I've been thinking about this for a while, and perhapsit isbecasue I have sort of Jumbled all of my various expansions together in my boxes, but when trying to determine "which expansions do you use" I always have to give a long answer along the lines of:

"Well I use DH, but not the board, and I use BGoTW but we don't use the Cult, and..."

So I think it might be time to break the description of "How do you play" into Mechanics

I have this The Mechanics (by Expansion) are in Bold. I've added subcategories for clarity

• Base Game
  * Game Board
  * Investigators
  * Ancient Old One Cards (Mythos/Arkham Location/Gate Encounters)
  * Investigator Cards (Common/Unique/Skills/Spells/Allies)
• Dunwich Horror
  * DH Game Board
  - Gate Locations
  - Dunwich Locations
  - Dunwich Horror
  * Injury/Madness
  * Base Game Expansions
  - DH Investigators
  - DH Ancient One Cards
  - DH Investigator Cards
  - DH Monster Tokens
• The King In Yellow
  * Performance Cards
• Kingsport Horror
  * KH Game Board
  - Gate Locations
  - Kingsport Locations
  * Base Game Expansions
  - KH Investigators
  - KH Ancient One Cards
  - KH Investigator Cards
  - KH Monster Tokens
  * Heralds
  * Guardians
  * Epic Battle
• Black Goat of the Woods
  * "One of the Thousand" Cult
  * Difficulty Level
  * Base Game Expansions
  - BGoW Ancient One Cards
  - BGoW Investigator Cards
  - BGoW Monster Tokens
• Innsmuth Horror
  * IH Game Board
  - Innsmuth Locations
  * Personal Stories
  * Base Game Expansions
  - IH Invenstigators
  - IH Ancient One Cards
  - IH Investigator Cards
  - IH Monster Tokens
• Lurker at the Threshold
  * Special Gates
  * Relationships
  * Base Game Expansions
  - LaT Ancient One Cards
  - LaT Investigator Cards
• Curse of the Dark Pharoah (rev)
  * Ancient Whispers (Exhibit Encounters/Items)
  * Arkham Base Expansions
  - CoDP Ancient One Cards
  - CoDP Investigator Cards
• Miskatonic Horror
  * Institutions
  * Reference Sheets
  * Base Game Expansions
  * DH Gameboard Expansions
  * KiY Expansions
  * KH Gameboard Expansions
  * IH Gameboard Expansions

I didn't include the Lurker (He's a Herald and as such covered by the Herald Mechanic), Blights (That's covered by the Performance encounters of King in Yellow), or any of the special mechanics that only apply if you have a particular AOO in play.

I don't have MH yet so I don't know how many of the combo-set expansions apply or whether they should be counted as separate Mechanics.

The Game I usually play is:

Base Game + DH/KH/IH Base Expansions + Injury/Madness + Relationships + Stories + Special Gates + Original CoDP Permanent Exhibit

I have the old CoDP set but I'll probably have revised soon and I'll remove the Permanant exhibit I have and replace it with the KH Base Expansions + Ancient Whispers

Does this seem clearer to everyone than just saying which sets we use?

we have:

original curse of dark pharaoh, dunwich horror, king in yellow, kingsport.

we use all from all four except :

only use the mythos + gate + expansion town location cards if we play with that expansion board (only applies to dunwich and kingsport).

while your system might make more sense with more expansions.. however, e.g. i don't find "i use arkham location cards from dunwich" as a possability in your terms.. or did i just miss it?

I'm still enjoying the various permutations of my usual One-Board-One-Small gameplay, with whatever Miskatonic "glue" applied between each combo, and lately with a bit more emphasis on the new Dark Pharaoh, which is INFINITELY better than the original (thank you SO MUCH, FFG).

So here's a list of ON (always played with), CONDITIONAL (usually because of Expansions chosen to play with), and OFF (never played with).

ON

• I use all "Base Game Expansion" Cards when it comes to non-board dependent materials. That is, all Investigators, Ancient Ones, and Monsters, as well as all Investigator Cards (with a few stupid ones burned and buried under my floorboards forever, like Joining the Winning Team, Massa di Requiem per Shuggay, and Call Ancient One).
• Injury / Madness
• Personal Stories
• Relationships
• Lurker Gates (although I use a "special blend" that adds only one copy of each "original Gate" to the mix as well)
• Only Base Game Encounters, Gate Encounters (with the three dual-color DP Gate Encounters), and Mythos (with KY's Intermission) are guaranteed to be in every game.

CONDITIONAL

I pick one other town to play with, and use everything I can find related to that town. So if I play Dunwich, I use the Board, Encounters, Gate Encounters, Mythos, and Special Mechanics relating to Dunwich. Then I pick one small expansion to add, and use all Encounters, Gate Encounters, Mythos, and Special Mechanics relating to that expansion. (Note: the original KY Act cards have been permanently superseded by Miskatonic's updates.) Finally, I now toss in any appropriately-blended Miskatonic Encounters, Gate Encounters, Mythos, and Special Mechanics.

(Before Miskatonic, I cherry-picked a collection of Dunwich and Dark Pharaoh (original) Encounters in order to include in every game those Encounters relating to: Rail Passes, Sheldon Gang Memberships, Conditions, and DP Allies. I've abandoned this practice temporarily while Dark Pharaoh Revised and Miskatonic are still in "dress rehearsals", but early expectations point to permanent dissolution of this.)

Beyond that, if I'm playing solo, I will always add all Epic Battle cards, and I will occasionally add any combination of a Herald (never Black Goat), a Guardian (never Bast), and/or an Institution. When playing with my Cult, only an occasional Guardian (or Institution, eventually) will be used.

OFF

• Reference Sheets. Love them, but I've been playing WAY too long to need them anymore. (Maybe my Cult members might use them...)
• Difficulty Cards. Seriously, does ANYONE use these? Besides as a means to pick Dorito bits out of your teeth?

jgt7771 said:

while your system might make more sense with more expansions.. however, e.g. i don't find "i use arkham location cards from dunwich" as a possability in your terms.. or did i just miss it?

I covered that as "Base Game expansions from Dunwich" under Old One Cards which include Location cards.

jgt7771 said:

And this is more-or-less my point. We USE the expansions without the towns a lot of the time. If we use the town then we use the stuff for that town but when I say I use the Dunwich Horror or any of the other ____ Horror sets I usually mean I use "all the stuff that doesn't relate to just the town of ____"

And it is hard to distinguish between having two towns to protect and just having more options in Arkham alone.

And as someone pointed out (RE: Difficulty cards) There are some mechanics that are just filler for most players.

jgt7771 said:

If you think about it, the Difficulty Cards are really just a set of two Heralds and two Guardians that all happen to be really boring. It does make me wonder why ACTUAL Heralds and Guardians don't have Scoring modifiers. I mean, Dagon's got to be worth at least a +2, right? Of course, you could also have Scoring modifiers for investigators and Ancient Ones. But that way lies madness, especially since I never even keep score. God I hate victory points.

I concur that difficulty cards are indeed useless since I NEVER score my games. Points just defeat the purpose of Arkham I think. If you survive against the Ancient One, nothing else should matter right? Who cares about the doom track length, what trophies that haven't been spent, or who gets the title of "First Citizen of Arkham"? You stopped the apocalypse. That should be good enough without a score.

Anyway, I'm the type of person who plays with all the expansions at once. It makes for a frantic, but epic game. Plus, MH seems to be designed to solve the diluting problem when all the expansions are in play anyway.