The manual says

If there are more monsters to be placed than
allowed by the monster limit (see “Monster Limits and
the Outskirts,” page 18), the players should decide
where monsters will be placed. The players must make
this decision before monsters have been drawn from the
cup. If the players cannot agree where the monsters are
to be placed, the first player decides the placement.

I don't understand this. If there are more monsters than the monster limit, shouldn't those monsters go to the outskirts?

I'll explain with an example:

You're playing with 4 investigators. There are 3 gates on the board, and a monster surge occurs, centered on the Woods. The surge produces four monsters, because it's number of gates or number of investigators—whichever's higher. There is only room in town for two monsters, because the other two will go to the Outskirts.

One of the two monsters that will appear in town has to go to the Woods, because they have to be spread as evenly as possible but no gate gets assigned more than the surging gate. The other one goes to either of the other two gates on the board. You have to choose which gate will get the other monster before you draw any of the four monsters produced by the surge.

What is the reason for placing them in pre-determined places, wouldnt it be better just to qiuckly set them down randomly.

I think the logic behind placing at least one of the monsters at the location that caused the surge is that if there was not gate there already you would be placing a gate and a monster at that location.

[Edited and reformatted because the quote function is retarded]

H.P. Lovecraft said:

What is the reason for placing them in pre-determined places, wouldnt it be better just to qiuckly set them down randomly.

Probably so you don't pick and choose to place the hard monsters where they don't hinder you as much.

Innsmouth13 said:

I think the logic behind placing at least one of the monsters at the location that caused the surge is that if there was not gate there already you would be placing a gate and a monster at that location.

If there was no gate there, there would be no monster surge.

Brine, Lovecraft was asking why you get to choose which locations you can place monsters, as opposed to making the selected locations random. Sure, you could do that. But it would be a bit tedious.

The reason behind placing at least one monster at the location that caused the surge is that no gate can be assigned more monsters than the surging gate. Besides, sometimes you have to break ties. What better way than to say that the surging gate is the epicenter?

Of course, there are times when a Headline effect causes a surge, where there is no surging gate involved. In such cases, no gate takes precedence over the others when choosing where to place monsters..

Tibs said:

While we're on the subject: what happens with a Monster Surge Mythos card and someone like Abhoth? You know, where the surging gate actually matters (unlike people like Shudde M'ell who just care about surges in general). Would you draw a mythos card until you get a gate and put the Child of Abhoth there? I figure that's the precedent, as set by what to do if a Rift opens without a gate marker pictured. Thoughts?

If you get a "Strange Sightings" Mythos card, it's the first player's choice which gate is the "cause" of the surge. This affects the placement of a Child of Abhoth.

In cases where you're supposed place something on "the gate shown" and there is no such depicted gate, you draw Mythos cards until you get one depicting a gate location.

If you get a "monster surge" Mythos card but there are no open gate on the board... I don't know what happens actually. I'd say put all the surge monsters in the Outskirts, and if you need to place something like a Child of Abhoth, you still draw Mythos cards until you get one depicting a gate location.

Tibs said:

Man, didn't even think of that last scenario o_O Then again, I don't have an expansion that has any of those cards (yet0.

Tibs said:

Surge monsters go to the outskirts in that case would fit with the Lurker card that places a monster on an investigator in an unstable location or streets, or in the Outskirts if that's not possible.

Fun in an 8-player game if you get Strange Sightings to start with, though - terror level up to 8 instantly.

Ooh, you're right cim. Putting them directly in the Outskirts can't be the right answer then, since that's disproportionally unfair for larger investigator teams.

My revised guess is that if you have a "place on surging gate (such as Abhoth's)" effect to resolve, you'd need to draw Mythos cards until one depicts a gate location. But you would have the good fortune that no monsters would appear as a result of this surge.