I just came up with this. I tried to only include game essentials for understanding how to control one's investigator. Secondary strategies and details that will rapidly become obvious were omitted. It presumes that an experienced player will be present and handling the mythos deck and the first player token (or you can just completely ignore phase order the first game, which might actually be a better idea and make things go faster albeit more chaotically, but much less boringly, just get ready to drill people into order by game two or three). Rules minutiae can be discovered over time and explained on the occasions that they arise.

It's intended to basically rush a player into the equivalent of a couple years of gaming experience in a game or two. Hopefully if people read this two or three times before the game and keep a copy at hand, the game explanation won't be perplexing and overwhelming.

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Time: The more time that passes, the worse things will get, and horrible events will occur. The faster you play, the more likely you are to win. Arkham punishes exploration and other digressions from the primary objective with exponentially increasing pain and ultimately death.

The primary objective, winning: The main way to win the game is collecting thirty clues or clue equivalents and spending them to close and seal gates.

Clues: sets of five clues can be used to close and seal gates. Once six gates are sealed, the game is won. Clues can not be traded so don’t take more than you can need for sealing (5 per gate) or other players won’t be able to get enough.

Gates: Most turns of the game, a gate appears on a location and monsters emerge from it. Players can enter gates, spend two turns inside them, then return from them and close them by rolling a successful skill check against them. Inside gates, you can’t read tomes.

Success: a die roll of 5 or 6.

Skill check: players have 6 basic types of skill checks. Speed, sneak, fight, will, lore, and luck checks. Cards will tell them to make a speed, sneak, fight, etc. check of +1, +0, -1, -2, etc. This means look at their skill number and add or subtract the number mentioned on the card from it and roll that many dice. If one of those dice is a success, the skill check is passed. I.e. if a card says make a +3 speed check and you have 4 speed, roll 7 dice.

Special skill checks: Spell checks are a type of lore check that determines whether or not a spell you cast has any effect. Evade checks are a type of sneak check made with the number on the front of monster card (if passed, you run away from the monster, if failed, the monster attacks you). Horror checks are a type of will check made against the blue number on the back of the card at the beginning of combat. If it is passed or failed, it is not repeated. Failure results in sanity loss equal to the number of blue dots under it. Combat checks are a type of fight check made against the red number on the back of the monster card. Failure results in stamina loss equal to the number of red hearts under it. To defeat the monster and take it as a trophy (a token that can be traded a certain locations) you must roll successes equal to the number of blood drops on its bottom middle. Up to two hands of weapons or spells can add bonuses to the number of dice rolled for your combat checks. Each time you fail to defeat the monster, if you still have stamina, you must try again, or try to run from it. Generally speaking, sanity is easier to lose than stamina— you need to protect it more.

Special Monster abilities:
Endless-this monster can not be taken as a trophy.
Resistance-this will reduce your weapons’ dice bonus in half, rounded up.
Immunity-this will eliminate your weapons’ bonus entirely.
Nightmarish X-this monster will cause X sanity damage if you pass its horror check.
Overwhelming X- this monster will cause X stamina damage if you defeat it.

Primary Locations for trading trophies in order of usefulness: Science Building (clues), Ma’s Boarding House (Allies), South Church (Blessing— this temporary effect makes dice a success on rolls of 4 also), The Police Station (an item that allows teleportation across the board).

Crucial locations: The Newspaper (where you are most likely to get money in the form of retainers which give $2 a turn). The Curiosity Shop (where money is most effectively spent), and The Bank (where money is most easily made, if you’re desperate).

What happens if you lose all your sanity or stamina: for stamina, draw an injury, get all your stamina back, move to the hospital and lose a turn, for sanity, draw a madness, get all your sanity back, move to the asylum and lose a turn. Lose your retainer too.

Crucial Items: Elder Signs (equivalent to 5 clue tokens), and King in Yellow (equivalent to 4 clue tokens), both are found in the unique item deck (at the Curiosity Shop).

Crucial Strategy: clues can not be traded, so players should generally not collect more than five (since that is all that is needed for closing and sealing a gate). Risk management strategies are successful in the game. It is important that characters holding multiple clues play as safely as possible so they do not waste this vital resource by dying, having their time stolen, or becoming crippled.

This is a team game: The game is a team effort, it is important that everyone become a Socialist for the duration of the game. Self-aggrandizement will lead to collective defeat. Players with clues are the most important to protect by sharing resources so monsters can not defeat them. Weaker characters should support stronger characters. Characters that need to perform a task should be supported by other characters. Normally, at most, two players should be concentrating on gathering clues while other players are performing other tasks (going to close and seal gates, shopping, trading for resources, and last and least important, though most fun, hunting monsters).

Closing and Sealing Gates: this requires a successful fight or lore check made using the number on the gate after they have been exited. Again, seal 6, and you win.

Gate Frequency: not all locations open gates at the same frequency, the higher frequency they are, the more monsters they tend to produce (consequently it is a higher priority to close and seal them). If too many gates are open, the game is usually lost.

High Frequency Gate Locations: The Woods, Unvisited Isle, Independence Square, The Witch House

Medium Frequency Gate Locations: Black Cave, Graveyard, The Unnameable

Low Frequency Gate Locations: Once or twice per game if there are too many gates on the board, you can close these without sealing them (i.e. without spending 5 clue tokens). This will prevent you from losing from too many gates being open, but it will not get you closer to winning by sealing 6 gates. The locations are Hibbs Roadhouse, The Historical Society, The Silver Twilight Lodge, The Science Building, Y’ha-nthlei (ultra-rare), and Devil’s Hopyard. It is safe to let 3 or sometimes even 4 clues accumulate there since gates rarely appear in these places. When a gate appears on a location, it destroys all clues there. On average, less than one clue is generated per turn and games last ten to twenty turns, so it is important to not waste clues (since thirty are needed) and to find other means of gaining clues and clue equivalent items. Act as if gates not specified here are high frequency gates.

Good luck: No, really, have your luck skill at its maximum unless you need lore for spells. You tend to have about 3 luck checks for every 2 lore checks. Although there are a few locations that violate this rule (e.g. The Witch House, The Library, and The Administration Building).

Turn order: In the first part of your turn you can adjust your skills by changing them by a number equal to your focus (if you have focus 1, you can change your skills by 1, 2 by 2, or 3 by 3). This part of your turn is called upkeep. Adjust your skills so they fit what you think you will need to do that turn and the turn after. If you have very low focus, you need to plan for three turns ahead. Then comes movement (you can move a number of spaces equal to your speed if you are on the same space as someone else during this part of the turn you can trade almost anything with them except allies, skills, injuries, madnesses, clues, blessings, and retainers. If you move onto a space with a monster, or start movement with a monster on your space, you must run away from it (pass an evade check) or end your movement phase and fight/evade it and all other monsters on the space.

If further details are desired prior to the game, go here and consult the manual.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Main_Page
http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Arkham_Horror/AH_Rules_internat.pdf

Avi_dreader said:

I'll give this bit the Dam Stamp of Approval (I know you crave for it ). Not even mentioning final combat sets up the right mindframe.

Your implications about time makes me feel the insane urge to do stupid things for the very first seven Mythos, just to boost a little the pressure ::laughter::

Jokes aside, well done. I hope this could really help newcomers :-D

Good general summary (though I have to note that in the games I've played so far, despite frequently going to the Newspaper, none of us have even once managed to get a retainer there. O_O Crappy luck!).

Only issue I have is that this basically assumes you have Dunwich (the injury/madness stuff), and that's presently probably the hardest expansion to find for a price anywhere resembling reasonable. Not a major issue...you just might want to add a mention that those are alternate rules from an expansion since this is intended for use with newbies (and folks might end up looking through their base game and thinking, "where the heck are the injuries this guy mentions?").

Dam said:

Absolutely agreed. I do sometimes start working towards prepping for final combat, but only once it becomes clear it is happening and I don't think there's anything we can do about it. (Very close to the end of the doom track, and we just don't have the clues or elder signs to work with.) It's pretty rare for it to be that completely clear, and in every other situation you should be going for a seal (or occasionally closing) victory.

Sdrolion said:

Well, I really made this for forum old-timers mostly :') sorry everyone else. Hm... It's kind of weird for me to think that people don't have Dunwich since I've had it for about four years now? Anyway, it's been a long time. I guess I could type up a separate clause for players to replace the part about always taking madness/injuries if they want to teach the game introduction to others in simplified form but lack Dunwich.

It seems like there's interest for that?

Dam said:

Well, it does, and it will be a pleasant unpleasant surprise. On the one hand, players will be playing more or less properly their first game, on the other hand, there will be lots of things going on that will be quickly explained in game when they come up (doom increase, monster surge, terror increase, gate burst, final combat, and of course, monster movements, but really the experienced player should just control those the first game and quickly explain them as they go along).

Oh, Dam gave me approval, this is the greatest day of my life ;') Now I can finally commit ritual suicide! Now where is an Elder God to nomnomnom me?

Okay, if you're not playing Dunwich replace this paragraph:

What happens if you lose all your sanity or stamina: for stamina, draw an injury, get all your stamina back, move to the hospital and lose a turn, for sanity, draw a madness, get all your sanity back, move to the asylum and lose a turn. Lose your retainer too.

With this:

What happens if you lose all your sanity or stamina: First, lose half your items (rounded down) and half your clues (rounded down). For stamina, get one stamina back, move to the hospital and lose your turn. For sanity, get one sanity back, move to the asylum and lose your turn. It is crucial you do not let this happen to players with multiple clues, or players holding most of a team's valuable items (in order to protect their clues or kill a very threatening monster-- just remember, monsters are like bees, most of them will leave you alone if you leave them alone, but some of them are more like killer bees on cocaine). Also, lose your retainer.

You can take out the clause about bees if you want ;'D I thought it was funny though (and might be a memorable image for reminding new players proper strategy).

Sdrolion said:

I don't want to mention anything about alternate rules, and I'd suggest you don't either when teaching the game. You want the initial presentation to be as streamlined as possible, but you also want other people to have reference sheet for making decisions based on situations that come up constantly while also having a good (albeit vague) sense of what the game will throw at them.

Well it does give the essence the game as it is very well. Good job.

Though, as I do not like so much the goal as it is (clue harvesting to reach a seal victory) since it is too narrow for my taste, has no real place for exploration or story telling (which I really enjoy in the end), I changed them using the Game End version that I posted some times ago. It truly changes the game, since it changes what matters and what does not :-)).

amikezor said:

Heh... Well... The "game purpose" was designed for a general view (closing victories could be explained later if they looked remotely possible, or if Atlach was up), and final combat victories could be explained after an Ancient One awoke for the first time.

The tactical style of playing Arkham doesn't have much room for exploration or storytelling (although I use a sort of rationalization method of storytelling where I try to piece things together in my imagination after they happen, sometimes). Encouraging the other two things can be done by game variants or weird heralds, or, just willfully ignoring the victory conditions (dallying and expecting a horrible death). I call that the "Enjoy your last days on Earth" variant :'D

right. I agree.

I was not at all criticizing your text Avi. I was complaining against the game itself :-))

amikezor said:

;') Can I just pretend you were criticizing it so I can feel better?

sure. Be my guest

Avi_dreader said:

Unless you get McGlen, Harrigan, Diamond, Monterey at the start of the game vs. Ithaqua. Then you can sit around until Ithaqua awakens, then squash him into green goo in final combat.

mi-go hunter said:

::Snort:: I'm not making exceptions for unexpected victory by Act of Drawing Patrice.

Yeah, but seriously, no. If you try that, I will find out where you live and force you to play with my Ithaqua herald ;'D

Avi_dreader said:

throwing atlach against newbies? now that's just evil.

also, closing victory isn't that impossible. in the group i play in we have approx 30-35% wins by closing of the gates (but that could be because some specific players don't keep their clues long enough for sealing, so it's unlikely we'll seal a victory.. but still).

Taurmindo said:

Hey, when did I ever claim to not be evil? When?! I may be evil, but I am no liar! Oh wait... Hee hee hee ;') yes I am.

I typically try to design first games so they'll end on a loss, like a first game of Arkham ought to ;'D none of this newbie coddling for me. Flesh for the Ancient Ones!

Somewhere, there's an Avi with a Goatee...who rescues animals for shelters, feeds starving children, and has newbies face Yig or Nyarlathrotep on their first attempt...

EcnoTheNeato said:

Oh no, I had a goatee once, and back then I'd eat animals at shelters and starving children, and I'd still make newbies play Atlach on their first try ;'D