I have just played through my first game and I WON!! Yayy, I get to live just a bit longer! So I played with AH and everything from KiY except the herald, acts and blight cards. Just the smalls, locations, mythos and OW cards. I went against Yog and won a sealed gate victory. Only real blub I made in the rule reads was the ONE enviroment card active at a time. Made things a little too tough on myself at first there. I played 3 investigators, Drake the Magician, the psycholigist and the student. Now, first question, on some of the modifiers for gates it says a + or - to close or seal, yet when I read the rules it just says I have to blow 5 clues to seal permanent, so is there a roll for that or not? Second question is, am I ever going to have a life again, because I can see myself playing this just solo for quite a while.

Congrats on your first game (and win)!

To answer your first question, yes you must still roll the die for success to seal a gate. The modifier is exactly the same applied to either your Fight or Lore - the only difference is you spend 5 clue tokens to place an elder seal at that unstable location. So yes, apply the modifier and roll the die for either closing or sealing.

To answer your second question, your life is officially over. =P

Once you get used to the setup times and such and acquire more expansions, you'll notice the seemingly infinite gameplay possibilities with Arkham. Heck, just with the base set you can get different experiences using different investigators and challenging different ancient ones.

I've had the board games for over two years and I still find time to play a solo game every now and then. It's even more fun when/if you have a group of people over to experience it. Just last week my friend and I introduced the game to someone else who decided to go against Hastur (despite us explaining the game would take longer to win due to the 8 clues to seal, but she wanted to do it anyway) and we managed to win. The next day we were all already planning for our next game to ensure we would lose by playing using an expansion with a herald.

You don't truly experience Arkham until you lose... badly. It's what makes me crawling back for more.

From the core rules, pag 18:

"If an investigator successfully closes a gate, he may immediately spend five Clue tokens to permanently seal it"

So, first of all you have to close it, by checking Lore or Fight, modifying your stat according to the modifier reported on the gate marker. Then (no rolls required), you may spend 5 clue tokens and seal the location