Deck of playing cards is definitely the way forwards. It's a lot easier than printing out and gluing together all the location cards. I used the same trick in Lovecraft Country. I made the Ace of Spades the nasty encounter and Joker became The Story Continues / shuffle the deck (which also gives Bast a mild boost)

I am not agree with you: personally I find it a pleasure to take my location card and I much prefer to spend a little time to print, cut and paste my cards than to refer to a "normal" drawing card. I find indeed that the drawings of ambience at back of the cards enhances the atmosphere. That is why I suggested to Jake to make the decks of his extension, when he will finalize these decks.

(about this if you have the final file you can send it to me Jake).

Hmmm... I'm a little confused on how movement to and from the Abyss area works... I take it from the "*" in the middle of the locations that you can arrive at the Abyssal Peaks or the Cyclopean City depending on the encounter at "Dreaming," but is it possible to get to other areas of the Dreamlands from there? And for that matter, where do the Monsters move to when they leave those two spaces (Seeing as there are no streets)?

Or maybe this was all mentioned before and I'm just confused.

It's interesting that I stumbled across this so shortly after creating a Dreamlands Themed Herald... Though it probably wouldn't mesh well with this expansion.

It is possible to arrive in the Underworld locations by dreaming, but you can also move there in the normal way.

The Enchanted Woods and Sarkomand both have special abilities that make them adjacent to those two underworld locations - Enchanted Woods is next to the Cyclopean City, and Sarkomand to the Abyssal Peaks as you can see on the board. (That reminds me though, I should remove the (-1), as it now serves no purpose). I tried various layouts of the map so that you could have them be actually connected by lines to these locations, but nothing looked good, so I'm just going with the ability.

By the same token, a monster in the Cyclopean City moves to the Enchanted Woods, in the Abyssal Peaks to Sarkomand, then like everything else eventually wanders into the vortex in the middle.

@Ctol & Jake

Like I said, I'm gonna do both cards and tables, so both preferences can be satisfied - I'm just aware that it would be a great deal to print out, also for my own personal playesting, I especially don't want to spend time printing out 140 odd big size cards when there are good odds a lot of them are going to change anyway. Also, how does a Shuffle the Deck work for a deck of encounter cards? Aren't they just for the Mythos and Gate decks?

Alright, after many hours and some reasonably successful playtests, Version 1.0 is read to rock.

To start with, here is the Rulebook in pdf form.

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Arkham%20Nightmare%20Rules%20v1.0.pdf

Looks very good. Can wait to get my hands on the .eons. Forgive the rather rushed notes below:

Bit confused as to where you go when you Sleep. Do you draw a card in Dreaming with an encounters like " feeling nicely relaxed +1 Stam go to Enchanted Woods" and "Bad dream: Meet a man turning into a cockroach going the other way -1 Stam. Go to Vale of Pnath."

Also not too sure what you gain by not preventing characters to choose to leave OWs straight into DL (or for that matter, moving from DL Board into 1st space of the relevant OW). Offering the players tactical decisions is a good thing.

The DLcould link with Enchanted woods, Plateau with Samorkand?, Underworld => Vale of Pnath and Unknown Kadatah with Unknwon Kadath. Players who have to "wake" when they are not asleep go LiTaS.

Nightmare / Plot order seems a little confused: If I understand correctly: Draw Nightmare and resolve, then draw Plot, then finally check for harrowing (which is on the Nightmare card). Might be better to draw the plot first then resolve the Nightmare. Also is Harrowing a one-effect or does it apply every Nightmare Phase? (e.g. 5 plots on board, Harrowing effect: zap a seal. Do I zap a seal once only or every turn til the Nightmare changes?)

Thank you for the comments! I find the questions and criticisms on the rules particularly useful, it's important they make sense to the reader, I've read them a few too many times to be an unbiased judge of how readable they are.

Jake yet again said:

It's not a particularly strong reason, but I felt it clashed slightly with the dreaming part… It works when someone awake and in an OW walks into the Dreamlands, but in the reverse…

So when you sleep, your dream self goes to, say, Sarkomand. Then he walks over the Plateau of Leng OW, then leaves… but that's still your dream self now walking back into Arkham, you real body is napping somewhere, didn't quite make sense to me.

It could work though, and certainly provide another way of getting there.

Also, I'm leery of allowing people to go straight to Unknown Kadath without blowing the trophies, the encounter there are very excellent and that makes them a big too easily accessible.

Jake yet again said:

Maybe not the cockroach part exactly But more or less. Some examples are…

As you wake you realize you are teetering on the edge of a great abyss! Make a Luck (-1) check to balance yourself. If you fail, you fall into the Vale of Pnath and have an encounter. If you pass, move to the Abyssal peaks and have an encounter.

You dream of a city in the cold waste, cursed by the degenerate descendents of those who once raised its walls. Move to Sarkomand and have an encounter.

In the Cavern of Flame the priests prepare you with knowledge of the Dream. Gain one clue, then move to the enchanted woods, and have an encounter.

Jake yet again said:

You resolve just the event of the Nightmare card, then place the Plot, then the Harrowing. I originally had it being Plot, then Nightmare, but that ran into problems as some of the Nightmare events involve placing more or less plots, and if you'd already placed one… It's a minor thing, though, and could be changed by rewording things a little on the card if people think its simpler the other way.

The Harrowing is a once off effect when you draw the card, losing one seal is probably bad enough!

Adelphophage said:

Re: Sleep here, wake there. It's probably no worse than going LiTaS, but you could offering sleepers the option of exiting via a gate or returning to their sleeping bodies.

To get to Unknown Kadath you have to travel through two Red / Yellow Other Worlds, and possibly evade / defeat the guardian monsters en route, so it's not entirely a free ride, but you could always come out at the location adjacent to UK. (Don't have the board to hand)

Adelphophage said:

How about adding the instruction to draw a plot in the harrowing section of the card? This gives you additional design to space to add no plots or add two plots to some cards.

The OW to board thing… I'm still not sold. It works, and kind of makes sense, but seems to add complication of having some players in the Dreamlands being "sleeping" and some not.

And I can't see how it adds that much gaemplay wise, as if you want to get to the Dreamlands, presumably it's always going to be easier to sleep and spend a turn or two getting to where you wanna be. Spending two turns walking through an OW to get somewhere seems less profitable by comparison. Leaving the Dreamlands board to close a gate would seem more like a smart game move.

If it helps, there are a few encounters which move you to OW from the Dreamlands board.

Jake yet again said:

Ah yes, that's much more elegant. Good idea, thanks!

Also, while I'm here…

Board

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Dreamlands%20Board%20%28one%20piece%29.pdf

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Dreamlands%20Board%20%28three%20piece%29.pdf

Investigator cards (Items, Gifts, Dream Death, Ascended)

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Investigator%20Cards%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

Plots
dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Plot%20cards%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

And finally… Nightmare card table

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Nightmare%20Cards%20Table%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

And location card tables

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Underworld%20Encounters%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/North%20Encounters%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/East%20Encounters%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/West%20Encounters%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

dl.dropbox.com/u/76125236/Special%20Encounters%20%28Arkham%20Nightmare%29.pdf

Congratulations to all the beautiful work done !

I'm discovering it with admiration and pleasure.

Then, only miss Locations and Nightmares cards.

I hope that Harrowing effect will be very terrific or monstrous in order to properly motivate Investigators to go in Dreamlands.

If you need some help for copy/paste all the text in locations cards, I can help. Just send me by mail a location card in .eon (in order to have the back of the card with pictures) and I will fill it.

Awesome work. I'm still quite new to the game (I miss most of the expansions) I gave just a quick read of the rules.
Just a question: to add a sense of insubstantiality to the whole dream space, I was thinking to a dice roll in the ending phases when more than one investigator (with the dreaming status) are in the dreamlands… this to represent the melting of different dreams in the same unstable dimension. If the check is won, nothing may happen, if not the dreaming investigators may shuffle the cards they brought in the dream (or part of them) an redistribute them randomly. There might be different side effects. Or there might be a card to represent this "dream melting" or else an Herald that creates this effect.
This is just an idea I had thinking about dreaming in the same dimensions with someone, in the same place, dreaming another thing…

interesting idea Elder one: like a 6 dice and a 6 result producing the melting of dreams. with a +1 for each investigators.

Adelphophage, I find the harrowing effects in the Nightmare table: again if you need help for creating the cards (in order to print them) I can help.

mail send Adelphophage

If anyone is interested, I've uploaded a session report to Boardgamegeek.

boardgamegeek.com/thread/796568/arkham-nightmare-dreamlands-expansion/page/2

Also, to Elder One, it seems like a bit of a pain in the bum to do every turn (and remember to do every turn), but it's a very good idea for a Nightmare card one off event type thing, or a location card (probably for the Forbidden lands). Thanks for the idea, I suspect it'll go in when I do version 2.0!

Everything looks really great here. Can't wait for version 2.0. I'm not too partial about the playing card encounter method but I understand its utility. I've been working on my own Dreamlands expansion for a little over a year now. I'll upload it within the next month or so (once I get some bugs worked out). Hopefully, it will be at least half as interesting as yours!