent is that gates don't have the stick to investigator movement rule. Otherwise the section about losing explored tokens would be nonsense.

Alright... I emailed someone (re: vortex movement), hopefully we'll get an official response before the game is released :'/

Btw, has anyone else realized what a pain the moving gates are going to be yet? Basically, if you have three turns to seal a gate, you're almost guaranteed to have to close that gate without sealing. Even with Find Gate, the odds are against you.

DoomTurtle said:

The problem is that monsters can move onto Vortexes, and by saying the gate moves like a monster, the rules say that it moves onto vortexes, without specifying how to deal with the situation. Now it's possible the designers didn't think about the issue (quite possible if they didn't playtest enough or think the issues through), or that we're simply supposed to ignore it. We'll see. Either way, it annoys me that I predicted a design flaw even before the game was released :'/

Avi_dreader said:

Yeah, but just as we surmised they won't stay with an investigator like a monster would, it could be that they may not enter a vortex like a monster would either.

My guess is all they wanted to happen for a moving gate is "If a moving gate's symbol comes up, move it one space along the black or white arrow as the symbol location dictates. If it moves onto an investigator, they are sucked in. If it moves off an investigator, they lose their explored token. If it would move onto a space with a gate already there, it doesn't move."

They should have never even mentioned that it "moves like a normal monster", because of the already contradictory effect of leaving an investigator's space. And now all these other questions, like the vortex occurance, cards that alter monster movement in certain circumstances, etc. That could have been all avoided by not referencing moving like a monster. And then just added either "A moving gate will not move anywhere but another location or street" if there is to be no vortex effect, or "If a gate enters anything other than a location or street (such as a vortex), then such and such happens". They kind of shot themselves in the foot with the monster movement reference.

Avi_dreader said:

Really? I don't suppose we have numbers on the likelihood of a dimensional symbol not coming up on three mythos cards in a row, but, in my experience, any given monster staying put for three turns isn't an especially uncommon occurrence.

A gate cannot enter a vortex. If that is the gate's destination, it will not move.

There. I said it. Couldn't be easier. Frankly, the idea of having another Devil Reef/Y'ha-nthlei type of location is threat enough without getting too elaborate.

jgt7771 said:

That's how I'm going to play it until an official ruling is given.

subochre said:

It's not impossible, but let's just say that the probabilities are not in your favor. I realize I overstated it a bit earlier for dramatic effect :')

DoomTurtle said:

The implied effect was based on text within the rules. However the idea that the gate won't move is just an assumption (an assumption I think that will probably end up being correct, but not for sure, since there is no indication of how to play it one way or the other, only silence, which could be taken as implying something, buuuut, it's too indefinite for me to be comfortable saying "It probably means this.") ::Breathes::

Here's a nice combination: Norman Withers, the Astronomer from IH, closes a split gate. Presumably he gets to choose two dimensional symbols to remove?

And another interaction question. LatH rules say: "A Gate may only be sealed when it is located on an unstable location. Gates in a stable location or in the streets can be closed, but cannot be sealed." but Akachi's sheet says "In addition, Akachi may always seal gates, regardless of other game effects." - which takes precedence?

My guess to the Akachi question is that she cannot seal, because the "cannot seal unless in unstable location" appears to be a universal rule—something that was supposed to be included from day 1, except that such a scenario wasn't worth worrying about.

This, of course, would side-step the touchy "what happens when a gate moves onto a seal" issue.

cim said:

cim said:

Norman's card says "Whenever Norman closes or seals a gate, he may choose any dimensional symbol other than the moon. The gate is considered to have that dimensional symbol instead of its normal dimensional symbol for purposes of removing monsters from the board". Obviously he was made long before they thought of split gates, but the way it is stated, it sounds like he can choose any ONE dimensional symbol other than the moon. And a gate is a gate, so it can have that dimensional symbol instead of it's normal symbol (or symbols). You can take the two available or replace it with the one he chooses other than the moon. That's the way I interpret it.

Akachi is difficult to determine. Pretty much every character's power breaks an in-game rule. But hers says she can seal a gate regardless of other game effects. Now I see two levels of rules here, and we'll call them "game rules" as written in the rulebooks, and "game effects" which are cards, enounters, locations, etc. that break the game rules, and are usually not permanent.

Now most characters powers break a game rule permanently. Mark Harrigan cannot be arrested. Norman Withers can choose a different dimensional symbol. And so on. Most of these peoples powers don't warrant the need to say "regardless of game effect", because most of their powers aren't circumstantial to game effects. So they automatically break the game rule. However, Akachi's power isn't "may always seal gates", but "may always seal gates regardless of other game effects". So the only way to figure out when she can always seal is to determine what her power means: Does it mean she can always seal (breaking rules) and it doesn't matter what the game effect is (breaking the game effect)? Or does it mean she can only always seal against game effects (breaking the game effect only and no the actual rule)? If it is the former, it means she can seal anywhere. If it is the latter, and she can't break the rule, then she can't seal in streets or stable locations, but may seal in unstable locations always, even when mythos or other cards says otherwise.

Some heavy philosophizing here, so what do you all think? I think for ease of game rules, they will say Akachi can't seal in a street or stable location, simply because if she can, then it makes other problems more likely that have already been brought up, like a moving gate hitting a seal in the street, etc. But as for how her actual power should be interpreted, I'm not so sure.

Tibs said:

How does it take you so much fewer words to say what I want to say?

Apparently this has become our thread for Lurker FAQ questions :')

And we haven't even seen most of the cards.

I'm not sure we completely sidestep the gate-onto-seal problem, since there's still the BGotW environment that drags things from Uptown to the Woods, but that's getting to be very unlikely.

Is anyone else in my boat and has realized that Lurker is going to totally overflow their storage?

I'm choosing not to think about that. I don't want to carry AH around in more than the 2 big boxes I'm used to. It might have to happen though. le sigh.

I already need a new monster cup. I've been using a velvet dice bag, which worked fine until I got all the expansions >_>