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[Arkham Horror] House Rules
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Not sure how popular AH is among this set, but I guess we'll see.
Brief description of AH for the uninitiated:
Arkham Horror is a pretty fun boardgame which pits 1-8 players against lovecraftian terrors. You have to either prevent the awakening of an Ancient One by traveling to distant realms to close gates with vomit forth terrible monsters into the streets of Arkham; or do battle with the ancient one itself. The latter with is not recommended with Azathoth, as his only attack is "Azathoth destroys the world."
It's complex, fun, and has a lot of great art and flavor text on all the encounters cards, monsters, items, etc. There are several expansions, but I don't have them.
Wikipedia entry
AH wiki
Box contents, courtesy of boardgamegeek.com:
So, house rules. I've noticed two areas of game mechanics that I think could be changed to enhance the gameplay. Reduced collection of superfluous items, and enhanced evade checks. I'm new to the game, so I appeal to any experienced players out there as to whether these rules would do more harm than good. Starting a batch of new players (newer than I am), so I can't really discuss the long term implications of these rules with them.
Evasion. Many times it will come up that a player is stuck facing down horrible monsters he has no hope of defeating or escaping. In most cases it seems appropriate to leave that person to their fate; but if there is another investigator in that square, it feels like they should be able to help them escape. I propose: Decoy.
[DECOY] Spend movement points to reduce a monster's alertness rating.
Mechanism: Spend 1 movement point and make an Evade (-1) check against the monster.
Success: Monster is fixated on you, other players gain a +1 to evasion checks against this monster until end of this turn.
Failure: Your idiotic attempts to draw the fiend's attention succeed: take damage as normal and enter combat as a failed evasion roll (horror check, etc).
Alternate #1: Allow player to instead spend X movement points and make Evade (-X) check. Reasoning: Movement is time. The more time you spend drawing the beast away, the easier it will be on other players trying to escape. Balance: Evade is based on Sneak, Sneak opposes Speed, so a Sneak 2 using 3 movement points is going to likely result in horrible failure. Thus limiting most scenarios to a 1 or 2 point expenditure.
Alternate #2: Allow player to instead spend X movement points and make Evade (-1) check, at X difficulty.
Reasoning: Movement is time. The more time you spend drawing the beast away, the easier it will be on other players trying to escape, however it also translates into more chances for the fiend to outwit you. If you simply ran away, it would give up the chase. As a Decoy you have to let it almost get you. If you are spending multiple movement points, you have to do this multiple times.
Balance consideration: Same as Alt #1, but harder.
[BARTER] When purchasing an item in a shop encounter, offer an item from your inventory for credit.
Mechanic: Make a Will check. Each success (up to the value listed on the item) grants you a $1 credit.
Reasoning: I don't want to have the full item returned, or give the player an opportunity to exchange all items they don't like because making do with what you're given is part of the challenge. I understand that having, say, 3 shotguns is useful in that if you fall unconscious/go insane you will lose half of them*; but in practice this is a silly thing to do, and probably completely out of character for your investigator.
Alternate #1: Can only barter same item type (Unique/Spell/Common).
Reasoning: Pure balance. The practice of trading a shotgun for an Elder sign doesn't seem right. Though the dollar values between the item types are similar for gameplay purposes, the value in the gameworld would be dramatically different.
Alternate #2: Can only barter same item type or 'better'. Unique -> Spell -> Common.
Reasoning: The Curio shoppe owner has no need of whiskey (bad example?
), nor spells (he has tomes full of them). The warlock running the magic store has no need of common items, but a rare artifact (or tome) would be of personal interest to him. The general store owner is a businessman. He would be interested in any opportunity for profit.
*I am also leaning toward one of the 'official' house rules that suggests losing spells and skills and clues for insanity and unconsciousness.
[Implementation]
Alt #1: All players have access to these skills. Our investigators are a savvy bunch.
Alt #2: Assign these abilities to appropriate characters. This would be more work for me, but could help if these powers are out of balance.
Alt #3: Make skill cards for these powers. If even Alt #2 is imbalanced, this would restrict their use further.. but I think this is going too far. I don't think these have range of application to be proper Skills; they are too specific.
Brief description of AH for the uninitiated:
Arkham Horror is a pretty fun boardgame which pits 1-8 players against lovecraftian terrors. You have to either prevent the awakening of an Ancient One by traveling to distant realms to close gates with vomit forth terrible monsters into the streets of Arkham; or do battle with the ancient one itself. The latter with is not recommended with Azathoth, as his only attack is "Azathoth destroys the world."
It's complex, fun, and has a lot of great art and flavor text on all the encounters cards, monsters, items, etc. There are several expansions, but I don't have them.
Wikipedia entry
AH wiki
Box contents, courtesy of boardgamegeek.com:
Components (Revised Printing):
* 1 Rule Book
* 1 Game Board
* 1 First Player Marker
* 5 Dice
* 16 Investigator Sheets
* 16 Investigator Markers
* 16 Plastic Investigator Stands
* 198 Investigator Status Tokens:
o 56 Money Tokens
o 35 Sanity Tokens
o 35 Stamina Tokens
o 48 Clue Tokens
o 24 Skill Tokens
* 189 Investigator Cards:
o 44 Common Items
o 39 Unique Items
o 40 Spells
o 20 Skills
o 11 Allies
o 35 Special Cards:
+ 8 Retainers
+ 8 Silver Lodge Memberships
+ 8 Bank Loans
+ 8 Blessing/Curse Cards
+ 3 Deputy Cards
* 8 Ancient One Sheets
* 20 Doom Tokens
* 179 Ancient One Cards:
o 63 Location Cards
o 67 Mythos Cards
o 49 Gate Cards
* 60 Monster Markers
* 16 Gate Markers
* 3 Activity Markers
* 3 Explored Markers
* 1 Terror Track Marker
* 6 Closed Markers
So, house rules. I've noticed two areas of game mechanics that I think could be changed to enhance the gameplay. Reduced collection of superfluous items, and enhanced evade checks. I'm new to the game, so I appeal to any experienced players out there as to whether these rules would do more harm than good. Starting a batch of new players (newer than I am), so I can't really discuss the long term implications of these rules with them.
Evasion. Many times it will come up that a player is stuck facing down horrible monsters he has no hope of defeating or escaping. In most cases it seems appropriate to leave that person to their fate; but if there is another investigator in that square, it feels like they should be able to help them escape. I propose: Decoy.
[DECOY] Spend movement points to reduce a monster's alertness rating.
Mechanism: Spend 1 movement point and make an Evade (-1) check against the monster.
Success: Monster is fixated on you, other players gain a +1 to evasion checks against this monster until end of this turn.
Failure: Your idiotic attempts to draw the fiend's attention succeed: take damage as normal and enter combat as a failed evasion roll (horror check, etc).
Alternate #1: Allow player to instead spend X movement points and make Evade (-X) check. Reasoning: Movement is time. The more time you spend drawing the beast away, the easier it will be on other players trying to escape. Balance: Evade is based on Sneak, Sneak opposes Speed, so a Sneak 2 using 3 movement points is going to likely result in horrible failure. Thus limiting most scenarios to a 1 or 2 point expenditure.
Alternate #2: Allow player to instead spend X movement points and make Evade (-1) check, at X difficulty.
Reasoning: Movement is time. The more time you spend drawing the beast away, the easier it will be on other players trying to escape, however it also translates into more chances for the fiend to outwit you. If you simply ran away, it would give up the chase. As a Decoy you have to let it almost get you. If you are spending multiple movement points, you have to do this multiple times.
Balance consideration: Same as Alt #1, but harder.
[BARTER] When purchasing an item in a shop encounter, offer an item from your inventory for credit.
Mechanic: Make a Will check. Each success (up to the value listed on the item) grants you a $1 credit.
Reasoning: I don't want to have the full item returned, or give the player an opportunity to exchange all items they don't like because making do with what you're given is part of the challenge. I understand that having, say, 3 shotguns is useful in that if you fall unconscious/go insane you will lose half of them*; but in practice this is a silly thing to do, and probably completely out of character for your investigator.
Alternate #1: Can only barter same item type (Unique/Spell/Common).
Reasoning: Pure balance. The practice of trading a shotgun for an Elder sign doesn't seem right. Though the dollar values between the item types are similar for gameplay purposes, the value in the gameworld would be dramatically different.
Alternate #2: Can only barter same item type or 'better'. Unique -> Spell -> Common.
Reasoning: The Curio shoppe owner has no need of whiskey (bad example?
), nor spells (he has tomes full of them). The warlock running the magic store has no need of common items, but a rare artifact (or tome) would be of personal interest to him. The general store owner is a businessman. He would be interested in any opportunity for profit.*I am also leaning toward one of the 'official' house rules that suggests losing spells and skills and clues for insanity and unconsciousness.
[Implementation]
Alt #1: All players have access to these skills. Our investigators are a savvy bunch.
Alt #2: Assign these abilities to appropriate characters. This would be more work for me, but could help if these powers are out of balance.
Alt #3: Make skill cards for these powers. If even Alt #2 is imbalanced, this would restrict their use further.. but I think this is going too far. I don't think these have range of application to be proper Skills; they are too specific.
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First things first, before we even go into house rules, is get Dunwich Horror.
It adds injuries and madnesses, which you draw whenever your stamina or sanity drop to zero, instead of just losing half of your items. Injuries are physical things like permanent -1 speed or losing a weapon hand, and madnesses are things like paranoia (which makes you lose sanity if you're in a location with other players) or jumpy (which makes you spend clues in multiples of two). They're a much better mechanic than the item dropping.
It also adds gate bursts. I don't know how many games you've played but you may notice that the game actually gets easier as you go on, especially if you learn the most common gate opening locations, and focus on sealing them. Gate bursts are gate openings that break through elder signs. They're much rarer, but they mean there's always a threat, even if you think you have control.
Upgrading purchases:
Given that, especially as you add expansions, you get a lot of items and the decks can get quite diluted, I allow players to make a luck check to have a little more control over what they draw. This also makes use of the luck stat, which is definitely the least used. Essentially, if you were due to draw one common item, you could make a roll to be more specific, for example if you only wanted weapons. The way I do it is thus:
I don't want X = Luck(+0)
I want only X = Luck(-1)
I want to upgrade the stack I draw from = Luck(-2)
But you can only do this for types of item, ie the text in bold before the description. So, you could say 'I don't want tomes', 'I only want weapons', or 'I want to draw a unique item instead of a common item'. You can make a luck check for each item you draw. Upgrading stacks only works for common into unique, and unique into artifact (Dark Pharaoh expansion).
Man, I REALLY want a retainer:
In cases where people are getting frustrated because they want a retainer or membership or something else you get as a part of an encounter only, but aren't drawing the right card, I allow them to make a luck(-1) check after the third encounter draw, and a luck(+0) check thereafter, so long as they stated it as their purpose for taking those encounters in the first place. On a pass, they get the card. This just gets players back into the game quicker, reducing that frustration. Again, it makes the luck stat useful too.
Membership encounters give clues:
Does what it says on the tin. Every time you have an inner sanctum encounter at the Silver Twilight Lodge, or a cult encounter (Black Goat of the Woods expansion) at the Woods, Unvisited Isle, or Black cave, you get a clue as soon as you draw the encounter card. This makes things a little easier, but it makes memberships a little more valuable and gets some more of the flavour cards into play. Additionally, Cold Spring Glen (Dunwich location) also counts as a cult encounter location, just to keep Dunwich involved in that mechanic.
Oh, and also, I do use the rule from Launius' House Rules PDF which states that you remove monsters on a location when you close the gate on a location. Makes sense, and makes closing gates a little more rewarding, whether or not you seal them.
More to come...
Carrying over characters:
If the players like the characters they're using, they have the option of keeping them. At the end of each game, they get to keep:
* Retainers
* Blessings
* Memberships
* Skills
* Deputy and similar cards
And, in proportion to their total allowances of fixed and random posessions, they can keep:
* Spells
* Common items
* Unique (and Artifact) items
* Up to double their starting amount of money
But they must discard:
* All trophies
* All clues
And they must make a roll to keep each ally, depending on the terror level. I don't have any hard rule for this, but if the terror level is low at the end, they'll only leave on a one. If it's in the middle, then I tend to go 50/50, and if it's way up, then only a six will retain an ally. Whatever feels appropriate.
And they must keep:
* Injuries and madnesses
* Curses
Also, after all that, they get to choose one prize each for winning. This can be a choice of a limited draw of allies or skills, a choice of any other item or spell, the deputy card (or similar), a membership, a blessing, a retainer etc.
And, importantly, Dead is dead. If it ever happens, it's permanent. And you can't just roll that same character out next time, too. It has to be someone new.
Dead is Dead for Old Ones, too:
Likewise, old ones can be permanently killed. If you just seal them, then they can come back whenever (though you still won that game, obviously). If they kill you, likewise. But if an old one is fought and defeated, we never play against him again. Unless loads of time has passed and I can think of a plot reason. But, for example, my team killed Yig on our second play against him, so we'd had plenty of time with Yig as an old one, and it was cool to be like 'OK, dead forever'. Makes it feel like a real achievement, and kind of gives the players an ongoing goal, or at least a measure of ongoing success. I don't apply this rule to the old ones who are (in the mythos) also Gods. This includes Azathoth, Abhoth, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep, and maybe one or two others.
Ongoing storyline:
This one is less likely that you'll do until you start getting expansions, but sometimes I tweak the rules to suit the new story bits that expansions bring. Times I've done this:
Egypt Arc:
Nyarlathotep suits the Dark Pharaoh expansion, as there're loads of egyptian flavour cards in there. Nyarlathotep is also, in the mythos, a herald of Azathoth. So the first game we played, all this egyptian stuff had come to town (inclusion of the expansion cards), and the Dark Pharaoh and cohorts had too (so I included the mask monsters). We sealed Nyarlathotep, and in the next game fought Azathoth, who we also sealed. I didn't shuffle the cards in between, so we still had the Egyptian flavour. A few games later, I again brought the egyptian cards to the fore, this time also using the Dark Pharaoh herald (who works best with the Dark Pharaoh expansion), available officially online. I also drew out the mask monsters on a higher chance dice roll upon gates opening, and eventually we had them all stalking around the town. They all have endless, so you can't capture them, but by coincidence a friend and I both had abilities which negate endless, and also one of us had Spirit Flask, an item which is for some other purpose, but whose flavour text stated that it's for holding spirits. I thus made the game about rounding up all of Nyarlathotep's heralds. Ultimately, all were captured save for Dark Pharaoh, though we sealed Nyarlathotep. Our next game, then, we played against Azathoth (again summoned by Nyarlathotep), but with the Dark Pharaoh also roaming. I said sealing him meant winning a fight and then paying three clues, evocative of sealing a gate, which one of the players managed to do. Then, as Azathoth had already been sealed in a previous game, we decided instead to make it harder, and to seal every unstable location on the map. This took a lot of planning, and it was VERY close to the edge (13 out of 14 on his doom track), but we managed to get all elder signs AND all scrolls of the elder sign (an item in Dark Pharaoh, in the Artifact deck), and seal them all just before he would've awoken. That was pretty epic. Fallout from that game is that all the mask monsters are sealed in a spirit flask, which at least one player must carry through each game. What they don't know is that the other expansions add new mask monsters, and the next time (though it'll be a while) that someone holding the spirit flask takes damage in combat from a (not yet captured) mask monster, I'll have it shatter and the cycle will begin again ('cos you can't kill things from Egypt, everyone knows that!)
Dunwich Horror is one of my favorite stories, so I was looking for a reason to check it out in expansion form. The injuries/psychosis and gate bursts sound like that reason. I'm just concerned I don't have the play space for another board. Lanius's 'no sealed gates victory' rule sounded like a good idea, but maybe the gate bursts will negate its need. I've only played 2P games so far, and sealing 6 gates just seems so much easier than closing all the gates.
The more I think about 'Decoy,' I think I'm going to run with it. It would add to the RP element a little more, and I can't see it causing any real harm.
The persistent world sounds like fun, I may have to give that a shot if the players are in to it.
Having only read the rules and not tried it myself, the decoy sounds like a neat idea but it should be pretty damn hard to pull off. Sometimes a person should just be unable to escape some hideous monster beyond imagination. As long as there's enough of a detriment to the decoy, it might be worth it.
I suppose the most important question, as with all house rules on co-op games, is are you looking to make the game harder or easier? Do investigators win too easily, or is it getting frustratingly hard for your group?
Anyway, you mentioned Persistent World stuff, so I'll mention a couple of other similar things I've done, of different scales:
Cult Mystery:
This was a small two-part 'story' I played with my friends to introduce the Black Goat of the Woods expansion. It includes a herald (like extra rules you can attatch to an Ancient One) who means your players draw cards called corruptions, but the expansion also lets you join a cult, which might corrupt you too. Corruptions are fun. They sometimes give you benefits, but they activate like monsters (eg a particular card may have a white moon on it) which causes a secondary (usually bad) effect. So in the first game, I told everyone that a cult was local and that we'd all decided to infiltrate it, so everyone started with a cult membership. I slightly increased the chance of the monsters linked to the coming ancient one (though we fought a regular ancient one in the first game). This introduced the corruption mechanic in a gentler way. Some pretty interesting stuff happened, like my guy got kicked out of another secret society for being involved with the cult, and the nun decided she couldn't take it and removed her corruptions by praying (a tweaked version of the blessing mechanic). The second game was when it all really kicked off. We retained our cult memberships, but this time I rewarded them for cult encounters (this was the first time I introduced the clues for cult encounters house rule), and we used only the monsters associated with that expansion. We won that too, again very closely, so everyone had a good time.
Cthulhu Arc:
This one'll take some describing. I've not done this yet, but it's been in the planning for a while. Basically, one of the expansions focuses on Innsmouth. It also introduces two new heralds - Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, both of whom serve Cthulhu. It also introduces the 'Deep Ones Rising' mechanic, which is kind of like a persistent Innsmouth rumour card. By which I mean, whenever a gate is prevented from opening or a monster enters an Innsmouth vortex as a part of its movement, the 'Deep Ones' track rises. You can dispel it by spending a high amount of clues. It's a threat because, in the rules, when the Deep Ones track gets full, the Ancient One awakens. However, I'm going to change that mechanic. Given how focused the Innsmouth board is on Cthulhu and his associated beasties (Deep Ones serve Cthulhu in the mythos), I'm going to play the long game there. So, we're just going to play normal games against whichever Ancient Ones we feel like, while using the Innsmouth board. We'll get through a few, and everyone'll get used to the fluff associated with Innsmouth (like finding out you have Deep One heritage, and other fun fucked up things). But, if ever the Deep Ones rising track gets to maximum, then instead of the current Ancient One awakening, I'll have one of Cthulhu's heralds, Dagon or Hydra, awaken, and persistently be a herald for all Innsmouth games therein. Likewise, next time, I'll awaken the other. This'll happen quicker as each one speeds up the rate at which the track fills. Finally, the third time that happens, I'll have Cthulhu either awaken immediately and need fighting, or be the Ancient One for the next game. This'll be lots of fun because Cthulhu awakening will kind of be their fault, for not dealing with the threat of the Deep Ones, and it should make for one very epic game when we actually fight him.
I think the game does well in that if you follow the rules to the letter, it's pretty damn challenging and a victory really feels like an accomplishment. I can't wait to check out the expansions to see how play changes.
One thing I've found recently, is a cool little program called Strange Eons that lets you create custom content for the game you can print out. It has templates for every type of card in the game, and even lets you create entire boards and expansions. I don't have the patience for that, but creating 1920's versions of yourself complete with pictures is awesome fun, and you can tweak the difficulty a little by nerfing powerful characters and creating more difficult Ancient Ones or make it easier by giving your character nice little item combos at the start like a Find Gate spell and that thing that gives you +9 movement so you can warp around closing things on a whim.
With anything I create though, I usually try to make things more difficult. I just think this game should feel like you're constantly on the verge of losing.