Hello All!

So as we all know, all the players in a turn completes the current phase before starting the next phase, continuing until all phases are complete and the next turn begins.

But... what if turns were restructured so that each player completes their Upkeep, Movement, Arkham, Other World phases before the next player completes all phases and so on? With the way the First player marker would work at the start of the game, after the very first Mythos card is completed, the marker is passed / set. On start on the first players next turn, s/he would complete the Mythos phase before starting their Upkeep phase and so forth, and would pass the marker to the left. The new first player would complete their turn with Upkeep, Movement, Arkham, Other World, but on the start of their NEXT turn would do Mythos (pass marker to the left), Upkeep, Movement, etc...

After playing (mostly) through a 8 player game with the base set, this idea came about because we had issues sometimes with keeping track of getting LiSaT, hospitalization, getting delayed, etc. That, some smaller issues I can't be really specific about other than maybe calling them "learning pains", and keeping everyones' interest, attention, and sanity (IRL ). The idea with taking all phases at once per player is supposed to be that it makes the game easier to learn and play because each player doesn't need to be reminded what phase it is, events such as getting and recovering from LiSaT are easier to "manage", and gameplay (maybe / maybe not) subsequently gets sped up.

That all said, I haven't play-tested this yet, but I wanted to get the community's opinions and ideas on this. What do you think of this idea, and do you see any issues with it?

The only drawback that I could think of with this is that it might change the overall feel of the game.... taking away some of the uniqueness of it and making it more like a traditional game, and maybe making it more "player-centric" than "team-centric". But I feel like if this makes large games more accessible, its worth it. I feel AH has so many cool ideas oozing from it that it can afford to be a little simpler with turn-structure. Unless there's something I've completely overlooked...

Thanks!

Well.. basically, this will make the game a lot easier to beat. If you know what's happening to your pals you can change completely tactics and try to solve a messy situation in quite a short time. Investigator A needs to kill a monster so investigator C can enter a gate. Investigator B wants an encounter at the STL. If we play according to the rules, during Upkeep, Investigator A adjusts his skill sliders for fighting, B for having an encounter in Arkham, C for an encounter in the OWs. If we play the other way, investigator A goes to fight the monsters. Let's say he fails his attempt: now investigator B can adjusts his sliders to go for the monsters investigator A wasn't able to kill. In case he fails as well, investigator C can maximize his speed in order to go somewhere else on the board and do some other stuff. The game is structured into phases in order to avoid this way of playing

Though to be fair, both approaches can be "gamed." For example, with the current turn structure, Investigator A can take his movement knowing that Investigator B lost his blessing this turn during the Upkeep Phase. With the turn structure that Happy Fries suggests, Investigator A would have to move without knowing what will happen to Investigator B's blessing.

Another example is that, during the Arkham Encounters Phase, Investigator A can decide whether to spend Clue tokens to pass an encounter, knowing that Investigator B has successfully killed a nearby Shoggoth during the Movement Phase. With Happy Fries' turn structure, Investigator A would have to decide how important it is to pass the encounter without knowing whether Investigator B will be able to kill the Shoggoth.

I'm guessing that Julia is right, and that there are more opportunities to game the system with Happy Fries' approach. But it's hard to know for sure.

We always play that way simply because it's easier for all of us to keep track of things. It makes the game slightly easier gameplay wise, but a LOT easier for teaching new players, and keeping track of who does what, and speeding up the game a bit. Yeah, it can be gamed, but since our primary goal is just o have a fun adventure game, we're fine with that. It hasn't actually helped our win percentage one bit. >>

Downtime becomes an issue. RB works this way and we immediately house-ruled to work like AH, just to alleviate some of the downtime.

Jake yet again said:

Out of curiosity, how did that work out for you in RB? Sounds like a good idea, actually.

Steve-O said:

It worked out fine and stopped some of the "well I've had my turn, now I'll wait five minutes before I have my next turn" problems that plague the game.

We house-ruled the hell out of Runebound, adding a better XP system (you need as much XP as your current level to go up a level - tended to slow down runaway winners, and allow tail-end charlies a chance to develop their characters), a wandering monster system, a threat clock which was pressurised without being overbearing (unlike the ridiculous one suggested in the original rulebook) and whole bunch of other stuff.

actually, I started playing this way and I like it better. it improves the game-flow which is nice. I always found the AH turn awkward. it is just we are used to it, but really it is not well designed.

Jake yet again said:

Thanks everyone for your input so far.

I think Julia presented the biggest difference between the two turn structures in terms of gameplay and strategy; and this was something I definitely overlooked.

After thinking about the specific example she made, what if my proposed turn was altered so that after a Mythos phase, everyone performed Upkeep, but then went around to the next player doing their Movement, Arkham, OW phases, following to the next player's Move, Arkham, OW, and so on? This would stop the issue of "reactive stat managing" that was originally pointed out, making the players all react after Mythos finishes and (hopefully) plan out what their turns should be for the new turn. I think that would be better for keeping strategy and planning a bigger part of gameplay as opposed to my original idea.

I appreciate avec's point that both turns can be gamed. The question definitely becomes "Does the way we can plan and react become significantly different between taking turns one way versus the other?" I think the ideal would be that it doesn't change it much (or make the game a lot easier to beat), but would make the game easier to learn, quicker to play, and involves the player deeper and more often.

Again, it probably would take some good amount of testing to see if this makes a real difference or not. The next time I get my bunch of friends together, I'll try running it this way to see if it's any better... of course though, everyone will have a better idea of how the game works, so it will already be easier....

But you think that doing a Mythos, everyone Upkeeping, then around with Movement, Arkhm, OW for each player is a better idea? What's your thoughts

Happy Fries said:

yes upkeep for everyone before. for my experience, it speeds up the game which is nice.

Yep, this could work better!

Cool

Just a technical correction I realized.

Happy Fries said:

The way I described taking turns as the First Player and passing the marker breaks the game a little and is awkward, because in practice, the former first player would have two turns before the next Mythos card is turned. What it should be is after everyone upkeeps, the First player does his/her Movement, Arkham, OW, the next player does the same, and so on until it's First player's turn again. S/he only does Mythos, passes the marker, everyone upkeeps, then the new First player starts Movement.

In other words, transitioning from Mythos to Upkeep should work like the Rulebook describes.

I'm still open to suggestions, opinions, et al!