Hi all,

I want a new rumour to go in my expansion (I don't have Kingsport or BGotW and don't want to duplicate anything) that needs to be mid to hard difficulty. Really I want it to be completed by discarding clue tokens. What could be the penalty for failure? I was thinking about -1 for maximum Sanity but it didn't sound very formidable...

Help...ideas? I don't need any flavour text just nuts and bolts mechanics.

Cheers, Hal

Just an idea: How about everyone in Arkham goes insane for the penalty? (Reduce current sanity to 0.) Investigators in other worlds would be immune. If you wanted to be a little gentler, it could be something like : All investigators in Arkham lose 5 sanity. There would be some who might not go insane, and a few items would help.

I haven't seen all of the rumours in all of the expansions, so apologies if this exists already.

Southside Strangler already gives -1 Max Sanity (Or Stamina), so while that's more focused it isn't very original. A big Sanity loss is cool, but not too hard to recover from. Maybe closing some crucial locations, such as the hospital and asylum? That could be fatal and thus mid-high difficulty. You could also try tying some of the mechanics of your expansion in, though I'm not yet familiar with what those may be.

I'd actually be more interested in the mechanics of the rumor (such as the cost to pass it) than the penalty, such as one where every character must have at least 4 clue tokens simultaneously during the Arkham Encounters phase.

The base game already has a rumor whose penalty is a -1 maximum. It is the players' choices which, but it's still too similar.

Dunwich, I believe, has a rumor where the penalty is to draw an Injury and Madness. While not the same as going insane, it would be pretty similar (and a bit less annoying) for anyone with Madness cards handy.

Maybe there should be a rumor where the penalty for failure is a higher cost to seal (not much use against Atlach-Nacha), or one where all streets and locations are connected to the sky for the rest of the game. I figure an Innsmouth flooding environment or rumor would be a cool thing; where all locations are considered aquatic, or something.

Another penalty could be one where all monsters move twice in a row (following their Mythos symbol instructions).

Rumors which are to one degree or another similar to the one you are considering include:

-Frank

One that devours everyone!

Another where if the AO awakens it gain some huge bonus (similar to the Dunwich Herald with Yog).

Maybe one that closes all unstable locations, minus the Ayslum, Hospital and Train Station.

Thanks for the prompt feedback, some great (and not so great MrsGamura ) ideas.

Cheers, Hal

Most Rumors cover everything in not to direct ways!

Remove all monsters from the cup and return them to the box.

Return all gates to the box.

Investigator cards may not be used.

When the monster cup empties, the game is over, that's not indirect at all. However, like with the Dangerous Experiment, you could push things very close to that limit. For example, if you took a number of Monsters out of the cup equal to the number of Investigators and then used them as the new Monster Cup for example - you would have exactly enough monsters for one monster surge before the game ended (better kill monsters and spend their trophies fast , eh?)

You could also present new challenges to the players. For example, you could just fill in one of the Kingsport Rift tracks and make that rift uncloseable for the rest of the game.

-Frank

Frank said:

Actually the game would end when the cup is empty and a monster needs to be drawn, not just when it is empty. I kind of like that as a fail condition, it really demands attention which is what I've always seen rumors as, dangerous distractions.