I'm on my 7th play (Core game only so far) and I think I'm finally playing all the rules correctly or very close. However for 4-5 investigator games me (and my friends) are hitting 5-6 hours of gaming. That's just too exhausting to be honest and I sense my friends getting a bit reticent about playing. We've been going for the Seal strategy, which may not be the fastest. I've considered two things..

- I will be adding Mythos cards from expansions in order to get the ones that add Doom tokens directly and Gate Bursts to tamper with the Seal strategy. Maybe add the evil portals from LatT. Should keep things interesting even if the team is on top of the gates and monsters. I like to have chaos right until the end. :-)

- Personally I prefer the Terror track to the Doom track for getting horror into the game. I love the closing stores. I might try to spawn two monsters per gate in 4 player games, maybe three per gate in 5 player games to see if that makes things more interesting. I imagine terror track being a bigger issue for the team and even a small number of gates causing ruckus. Might be too tough tho.

These alone would probably only reduce playing time by increasing loss percentage a great deal. I might counter that with easier goals, such as one less Seal needed or less Gate trophies needed. Or consider adding Guardians, Relationships or LatT pacts.

What are your thoughts and tips for reducing playing time down?

If you really want to cut down on playing time, play with as many expansions as you can, but in particular, use Innsmouth and Dunwich together. With 20 unstable locations, you guys will have no time to dally before too many gates are open and the Final Battle is upon you...so SEAL. QUICKLY.

But if you really want to move the Terror Track instead of the Doom Track, play Kingsport mixed with Lurker (and maybe even throw in Black Goat's Gate Bursts). You will still only have the original 11 unstable locations, but (A) good luck keeping them sealed, and (B) with all your Gate Openings focused on Arkham only, you will drown in Monster Surges. I guarantee your Terror Track will reach 5-6, more with even a slight bit of extra bad luck. (However, this will likely not help you at all with cutting your playing time down. Sorry...Terror-long or Doom-short...it's not that easy to find a middle ground.)

As a quick addition, and I know this is little, but when I play with 4 investigators, I like to have the first gate open with 2 monsters. Subtle, but it helps.

You could also play with 2 monsters for every gate, regardless, with 4 people, but 3 per is just too much, in my opinion! That is, unless you wanna try the Black Goat...

My two cents on this issue. Focus on the way you use clues. Very often in the first game clues are used for non vital things like skill checks for getting an Ally or something similar. Focus on gates and on clues. Seal the high frequency gates and, in case you don't have enough clues for sealing the rest, go for a closing victory. Playing base game only, it's quite likely you can win by closing. A game shouldn't last more than 15-16 Mythos. It's even shorter in some cases (my games are very short; I played 8 games in 2011, one defeat, seven victories in 6, 9, 10 (twice) and 11 (three times) Mythos). And be confident that as soon as you get accustomed to the rules, everything will be quicker!

You can also make the game shorter without necessarily playing "Speed Arkham."

I remember Mageith saying that in his games, each player took his Upkeep, Movement and Encounters phases all at once. He said it cut an hour off of game times. We usually play it that way too, to be honest. The only thing I've noticed that you need to be careful of is when an investigator gets arrested in Innsmouth. You should give other investigators a chance to move to Sawbone Alley before drawing encounter cards.

I've tried a variant with only three seals needed to win, but double all doom tokens. It's not as fun, but if you need a quick Arkham fix, it does go by lightning fast.

lolholm said:

I've noticed a few things myself...first, like others have said, the game does get faster as you understand the rules more. It also gets faster as you grow in understanding of strategy. For us, the longest part of gameplay was the upkeep phase, because everyone would take quite a while staring at the board and trying to decide what to do. We've gotten a lot faster at that already, and I expect it'll continue to speed up as we really get a handle on things and finish experiencing all the characters to know more about their strengths and weaknesses. Generally in our games, now, once we've gotten past Upkeep we can go through each turn very quickly.

It really helps to try to figure out your role in the game early on. If you can make a goal for yourself, such as being a monster slayer or gate closer, you can take your turns faster because you know what to prioritize. (Be sure others know what you're going to try to be, though, or you can cause a lot of conflict.) If everyone's trying to be everything, then turns take a lot longer because you have to reevaluate every turn...that, and you can have a lot of trouble in a group because everyone's trying to make their character good at everything, so everyone wants every item, or everyone wants to be the deputy, etc. O_O

It has also helped us a lot to make certain players responsible for certain game mechanics. We assign people to be the clue-token-hander-outer, the card drawer for various stacks (though we still give the card to the appropriate player to read), and so on and so forth. Both faster and less confusing.

In general, though, Arkham is a game in which the better you do, the longer it is likely to take. O_O If you screw up a lot and get a ton of doom tokens added, you can finish a game in an hour or two. If you do well and get a lot of seals, it can take a lot longer. In some ways that's just the nature of the game...in order to have a chance at winning, you basically have to add turns.

Julia said:

I always forget the closing victory. O_O There's probably been a ton of times when we could have gotten one but we kept looking for clues because we are stupid.

Sdrolion said:

::laughter:: closing victories are difficult to see during the first games. I think I was able to win by closing for the first time after 20 or 30 games or something similar. It happens me more often in the last times (I won by closing three of my eight 2011 games), but yeah, it's not something to focus your strategy on. Unless you play against Atlach

I like the idea of doing upkeep and movement as one phase. Can't imagine that would create to many comflicts.

I think maybe if the game didn't feel sluggish when you have things under control, I think we would survive a 4-5 hr session without complaint. I think the Mythos cards that add doom and terror tokens directly would help keep tension high (as I wrote above). I think Gate Bursts might create more frustration at increasing game length rather than add tension. I think the game should accelerate towards the final climax.

Has anyone done any house rules using the number of seals, on the board, connected to something - such as monster spawns per gate - to keep things tense even if you have the most dangerous locations sealed. With monsters it could make it harder to get into the final portals to seal and also the terror track would accelerate when the doom track stagnates.

lolholm said:

Not exactly a house rule, but a Herald I made has an effect if a gate is blocked from opening by a seal. picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-k69KUEClm3JYOGHE8Juew

There's also a harder version here: picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/o3CImNBy6z2ZvSajLitxDQ

You could probably use something similar as a house rule for your game...have something trigger when a seal blocks a gate from opening. Could be as simple as saying that when a seal blocks a gate from opening, a monster (or two) spawns from the closest other gate, or something like that.

Are we talking 4-5 hours for one game? We tend to find our games top out at a about an hour and a half at most and that's with six plus investigators. If it's just Stenun and myself playing then we're looking at more like 45 mins maximum and that's us taking our time. Familiarity with the game is obviously key. The more you play, the faster you WILL get.

lolholm said:

It's a great way to make things go quicker, but it is problematic. Let's say you have two investigators blocked in the same location by a *tough* monster in the street. Upkeep: investigator A goes for the fight. He maximizes Fight and minimizes Speed, in order to be able to reach the monster, fight against it and in case, flee. Investigator B maximizes his speed because he need to reach a distant gate. Movement: investigator A goes in the street and is smashed on the ground. Investigator B now has a very bad time, and he is probably forced to stay on the spot. In case you merge the two Phases: investigator A goes to kill the monster and fails. Investigator B changes his mind, maximizes Fight, goes in the street and kills the monster. It's another story.

spirit said:

Noone plays that fast except him

Personally, I'm down to about two hours for most games. But that's without counting the time for setup and cleanup. And there's still the occasional outlier game where again and again 'something' gets in the way of winning, be it a bad roll, a rumour, or a gate burst.

Julia said:

I wouldn't merge local encounter into that "big" phase, just upkeep and movement. That way A wouldn't have his fight before B moves and the merge wouldn't change the fact that the monsters in the street blocking the way. As far as my fairly new eyes see it. :-)

EDIT: I know it would only be a slight speedup, but the more you merge, the longer the wait for each player before next action. I couldn't imagine a game with 5 players happily waiting while the 4 players in front of them did upkeep, move, encounter. Especially the 1st player, who would have 8 players between his current turn and his next (or hers).

As long as you do all that after you roll for retainers...and blessings...and curses...and use your other upkeep actions beforehand

lolholm said:

Combat happens during the movement phase, not the encounter phase. So, no way investigator A, moving before B can have his fight done AFTER B has moved

Julia said:

You're right. :-)

For some reason I'd thought of movement as moving, with possible evades in the movement ( you fail - you take the damage and must fight in the Arkham Encounters phase ). I had fighting as an Arkham Encounter you would have to have instead of Location card or Store visit. Correct way should mean more action per round, but also that those who manage get into fights often, gets more time on the clock or rather, the those who don't are waiting longer. Also means you can't separate the phases as I'd thought.

Will try the correct way in the next game. I think I'll probably house rule it in the future and still keep resolving the fight itself in Encounters, but also have the Location encounter afterwards. That way we get to merge upkeep+movement and still get the correct fights and encounters, in way where I see no issues. Thoughts on that option?

Feel free to houserule the way you prefer playing of course :-) But if I can give you an advice, I won't move fighting with monsters into another phase. If the monster is in a location, yeah, probably it shouldn't change that much, but if it's in a street, in changes completely the game. Basically, it makes your game be longer!

Imagine the same situation described before: 2 investigators at the Unvisited Isle and one monster in the Merchant distric streets. Investigator A moves and kills the monster during movement. Investigator B now is free to move and reach another location, grab clues, have an encounter or also sweep another street from some other cthuloid creature. In the case you've described, investigator B has only two option: staying at the Unvisited Isle for an encounter (so no extra clue gained as consequence of his movement) or going in the street and being blocked by the same monster. Thus you lose one entire round with one investigator and this implies the game to be longer.

My advice is to follow strictly the phases. As soon as you get familiar with this (which is not such an easy thing), everything will be easier. If you have to merge phases, go for Upkeep + Movement, it shouldn't be so critical, but keep on fighting the monsters you meet during the Movement Phase, otherwise you'll screw the game too much, obtaining much longer games than you need. Yeah, the more I think about this, the more I'm convinced. If you fight monsters in the proper phase, you should be able to shorten your games by an hour at least!

I've been playing AH for about 5 years now. I found that when you are playing 4-5 players that games take longer but if all players work together towards simply closing gates games at this size tend to only go for 2-3 hours. Our games take longer when players don't work together and follow their own agendas and/or don't cooperate. I haven't ever found a need to change or modify rules in order to make the game go faster.