One of the players in my gaming group dislikes cooperative games- he loves the challenge and thrill of competitive games. Is there a variant (one which alters as little as possible, preferably) that allows one player to take on the role of "Keeper" and control the monsters?

My advice is to play a different game with your friend. I have a competitive-only friend who hates Arkham. That's what my Eurogames are for.

But if you insist on playing Arkham with him, then set him up to be "Keeper," which involves these three things:

1. During the Mythos phase, the Keeper draws two Mythos cards and chooses which one takes effect. The other is discarded.
2. Whenever there is a disagreement, a timing conflict, or any other situation where it is up to the first player to decide (including deciding how to spread monsters during a surge if some must go to the Outskirts), the Keeper makes the decisions.
3. The Keeper reads all encounter cards, but only up to the end of a clause with a check or choice in it (sometimes it will be the entire sentence). Most of the time, the investigator will not know the consequences until he makes the choice, passes the check, or fails the check and chooses to "accept failure" by declining to do anything about it (clues, re-rolls).

It's not a lot to do, but it can have a huge effect on gameplay. Those times he won't be able to make choices will be during encounters, but he will be reading all of them and should be encouraged to keep the theme heavy!

In case you haven't heard, there's a new game called Mansions of Madness. It's explicitly based on Arkham Horror, but it's competitive. It has many of the same investigators, monsters and items as Arkham Horror.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=136&enmi=Mansions of Madness

Wow, thanks Avec. I completely missed the obvious response.

Yes, Mansions is fun. But it is not quite like Arkham. If you try Mansions and would still prefer an Arkham game (or if you can't afford Mansions right now), then try my above post.

Heh, no worries. I personally think a competitive Akrham Horror game would be a heresy, but it would be interesting to give it a try.

Xenu's Paradox said:

I do love heresy :') Enjoy.

If you find the Ancient One being too powerful limit the number of once per game abilities to let's say, five. Also, allowing other players to select their investigators can help a lot. And you may not want to go with an extremely powerful ancient one. Or toss in a fifth investigator.

Controlling the Ancient One: a Four Investigator Variant

Ancient One Rules:

One Player controls the Ancient One.

Final Combat : Final Combat takes place as normal, but the Ancient One can use Touch, Rot and Die, and can draw two random monsters at the beginning of each round of combat and force any investigator to fight or evade one of them.

Timing : If there is a timing conflict between an investigator decision and an Ancient One decision, the Ancient One resolves its effect first.

Monster Movement :

During the Mythos phase, the Ancient One can choose to move monsters with their symbols shown along black or white arrows, and can move one monster on the board in any sort of movement it could legally make in addition to the regular mythos movement (i.e. it could move twice in a turn).

Cultists and Worshippers of an Ancient One can be moved into locations with clues if they are adjacent to them (the sky is adjacent to all locations). If they move onto a location with clue tokens, remove the clue tokens from the board.

Each Mythos Phase : roll a die when you draw the Mythos card.

1: The Mythos card produces no clue tokens
2:You may place the gate at a different unstable location (except for Y’ha-nthlei or Devil Reef) instead.
3:Instead of the normal monster placement, draw five monsters and place one of your choice on the board (if you are at the monster limit, place one monster on the board in the outskirts first). Place the rest in the Outskirts.
4:A random monster appears! Choose any investigator to target with it after it is seen—they fight immediately. If it knocks out or devours the investigator or is evaded, return it to the cup.
5:Raise the terror level by one.
6:Yellow bordered monsters can be moved up to three spaces, along lines and train stations ignoring any normal movement patterns (even into stable locations).

Might of an Elder God : Each of these abilities can be used once per game.

Unseen Influence:
Start of Game: Force one of the randomly selected investigators to be redrawn before distributing items.

Reinforcements:
Any Phase: Exchange a monster on the board with a monster in the outskirts (this can be done after an investigator moves onto the monsters space, but not once combat or the evade check has begun).

Desperate Defense:
Mythos Phase: Draw three random monsters and place them at any unstable location or locations of your choice, except for Y’ha-nthlei or Devil Reef (you may see the monsters before you place them).

Summon Champion:
Mythos Phase: Search the monster cup for any one monster, place it anywhere in Arkham.

Dark Blessing:
Any Phase: Place a doom token on a monster, investigators in combat with that monster have their rolls treated as if they are cursed even if they are blessed (this doesn’t count against evade checks).

Touch:
Any Phase: You may give a random Injury and a random Madness card to any one or two investigators, mark them with a doom token— any investigators marked by this doom token can not be retired.

Rot:
Mythos Phase or Upkeep: Destroy one item of your choice (return it to the box).

Die:
Mythos Phase or Upkeep: An investigator of your choice is devoured.

Death May Die:
Mythos Phase: Take a second Mythos Phase after this one.

I'm asking mostly because I would like to be able to bust out Arkham Horror at a small gathering without completely excluding one player or forcing him to play in a role he won't enjoy. Thanks for the responses.

Depending on the expansions you own, you could let him start with the Join the Winning Team mission, maybe coupled with a cult membership.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Joining_the_Winning_Team

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/%22One_of_the_Thousand%22_Cult_Membership

Xenu's Paradox said:

Hey, I actually worked on a version with a keeper for arkham that I posted on BGG here that is based on the mechanics of Mansions of Madness keeper. There is even a scenario here . This variant has been playtested and it worked well.

Yeah, looked at ami's Keeper rules and liked them...haven't used them yet myself but may eventually. I do agree with most that Arkham is really intended more as a co-op game, so honestly I'd try to just find something else that everyone would enjoy for the most part (or politely note to your friend that sometimes we do have to do things that we don't enjoy as much if the overall group wants to do them, and make some nights for doing the games he prefers and some nights for doing the game the group prefers ). Mansions of Madness seems like a possibility for an Arkham-themed game with a competitive mechanic but still strong cooperation, and I've also heard good things about "Betrayal at House on the Hill" for similar horror themes (though a bit more B-movie in flavor).

I wonder if someone could come up with a way to make AH into some sort of cooperative-yet-competitive game, maybe with competing character goals but ones that still require the overall success of the group. That might be a way to satisfy a person who prefers competition without removing the "everybody cooperating" aspect of the game as much as a keeper might. Maybe there's an artifact the Mythos is using, and different characters all want to get that, but also need to stop the AO to, y'know, live. Or the characters belong to two different secret societies, neither of which likes the other, and they want to work together to a point but end with "control of Arkham" and banishment/death of the other society. No idea how to balance something like that myself, though...so count this as another random "person suggests an idea that he has no intention of working on himself" thing and feel free to be quietly annoyed or prick voodoo dolls of me as desired.

But overall...Arkham was created as a co-op game, so it will probably still feel best most times if it is kept as such.

Great job on the competitive scenario, amikezor!
Just out of curiosity, is there any chance you could upload a blank Action card template?

Edit: never mind, found some.

thank you for the positive feedback.

Yes you can find blank cards on the BGG / mansions of madness / files. Here it is:

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/65768/mansions-of-madness-diy-story-kit-objective-even