Alright, so I've wanting to do an all in game for some time. Up until now I've only done one big and one small. With MH I think it is finally time to really do the all in game. Now as far as I can tell the main issue really comes from the mythos cards and where gates open, ie with the new MH cards we will have a greater chance of Dunwich and Innsmouth cards. Now what I'm thinking of doing is just basically throw everything in except for the mythos cards, using only those from the base game, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and MH. Are there any other suggestions? Or particular mythos cards from the other expansions that I should keep in?

No, you should use every Mythos card from every expansion. What good is an "all-expansion" game without using everything ?

With MH mixed in, Dunwich/Innsmouth gate dilution should not be that big of a problem. But if you must remove any, you might as well remove the Black Goat and maybe the Lurker mythos cards, since they are the least thematic.

From my first encounter with the game, two-and-a-half years ago, I've gravitated quite naturally to the "all in" type of set-up. Now, admittedly, I have the luxury of a 6' x 3' table solely dedicated to the game. Currently, I use the Base Game AH + every expansion except Innsmouth Horror (IH) , though my games do include an an element from the expansion.

Regarding the expansions, there are two exceptions to the "all in" concept. First, I use only the Personal Stories from IH (actually borrowed from a friend). Second, from the revised Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (CotDP) , I've added some elements (use both the original and revised elements), retained (original version) other elements, or replaced other elements.

Added: Exhibit Items (for a total of 44), Spells (for a CotDP total of 42), Arkham Encounter Cards , Other World Encounter Cards , Ancient Whispers Marker , and Patrol Markers ;
Retained : Allies (preferring the original Allies over the revised version) and Benefits and Detriments Cards ; and
Replaced : Mythos Cards

Now, in addition to the aforementioned expansion exceptions, I don't play the game by strict canon, either. I'm looking for a challenging game, not one that will always end in a loss if I pull the wrong Rumor card, or wreak havoc due to ill-defined rules ( Kingsport Rifts opening in Dunwich , causing monsters to be hurled into vortices). Thus, these are my three basic rules:

1. Randomly select four (4) Investigators and the GOO
2. Treat all "# of Investigator effects" other than Final Combat as "2" (3 boards: Arkham, Dunwich, and Kingsport)
a. Maximum Gates Open: 8 (awakens GOO)
b. Monster Surge: Place # of Monsters = to the greater # of Gates or Investigators
c. Maximum # of Monsters In Arkham: 5 (2 + 3)
d. Maximum # of Monsters In Outskirts: 6
e. Rumors: Place 'x' items, where 'x' = 2 Investigators
3. Place a Rift Progress Marker on the Rift Track only when a Gate opens (including Gate Bursts), but not Monster Surges, with a Rift opening in Kingsport based on the last placed Rift Progress Marker on the Rift Track

Hope this helps.

Prof, while I know you listed personal rules at the end, your insistence that you should be using limits as though there are two investigators, rather than four, is coupled with the statement that you use three boards. Do you know that the "limit reduction" only applies to expansion boards, and are just easing things up on yourself, or have you made an unintentional error?

Tibs,

You're absolutely correct ~ I'm aware of the "reduction following the first expansion board" rule. I've made this modification for my own games, since taking someone away to each of the boards has proven most difficult. Yes, I should caveat my rules by stating that this is how I play my games and is not the guidance according to the rules.

Basically what I want to achieve for my games is to be able to have as much of everything in the game as possible all at the same time without COMPLETELY killing off some element off it; ie gate openings in Innsmouth and Dunnwich. Thankfully the new Act cards solved that one bit, and the Wispers marker was a fantastic way to help out the exhibit items, and the new gate cards certainly help, as do all the new encounter cards for all the expansion boards which reference the other expansions. I guess the main things I'm worried about being diluted at this point are the gate openings in IH and DH, and the Black Goat cult (though this is likely a lost cause since it was already diluted to hell and back with only it in the game let alone everything else).

Should I not try and worry about it and just throw absolutely everything in? Is there some element I am missing?

Since MH came out we have be reintroducing the expansions one at a time, currently have CotDP (new), DH, KiY and everything MH that is applicable has been shuffled in as well. The next one to add in will be KH. My new gf fell in love with this game when we played it for the first time just recently, and so I wanted to slowly add everything in so she could get a handle on it one piece at a time.

The truth is, it's really impossible to have everything without killing off any expansions. But as I said before, Miskatonic helps a lot . The three largest dilution issues, Next Act, Innsmouth, and Dunwich gates, are no longer an issue. Even the ancient whispers makes Exhibit items ever-present.

The one issue that has not been solved is the Black Goat's Cult of the Thousand. There is really no good solution for this unless you use the Black Goat herald. Though, if you're familiar with it, it makes the game a bit too short to thoroughly enjoy all the game's elements.

Tibs said:

I have been using your predraw dilution method for awhile now... do you feel that MH has achieved the same level of dilution correcting? or does it still seem to need some tweaking?

Tibs said:

You gotta lay it out, Tibs. I really haven't heard about MH from any All-Expansion players...just players like me that are finding delightful extra surprises when MH is added to One-Big-One-Small games. But players like me have never had the issues that you players do. I appreciate if it will take some time to permutate all of it, but I'm still waiting for a report on MH from those players that it was MADE for.

I am irritated as hell with the Black Goat box now. I now accept that the whole box is hinged upon using the WHOLE BOX, meaning the Herald, which I dislike immensely. So I guess BG was never meant for me, likely the same way the Lurker box was never meant for anyone who loves the Black Goat Herald.

jgt7771 said:

According to the straight numbers, my "pre-draw" really does the job better than MH does. But MH is much easier to use and its result is better than pre-MH.

I'll update my "pre-draw" variant when I can count out Miskatonic's new cards.

Avi_dreader said:

Yeah, I read yours, and thanks for the recap...but you've been so...grumbly?...about MH that I would prefer to have more opinions before I completely know what to do with yours. I certainly agree with the broadening of encounters, and the Act Deck is awesome again! I hope MH will increase KY's deserved popularity. (But I'm just not talking to you about Lurker anymore. )

jgt7771 said:

Whoops. I've also forgotten that the mythos cards are a very good addition to the deck mix.

:') Well... I am a little annoyed that I paid 60 dollars but mostly got theme and no mechanics ::sigh:: I mean, that's great for RPers, but I love Arkham for the strategy elements, and I don't feel like this really added that much to the game mechanically. I probably wouldn't be willing to fork out that kind of cash for something like this in the future. If there's another expansion and it doesn't significantly add to strategic elements in the game, I won't be buying it (unless it's really cool, in which case I reserve the right to retract my word).

Lurker is the devil. THE DEVIL! And by devil I mean not devil ;.(

Avi is correct. My group has been playing all in for quite some time and while we enjoy the RP/thematic elements of the game, we are primarily focused on the strategy most times. MH is a nice addition and its effects are mostly subtle, but effective. Almost all things in the game did not change, but the added cards really do make the game harder. Our win/lose stats, pre-MH had been 4wins to 2 loses (obviously we have played much more but I have only been remembering this for 6 games prior to MH's arrival), and after MH we are now at 5 loses 1 win!!! Quite a change but I attribute that to our harder AO/herald combo picks. In all lose cases, we have noticed that the new epic battle cards have made a big difference in sliding the favor to the AO side. We always try to win via seals or closing, but our losing streak has had us battling alot lately, so those new cards are a welcome addition. We never used to make it into the red cards, but now it seems that we hit those much more often and in fact our last game ended with the red battle card that states "the investigators lose."

The new act cards are amazing and I attribute a portion of our loses to this new mechanic. SInce the first act comes out with a mystic environment draw, having an early draw of one, really places the pressure on the doom track as we always decide to stop the first act at least once, since not doing so increases the chances of later acts resolving. (ugh...run on sentence there, sorry). This one mechanic is probably the most significant change that MH makes IMHO.

Also, prior to MH, we used to joke that Dunwich was always non-existant (the board hardly ever had gates and the dunny track never got action in all-in games) and while this still remains partially true, we have seen dunwich liven up, since MH's addition. We still have not had dunwich emerge in a long time, but the threat does exist now, which is nice. Oddly, one of our last games, was with the new dunny herald, and he lied dormant the entire game, never making a peep, but in a previous game without the herald, he threatened to awaken at 2 token on his track at Doom 9. This just shows there is still alot of "luck of the draw" involved, which is fine by me.

Lurker is pathetic and Black goat is too annoying to play, so I kinda agree again with Avi here too.

I have always liked and feared innsmouth and think that there was not much of an issue with this board prior to MH. We have lost a few times due to the Innsmouth track filling. The new cards in MH for Innsmouth do not seem to make a big difference here so far as I can see, which is great. The added cards seem just right to re-balance out the same activity in Innsmouth as it had prior to adding MH. Since that track seems to be active quite alot, adding more action to it would make Innsmouth too much in my opinion. We seem to always have to worry about that track at least once a game. Any more than once a game would be a bit much I think, unless the game is being drawn out 5+ turns.

Bravo McWilley said:

I'm not quite sure whether Innsmouth has been significantly changed... While I love the new Look cards, the real mechanical issue (that may have changed without our noticing) is how the jail works now. I haven't studied the new stats. Has the likelihood of being devoured or escaping jail significantly altered, or is it the same?

I love the new act cards... Quite awful... It practically guarantees that all doom tracks shorten by one. At least. Plus it's a good simple variant house rule even if you don't have miskatonic, to force beginning players to speed up or risk dying by time (i.e. in base game only). Although if it was done with new players, I'd say take it directly to final battle, not instant obliteration.

And Bravo, bravo ;'D I thoroughly appreciated your rantxplanation.

There actually is one problem with Innsmouth, it doesn't properly incentivize risking arrests by location encounters (you're much safer placing clues in the streets). However the extra mythos cards may fix this a bit.

Quite right Avi. Quite right.

Your point of the street locations being the place to dump clues on the martial law track has been noticed and used by my group for a long time now, but we just did it instinctively and its not until you mentioned it that I went "Of course!"

As far as jail in Innsmouth is concerned, I have not seen any significant change there and believe it has not changed. We have never actually been arrested in Innsmouth yet, as the check is easy enough to pass in most cases and only really matters later in the game, so I truely can not comment on that.

To further your point on Innsmouth, there is no incentive to visit locations there at all, in fact. Clues can be dumped in the streets, and going to locations is only required when a gate opens there, and thus the locations are unneeded. In fact, Placing a good fighter in the streets, to catch mobs trying to get to vortexes, is a commonly used strategy around here. Of course this changes a bit when things get nasty in devils Reef or Yth...(not even going to try to spell that one, you know what I mean, lol), but again really do not require encounters.

That's not to say we have not ever had encounters in Innsmouth, as we have. Sometimes someone gets stuck up there with no money or life or clues, etc... and will explore those areas in order to gather such things.

And..."rantxplanation"...Heh...nice.

Bravo McWilley said:

Right, but it's very rare when that happens. I think I might start thinking about creating a herald that incentivizes going to Innsmouth locations... ;'D Glad you liked my little portmanteau.