I have a question, mostly because I don't know if this is a house rule or not--I suppose it is but I want to know if it could cause any issues in gameplay:

I usually don't follow the Phase notion. That's not to say that I don't use Phases at all, but rather than using Phases for everyone all at once, I use them separately. Here how I usually run it:

Upkeep Phase, works the same as in the rules.

After that, each person one at a time, starting with the First Player, performs the Movement Phase and then Encounter Phase. Then the next person does their Movement/Encounter and the next and so-on-an-so-forth until everyone has had their turn.

Then Mythos.

The Upkpeep.

So far, it's made things less complicated for everyone, and since Upkeep still works the same as usual, people can't trade off items or change stats until after the Upkeep comes around again.

Does anyone see any kind of problems that could arise playing it this way?

Technically, in this way you screw totally some of the basic strategies of the game. Let me make you an example. According to the rules, the following is possible:

MOVEMENT PHASE

- investigator A returns from an OW with no clues to seal

- investigator B moves after A, and has an Elder Sign. He enters investigator A location and gives him the ES. Having no movement points left, he stays there

ENCOUNTERS PHASE

- investigator A uses the Elder Sign to seal

- investigator B has a normal encounter at the now stable location

According to your house rule

- investigator A returns from an OW with no clues to seal

- during the encounters, he squats on the gate, doing nothing

- then it's the turn of investigator B. he enters the area where investigator A is, and tosses him an Elder Sign. Having no movement points left, he stays there as well

- during the encounters phase, investigator B is sucked through the gate

So, according to the rules, you have two investigators in Arkham and a seal on the board on turn X. According to your suggested houserule, it takes one more turn to seal the location (this implies you can be unlucky, get a monster surge and have investigator A with no free pass butchered by the new come monsters) and investigator B is probably forced to go LiTaS after some painful encounters in OW

Strongly advise you to play according to the rules, then... it's you decision!

And there are many other stratecig / tactical problems that could arouse as well, I just pointed out the most relevant

Thanks. My original logic behind it was that it just was simpler to follow that way--I was self-taught, and while I definitely have a firm grasp on the situation, the group that I attempted to teach the game to were like, 'But why?" when I tried to explain the Phase procedure. I suppose that, while my method works on paper, it gums up gameplay and might explain my own issues with gates taking far longer to seal and thus, the party getting overwhelmed with gates.

Yeah, exactly. The way you suggested is smoother, without any doubt, but somehow makes things much more longer. Plus, you cut out some interesting strategy that could really be helpful if you're short of time / in difficult situations. Finally, you touched a good point: you increase the risk of Final Battle for too many gates open. I know it could be difficult to handle everything properly, but with some patience you should be able to teach your friends how to follow correctly the phases (and increase a lot the coop value of the game!) . It's a tough job, but I think it's worth the value

Phases are important! For a couple of reasons:

• When you tie them together, each player has to wait longer for his turn.
• As Julia already mentioned, movement phase is for trading as well. Certain items can change the course of the encounter phase.
• Encounters may also interact with other players. A good example would be one that sends monster(s) to the street, thus blocking the way of other investigators.
• Other world encounters also have to be played separately. The one I can recount where it matters is when you can trade clue tokens with other players until the end of your phase.

There is another OW encounter saying you gain a clue token for each investigator including yourself now in an OW. And many others as well, I guess

I guess that makes sense too for say, Tommy's special ability. I often wondered why anyone would do that when they would get bum-rushed by monsters right at the start of their turn. But if they move to Tommy and then he pulls an Evade, suddenly, all monsters are out of the way of say, a Gate location--I know Dark Young are nasty to start with and since they don't move Tommy is actually quite useful.

Correct. Additionally, you can use Tommy's ability to pull monsters away from areas near vortices, or cleaning streets for others to pass and dive into gates

So Tommy's ability does work on stationary monsters too. He's starting to sound more and more useful now that I understand WHY the rules are the way they are--in fact, a number of Investigators now sound much more viable.

Huh, no wonder rules are there for a reason!

Not only stationary: ALL monsters. Including green bordered monsters (you want to move that Lloigor from the Witch House, uh?)

Faust, are you an american night owl, or do you live in Europe (just curiosity based on the hours of your postings)?

Why would you want to pull a Lloigor on the street? :-D
Tommy can also pull monsters from the sky. He's a basically a weak version of a very underestimated item, the milk of Shub-Niggurath . Pulling monsters in general is a superb tactic move when vortexes and gate-blockers are considered!

Why would you want to pull a Lloigor on the street? :-D

In case the Lloigor guards a gate, could be interesting moving it away from the gate, so that another characater could get in. This will probably require using Tommy twice. But in case the gate diver is Wendy, you know, one movement away from the gate is enough

Tommy can also pull monsters from the sky. He's a basically a weak version of a very underestimated item, the milk of Shub-Niggurath .

Not always possible, I think: monsters need to be adjacent to Tommy, so in order to have flyers move to his location, he has to be in a street area or at Devil reef.

Not only stationary: ALL monsters. Including green bordered monsters (you want to move that Lloigor from the Witch House, uh?)

Faust, are you an american night owl, or do you live in Europe (just curiosity based on the hours of your postings)?

American night-owl, that is trying very hard to recover from that most unfortunate of afflictions! XD I'm not an insomniac, I just find I can get more done at night.

Why would you want to pull a Lloigor on the street? :-D

In case the Lloigor guards a gate, could be interesting moving it away from the gate, so that another characater could get in. This will probably require using Tommy twice. But in case the gate diver is Wendy, you know, one movement away from the gate is enough

Tommy can also pull monsters from the sky. He's a basically a weak version of a very underestimated item, the milk of Shub-Niggurath .

Not always possible, I think: monsters need to be adjacent to Tommy, so in order to have flyers move to his location, he has to be in a street area or at Devil reef.

And yeah, I think the Street is considered adjacent to the Sky but not actual locations--I can't imagine Father Michael being pleased if Tommy decided to bring down fire vampires and Nightgaunts into the church.

After the jerk beat me out of the church with a cross he can have all the fire vampires he can handle.

There's something hilarious in that scene (as in many others happening at the South Church...)

There are some legitimately amusing scenes in all of the Locations. MY favorite is still:

A little old lady stands in front of you in line counting out a bag of pennies to deposit. Lose 1 Sanity.

:laughter: incredibly realistic, as a scene..

I think I just saw her at the coop!

Whether he liked it or not, Father Michael got himself a pet Werewolf after switching places through Mi-go braincase last game. On hilarious events: Once upon a time, and overly confident player drew an ally and got the (revised) Messenger. He was so pissed (What?! An ally that gives you a debuff?), but we managed to switch him out via socially connected relationship. A few turns later, guess who showed up again in an Underworld encounter with a devilish smile... >