Am I correct in thinking that monsters placed in the outskirts have no means of entering Arkham (unless there's maybe some special encounter/mythos card which says to do so)? And the only way to eliminate them once they're there is to close a corresponding-symboled gate?

This rule came as a bit of a surprise because we had been operating under the assumption that outskirts monsters come on the board when there are Arkham monster spaces available and their movement symbol comes up, at which point they appear on gates, in the sky or in aquatic areas. I understand that from a game mechanics perspective the outskirts are designed to act as a kind of overspill which the players cannot afford to let fill up and so are compelled to fight rather than evade, but it also seems illogical that monsters wouldn't eventually wander into town to attack when able.

Once monsters are in the outskirts that's it they're there untill the outskirts is full '10 monster' at which point you raise the terror level and the monsters go back into the cup. They don't move or have any other effect on the game than that.

If you want to look at it from a story point of view then yes they get board of hunting in the outskirts and come back into Arkham at which point they go back to the cup to be recycled back into the game. They don't come out onto the board.

The only other way to get rid of them as you say is to close gates with the corrisponding symbol on them.

Seems you have the mechnaicl understanding of the Outskirts down.

Thematically, you can explain it that monsters are tired of wandering Arkham and eventually wander out of town. But increasing reports of "incidents" in the country surrounding Arkham has the residents spooked. So when enough of them pass through, residents have enough and start leaving in increasing numbers.

spirit said:

Just a minor rules point, but the outskirts cannot hold 10 monsters. The maximum number of monsters in the outskirts is linked to the number of investigators :

Number of Players Maximum Monsters in Outskirts

1 7
2 6
3 5
4 4
5 3
6 2
7 1
8 0

So, in the case of a 8 player game, there wouldn't even be an outskirts, it would go straight to terror level!

From a logics point of view, it dont make since why adding an investigator would make townsfolk more terrified of monsters( easier to have the terror raise) instead of making them feel more secure and lowering the chance of having the terror level increase, but i guess its a rules balance issue, same as monsters in the outskirts not wandering back into town.

Although, to be honest, that sounds like it would make a fun house rule to have monsters wander in from the outskirts.