So my AH crew and I ran into a problem lately in Arkham Horror. It was something like this:

A - My friend had an Arkham encounter that lead him into Dreamlands where he would resolve a otherworld enounter and return.

B - He then had his encounter that told him to stay delayed in the Dreamlands.

C. Never from that point did a Dreamlands gate open on the map.

D. When he got his move turn to return to Arkham we simply delayed him in time and space.

My question is, should we have:

1 - returned him to arkham at step B regardless of the other world encounter?

2 - played his turn as is written above? (did we do it right?)

3 - allow him to return through any other gate?

4 - keep him in dreamlands until a gate oppened?

5 - create a house rule on the fly?

6 - other? (if there is a way to handle this I didn't mention)

As a final note, we're using a 'hardcore' houserule that plays gates face down until they are traveled into, as we do anything to make the game harder! But we did check them all this time around.

A/B/C/D Your friend was supposed to return from the Dreamlands to the place where he got the original encounter. Getting delayed doesn't mean you have to stay, nor does "stay here next turn," which actually means "delayed."

D But in general, when an investigator has to return from an Other World and there are no legal exits, he is lost in time and space .

So you should have performed option 1 .

You've pretty much nailed why I don't like the facedown gate rule.

I assumed this was probably the case. However it wasn't it would make the Gate Box, and Find Gate(Spell) more useful! Not to imply that they aren't already some of the best utility cards in the game!