Ok, so a couple of things that came up during tonight's game.

First, you are under the environment condition that gates can be closed but not sealed. You emerge from a gate but elect not to close it at that time in the hopes the environment will change and you can seal it after a mythos round or two. So, instead of moving away and losing your explored marker, you hang around the location. Do you continue to have encounters at that location? If so, what happens if 'a gate and monster appear' at that location? Is that treated like a monster surge?

Second, if you have a unique item that has a counter on it, such as the 'Silver Key', can you trade it? And if you do trade it what happens to the counters? We played that you could trade it and that the counters just went with it.

Thanks!

Dr. Jay said:

Hi Dr. Jay.

So by no means I'm a veteran at the game but I think I can answer your questions.

When camping at a location you do NOT have encounters. Your encounter is SUPPOSED to be the closing of the gate. As long as it's open no-one can have an encounter and if you opt not to close nothing happens.

However, if there's a monster at the gate you must either sneak or fight it. The exception to this being if there is a monster already there at the gate when you return. Then you get a free pass at dealing with the monster on that TURN only.

So if you camp, or fail to close the gate, the next myhos you have to deal with him - by fighting or sneaking.

As for the second question cards trade in the condition the leave the original owner - so exhausted spells& weapons stay exhausted - therefore the counters go with the Key.

1. No, when you're on a gate and you have an explored token, your only two options are to close the gate or do nothing. You can't get a random encounter or a special encounter.
2. When you trade an item, all counters remain. The exception are Task and Mission items from the Dunwich Horror expansion: when they are traded, all counters are removed, thus resetting them to zero progress.

Thanks!

That is what we figured, but we wanted to throw it out there to the crowd.

In our games when "camping" a gate (either because you failed to close it the first time or when waiting to see if conditions improve) we play it as you have no other encounter but closing the gate on the FIRST turn you get out but on subsequent turns you do get an encounter (or special encounter actions). UNLESS you are closing the gate as that acts as your special encounter action.

It has happened that for whatever reason a character could not close the gate without aid from someone else and while he waited for that help to arrive he could neither close the gate nor leave. He opted to have an encounter that forced him to leave and he lost his window to act.