Yes, second thread in a row. I…don't have much to do. And, as is sometimes the case when I don't have much to do, I've been idly considering the various strange interactions between Arkham's rules; more specifically, I've been thinking about oddsituations which validate the existence of seemingly pointless rules. I remember doing this once before (enumerating the circumstances under which all the monsters could be drained from the cup) and I've probably done it more times as well, knowing myself. So this time, I thought I would extend it to the forums, as a sort of mental exercise. Think of a strange rule or effect that seems to serve no purpose and then think of a situation in which it could matter. I can't entirely resist doing it myself, so here are two to start you off.

First, there's failing Silas Marsh's Personal Story (which is done by entering R'lyeh and causes him to become a Deep One). With the Lurker gates, the only gate to R'lyeh alone is a devouring gate, so there's no way Silas can be sucked through accidentally. Instead, this failure condition largely serves as a sort of prohibition, equivalent to "Silas cannot willingly enter R'lyeh". However…now, before I begin, I suppose I should admit that this is technically cheating. The situation I describe isn't the only one in which Silas can fail, and it's nowhere near the most obvious or most likely. First, there's no reason that someone playing with Innsmouth would necessarily be using the Lurker gates. Without them, Silas could be sucked into R'lyeh as normal. Second, it could conceivably be a tactically advantageous move to fail Silas' story. While a token on the Deep Ones Rising track is bad, it's not that bad, and devouring can sometimes be a boon. If Silas got saddled with a bunch of Injuries/Madnesses and the Deep Ones Rising track was fairly low with no monsters threatening to plunge into Innsmouth's vortices (or--for shame!--the Innsmouth board wasn't being used), it might be a good idea to get rid of him by failing the story. Third, there's an encounter (in Y'ha-nthlei, I believe) that can send you to R'lyeh. My shame thus admitted, I now present my situation, degraded as it is in the eyes of you, the public, by its lack of uniqueness: against all odds, someone other than Silas has drawn Joining the Winning Team and is well on their way to completing it. He/she has just finished a trip through R'lyeh, hoping to use the resulting gate trophy to get an Ally from Ma's, or perhaps (most ironically) having been drawn there against his/her will through one of the routes described above, and has just failed the check to close the gate. Silas, rather hoping that his comrade's efforts will come to naught, has just chanced to acquire Call Friend. On the next turn, he tries to use it on the traitor, but fails the check to cast it. The traitor is troubled by this development, but (perhaps encouraged by the prospect of being one of the few individuals ever to complete the wretched Mission) resolves to see his/her treachery through to the end. Deciding that neutralizing Silas and his spell is more important than having another shot at the gate, the traitor activates his/her Mi-Go Brain Case and swaps positions with Silas. Silas, having already moved, can only look on as he is drawn into R'lyeh and forced to embrace his heritage….

Wow, that paragraph was…rather long. I'll try to keep this one fairly brief. This next one is arguable, but, assuming one takes a particular interpretation, valid. For the Greater Good has the rather mystifying effect of, upon completion, devouring its owner and then winning the game. This would seem to be only for flavor, as an Investigator being devoured hardly matters if the game is won. However, if For the Greater Good is completed when Azathoth is the Ancient One, Hydra is the Herald, there are eight players, the Doom Track is at 13, and the Terror Track is at 10, the devouring (which technically takes effect before the game is won) will trigger Mother Hydra's ability and place a monster in the Outskirts. Since this is an eight-player game, the Outskirts "overflows" whenever there's any monster there, and so the Terror Track goes up. But, since the Terror Track is at 10, the Doom Track goes up instead, which wakes up Azathoth and causes the players to lose the game just before winning it. Now, as I said, this is arguable; since monsters, under normal circumstances, no longer go to the Outskirts when the Terror Track is at 10, you might say that the Outskirts effectively no longer exist. This is supported by the thematic interpetation of the mechanic whereby the Terror Track hitting 10 causes everyone in the Outskirts to flee, leaving the monster no more incentive to go there and no Terror to cause if they happen to be there. Personally, I would say that, although the Outskirts no longer come into play under normal circumstances when the Terror Track is at 10, the rules do not specifically state that they are "gone", and I would thus play the situation as described.

Yeah…yeah, I have way too much time on my hands. Or perhaps not enough to do with it. Anyway, I open the discussion to the forum at large. What other corner cases can you think of?

Oh, man… I don't know if I'm more impressed by your knowledge of the game or the amount of time you should have spent while figuring out these situations ::laughter::

As for the second one, yeah, you're devoured and everything works almost perfectly, but I'd argue that on the Mission card it's not written "You're devoured. After the devouring effects have triggered, all investigators win the game", it's simply worded "you're devoured, all investigator win the game". So I'd go with a "both things happen at the same time, thus FP chooses the order in which the effects are resolved"

As for Silas, don't forget the Lost Carcosa encounter forcing you to enter R'lyeh (I had once Silas devoured for this very reason). So, regardless of the gates you're using, there's always a way for him to be R'lyehed ::laughter::

Yeah, you make a decent point about For The Greater Good. I didn't mention the issue of timing because that would have proved the devouring to be entirely thematic and thus not worthy of analysis. However, I think you could make a case for sequential resolution. No card anywhere in the game specifies that you have to resolve one set of effects before another. This might be stretching it a bit, but the "including you", while obviously unnecessary from a rules standpoint, essentially serves to reassure the player that he/she will win despitebeing devoured. Approaching this from a pure rules perspective, you might say that this reassurance is considered necessary because, since the devouring is resolved first, the player is left without a character, and remains "suspended" without one, technically not "in" the game, when the game is won. Again, though, that's rather a stretch.

Reminds me of all those times during the analysis of a newly-released expansion, when someone would come up with long Rube-Goldberg-like series of circumstances which could shatter a game, and for that reason claim one card or another as broken. "If Lily had a Press Pass and a watermelon, and the game was on Tuesday, and that Rumor failed at the same time as the microwave popcorn dinged, then Cthulhu would DIE INSTANTLY!!! The Press Pass is SO TOTALLY BROKEN!!!" Very amusing read, Walk.

That said, on an objective level, your first example sickens me, and is precisely the reason I fed my "Joining the Winning Team" card to ravenous silverfish, for violating on a fundamental level the cooperative spirit of Arkham Horror. Some teeny part of me has still never forgiven FFG for forcing me to make that decision.

Not only was it a strange decision, it was a very strange implementation. "Encouraging competition goes against the normal operation of the game, so we'll make it very hard to accomplish" might conceivably have sounded good on paper, but on practice, it generally means the card a) is totally worthless or b) inspires some ambitious player to attempt and forces everyone else to stop him/her, most likely resulting in a foiled attempt at betrayal and a lot of wasted time (and thus a net loss for everyone). In fact, has anyone here ever seen someone accomplish Joining the Winning Team (or done it yourself)?

Oh, and as to your solution: such a tragedy. The creatures must have had terrible indigestion. Out of curiosity, has you copy of Nyarlathotep's "Join Me!" met the same fate?

Walk said:

Unless, of course, that ambitious player is playing solo, in which case every other Investigator in play "lets" the traitor operate unhindered.

As for Nyarlathotep's Sinister Plot, it sickens me as well. Sure, it's thematic and even theatrical, with the Great Meddler offeri…what? Everyone says no? Oh well then, never mind…free Epic Round to the Investigators, sorry Big N. (Does that not sicken EVERYONE? )

As you can see, mechanically all that stupid card does is short Nyarlathotep a Sinister Plot, reducing even further a Great Old One with arguably more clout than Cthulhu himself. I've been saying for a long time now that Nyarlathotep is barely a notch above "tutorial AO", and it hurts me every time I think about it.

If "Join Me" is drawn, I discard it and draw the next Sinister Plot. So rarely do all three Sinister Plots enter play, I've never had a problem with this. I haven't fed it to the gnashing silverfish, because out of reverence to Big N, I just can't destroy a card with the Crawling Chaos printed on it.

I have, however, fed the scuttling hordes the Unique "Massa di Requiem per Shuggay" and the Spell "Call Ancient One". These cards violate the spirit of the struggle against Arkham Horror, and it just solves so many potential loopholes and wussy shortcuts to pretend neither card ever existed.

Well, as I've said before (although possibly not to you specifically), I'm in complete agreement that Nyarlathotep needs to be way stronger. The thing is, I really like the Masks mechanic (although I wouldn't mind getting a few more…), it's just the final combat that's a problem. I'm sincerely hoping that he's the next to get the Arkham Nights treatment.