Has anyone thought how to make the Kingsport board more interesting and worth visiting aside from keeping rifts under control? It's kinda disappointing to travel all the way there only to be delayed due to having tea and cookies with Gladys, or whoever.

How about forcing gates to open there?-if that's not a game breaker.

Say, like this: during setup, choose 5(the number may vary) rift markers in random out of the 12 available. The locations on these markers would represent the unstable locations on the Kingsport board for the current session. Mark them with whatever tokens you want that you're not currently using(say the brood tokens, since there are many of them)

Each time a rift marker depicting an unstable location is placed on the rift track, a gate would open at that location and a clue token would appear at a location depicted on the immediately adjacent rift marker(that either shares the same movement pattern or if not applicable simply part of the same rift track). If there are no adjacent rift markers, or if there's already a gate at the location depicted on the adjacent rift marker, no clue token would appear. Similar to the base game mechanics if a rift marker is placed that depicts a location that contains an open gate, a monster surge would occur.

The unstable locations on the Kingsport board cannot be sealed(only closed). Closing a gate in Kingsport would remove the associated rift marker from the rift track. Additionally, a gate opening in Kingsport does not advance the doom track, neither do these gates count against the gate limit(maximum number of gates open), but for each open gate there when the AO awakens, put an extra doom token on the doom track.

I haven't thought this through, so I'm just throwing it out there as a suggestion for a variant that can be improved.

from the herald section, I have something that can make Kingsport more interesting (I know I have to change the title, Avi already told me that and I agree :-):

This comes from a series of scenario I made some time ago, Rhapsody in blue was the first one of the series.

I have now 6 scenarios that tweak the rules heavily to make the game more fun (french version are available on the french arkham wiki). This is the only one in english right now (although I am planning to translate them one of these days ;o).

I am working on a 7th (M le Maudit) that again will take place in Kingsport where Atlach-Nacha will be the GO and "the weaver of the world" (from Julia) the Herald. Because it is almost impossible to win with Atlach-Nacha, I will give"For the greater good" and "Walking the Ley Lines" for the good guys at the beginning and have a traitor with "Join the winning team" as well. I need some playtesting but it should be fun.

Hope this helps.

best

@ Zealot: I like your ideas, but beware that balance of the game could greatly change in a very short time; basically there's a certain chance to have more gates open in Kingsport than on the main board, and the game could quickly be over for too many gates open (especially when playing with large groups of investigators), or impossible to control because of too many monsters swarming through the board. Don't know, I think at least it should be playtested.

Amikezor scenario is definitely a great way for enjoying Kingsport (with love or not :-P)

@Amikezor: after a while (read: after having an interesting discussion via e-mail with Avi), I'll change a point in my herald: basically the gate limit is always lowered by one and you still open the gate to the Dreamlands and resolve a Mythos card on Mythos zero, but gates to the Dreamlands do not count towards the gate limit. This should allow large investigator teams to have at least a chance of beating the game; and it changes slightly the kind of dangers every team should afford (but I think should still be nasty enough). During this week I'll post the final version of the herald; then, if you could be so kind to add this line even on the French version, I'll be really gratefull :-)

zealot12 said:

How about making a gate appear at The Strange High House when the doom track is half full (it will add a doom token when it appears). Sealing this gate removes a doom token. Whenever the gate's movement symbol is shown during the mythos phase, add a rift token to the group of rift tokens containing that movement symbol (it will add to the next row if the row with the symbol is full).

I'm not quite sure about the language expressing this, but basically the idea is that the rift that contains the gate symbol will be accelerated. And of course, monsters will be coming down the mountain as you're trying to move up it :')

...

I think I might actually use this variant the next time I play Kingsport's board, it might actually be fun :') (and you might actually see people getting Changed).

Hrm... It might be fun to turn this into a herald... Any ideas about worshipper boosts or which AO it might go with?

I'm thinking Azathoth... The gate will produce two doom tokens instead (and sealing it will remove none). Any suggestions for some other fun end of the world type stuff to go with it ? :'D

Perhaps whenever a rift moves a monster surge occurs.

And each upkeep one must add a rift token to an location on a rift track that does not currently have a rift marker :') heh heh heh...

Hrm... And a worshipper boost for cultists and maniacs that causes them to stalk and kamikazee (whenever they are defeated, they knock you unconscious)?

I think that'd be enough to make a herald, but would anyone throw in some more suggestions?

What about making a rift opening boost mechanic based on "reversed" movement like this one:

1. Whenever crescent is instructed to move on white (black), add a rift token on both hex white & circle white (black)

2. Whenever a hex is instructed to move on white (black), add a rift token on both crescent white (black) & circle white (black)

3. Same for circle

So every time you have a monster moving, you will add two rift tokens instead of one. This should speed up a lot the things in Kingsport

Good ideas, guys. Gonna try them out.

How about something even simpler, for those who don't want to deal with gates in Kingsport.

If a rift becomes active, and is not closed until the Ancient One awakens, put all the open rift progress markers on its rift track as extra doom tokens on the doom track. During the game each time a location with an active rift is explored, the investigator gains a clue token or two.

On the other hand, forcing gates to appear in Kingsport can still be beneficial(if they don't count against the gate limit), allowing investigators to travel between duplicate gates in Kingsport and on the main board.

Julia said:

Sure. I think this is an excellent decision. It makes the herald a bit cooler... Atlach-Nacha is already so nasty... ;o).

Sorry for the thread hijacking.

Don't count it as hijacking. (: I merely started this thread to brainstorm some ideas about variants that will make the Kingsport board more involving. Good stuff so far.

zealot12 said:

You gave me an idea to work on (a nasty, little mechanic for boosting in a new way final combat); I'm gonna work on this during this week ;-) So, thx a lot, brain storming (Headline: "Brain storms hit Arkham". All players have to create a new Herald within a week or be devoured) is always beneficial

@ Amikezor: thx. I'm going to mail you the final version soon.

How About: The last token for a rift activation is where the rift appears, in Kingsport. Rifts always spawn a monster. Since the terror track mey be increasing due to more monsters, when the Rift moves it does not add to the track.

I'm going to have to chime in by saying I like this idea as well as some of the ideas being added. Another way to handle things if you want gates opening is to associate each of the rift tracks with a single location in Kingsport (making this vary from game to game could be interesting as could allowing this ability to target stable locations outside kingsport) have a gate appear at the associated location when the track fills. Avi's idea about gates opening at the strange high house is also pretty good as it will definately ramp up the drama of having to close that gate.

1) I've made this herald with its 9 monsters 18 months ago. 300dpi - A4 ready to print. If I don't play with this threat, I don't play Kingsport (sooooo boring).

javascript:void(0);/*1296599108062*/

2) I also like to play with custom rift progress tokens that you can find on BGG or there, on the french wiki :

http://wiki.horreuraarkham.fr/index.php?title=Pions_Failles_Supplémentaires

Circle or octogonal tokens with or without locations names in english or in french

3) I have a home rule with gate burst :

If a gate burst targets a location without an elder sign or a gate, roll a die : on a failure, draw a rift progress token and open a gate at this location. It doesn't add a doom token to the GOO track.
In my games, I put a mask monster on that gate but you can do whatever you want with this idea.

Dietch said:

I like the third home rule. It deals with Kingsport boredom very simply. Except I would make it happen without the die roll. I may incorporate that into my Kingsport herald (when I finally get around to making it).

Was there a herald you were going to show us?

I used to play without the roll but I added it recently to avoid the sureness.

About the herald+monsters, I kinda failed the linking part

http://horreuraarkham.fr/stockage/Dietch/VO/KingsportCult.jpg

Dietch said:

Interesting... Unfortunately I don't print out custom monsters :'/ ::sigh:: I would have enjoyed using this if it were an official expansion though. Oh well. Too bad *you* didn't design Kingsport ;'D

Hey you should really the dynamic is a real threat !

And you don't even have to glue the monsters (if it is what stops you ^^). I cut them with the face and the back on the same side and I use the blank side to stack them. So you don't have to make a cup for them... just pick.

Anyway I made a herald for each expansion and none have monsters except the kingsport's one

Dietch said:

If you haven't posted the others here yet, you should.

heck, if you could translate all of the custom stuff on the French wiki, even roughly, we'd love you forever. some of that stuff looks awesome, but I know precisely zero french.

@ Dietch:

I tested some time ago your Kingsport herald+your Kingsport AO+the Tsulcha official herald with Kingsport board only and I had a great game. It all fitted together very nicely.

Therefore, I recommend this herald to all. Printing monster is very simple. Don't get stuck by this :-))

Hadanelith said:

well, it is already so much work to translate all the english stuff into french. :-) If you pick some of it, I'll do my best to translate them (please do not pick the book case :-) Though I know Dietch did translate a lot of his stuff into english some time ago. Harass him :-))

Yes and Julia is giving me a hand to finish the translations. When last corrections are done, we'll publish them in the custom heralds thread.

Amikezor helped me a lot (I mean A LOT !) for that stuff too. More to come with more free time

Mostly, I saw the Metamorphoses, Cultists of Arkham, and the Druids thingy which I can't really tell the name of and went 'ooh, what's that?'. The Metamorphoses one looks like it adds a new mechanic, though vaguely reminiscent of the Magical Effects from KiY (which I love dearly, and wish there were more of). Cultists of Arkham has some new cards, and some neat art, and that's enough to make me sit up and pay attention. Druids looks like a decent size expansion, kinda like the Deep Woods expansion posted here a while back, but I can't even puzzle out enough French to download the darn thing properly. Meanwhile, I'm glancing about, and specifically NOT seeing this 'book case' you mention. What/where is this?

wait, I think I see - your Arkham Investigations casebook, yes? It even has your name on it and everything! Yes, I imagine trying to translate that would be a bit of a bear. No, I'm not so interested in that for now - I'm still enjoying Arkham the way it's normally played enough that I'm not looking for new ways to change the game completely. Yet.

Dietch said:

Yep, I read your translations for the first two. I should be able to mail you my thoughts this Friday. Be a little more patient, if possible, these days are a real mess!!