Is it possible to play all the expansion (Big -smalle) in one big table.

Anyone try that .Any comments with this experience ?

I've tried it a few times... but tbh it's not worth it.

Each expansion board has its own Mythos cards, and if you shuffle them all in together, you dilute the Mythos deck so much that each individual board is unlikely to see much gate/monster activity. This slows down the 'special tracks' of each board. Even the kingsport rifts are slowed down quite a bit because a) special Kingsport cards which add extra rift tokens will be drawn less often, and b) quite a few Innsmouth mythos cards have non-standard monster movement patterns which do not match the rift tracks.

If you do play with all boards, you'll probably find that there are so many unstable locations that the AO will wake up just from gates opening. I think you get a shorter, more intense game (with less setup time) if you just play with one expansion board at a time.

Some players on these forums have come up with house rules that change how Mythos cards are drawn, so that extra stuff happens in order to provoke activity on the expansion boards.

I haven't tried playing with everything (I don't even own Innsmouth yet, for shame.) However, based on my experiences playing with even just one expansion board, I'd say playing with all of them at once is too much. Not to mention, if you don't have a regular crew of players who are willing to take this particular plunge, the idea of playing with so many extra boards would only make a daunting game even moreso to new players.

I'd say play with one extra board at a time, and just rotate through them to keep things interesting.

Ultimately, it's up to personal taste, of course, but I always play with all expansions. With Miskatonic, there's no real dilution problem (I often find myself wishing for more gates in Arkham and less in Dunwich and Innsmouth), and, well, it's just the most enjoyable way to play (at least in my opinion), since you have tons of different stuff going on and the game might go any of various different ways. I'm...not expressing it very well, bu tI would suggest you try it yourself once or twice. That should give you an idea of whether you're interested in it.

As for the other players: same advice, really. Just try an all-in game with them and ask them what they think. As long as there's one player who knows all of the rules for everything that's going on, it shouldn't be too overwhelming (I've played all-in games with people who had never played Arkham before and had it go quite well).

......um, everyone's right. Hope that helps.

Just kidding...sorta. CAN one play all expansions together? The answer is yes: Arkham Horror is modular enough to stuff with anything and everything. SHOULD one play all expansions together? Only you can answer that for yourself.

I had to "inherit" my grandmother's seven-foot banquet table before I even tried to attempt such an atrocity of cardboard and cardstock. And I still needed a small auxiliary "TV Tray" just so I didn't have to lunge to EVERY corner of that table. After a dozen or so games like that, I determined I just didn't like the following:

Lack of cohesive theme : everything jumbled together is certainly chaotic with flares going off all over the place as the game progresses. But each expansion is diluted by the seven others. Instead of the King in Yellow's insane theatre or the Dark Pharaoh's Egyptian exhibition dominating, it feels like several Ancient Ones are all elbowing into each other, trying to get your attention.

Lack of activity on other boards : when nothing happens in Dunwich or Innsmouth...well, nothing happens. It sucks when the Death Star of Innsmouth just sits there without trying to blow you up. Miskatonic Horror does a LOT to alleviate this, but at the odd cost of a noticeable decrease of activity in Arkham itself. (Granted, I've only played a Miskatonic all-in game a few times, but that's what happened.)

TOO MANY CARDS : If all the Mythos cards were absolutely flat, the giant tower of cards would still just be silly. But when each expansion has its own degree of bowing, that tower is more precarious than a Jenga game on a ramp. (Although it does solve any shuffling problems you might have once you nudge it wrong.)

"Speed Arkham" : the critical factor for me. With 20 unstable locations, you could have too many gates open by the end of Turn 6. So there will be no stopping to smell any flavor text FFG spent so much time to create. You will gather Clues, get offworld, and seal Locations NOW NOW NOW!!! AH requires a huge amount of setup; for the actual game to end in less time than the setup is infuriating.

For these reasons, I am a steadfast barnacle to the one-big-one-small gaming hull. Only one other board besides Arkham in play, and only one smaller expansion to enhance it. I can testify: Dunwich-Only games play VERY differently than Kingsport-Only games and Innsmouth-Only games. This gives me a big reason to continue to play this way: Variety WITH Theme .

Now, every single one of those reasons can be rebutted by anyone who simply doesn't share my opinion. And none of us are "wrong".

Arkham is all things to all players. Its versatility and modularity will accommodate anyone. Throw in or yank out whatever you choose: the game can and will react accordingly. I recommend you try...anything and everything until you find what you like.

Welcome to the Carnival, blpegaso!

A hand up for the other camp!

I play all-in, all the time. It is an amazing experience. But there are three things you have to be aware of:

1. You need space. Imagine the space the base-game setup requires, and then double that. Yeah.
2. There is an unavoidable dilution of theme. If you don't care about this (I sure don't) then this is no problem. If, for example, you'd prefer that King in Yellow is the central theme, you'll want to use as few expansions with King in Yellow as possible. There used to be a mechanics dilution too but if you add in Miskatonic Horror, this is alleviated nicely.
3. You CANNOT PLAY ALL EXPANSIONS RIGHT OFF THE BAT. You'll hate it because there will be too freaking much to remember. Here, allow me to shamelessly plug my "expansion training regiment" scenario booklet again: Intro and Expansion Scenarios

In the end you may find that, like many of the above posters, all-in isn't for you. The popular alternative is to use one large, board expansion and one small expansion. Miskatonic Horror can pretty much be integrated permanently.

Wonderful. The forum software interrupted my post to tell me that someone posted before me... and it was my own post. I interrupted myself.

Now I have to replace my duplicate post with this inane banter because I can't delete a post like on the old and older-old forums.

Hey, give me some credit, Tibs, I fully support all-in, even if I did include some qualifications in my post. You do not quite stand alone, as it were.

Walk said:

Yeah, you did. How did I miss that?

Edited my post in lieu of this.

Short answer, yes.

Except for a few thematic items, most of the commons / uniques / spells can go in without issue. Other fluff - injuries, personal stories, relationships - can be added as seems fit. Generally it doesn't hurt to leave this stuff in, as, say, Sledgehammers are probably just as likely to be on sale whether or not the King in Yellow is being performed at the local theatre. Allies might hurt if you aren't playing with an expansion that referencing them in the Arkham Encounters, but we've alway played that there are eleven Allies for hire at Ma's and everyone else can be found in town if you're lucky enough.

Arkham Encounters / Mythos Cards can often relate to theme. Depending on how much you care about the specific theme in AH you can either leave them in or take them out. Personally I'm happy to leave them in.

With the boards, Speed Arkham is a definite problem, ironically less so without Miskatonic Horror, where the problem becomes one where the gates on other boards don't open enough. Another way around Speed Arkham is to adopt a house rule: the Ancient One doesn't wake when too many gates are open, instead he gets +1 Doom every Mythos the gate limit is met / breached (take your pick). That's painful enough to warrant haste, but not enough to sink the game due to a couple of unlucky draws.

We usually go two big boards, but play add in a custom expansion too. Your mileage may vary and you should find a balance that meets your tastes.

Tibs said:

.......Nyarlathotep, is that you?

Tibs said:

Me too - every time, but it takes over the whole room.

Yes, and I've done it.

To handle Mythos dilution, I've devised my own system that more-or-less keeps all boards active. I split the mythos decks into 3 piles: Dunwich (All Dunwich Mythos + all Miskatonic Mythos that have Dunwich locations), Innsmouth (Just like Dunwich) and Arkham (All remaining Mythos cards). Each turn I draw from one of the three piles in order. For the Miskatonic locations with dual gates on them, I try to open the expansion gate - if that's open or sealed, I open the Arkham location. If both are open, I try to surge them in expansion-Arkham order. It balances fairly well actually.

The biggest problem really is table space. The boards, herald, guardian and Ancient One took up the entirety of the table. We had to use Clipboards for the character sheets, items, mythos, and all other cards.

Arkham's a big game.

Master Fwiffo I hear you...and I'm sorry that my project has stalled these past few months. My colleague and I have drafted the Licensing Agreement with FFG and we hope to have prototypes of our Card Displays , Component Holders , and Player's Plate available in the not-too-distant future. Clipboards..oh the shame!

The Professor said:

I've actually devised a fairly solid component system and card holder system that works very well, but the Players Plate is most intriguing.

From our write-up:

Player’s Plate: Central area displays the player’s Investigator Card with side panels to accommodate either tokens in small wells (left) or hold upright, myriad Investigator Cards ( Common & Unique Items, Spells , etc.) along tentacled grooves (right).

As for me... yeah, I can :-) I played all expansion games in 16 Scenarios from Avi's League (plus another 2, without the Kingsport board). And some other games as well (other Leagues, and some all-in games played for fun). I do like it, but it's not a real Arkham experience. At least for me. If you want to win consistently, you have to push the board a little, and this implies not enjoying completely the mood of Arkham. So, yeah, if you want to go for a pure strategy game, it's ok, otherwise it's better playing only 2 expansion board games (with KH in play), or 1 expansion board at the time (no KH in play)

I'm an all-in player as well. I just purchased a poker table top (80 inches by 36 inches) so everything fits nicely.

I find that set-up is QUICKER with all expansions, because I don't have to separate out all of the cards into their own expansions. They just go into one big pile. The main thing that prevents me from doing a "one big, one small" game is fishing through my stack of nearly 300 mythos cards for only the ones for the correct expansions. I also don't have to worry about the mythos stack being too tall, because I built (inspired by Tibs's design) a box which holds my cards horizontally rather than vertically.

Here, let me take a picture... (Right click and go to "view image" to see the whole thing. The right half of the image gets cut off in the forum, but shows up under "view image")

And here is a close-up of the box, just before it was finished (so the cards aren't all in it here)

I draw cards directly out of the box, which prevents the "jenga stack" problem.

Well, that poker table seems to have worked out for you. Certainly it was cheaper than the 83in Ikea table, and probably a lot easier to transport. Plus you get those chip troughs for, chits I guess. Chit troughs.

I've got jury duty tomorrow, house-sitting Sun to Mon and I'm nearly, but not fully, wrapped up with these internship apps, but we should get in another game before school starts. I don't know if you're taking E&M with me, but from what I've heard, it'll be a moratorium to gaming of any sort this semester.

Tibs said:

I took E&M last year. It's a lot of work, but you may be able to find a little time for games.

Let me know when you can play again. I'm free basically until the day the semester starts.

jack21222 said:

When I play solo or with a dedicated group I play with everything but not when introducing new players or friends want to play casually.

Personally I like the experience of a full AH with everything but the game becomes quite the behemoth. Due to game timing issues and the sheer number of in-game details the game flow becomes necessarily like a ritual. The rules can wreck your sanity quite a bit as well. So in a way you’re not as much a player as a cultist of AH. I’d advice not jumping into the deep side of the pool to learn.

I think that a good rule of thumb is that if you really want to enjoy KiY (IMHO the best small expansion) you must also either play with Miskatonic Horror or with a maximum of two other expansions, otherwise the Act deck won’t work. Also; without the Miskatonic there are all sorts of dilution effects which might hamper your experience, depending on your tastes. Dilution used to be a major issue but I think (or hope, at least) that with MH we’re past all that now. Left are the four issues that jgt 7771 brought up. Three of them I can live with:

• Too many cards. No way around this. AH is and will always be a behemoth. Inevitably you’ll need some sort of shrine to play this monster.
• Lack of activity on other boards. The design philosophy seems to be that you cannot in advance predict which of the boards will become hot spots. Again, once you’ve set up your shrine to the beast this becomes less of a problem. You are expected to be able to keep these extra boards ready and alert for action "just in case it's necessary".
• Lack of cohesion. There are few or no game mechanics that tries to keep the sub-themes intact or the bits and pieces together. This is a design-weakness in AH but hard to avoid: The problem is that each new rule system that would add cohesion (for example, a Magic Realm style monster appearance generator) also would add weight to a system that’s already quite hefty. One might argue that this problem exists in vanilla AH as well but that it get's bigger and more noticable the more expansions you use.

While these three items sometimes adds a bit of sourness to my experience they don’t affect the actual game play the way that the ”Speed Arkham” problem actually do. The effect shows it’s ugly face when you play with both Dunwich and Innsmouth. With 20 unstable locations on the board you don’t really get the desirable doom track cool-down effect – new gates will simply open each turn until the doom track is full – whereas a board with 15 or 16 unstable locations give a much more desirable game dramaturgy and exciting end game, either with or without double doom cards in the mythos deck. Problem is, if you play with everything else, are you really just going to put away just DH or IH?

I’ve no solution to this but I think that the handicap for playing with Dunwich + Innsmouth, an extra increase in the number of open gates allowed, is somewhat useless. In Speed Arkham the number of open gates are the least of your problems; you’re bleeding turns.