I really,really like what Miskatonic brings to the table, in terms of fleshing out things. I love the fact that almost all the mythos cards are double locations, and I really like seeing the other world cards tailored to each expansion - to say nothing of the skills or the other kickass components.

But one thing that I really like is the whole note of just mixing the game together and ignoring cards that have symbols you aren't playing with. After buying my two artcases (those giant wooden boxes from a forum post from last year), and then buying a ton of cheap, 30 cent baseball card holders, I have been having a damned hard time trying to figure out how to organize things so that as a player I can just reach in and pull out the components we are using. I also knew that there was no way to make separating the components out again easy. I'm not the most creative person when it comes to these things, so the thought of just leaving everything mixed and just ignoring cards that have symbols you aren't using seems obvious in retrospect.

So the question then becomes this: What parts do you consider "On" or "Off? I don't play the numbers/statistics games on how hard the various expansions are, so I figure the easiest way to do this is to define expansions by their major components. But even then, are there parts that can stay on permenantly? I figured i'd run down the parts and get everyone's opinions.

The big boards are obvious - If you aren't playing with Dunwich, Kingsport, or Innsmouth you ignore their symbols.
Miskatonic is "Always on."
The smaller boxes are where it gets trickier. Pharoah is the exhibit and Yellow is the Act deck, but what defines Black Goat and Lurker? Corruption and the alternate gates? Honestly I can make a case for leaving both Black Goat and Lurker as "Always on," but I don't know if their mythos/other world cards specifically interact with their mechanics.
What about investigator items? Can't those be considered in play depending on your use? I tend to always have injury/madness cards available, and with Miskatonic it seems other things, like corrpution or Sheldon Gang or other things like that can be active without needing the main board present...

So.. yeah. TL:DR veision - I'm just wondering what everyone thinks in terms of gameplay. With regards to ignoring cards per Miskatonic, would there be any harm to leaving "on" all the small expansions (except for their defining characteristic/mechanic), leaving on all the investigator items, and just ignoring cards pertaining to the big box guys?

I guess I've just never heard of anyone playing "all small and 1 big." It's usually 1 small / 1 big, but honestly I just think the whole "leave everything mixed and ignore cards you aren't playing with" is a crude, but effective solution.

The game is pretty modular, so you can choose which elements you want to leave in. Hence, even though you might not want to play with all the elements of, say, Lurker, you might choose to leave the Common Items and Relationships in. A sledgehammer isn't particularly thematic... although a few of the spells in CotDP have an Egyptian theme.

Arkham Encounters tend to reflect flavour and, in many cases, game mechanics. If you take out CotDP, then all those encounters wittering on the "haunted musuem exhibit" have less context, notwithstanding that many refer to using Exhibit cards. To a lesser extent this goes for Gate encounters too.

The Mythos cards are the big ones, as these will affect the Gate distribution, which will have a strong impact on the game. They also reflect the flavour. Sandstorms feel Egyptian, whereas a spate of yellow grafiti emphasises the King in Yellow.

Personally, I'm an all-in gamer myself, but if you want to emphasise, say the Cult of One Thousand, I'd suggest removing the AE and Mythos cards from all the unused sets.

I haven't bought Miskatonic Horror yet so I'm not sure if/how it changes things, but here's what I've always found most effective:

Keep the mythos decks from the base set and all expansions separate. I keep all 'universal' components - things that are expansion independent - consolidated together (this includes all investigator, arkham encounter, and gate cards, regardless of source), and keep all expansion related mechanics separated with the mythos decks they are associated with (this includes all expansion board encounters, and other unique mechanics like the dunwich horror or innsmouth look).

This makes set-up really easy, and I can determine which expansion(s) I want to use immediately before the game. I never combine the mythos decks, and instead use die rolls to determine which deck to draw from during each mythos phase. This also allows you flexibility in how 'present' or diluted an expansion is relative to others on a game-by-game basis (which is determined almost 100% from the mythos deck. I almost never run into hitches (the only potential hitch you can run into - drawing an Arkham encounter card from an expansion you aren't using that isn't resolvable, almost never presents a real issue).

This works best when you play with 1 or 2 expansions at a time, you can change them up from game to game with almost no time or effort.

Jake yet again said:

Me and my wife played the last ~20 games like this:

Always on:

1. Relationships

2. Personal Stories

3. Injuries & Madnesses

4. Lurker Other World Gates (even the ones not shown on the boards played, e.g. if a gate to "Another Time" opens and we don´t use Dunwich, we place the Investigator in the Plateau of Leng (same colors) and treat him as though he were in "Another Time)

5. All "Other World" Encounter Cards (i.e. from all expansions), mainly due to #4

6. Lurker Common Items, Unique Items & Spells (they aren´t so many and we love the "teamplay aspects" they provide (especially the spells))

7. Ancient Ones & Guardians

8. Investigators

9. Epic Battle

Modular:

1. Arkham Location Cards

2. Mythos Cards

3. Expansion Boards

4. Common Items, Unique Items, Spells & Skills

5. Allies

6. Monsters

7. Heralds

For the modular part we usually choose one board and a small expansion (or rarely just one expansion) and add all the "modular" parts provided to the basegame.

Keep the mythos decks from the base set and all expansions separate. I keep all 'universal' components - things that are expansion independent - consolidated together (this includes all investigator, arkham encounter, and gate cards, regardless of source), and keep all expansion related mechanics separated with the mythos decks they are associated with (this includes all expansion board encounters, and other unique mechanics like the dunwich horror or innsmouth look).

This makes set-up really easy, and I can determine which expansion(s) I want to use immediately before the game. I never combine the mythos decks, and instead use die rolls to determine which deck to draw from during each mythos phase. This also allows you flexibility in how 'present' or diluted an expansion is relative to others on a game-by-game basis (which is determined almost 100% from the mythos deck. I almost never run into hitches (the only potential hitch you can run into - drawing an Arkham encounter card from an expansion you aren't using that isn't resolvable, almost never presents a real issue).

This works best when you play with 1 or 2 expansions at a time, you can change them up from game to game with almost no time or effort.

Same here for the Mythos deck. For the Locations we keep them all together, but draw until we have a "correct" symbol. Investigator cards and monsters get mixed before games and seperated again afterwards. Hope I didn´t forget anything :-)

Best regards

Enas