Hi, I just got the game and am playing through my first solo adventure. I've been writing down questions as I come up with them and searching this forum for answers [unsuccessfully], so I thought I'd post them. Thanks!

1. I drew a Mythos card that says "Private security hired in Uptown", so I'm supposed to put a gate in the woods and draw a monster and then return all monsters in Uptown to the cup?? Seems contradictory.

2. If you draw a card during Arkham Encounters that create a gate + monster at your location, what is the exact order of events. I *think* it is:

1. You go to the first otherworld location and are placed on your side and do nothing for the rest of that turn?
2. You are delayed a turn? This means that the next turn you play out the otherworld encounter in the left side and then wait until the turn after that to move to the right side?
3. You ignore the monster? How long is this true? Until you come back and then move off the location?

3. If you draw a gate as part of an Arkham Encounter, does this increase the Doom Track or does that only happen when playing a Mythos during the last phase of a turn?

4. It says you can awaken the Old One when there are no monsters in the cup - how does that ever happen?? I guess if you have a huge game and everyone kills all of them? Almost everything I've seen causes you to return monsters to the cup.

5. If a Mythos card says two monsters appear at a location and nobody is there, do you just discard them? (because these monsters don't stay on the board, right?)

6. I drew an ally Card for Sir William Brinton and it says "+1 max stamina"...what does that mean? My character started the game with a stamina of 5 and then lost two points of it when I had to arm wrestle the guy. The idea is that I can turn this guy in at some point to completely heal myself (back to the full 5, right?) But what does the +1 max stamina signify?

That's it for now. I'm about 3 hours into a solo game and it's not looking good...I have a rumor card that spawns a monster every turn and 7 open gates!

Rodzilla68 said:

Hey there, and welcome to the Carnival (as someone after me would've said). some quick answers!

1.) As you may have noted, there are "neighborhood cleaning" Mythos cards for each neighborhood. That one is the only one that actually opens a gate in that neighborhood. A little silly, but a bit of a relief. HOWEVER! Flying, fast, and some green monsters (like the Hound of Tindalos) can move away if they match the monster movement symbols.

2.) Place the gate and go to the indicated Other World. You are delayed. Draw and place a monster at that location. It's treated as a regular monster, so it counts against the monster limit and etc. After phase 3 (Arkham Encounters), you go to phase 4 (OW encounters). You're delayed, but that doesn't stop you from having encounters! And so, you have an OW encounter even though you just had an encounter in Arkham. On your next turn, during phase 2 (movement), you stand up and that's it for that phase. Then in phase 4 of that turn, you have an OW encounter as normal. Then proceed as normal (moving to the next area, having an encounter, etc., then returning to Arkham to Close/seal. Assuming you aren't delayed again, knocked out, or returned to Arkham early!)

3.) Yes. ANY time a gate opens, a Doom Counter is added. Unless explicitly stated, of course, but that is the general rule. Gate=Doom token.

4.) It's possible, but super-rare. I think in over 5,600 reported games, only once has the AO woken up because they ran out of monsters. Similarly, only once has the AO woken up because they ran out of gate tokens to draw. Ultra-rare, but possible, so FFG just covered their butts with a rule, as a "just-in-case"

5.) That rule is true for ENCOUNTERS (both phases 3 and 4, as long as the encounter doesn't say "A gate and a monster appear!" If that's the case, the monster stays on the board). The two monsters that appear in the streets because of the Mythos card, they stay there.

6.) Quite simply, Joe Diamond goes from Max Stamina of 6 to Max Stamina of 7. So if you get fully healed at the hospital, or healed by some other mean, your "cap" is 7, instead of 6! It does NOT instantly raise you by 1 stamina, however (so, if you were at 6 stamina and gain him as an ally, you stay at 6 stamina, but if you were to gain stamina while he was still your ally, your new "max" is 7). You have to gain this by normal means (spells, items, encounters, or the hospital). The exception to this is if you drew that ally at the start of the game (Example: Ashcan Pete gets Duke, who gives +1 max Sanity. Pete's normal sanity is 4, but with Duke it is 5, so he starts with Full Sanity of 5!)

Hope that gave you more answers than questions! Let us know if you have more. This game is great, but certainly has its fiddly-bits...But we love to give answers here! Sounds like you drew The Terrible Experiment. A nasty Rumor indeed! Also induces a lot of questions, but it's actually quite clear on the card (albeit not very intuitive). Good luck! You'll need it, because it sounds like the Ancient will be waking up in a turn or two!

Thanks for the quick answers. As I continued the game, two other questions came up:

1. I drew a card that says any Elder Thing previously claimed as a trophy returns to life. Does Elder Thing = ANY and ALL monsters I defeated and kept as trophies?

2. I opened 8 gates, which woke up Yig. Yig's combat rating is -3 and Mandy's maximum Fight = 3 and she doesn't have any clue tokens or combat modifiers. Based on this, I guess I automatically lose the game?

1. There are monsters named Elder Things. If you have one, it is returned to life. No other monsters are returned. It usually doesn't have an effect.

2. If you don't have any weapons or offensive spells, yeah, you've lost. If you have them, then you can fight it out.

If you think you're up to it, try doing multiple investigators for the next few games. When I started solo-ing I did 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 investigators. After that I liked 4 investigators the most, so that's what I did most of the time after that.

Sometimes crazy things go on with just 1 investigator, and it makes it difficult to learn the ropes. But! Some people like that sorta thing

That's a good idea. Does the same hold true for a two-player game - I.E. have each player control 2 or more investigators?

Yup! That's also a common way to play for two people that play together often. But that's if you find playing with 2 investigators (1 each) to be too difficult, or just not your style. Worth a shot if you have a buddy you figure you'll be playing with often!

Most of the games I play are two person games in which both people play two investigators. I hardly ever play with less than 4 total investigators now, especially since I always play at least one expansion board and it's not as fun if you can't keep up with everything that's going on because you don't have enough investigators to cover everything.

But yeah. Figure out the best setup that works for you (and whoever plays with you often) and go with it. I've played a game that I controlled 6 investigators by myself. Just gotta figure out what works.