Just getting my girlfriend into gaming board game style and while we have played Last Night on Earth and Game of Thrones Card game this one is a little steep. I once had this title waaaay back when it launched and I couldnt even figure how to set it up properly

Have the rules been streamlined in recent releases?

Is this game easy to walkthrough and teach in a step by step basis?

It was either this one or Runebound since I have experience in that game but I thought a shift to a more "co-op" and modern game may break up the fantasy theme doldrums

Pvthudson01 said:

Way back, like, 2005, or waaaay back like the mid-1980s? (In other words, did you balk at this edition, or the original version?)

The game suffers a bit from having a rubbish rulebook and some counter-intuitive design on components, but its nowhere near as bad as it looks. If you can get the new player to play a game with three other people who already know the rules, they will pick it up real quick.

The trick is, as long as YOU know the rules and general procedure/strategy, it's a piece of cake to teach Arkham to anyone. The only caveat I can think of is that your "pupil" should WANT to play.

My Cult: Pizza had some experience with boardgaming in the 80s (say, Axis & Allies), but then nothing for twenty years or so. But he was fascinated with my Lovecraft pics and Chaosium lore. He picked up the basics over his first game, then explored a lot by himself in subsequent games, getting a bit burned in the journey (mano a mano, he faced Ithaqua, Shub, and Cthulhu in three CONSECUTIVE games). When push comes to shove, Pizza will usually drop back and play defensively.

Zebra has no real boardgaming experience, but plenty of MMO experience. He was very eager to see what Pizza and I were always talking about. Picked up the basics even faster than Pizza, and still enjoys varied spontaneity in his turns. (Zebra's brain is usually a phase ahead of the rest of us.) Zebra will try anything onc…frequently, and currently holds the Cult record in mid-game devourings.

Wings has no boardgaming experience at all (an 80s girl that didn't grow up nerdy), but being attached to a fanboy like Pizza has given her a certain fluid adaptability to all things geek. Avoiding us for the longest time due to a general phobia of the horror genre, she finally couldn't stand not being in the circle when we played. Picked up the basics in a heartbeat, and was hunting down monsters and devising Devil Reef strategies before the end of her first game. Now, as long as she's armed, her Investigators are usually reckless rampaging lunatics who apparently do not want to live forever.

If they WANT to learn, and YOU already know, teaching Arkham Horror is a SNAP.

2005

Ok cool. I want to give this game a second shot, it would be primarily 2 of us playing and I would have to do all the teaching.

Possibility of a 3rd player would be once a week maybe