Hi All,

Please correct me on some statements below. Some people I played with told me we should make some house rules, but I wanted some feedback/confirmation on the items below.

1. After closing a gate an investigator may immediately seal it...Now I understand that another investigator can't come to that location and seal it; that it has to be the person that closed the gate. Does this mean a gate can be sealed (using tokens) on a turn after the gate has been closed, or is the only chance they have to do take place when the gate has been closed?

2. Clue tokens can't be traded.

3. You can go to a location with a gate and bypass the monsters at that location due to being sucked into the gate. You also then have an other world encounter during that phase of the turn.

The way we ended up playing they traded clue tokens, gates could be sealed a turn or two after being closed using clue tokens, doom counters were removed for sealing gates in any manner, and investigators could move to a location/enter a gate/and have an other world encounter in the same turn. They also didn't fight or sneak past a monster on a location with a gate. We did a good job of closing and defeating monsters, and gates were closed using elder signs we had acquired. I don't think the game would have been too different but it might have taken us a while longer. We kept getting gates opening at the Woods and Independence Square so there were more monsters on the board than gates most of the game.

1. No, you have to seal it the moment it's closed. If you don't, it's closed without a seal. Another gate can open there.
2. Correct. Clues can't be traded. If it were allowed, you could just pool all clues on one or two investigators who would be dedicated sealers and there would be little for the others to do.
3. No, this isn't quite true: if there are monsters there, you must deal with them. Only if a gate opens on you do you avoid the monster and get sucked right in. And, right, being delayed does not preclude having an encounter.

It sounds like you did a lot of stuff that made the game artificially easier. Try it again without house rules.

redripper,

To clarify Tibs' post ~ 1. Yes, the person who closed the Gate must be the one who seals it, but it need not take place the VERY Phase in which you closed it. The person who exited the Gate receives an Explored Gate token and on a later turn someone may hand you an Elder Sign or you may have some way to generate one or more Clue tokens allowing you to Seal the Gate .

Cheers,

Joe

I knew that it was making it easier but since the people playing hadn't played too many times before so I went with it. My main concern was the wording on sealing gates is so very specific that it left some room for interpretation on the exact nature of how you can seal them in regard to the turn it can be sealed.

Thanks for helping to clarify things.

redripper,

Just a minor edit to my response...you may not close a gate on one turn and seal it on another...but you may leave the gate in-place along with your Explored token and close/seal it on another turn. Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Joe

Many of the rules become more apparent or are easy to figure out if you follow the turn order. For example, your question #3. Monsters are always dealt with in the Movement phase (unless they are generated by an encounter which instructs you to deal with them). Entering a gate is done in the Arkham Encounters phase -- one phase after the Movement phase. See basic rulebook, pages 8-9 (describing what happens in the Arkham Encounters phase at a location based on whether a gate is present or not).

So following the turn order, it becomes apparent that you can't just avoid the monsters by moving onto a Location with a gate.

Like you, our first couple of games were SUPER easy, but completely due to us not following the rules correctly. We sealed each others' gates, traded clue tokens, the whole thing. Once played correctly, the game becomes much more challenging.

One additional point that hasn't yet been addressed:

doom counters were removed for sealing gates in any manner

Sorry no...doom counters are only removed from the doom track when sealing a gate using an Elder Sign unique item. They are not removed when sealing a gate using clue tokens (or "clokens" as they came to be called in my group ).

1. No, this isn't quite true: if there are monsters there, you must deal with them. Only if a gate opens on you do you avoid the monster and get sucked right in. And, right, being delayed does not preclude having an encounter.

I can think of one more example: If you have an encounter telling that you can (have to) move to another Arkham location and have another encounter there, and that location has a gate marker and monster(s) - in this case you will be "sucked in" without having to fight monsters since this is Encounter phase, not Movement phase.