I have an idea for two new house rules for my group, and would like some constructive criticism on them. I just want to see how these might affect game balance in unforeseen ways.

1) Players can trade clues/trophies - My reasoning- the only difference to doing it normally and this way is the order investigators get them. It allows team members to give each other a hand with closing portals, surviving battles, and tackling rumors efficiently. It also pulls the investigators together more oftenm and encourages players to portal dive as a team. All other rules and limits on trading still apply.

2) Combat does not end your movement- My reasoning- Players are still risking resources by fighting, and it makes it more heroic. If a player wants to take the risk of making a desperate four monster fight to get to a portal or valuable resource, it works more to the theme, and they are still doing what they aimed for. All other combat rules still apply.

Maybe I should also add, the play test I have done so far went very well, and didn't affect very much. Sealed Yig with only two spots left on the doom track.><

Madmaestro said:

Well... I'm not sure if I'd call getting a sealing victory at eight doom a playtest going well ;')

You're drastically decreasing the game difficulty by allowing trophy and clue trading (clue trading especially).

Allowing people to move around killing monsters also drastically decreases game difficulty. All you need to do now is get a couple good weapons and have a good fighter with a blessing clear everything off the board. They can do that while also trading for allies (to further boost their combat skills), and then start trading for clues at the science building with the tradeable trophies. Boom. The game is broken.

Also, by allowing trophy and clue trading, it's basically the equivalent of adding several more doom tokens to the doom track spaces. You're giving players *a lot* more time by not forcing them to focus on task management and resource collection planning (you're also allowing them to easily recover from mistakes, worst of all, you're making it so the strongest investigator can continue doing all the gate sealing, reducing risk, while the weaker investigators acquire resources to support it with, rather than ever having to make a move of their own). Usually in normal games, strong investigators will end up sealing two or sometimes even three gates, but usually the weaker investigators *also* have to go seal a gate. This variant undermines it. You're making it so that players can help each other in ways that the game is specifically designed to not allow them to help each other.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't do this if you want the significantly reduce the game difficulty, just be aware that that's what you're doing.

If you explained *why* you were playing this way, and what you were trying to get by doing so, I might be able to give more constructive criticism, suggestions, or point you out to the guardians thread.

Oh. I just realized you also made it so you can trade away clues from your monster killing character so you can't lose them...

Avi_dreader said:

Thank you for the feed-back! I wanted to know what got affected, and how the game can be broken. I've been kicking the idea around for while and wanted to fix any over-sigh problems that may come up. I never expected to get such a complete analysis so fast, thank you!

You're welcome :')

We often play with a variant where every combat check made in the Movement Phase reduces your movement by one. It reduces frustration because it allows people to fight a monster and still possibly reach their destination in the same turn. However, it does make things easier.

The first is more game-breaking than the second, as Avi graciously explained. But the second is still pretty bad.

The first allows you to have a pseudo-Patrice. It's not Insta-clues, but if someone is sucked into a gate with 1 clue, instead of going to shop frantically for a King in Yellow or Elder Sign, you just wait 'til they pop out and give them your own clues. And giving trophies allows for pooling of resources to allow for more/faster Ally/clue/Deputy gain. This isn't all that game breaking but certainly makes the game easier.

Not ending movement gives you another resource you may not think about when playing the game: Time. Clues and Time are considered the two BIGGEST things that you must manage if you are to win. It means you have one less use for sneak. Instead of sneaking past that cultist in front of the gate, you just blast it and move on. Or after you seal the gate, instead of evading the Deep One that's there in order to carry on your next task (gather more clues, perhaps?), you're forced to face it and stay. This also comes to mind when you return from an OW and there's a monster on the gate. Do I risk killing it now, and have fate determine if you succeed? Or do you face it NEXT turn, and basically waste a turn, but guarantee that you can seal the gate? There are many more scenarios I can think of, but you get the idea :-D

If the game's too hard, feel free to give them a whirl until you get a better feel for how to win effectively and consistently. Or ask around for others what they do to make the game a bit easier If that's not why you're doing then, well, why are you? Just for funsies?

EcnoTheNeato said:

Just had some friends getting fed up and frustrated trying to learn, and wanted to take it easier on them as they gained their legs with it. I was kicking the idea for these house rules around, and needed some feed-back on unforeseen problems they could cause.

Ah. Well, Arkham has its fiddly-bits because it's a large game with tons of components and rules. Adding house rules will just add to the frustration when you revoke them, in my opinion :-x

But! The game is supposed to frustrate you. That's half the fun! Then again, they may not be into that sorta thing from a board game...

Madmaestro said:

I'd go ahead and use the house rules if it will make your friends more likely to play. Sure they make the game easier, but as soon as you start winning all your games, reveal the truth! BTW, you still won't be winning all your games even with these rules (unless you're only playing the base game).

In fact, there is even a card in Dunwich that allows investigators to trade clues (Coded Messages) and in someways trophies are already tradeable in that they can be traded in for money which is tradeable and that by playing trophies you can bless other investigators--sort of a tradeoff.

In Mansions of Madness, investigators can fight and move. That's taking some getting used to for me. But they can't fight and then explore like we can in Arkham Horror. So I guess there's trade-offs.

The most precious thing in AH is game turns (well maybe clues, but then game turns). Trading can often be done without costing any game turns, but often it can't be done without at least one player losing his turn. That's a pretty high cost. OTOH, fighting and moving might gain investigators a game turn or two through out the game and that's pretty big. Avec's suggestion sounds good to me.

EcnoTheNeato said:

The funny thing is, I've run Call of Cthulhu for years with these people, and they never complained. I just think they are feeling over-whelmed for now. I've tried running it straight the first few times, and told them about the house rules. They will know that they are playing an easier version of it, and once they have a better grasp, I can take off the training wheels and we'll have at it.

mageith said:

True and I don't play with those particular players alot, so for them I can keep the training wheels on, and play normally with the rest of my player pool. I can gradually step it up to get them more comfortable with it.

avec said:

I'll keep this one tucked away for a rainy day. Thank you.

If you and your friends are new players still getting the hang of this game and are struggling with the difficulty, then these houserules are ok to use. It does make AH significantly easy however, and shouldn't be used once you start playing "seriously".

Personally, I create houserules that make this game even harder!

Madmaestro said:

Heh... Did you see the game summary I posted yesterday? You might want to print out a few copies of that and distribute it to players as a reference sheet.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=5&efcid=1&efidt=457495

Madmaestro said:

I can definitely tell you how both of your suggestions will affect game balance:

They'll turn into a cakewalk.

I know, because these two 'house-rules' are the most common rules mistakes I've seen. And they're the rules mistakes at the root of 90% of the complains that the game is too easy.

Introducing these rules will have to balanced by effects that aren't beneficial to players. E.g. if you want to allow investigator movement to continue after combat, you should at least draw twice the number of monsters.

If you allow trading clues, there should be additional ways to lose clues, or more clues should be required to achieve anything in the game.

mageith said:

@OP:

Use these "training wheels" rules if you need to to keep your friends interested, but I would definitely be upfront about the fact that these are house rules. House rules that you would prefer to stop using as soon as people feel comfortable with the game. If you let them get used to the game thinking this is how the rules really work, they're unlikely to want to stop using them, even after they've figured out the game and how to break it because of these allowances.

You need to wean them off the house rules, but probably want to do so one at a time. Start with removing the clue rule. Let one of the players play Patrice (because her ability clearly indicates that Clues aren't meant to be ordinarily traded), then next time play with the same rule, but don't use Patrice.

Once everyone is signed up to that, move onto the monster rule, again an Investigator who had the ability to move after combat would be nice (I created an unpublished Investigator called Jamie Hendricks with such an ability - I called it Cross-Town Traffic, but I digress) The Shadow From The Past guardian might be a nice compromise for your first game sans "clothslining the monsters".

Avi_dreader said:

Oh yes I did. I'm printing a little copy to keep in my game box, as well as some charts.

Jake yet again said:

Totally what Im thinking, when they have a better grasp on it, I'm going to be phasing out the house rules. Its only a few people I don't play with that often that are still having a problem.

Madmaestro said:

:'D

I'd back most of the comments here saying that your houserules will make the game easier - but obviously this is what you are wanting to do. My main criticism would be with the "you can fight a monster and still move afterwards" rule.

A few alternative suggestions from me would be:

• choose good investigators for your newbies and give yourself and other players 'helpful' characters like Mandy (so they newbies can use her re-roll ability)
• Place 2 clue tokens, instead of one, as a result of a mythos card - this will reduce the need to swap tokens
• Consider each newbie to have a Silver Key http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Silver_Key which will allow them the ability to get around arkham a little easier

Basically what I am trying to get at is you keep the game mechanics the same but stack the dice in your favour a little. If you keep your existing house rules your newbie players won't get into the habits required to tackle the 'full' game.

Clue tokens should be hard to come by as the game progresses and monsters should be slowing you down around arkham.

In the end it might just be that Arkham just isn't for the people you are playing with.

Krawhitham said:

Thank you for the great Ideas, I will remembering those!

Steve-O said:

Yes I've told them, especially after this thread started, that it's very broken this way. I've weened them off of the clue sharing, and its just the combat thing that is getting to them. It is only a matter of time until they are converted.......MWWAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

They do know they can just evade monsters, right? While some characters are abysmal at sneaking and may not have the right weapons to face them, some characters are good at sneaking (particularly Ashcan Pete, who is usually a favorite among new people), or decent with sneaking and have a good focus. Plus, all you need is 1 success to sneak past that Cthonian, instead of 1 horror check success and 3 combat check passes...