Over the course of yesterday and today, I played what was probably my longest game of Arkham Horror ever. I wasn't exactly keeping track, but it was somewhere between four and five hours, perhaps a little more. The players were myself, my father, and Vladimir, a gestalt entity created and controlled by the joint decisions of the first two. We used absolutely everything, all expansions, all boards, all cards, and all rules (well, except Touring Performance, but who uses that?). The "big players" were Bokrug, the Dunwich Horror, Bast, and Organized Crime. The investigators were Zoey (myself), Ursula (my dad), and Roland (Vlad). As usual, this will be rather fractured, with emphasis on what I remember most. Be warned: this shall be extremely long.
Ursula and Zoey both needed monster trophies for their stories, so we split up, with Ursula taking Dunwich and Zoey taking Arkham (the first gate opened on Wizard's Hill). The only monster in Dunwich, a Deep One (soon joined by its twin brother), stayed stubbornly on its gate. Ursula poked around in Dunwich. I suggested Harney Jones' Shack, which proved to be an excellent choice when Ursula drew the encounter that removes a Dunwich Horror token. Eventually, frustrated by the Deep Ones' refusal to move, opted to enter the gate just to attack the Deep Ones. She killed one and evaded the other.
Meanwhile, in Arkham, things were going well. Very, very well. I started the game with a Warding of the Yellow Sign, which I placed on Devil Reef. A gate opened there at the end of the first turn, to my immense satisfaction. There was a monster surge on the second turn, which meant that Roland and Zoey just wandered around for the first few turns. Roland had had the good fortune to draw Anna Kaslow as his starting ally, so one clue let him pass his story. Zoey went to the Curiosity Shoppe, where she bought...an Elder Sign. Roland came over to take it from her, while she shopped again...getting another Elder Sign. I had all the Unique Items from all the expansions, and I still got two Elder Signs in two turns. A gate opened on the Unnameable and Roland went to seal it, two Elder Signs in hand. I originally planned to move Zoey to Independence Square to get a clue, but instead opted for the Unvisited Isle to give Roland the Hunters bonus against the Skeleton on the Unnameable gate. This proved to be a mistake when the gate to Rl'yeh opened at the Isle, devouring her. Roland returned to Arkham with a Key of Tawil At'Umr (originally Zoey's starting equipment). Norman appeared to replace Zoey. At about this time, Ursula returned to the Wizard's Hill gate, which had moved to the street.
It was then that things got...interesting. When the gate moved into the street, I, on a hunch, looked back through the cards and, sure enough, the gate should have moved at the beginning of the game. This meant that she would have been able to fight the Deep Ones without entering the gate. Now, I could have just let this slide, but I am rather committed to being exact. It would be too complex to allow my dad to retake his first few turns with this in mind, so I just replaced one of the Deep Ones on the board and allowed him to regain the clue and two sanity he had lost fighting it. When Ursula returned, her presence prevented the Deep Ones from moving, which was fortunate since they were next to a vortex. Meanwhile, one of the Rift Tracks in Kinsport finally hit three tokens. At this point, we adjourned, since my father, mother, and aunt were taking a walk and I was coerced into coming. As I set out, pondering the game, I suddenly realized that the gate should have moved twice, once at the beginning and once later on. Thus, the Deep Ones' movement would not have been prevented. I dashed back into the house to verify this and was proved correct. I opted to resolve the effects after returning and left again. Shortly afterwards, I realized that the Deep Ones might not have moved into the vortex, since I did not check the color they moved on, but decided not to rush back again. A little while after that, I realized that, in fact, since one of the Deep Ones emerged later on, the gate would already have been in the street, so they would not be together. But then, where would they be? Consumed with the possible implications of this, my mind swam with strange pseudo-memories of position and timing, doubts as to the merits of my endeavor, and half-articulate theories about the culmination of the whole business. There were so many disparate elements that seemed to have no relation to each other, and yet there was a hideous kind of coherence to the whole, a faint but certain chain of daemoniac logic that lay maddeningly out of reach. I walked apart from my companions, silent and pondering; they must have thought me mad or taken ill. The answer would always seem to be within my grasp but then, by some subterfuge of reason, it would slip through my fingers. Would I ever know it? Oh God, what ancient and malign force of distant, unknowable spheres had I unleashed by opening that eldritch box?
Eventually, I reasoned that one Deep One would have appeared on the gate which Ursula entered, so she should be given back its trophy and deprived of the clue and two sanity she had lost fighting it. The other would have moved twice from Wizard's Hill and not been impeded by Ursula, but I didn't know whether it would have entered the vortex. When I returned, I determined that it would have, placing the Terror and Dunwich Horror tracks at 1.
After dinner and a chance to regain a few Sanity points, I returned to the game. Since the Deep Ones weren't an issue, someone went to Kingsport. This is where things get hazier for me. Roland sealed another gate at about that time, using clues for the first time in the game. Norman also sealed a gate, and a frustrated Ursula roamed the towns in search of monsters that would deign to leave their gates. At some point, Mistrust appeared, but Norman easily disposed of it (after Roland smoked the Priest of Dagon occupying the Southside streets). Around this point, we adjourned again and resumed the next day (that is, today). Roland managed to score ANOTHER Elder Sign from the Black Market. Norman attempted to sneak past a Warlock sitting on a gate, but failed and was sent to the hospital and received Heart Damage, meaning that he treated all monsters as having Overwhelming 1. This marked the start of Norman's run as the team black sheep. Mostly, it was his speed, but his luck (that is, my luck in rolling dice, not his luck stat) was pretty bad too. Norman stumbled about being generally useless while Ursula passed her story and Roland sealed the fourth gate. I haven't mentioned the Retainers yet; we all got one from Organized Crime. Norman's lasted longest, but everyone's had dried up by about this point. We needed to seal two more gates, but there was an annoyingly small quantity of gates about. There were two gates to Rl'yeh in Arkham (one being a Split Gate, obviously) and two gates in Innsmouth, one to Yuggoth on Devil Reef and one to Lost Carcosa on the Esoteric Order of Dagon. This last had a Dark Young parked on it. Ursula was about to head to the Devil Reef one when a gate opened at the Whately Farm (she was in Dunwich at the time). We settled on a plan: Ursula would seal the gate at the Whately Farm, Roland would seal the gate at Devil Reef, and Norman would run around being useless.
Ursula went to Another Time from the Whately Farm gate and eventually returned in one piece to seal it. Roland went to Innsmouth and killed a Vampire in his way. At this point, he had 1 Sanity, I think from failing the Horror check (and 1 Stamina; alright, I suppose I had better explain this: Roland had gained a Cult Membership from an encounter. When I, being meticulous, remembered that he had, at one point, had an encounter at the Black Cave, I drew a Cult Encounter instead. This brought him to 1 Stamina, so he had technically been running around with 1 Stamina the whole time. This remembrance happened a little after the time I'm talking about, at which point we Sent a Sawbones to heal him). I decided to heal him at Falcon Point with Send a Sawbones (delayng his entrance into the gate by one turn). His encounter caused him to lose one sanity, sending him off to the Asylum with Schizophrenia.
Meanwhile, a Rift had opened just before Roland was institutionalized and while Ursula was still in Another Time. We decided it was important for Rolan to seal the gate it would be our last seal), so we left Norman to handle the Rift. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Norman didn't have any money, for one thing, so he took out a Bank Loan and then went to the Train Station, where he had to make a Luck check or be delayed. I blew all of his Clues and still failed. Ursula moved to Kingsport and he joiend her when possible. Together, they closed the Rift (which thankfully had never activated). Norman just barely managed to evade the Crawling One summoned by his last encounter, then successfully read the Eltdown Shards ursula had given him and went insane (can't remember what his Madness was).
While all this went on, all eyes were on Roland. Since he would have to contend with Martial law and a Moon-Beast in Innsmouth, he decided to go for the Rl'yeh gate at the Isle. He just barely managed to pass a check during his encounter (the failure of which would have sent him to Litas). The next turn would be hopefully be the last. Roland would return to Arkham with Find Gate (swiped from Norman) and seal the gate, winning the game. He successfully cast the spell and rolled to seal the gate. Thanks to a stellar lore and some spare clues, he was rolling five dice, and his skill let him reroll ones. For dramatic effect, we rolled the dice one at a time. The first was a one. Unfortunate, but useful for the purposes of the skill. The second was also a one. Again, useful. The third was also a one. Hm. The fourth was also a one. The trend seemed vaguely ominous. The fifth...was a six. Victory!
That game was...crazy. I love using everything, but it can be tough to keep track of. In addition to the blunders and subsequent attempted fixes mentioned previously, I realized as I was cleaning up that I had completely forgotten the Miskatonic Act system. I looked through the Mythos cards, and my heart sank when I realized there had been a Mystic, then an Urban, then a Weather. However, there were no Urbans after the second Mystic, so I satisfied myself that wewould have cancelled Act I with a doom token the first time.
Roland was the star of the show. I imagine Vlad was pleased. He didn't really get a chance to use his abilities because of how many dollars and clues he had, but he still did very well. Ursula also seemed very useful. Norman, as I said, was a bust. He's a great gate closer, but he's incredibly slow and can't sneak for his life, literally. Ironically, we kept finding ourselves wishing for more gates, ones that didn't have monsters or -3 modifiers attached. Maybe he would have been better then.
Bokrug didn't seem that hard, but he was certainly annoying. I don't know how many times I said, "Oh, and the Being of Ib gives a -1 to that, so you automatically fail. Hooray." We managed to take out (or avenge, or whatever) three Beings over the course of the game. I remember thinking that we might have a chance against Bokrug, but that was probably wishful thinking.
The Dunwich Horror and Bast didn't do a blasted thing. It seems to me that the Horror is sort of binary; if the monster of the same name shows up, it's a holy terror, but if it doesn't, it's kind of pointless. Of course, I suppose part of the idea is that you have to keep the Horror from arriving, but we never had that problem. One monster entered a vortex, and the Terror Track never climed past 1. Bast is just generally useless. She's more of an Institution than a Guardian, and a bad Institution at that.
And speaking of Institutions, Organized Crime contributed to out victory more than any other factor. Trading three bucks or an item for a retainer is a fantastic deal. Thanks to the Retainers, worrying about payment for the train was almost a non-issue, and the Black Market let us get a tremendous amount of gear. Send a Sawbones was also fantastic. Of course, getting those three Elder Signs didn't hurt our chances either...