I originally posted the idea for this addition on Boardgamegeek. Now that I have it a little more fleshed-out, I've decided to post it here as well. There have been some changes since the first idea for this game addition, but here is the original post regarding it for those of you who haven't read it and care to: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3207846
For those that would rather not read another post, I'll try to sum it up here. The general idea behind this addition was to breathe a bit more life into the town of Arkham by introducing Citizens to interact with directly. The 'Citizens of Arkham' by makken123 was the main inspiration for this idea. If you've never heard of it, then shame on you.
Here's the necessary link:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/40805
The addition utilizes makken123's Resident and Hidden Cultists Citizen cards as well the Ally and Blight cards from the game to create a randomly changing and “living” town of Citizens. The 4 types of Citizens are placed onto the board by a special deck called the Citizen Control deck. Aside from just placing the cards, the Control deck also gives new meaning and purpose to some of the Citizens. Hidden Cultists can move and cause all sorts of random havoc, but they are not treated as Monsters and cannot be attacked during the movement phase. Allies can be gained in a much more natural way than by just chancing across them in Location Encounters or finding them all holed up at Ma's. Blighted Citizens slowly develop their madness (called 'Creeping Blights') and can be prevented from coming into play as regular Blights if the Investigators use a little teamwork.
Full rules can be found at the link below. I know the rules are kind of long, but I tried to be as thorough as I could. I don't think the basic idea behind any of it is too terribly hard to grasp though, and I tried to include most of the necessary information and rules on the Control cards themselves. Hopefully this will make them easier to integrate. Just looking at the cards without reading the rules should give you a pretty good idea of how everything works anyway. The only section you might want to look at if you don't feel like reading all the rules is the “Control Card Format” section on page 3. It explains the layout of the specific Citizen Control cards in more detail.
The most obvious change I have made since the original post is the removal of the separate Citizen Encounters deck. This could still be implemented later, but for now I've decided to include all the text for encounters on the appropriate Control Cards themselves instead. The second biggest change is the simplification of the way Creeping Blights work. Basically, it uses Yellow Sign Tokens as counters to keep track of the number of turns that pass before a Creeping Blight enters play as a Blight. The Creeping Blight can be encountered and attempts can be made to remove it before this happens. They work kind of like a rumor, but with a bit of Blight flavoring.
One of the biggest concerns I have involves the “timing” and difficulty of removing these Creeping Blight cards. The way they are currently designed, I'm not sure if I've made them too easy or too hard. Some of you veteran players could probably tell just by reading the cards how difficult or easy they may be to remove. I know a few of them are probably impossible for solo ivestigators, but I wanted the removal of Creeping Blights to specifically promote teamwork. I'll make eon files available eventually, as well as print-quality card sheets, but I'd really rather no one waste their precious ink before it has been determined if they are obviously broken or not.
However, if you haven't already, I urge you to download and print out makken123's awesome Citizen cards – as they are definitely worth the ink. Also, courtesy of makken123, an exclusive Citizen of Arkham card will be made available with the final release.
Go here for the full rules and Citizen Control card images:
http://www.thefourthworld.com/LivingArkham/LivingArkham.htm
Or, alternatively, here is the BGG download link:
**pending**
Please let me know what you think of the idea and if you see any glaring problems or errors with the cards. I appreciate feedback and I would really like to turn this idea into something that works, is fun, and adds even more chaos to the world of Arkham Horror.
DrCrow
