I don't own Arkham horror, but I'm really looking forward to Mansions of Madness (being a Doom and Descent fan, of course). Another forum had questioned MoM as an expandable game, but what if it were mashed with Arkham Horror to make some sort of massive cleanse-the-city campaign? Any ideas?

KingTut said:

I think this can be an interesting idea to develop, but it also requires *a lot* of work to make this possible. Don't know... when you play Arkham, it's very unlikely to have two investigator in the same location during the Encounter Phase (unless that location is a shop, but in this case you won't need MoM), so basically the risk is to have one investigator struck in a 3-hours solo quest. Maybe the other player can play with some other investigator from MoM with him, but nonetheless, when you return to Arkham, the risk is haveing spent a lot of time in order to have some small benefits for a single player (which probably could be heavily damaged by the MoM session). I mean, you can do. But in some way you should play MoM with the corresponding character (just to make this clear: let's say you are playing AH with Harvey Walters. Harvey enters the Witch-house. You play the Witch-house with the Harvey from MoM. If he succeeds at the mission, then wounds, detriments and benefits of MoM scenario are transferred in some way to the AH-Harvey. You still play AH with Harvey's equipment and, as soon as you enter the Witch-house, you play ther with MoM-equipment).

Not to mention that AE are very well balanced in a sense of game balance / dynamics / mechanics, and it could be very difficult to create sub-quests with MoM without altering these things. In addition, AH isn't a game about monsters and similar things, but a game about gates and clues for sealing them, and I'm not sure we can say the same for MoM.

A possible solution I see, is playing MoM (a scenario or a campaing) before AH starts, and using the "output" of the campaing as "input" for determination of fixed possessions / health status of investigators for AH.

In any case there is *a lot* to work on. Could be fun to give this a try, anyway! I think Old Dwarf (if I don't remember correclty, apologies) do the same for A Game of Thrones with Battles of the Westeros (in case, I'd question him *a lot* about BotW ::laughing:.)

Julia is right on in the difficulty of combining AH with MoM.Unless it's a 1 Inv Solo Game,just getting the Inv.all together in 1 place is going to be awkward.The Stats are different(by how much we really don't know) how the conversions from 1 Game to the other will handle(I expect that will be fairly easy) but with the mortality rate of AH & I expect MoM may mean that your Inv.may be dead or mad coming out & into either Game.

AGoS with BoW avoided all those issues as it was doing doing the Raid Order & no conversions were necessary.If you won the BoW Scenario the Raid order succeeded if you lost it failed.

But as mentioned it would be fun to try

OD

I imagine some diligent gamer out there could create an entire campaign using the characters from MoM that venture out into Arkham as well as interim games of MoM. It would take some work, but you could always do it in such a way that gamers could experience both games complimentary to one another.

I imagine it would be easiest to have a game of MoM first then use the results of that game to influence the setup of AH. Thematically, you could say that what the investigators find in the mansion reveals the larger-scale horror of what is going on in Arkham. Mechanically I would imagine it's better this way round as well, as the status of the investigators in MoM sounds more linear, whereas in AH it's more cyclic.

Well, you could start out with either game. Whoever would be setting up this massive AH/MoM campaign could do this (for example):

1. Set up a game of Arkham Horror as normal using only characters in MoM (or, if someone customizes their own stat cards, any character). Whoever plans to be Keeper probably won't play, but maybe guides them with pre-selected mythos cards (clues showing up in places that actually mean something). After gates are closed or AO is defeated, the investigators "learn" that all the trouble started at the Witch House (or Historical Society, Silver Twilight Lodge, whatever). Items and weapons were destroyed in the big fight (or not, if you can figure a way to incorporate into MoM). Have investigators move to that space as normal, maybe fighting any monsters along the way.

2. Now, set up MoM (perhaps the next night if you don't have time). Figure out a scenario (or make one up) and then play MoM.

3. Rinse and repeat.

This is how I see incorporating both games. You could go all out and plot out scenarios, removing or adding cards as you see fit ahead of time, but personally I'm just going to play the games separately. If someone else out there wants to go through the trouble of figuring out the intricacies, please upload the info and I would definitely be willing to take a look.

After closing a Gate, instead of spending 5 Clues to Seal, the Investigators must win a game of MoM. If the Keeper wins, no Seal, and the Keeper's AH Investigator gains a Clue.

"Day 17. We have lost all track of time; only the sunrise and the marks carved in the table give hint of how long we have been here. Our turns blur together in a chaotic mass of colored cardboard and gray plastic. A Gate Burst last week slowed us down considerably. Poor Monterey tried to shop for an Elder Sign to gain us our precious freedom...but, in most treacherous irony, only gained a King in Yellow Tome. We should be back inside the Mansion shortly..."

KingTut said:

Arkham Horror already is a massive cleanse-the-city endeavor by itself.

It's a really interesting idea. I read all your comments and then it came to me... You can combine the two games after altering AH.

You can use the AH map as a campaign map (just like the Descent's Road to Legend). One of the players would play some sort of Herald / cultist leader who wishes to waken the Ancient One.

1. Map:
The area would be covered with gates and some monsters. Tougher monsters represent the "lieutenants" of the Herald / cultist leader which would be used to strengthen the areas where they currently are and to open new gates.
Shops and other safe locations would be places where you might get new items, rest and get new quests.

2. Investigators would walk around as a group (traveling 2-3 spaces each turn) and when they would end their movement on a gate then a MoM session would take place. Those sesions would of course grant them some equipment / allies / tokens and closing the gate. They might seal the gate but spending 5 x no. of Investigators of clue tokens or do it (only) after fulfiling a quest for that place.

3. The Herald / cultist leader would spawn and send new monsters to strenghten locations with opened gates. Improving the monsters would mean getting new monster types (you can play with their tokens in MoM).

4. The goal for the Herald / cultist leader would be to open enough gates (8?) and get the Ancient One to fight the Investigators (stronger version then on the printed AO card from AH).
The goal for the Investigators would be sealing gates (8?) and batteling the weakened version of the Ancient One (as printed on the AO card from AH).

Just an idea. What do you think?

I like it. I would totally support FFG putting out an expansion that combined the two games that way.

YoshiPL said:

Now that you mention it, Descent's Sea of Blood expansion/campaign was where I originally got the idea. When I first looked at the AH board, it reminded me a lot of the campaign map, so I started thinking about how to incorporate it into MoM. I like your other ideas, too. It would need a lot of thought, though, seeing as it appears that the two games' mechanics aren't even remotely similar (except for stats, sort of).