I know all about the thematic reasoning: Time passes differently in Other Worlds, and what seems to be two days in Arkham is actually two weaks, maybe two months or even two years in Other Worlds. But still. Other Worlds are, well, worlds. Each of them should be at least the size of Arkham. Now I don't suggest 10+ huge boards, that would be crazy. But maybe after Innsmouth is out, and no more new Other Worlds would come into play, maybe we will get to a sea a board, the size of Arkham Board, that has all the Other Worlds in it, but each of them is way bigger that just two spaces. I don't know. Other Worlds hold alot of potential to something huge. Maybe not excatly like I said, but something big nontheless. Something is missed on the apsect of Other Worlds IMO. They just don't feel big enough, as they should. What do you guys think?

I'm not sure how you could do that without making the game much, much harder. Without spells or good fortune, it takes a minimum of two turns to explore an Other World and come back. Expanding these Other Worlds in any interesting way will mean adding more turns to that process.

No, I think the Other Worlds are fine as is.

Kobold Curry Chef said:

With a little creativity it doesn't have to be more than 2 turns. Maybe each other world will have a few "locations". 4 is the best. In dual-color other worlds each 2 locations would be that color, and in a 4-color other world each location would be a different color. When you wnter the other world, you roll a die to determine which location you get into. In the next turn you roll the die again to determine a new or maybe even the same location. The turn after that you return to Arkham. There could be plenty of ways to make Other Worlds bigger without making you spend more than 2 turns in them.

More than two turns in OWs sounds dangerous. However, I would like to see more flavour in them like world specific decks instead of the vagueness we get now

Gatha said:

Again, I never said that something creative and interesting must take more than 2 turns. Read the post above you.

Kroen, it sounds to me like you're talking about an enormous amount of work on the designer's part for almost no gain on the player's part, especially if you're not advocating extending the time spent in the other worlds anyway. What's the point of having a random roll to see which Other World location you end up in? And then what, drawing a card at that location? How is that really different from simply drawing an OW card as we do now?

Aside from that, Earth is the investigator's priority, not the other worlds, and the game properly reflects that fact.

Solan said:

I'm not a game designer and I'm sure Kevin Wilson could think of better ideas if he really wanted to. Okay, maybe not a dice, but instead 2 locations would be skip-able, and if the investigator chooses to explore those skip-able locations, it costs him 1 less clue token to seal the gate or something. I don't know, I'm just saying there's a huge potential to other worlds.

Two responses:

1) Bigger Other Worlds. I kind of like the idea. Someone in BBG made a side trip to the Mountains of Madness which I modified. There's three spaces but the gate doesn't require 5 clues to seal. A normal trip would be turn 1: Have an encounter that allows you to take the train to Providence to board the ship for the 2 Polar Voyage (long and boring); Turn 3 Antarctic Trek (cold); Turn 4, explore the Cyclopean City and if you succeed with the test, seal it (no tokens required), add a doom token and take a random gate token. If successful, return 5 return to Train station.

Of course there are things that slow you down (not delayed) and the trip is pretty dangerous. On the other hand, there are things that speed you up too. I made it through in 5 turns last time.

The reason for the long introduction is that even though it takes 4-7 turns, no turns are used up gathering clues in anticipation of the trip so the time spent is about the same. However, I wouldn't recommend going there without some clues for re-rolls.

The board is about 1/4th the size of a big board. So you could have a deck of Other worlds that could be laid out as needed (or just use the same one over and over). You could make the board as big or small as you wanted, just so the total time averaged about 5 turns, which is about the number of turns it takes to prepare and travel through an Other World.

One problem I see is what to do with all the clue tokens you won't be using. I'd just not put any clue tokens out to begin with. This option is a pretty radical depature from the game as we know it. Or the Other World adventures can be harder than they are now and you'd better take some clue tokens for re-rolls.

2) A simpler method for theme:

I divided up the other world locations into decks based on their locations.

For example: If the first other world on a card is The Dreamlands, it goes into the dreamlands deck. Once we've had the dreamlands encounter, it goes to the bottom of the deck for the second enounter listed, let's say R'lyeh. After R'lyeh it goes into Other (which is the Other Diminsion or when the piles deplete with Underworld, Unknown Kadath, Another Time and Lost Carcosa as they often do. This method doesn't appear to make the Other worlds any more dangerous, but it does make them more flavorful. Now the coneheads are in Yith much more often.

I use a large plastic card box I used for Magic cards when I played that with some homemade dividers.

I am totally in Kroen's camp on this one.

Just off the top of my head - A large board - something along the lines of the base Arkham board.

The Dreamlands could have Mythos card effects - dreams/nightmarish effects.

The Dreamlands could affect in wonderful ways G.O.O.s that are Dreamland base.

Certain Arkham investigators could start in the Dreamlands, or/and for the most part stay the entire game there. Their activities could influence "hopefully" for the better Arkham's fate, and the Arkham based investigator's could help influence the Dreamland investigators. Spells could be designed in many ways around this. Clue tokens, might be exchanged through trance/sleep.

There might be a mechanism for non-Dreamland investigators to gamble by entering the Dreamlands to pass through and return in one turn instead of two, but this might go horrible awry.

Five minutes of thought.

I just thought of a small house rule that would make other worlds more fun, but I'm not sure if it's good or not: When you draw gate encounter cards, you draw cards until you draw a card with the specific other world you're in, rather than just color. (other than Another Dimension ofcours). Any balance reasons not to play like this?

kroen said:

You did! See my reponse 2.

The reason I separated the decks was just because I was tired of drawing card after card. As I stated above, the balance doesn't seem to be affected. The problem would be the Other's would be seldom used, except in Another dimension. That's probably not a real problem except that's where a lot of "A monster appears" appear.

You might limit the drawing to a certain number of cards, then take the "other". Like draw up to 4 cards, if none are the correct world, then take the next card with the proper color.

Also, you'd have to make a rule for Jim so he gets his 25% chance of drawing a green card in a non green world.

Info: The DreamWorld is a twice as common as other Worlds. The rest of the worlds have the same chance of coming through and the worlds from the expansions are pretty skimpy.

I think it would work much better to simply make a stand-alone expansion focused around the dreamlands or something similar. Otherwise it would likely detract far too much from the focus of the game.

Houserules to make other worlds more flavorful is great though. Mageith's suggestion seems to be one of the best I've seen so far in that camp.

What you'd want to do is have a stand alone where most of the board was outer worlds and the region in the real world was very small. You could have an Antarctic expedition game, where there were just a few regions in and around the camp and the rest of it was all portals to Yuggoth and regions of R'lyeh. This would be totally workable.

But it's just not going to port into Arkham very well. The time constraints are very real, and rather fixed with respect to the overall game. So if you want to have a lot of things to do in the Dreamlands, you pretty much have to make a new game where the Earth is represented by just a few spaces and the rest is al Dreamlands regions.

-Frank

While I was in my dreamlands last night, I saw this possibility of Emphasizing the Other Worlds. I discussed it with Little Emily and she thinks it sounds like fun.

1) The Good News: It no longer takes clues to seal a gate, except for Hastur where it takes 3 clues.

2) The Bad News: Time is different in the Other Worlds and there is only one Encounter Phase in the game. In addition the Other World Encounter comes first and then you Move.

a) Entering a gate: This occurs during the Encounter (Arkham) phase. You enter the Other World. Your turn is done.

b) Encounter Other World Phase first side: Draw an Other World card. If you pass the encounter (actually roll dice and pass) you may pay 1 Clue token to move the the 2nd location, otherwise stay there.

c) 2nd side: Same as above except if you pass an encounter and pay a clue, you return home. Your turn ends. (There is no safe period from monsters.)

d) You deal with the monsters and attempt to close (Encounter) the gate. If you close, it is automatically sealed (except for Hastur above and any Mythos cards or rules that require additional clues above 5).

Theory: It NOW takes an investigator normally 7 investigator turns to seal a gate. 5 Turns to gather the clues and 2 turns through the Other Worlds. This normal can be often be shortened or sometimes lengthened, of course.

Emphasizing the Other Worlds: It will take 4 turns (1 to get there, 2 to pass through and 1 to close/seal) to go through the worlds, seal a gate and two clue tokens. (Theoretically, 1 less investigator turn) This will probably be lengthened (rarely shortened) by not passing encounters or the clue token cost will increase as you use clue tokens to pass encounters in order to move.

Considerations:

Find Gate: You cannot cast it until the Other World Movement Phase which brings you back to the Real World and your turn ends. So it still saves you 1 Turn.

Warning: Investigators begin the game with an average of slightly less than 2 clues. So a large game might be easier, since investigators with 2 or more clues may immediately move into a gate that opens.

No clues in the Other Worlds is bad news. You stay there until you find a clue, choose to be Lost in Time and Space, you run out of Stamina or Sanity or another investigator somehow provides you a way to move on ("Research materials", for example, or some spell or that provides clues.) (To make it too easier, allow Scrolls to be read in the Other Worlds, if you have a enough Speed/Movement or allow it instead of Movement. In other words, if you pass the encounter, then and only then may you read a scroll that gives more clues.)

Analysis: I don't think this makes the game easier or harder, just different. Downsides: The Other World encounters will become repetitious. So I wouldn't want to play this way permanently, even though after 200+ games, the Arkham encounters are pretty well known.

I'm all for a Dreamlands expansion. In The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath it describes many locations that could be used. I know all the technical aspects are difficult, but considering the great job on Kingsport and Dunwich I trust FFG. If they build it I will buy it.

I think it would be nice if the other worlds had different locations like Arkham City.

If there were three locations for each other world, there would be some choice involved:

One location might have more dangerous encounters but have a higher chance of letting you return early. The second would have a higher chance of delaying you but offer more chances to gain items or clues. The third would have a balanced mix of encounters similar to what we have now. Naturally, all three locations should still have a flavour that fits the other world, e.g. R'yleh should still have the most dangerous encounters overall.