Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a cooperative experience where players step into the eerie world of H.P. Lovecraft. Players take on the roles of investigators tasked with uncovering eldritch mysteries and battling cosmic horrors. In this episode David, Paul, and Todd try to cling to their sanity while discussing this monstrous title. Give us a listen!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(upbeat music)

(00:02):
- Welcome to replayable, wherewe go into depth on our favorite
tabletop games that keep uscoming back again and again.

(00:26):
I'm the start player, Todd.
And today I'm joined by Davidand Paul for our 28th episode.
We'll be trying to hold on to our sanity
while investigating ArkhamHorror, The Card Game.
It was designed by NateFrench and MJ Newman
and originally released byFantasy Flight Games in 2016.
Are you two ready to peerinto the slavering infinite?

(00:46):
- I'm podcasting in from theland of Carcosa right now,
so I'm coming across thedimensions from Etherplane's.
- Nice.
I'm sure this episode'sgonna be like a smooth relay.
(laughing)
- I'm gonna use that just in regular slang.
- How was that movie?
It was a smooth relay.
- Arkham Horror, The CardGame is a cooperative experience

(01:10):
where players step into theeerie world of HP Lovecraft.
Each player takes onthe role of an investigator
facing supernatural horrors and unravelingmysteries in the haunted town of Arkham.
It includes customizabledecks and branching narratives
and players must worktogether to survive encounters,
collect clues, and ultimately thwartthe ancient evils lurking in the shadows.

(01:32):
Let's see, who gets to start?
(clicking)
(laughing)
The sound of Arkham Horror.
If you get to go first, thisgame sets out to punish you.
What's your most painful memory of it?
- Well, every game I ever played, I think.
I mean, that's, (laughing)
I think that's part of the mentality
you have to get into whenyou're gonna play this game.

(01:53):
There's no good luck,there's only bad luck.
And it's just how badis that luck gonna be?
So, people get in this mindseton winning and losing games,
but there's no winningor losing Arkham Horror.
There's just how baddoes it get as you go along?
So, accept that punishmentand you'll have a better time.
(laughing)
- Agreed, Paul, how about you?

(02:14):
- I recall a scenario I played with Davein the Dunwich cycle that was a train.
- Right?
- And it went so badlythat we didn't even finish it.
We're just like, "Okay,let's try this again next week.
" (laughing)- Right?
(laughing)
- And I don't remember exactlywhat it was, but I think a big

(02:36):
part of it was the fact thatthe map was just a straight line.
And the movementrestrictions just allowed us
to just box ourselves intoan impossible conundrum.
And that's when we scooped.
(laughing)
- Yeah, in that scenario, you're right.
It's you start in the caboose of thetrain, you're working your way forward.
And as the game goeson, the latter cars in the

(02:59):
train are pulled offinto another dimension.
And for every passenger that's on those,
you take horror becausethese people you didn't
save as you watchedthem be torn us under.
And so, we were at the point where the cars
were just being rippedoff the train so quickly.
And we were either gonna go insaneor get pulled off into us under ourselves.
So, that almost sounds like the game thatjust finished its Kickstarter campaign.

(03:21):
- Well, yeah, so it horroron the Orient Express.
So, that's a famousstoryline in Call of Cthulhu.
And I think this, and I forget what thisone's called "Is it the Miskatonic Express?
" or "Something Express"in that Dunwich cycle.
And it's yeah, it's kindof wicking back at that.
- Part of it is thatit's an early scenario.
And if you're playingthe cycles as intended,

(03:44):
then you're adding better and bettercards to your deck 'cause you go along.
- And so, the early scenarios,you just get walked all over.
(laughing)
- Well, and as can happen in this gamethough, it depends on how the cards come out.
I've also played thescenario and it was a
cake walk up to theengine to stop the train.
And everything was easy as pie.
So, when you get the monsterscoming out at the right time,

(04:07):
when you're not ready for 'em andyou're not getting your equipment in place,
and we'll go into howall that fits together.
But it's, I don't know ifI'd call it a sandbox game,
but it's pretty wide open as to wherewhat direction this game's gonna go.
- Right.
My most painful memorywould be the most recent one.
So, we played the standalonescenario, the machinations of time, right?

(04:29):
And early on, I get an asset card in there.
Okay, it's gonna be lock picks.
And it has a certain cost to it.
And so, I go all in.
I'm gonna get my lockpicks out there early.
They allow me to add, as a rogue,to add my fleet score to skill checks.
And then, my event cardsays, get rid of an equipped
asset or get rid of threecards out of your hand.

(04:49):
So, I discard to just almost no cardsleft in my hand, because I'm all in, right?
I'm gonna get those cards back,but I've got lock picks in play.
And the very first time I use'em, I tend to fell and they break.
And they're just gone.
And now, now my entire earlyengine is just absolutely stalled.
And I never reallycaught back up, which was
just insane, and just goesto show how this game

(05:09):
has multiple ways of beingevil and destroying you.
- Exactly.
So, with that said, is this the apex formof Cthulhu mythos, like in game form?
What do you think?
- You know, maybe the Callof Cthulhu RPG might top it.
It's been a while since I've played.
I've had it, I've kindaread through it, just, and

(05:30):
there's some solo adventuresthat I've been through.
They're very close.
'Cause the Call of Cthulhudoesn't have the mechanisms,
you know, the math, notthat the math is heavy,
but it doesn't have that gettingin the way it's a strict RPG.
- Right, which allows it a lotmore freedom and latitude.
- Yes, that's right.
It's close.
Yeah, they both canexist on the same block.

(05:50):
- Yeah, as far as structured gameplay goes,
where you're kind of boundto these scenarios and results,
I absolutely adoreArchimhor of the card game.
- Right, yeah, if you'retalking apex, I mean, what
else are we talking about,Archimhor of the board game?
You know, Cthulhu andthe Lovecraft, you know,
mythos went into public domain a few yearsago, so there's a million Cthulhu games.

(06:13):
Yeah, this certainly beatsthe other front runners.
- You know, some ofthese might come up later,
but there have been, evenfrom Fantasy Flight Games, right?
They've been punching out differentvariations on this theme for years.
- Yeah, another Cthulhu card game.
I said the Cthulhu card gameby Fantasy Flight as well.
- Right, then there'sbeen Archimhor that's
had several revisions,there's Elder Sign,

(06:34):
there's Manchin's of Madness,there's a bunch of them, right?
- Yes.
- They keep comingout with again and again,
but in my mind, I feel like Archimhor ofthe card game is the Apex evolution of it.
Like, it does the mostnarrative integration
with the mechanicsand does it in an elegant
format without a hugeamount of extra fiddly bits.
Lots of fiddly rules, butnot a lot of fiddly bits.

(06:56):
- Yeah, I think that's true inpart just because of chronology,
like all the games youmentioned came before this one.
- Okay, yeah.
Though Archimhor of ThirdEdition has came after this, - Correct.
- And it's borrowingsome mechanisms
from this, but I playthis a lot more than I
play Archimhor ofThird Edition, a lot more.

(07:17):
We're unfathomable.
- I still want to play more than that.
- That is bad.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
I know you're BattlestarGalactica, you know, to
the soul, but I want toplay more uncomfortable.
- You know, it's funnybecause Prime Video, I think,
just got a, at least thefirst season of it on there.
And, you know, they're saying,"Hey, you might be interested in this.
" I'm like, "Oh, youknow me so well.

(07:37):
" (laughing)
- You're talking aboutBattlestar Galactica.
- Yeah, yeah, but, you know, I'm BattlestarGalactica, because that's in our library.
You know, for folks that don'thave access to that game,
it's been out of print inthat format for a long time.
Unfathomable does a fine job of streamliningthat experience and bringing it forward.
- And for people who dislikesci-fi, it's a much better theme.

(07:59):
- Right, that's true too.
- Well, Cthulhu is an interesting theme.
Like, I know, you know, somepeople just don't care for it.
I absolutely love it, 'cause itgoes back to my early days
of gaming, but I know,like Greg in our group,
he's not in love withthe theme of Cthulhu.
He almost plays these gamesin spite of the theme, right?
They can be off-putting.
- Absolutely.
- Well, yeah, and how much do youlike getting punished in your game?
I mean, if this is a, in somecases, an escapist hobby, right?

(08:22):
I've got lots of real-worldhardships to deal
with, and I game becauseit's fun and relaxing,
and then I've got a game that justwants to beat me up all the time.
- Just like Lovecraft did.
- Yeah, well, we're atthe point when we turn
over a bad card, wejust laugh on how, like,
how bad could this get, like, we'realmost hoping to see how bad it gets.

(08:44):
- Yes, this is true, 'cause ifwe're not laughing, we're crying.
So beyond the evolution ofgames that got us to this point,
since it was released in 2016, it'salso seen at least one major revision.
I mean, there is a revised edition,but also in how it gets distributed.
Do we want to spend anytime talking about what used

(09:05):
to be the distributionmechanism versus what it
is now, or just state whatit is now and move on?
- I mean, absolutely.
I guess I'm going to talkabout it later, but-- - Let's do it.
Yeah, okay, I know whereyou're going with this.
- I would frequently get confused as to,what cycle does this mythos pack go to?
And I just, I hated the waythat they sold the mythos packs

(09:29):
are used to, I should say, but I'm sohappy they don't do that anymore, right?
- Well, we don't often get to saythis, but thank God for the pandemic,
'cause I think that was reallywhat helped push it along,
because Arkham Horrorwas rising in popularity
because we're, you know, it's a greatgame to be stuck at home with, right?
Solo or with a partner?
- 100%.
- A lot to explore.

(09:50):
And at that time, you could get maybeall but one of the Path to Carcosa cycle.
So it was really difficult,'cause you gotta buy seven
components to build a cycle,the core box and six mythos packs.
And they just weren't in stock,supply issues were a problem.
It was a nightmare to try to build acycle if you were trying to catch up.
- Because some were instock and some were not.

(10:11):
- Right, exactly.
So you might have three of the Carcosapacks and then you've got two forgotten age.
Now, Dream Eaters is coming out
and it's just, it was justso difficult to keep up with.
- Yeah, I mean, I was one of those people.
Arkham Horror of the Card Gamewas my most played game in 2021.
- Wow.
- Yeah, yeah.
And how often do we see sucha like customer friendly change?

(10:35):
And not that they were intendingto be so customer friendly,
but obviously this is easierfor fantasy flight games.
They have fewer.
- I would hope so.
So many less SKUs, right?
- Right, exactly.
You know, for one cycle, instead ofhaving seven SKUs, you've got two.
But now, instead of paying,what was it, 15 to 20 bucks
for each of those six components,plus the 25, 30 bucks for the core,

(10:57):
well, now you can justbuy the whole thing for
a hundred bucks orless at a discount site.
So it's saving the consumer money.
It's much, much easier.
So it's been great.
- It's just the Netflixversus Disney conundrum
where would you ratherget everything at once
or be forced to wait afew weeks in between?
- Yeah, and I don't know how many people
were actually playing thescenarios as they came out.

(11:19):
I certainly wasn't.
I was back filling them and it takesme so long to get through a campaign.
You know, I was two campaigns behind.
- Right.
- Well, what about the old style of,
you got one to two playersupport with one core set,
but you could play up to fourif you bought two core sets.
They also have changed that, right?
- Did they?
- They did.
- Yeah.

(11:40):
- So what does the new box say on it?
- It's one to four.
So it is the equivalent oftwo of the old core sets.
- I feel like the original corebox said one to two players
because that's whatthe game is designed for.
(laughing)- Yeah.
- And as designers, they're probably like,
hey, if you want to play with morethan two, you can, but that's on you.
(laughing)- Right.

(12:03):
Yeah, it's like when Subwaywas shocked that we were
actually eating both halvesof the footlong sandwich.
(laughing)
It's supposed to be for two people only.
Well, so you do run into someproblems even in two players.
So some of your investigatorswill use cards from another class.
So maybe you're running, Iforget what it is in the core set.

(12:24):
Maybe the seeker can usecards from the survivor class.
I think it is.
Well, if you're also running a survivor,
they're definitely gonnabe using those two lucky
cards, which is probablythe best survivor card.
That's definitely in their decks.
So now the seeker whocan borrow a few cards
from the survivor cardscannot use those lucky
cards unless you hadtwo cores at the time.

(12:44):
So it allows you to use some of those goodcards in both of your investigator decks.
- Do you know if theyalso double the number of
counters and othercomponents in the new box?
- I actually, I don't know.
I never thought about that.
- Okay.
- I'm not sure because youdo need a few more counters
when you're going tothree and four players.
We found out the other night.
We were really run and low.

(13:05):
Somebody was saving up.
You had a card, Paul, that wentto, you needed 12 resources.
There was ways to discount it.
We didn't even have 12 resources on thetable because we were all on our pocket.
So yeah, time to break out the iron clays.
And on the difference of theold style and the new style,
I think I was in the minorityin the online community for it.

(13:26):
I preferred that old style.
And it took me a whileto get my head around it
because when Android Netrunner firstcame out, remember that was the same way.
You could buy a coreset, but if you really want
to do well, you have tobuy a second core set.
And I was naive at the time.
I'm like, this is BS.
I don't don't make me buy another core set.
Just give you the whole game.
I got cycles to buy.

(13:47):
I got other things to buy.
Don't make me buy two core sets.
But in this case, that oldmodel that FFG used to do,
I look at it as, do youwant to try this game?
Well, here's an entrylevel, just something to try
for 30 bucks, 25 bucks,whatever you get it for.
And then if you like it, you can buy therest of the core set, just buy a second set.
- Right.
- Well, everybody complained about this.

(14:07):
Do I have to have two core sets like fine?
Just pay 60 bucks up front, you know?
There's no more getin at half price, you
know, and see if youwant to continue with it.
- I guess I'm split becausefor Android Netrunner,
I totally agree, just paythe 60 bucks up front.
But for Arkham Horror of the card game,I like that they split it in two boxes.
I think it makes sense.
- That's what I'm saying.
And like Legend of the FiveRings was on that same thing.

(14:29):
I bought one core set, I played it, Ienjoyed it, and I realized this isn't a game.
I'm going to get to the table alot, so I'm going to stop here.
It just gives you achance to dip your toe in.
There's a lot of contentin that half a box.
And if you think of it as half acore set, you're going to be fine.
But if you think of it asmaking me buy two core
sets, well, then you'rejust going to be bitter.
So they solved it by just charging 60 bucksfor the core set and shut up about it.

(14:50):
- Right, now you canonly jump in the whole hug.
- Yes, all right.
I want to go back and youmentioned the seeker class
and how it could borrowcards from the survivor class
or vice versa, and then maybethey both worked that way.
Is there a balance to the classes?
When we were playing the othernight, we didn't have a guardian.
And it turned out therewere so many fights,
and they were all really challengingfor us because we had no guardian.

(15:13):
So is there an ideal composition?
Is there one that you shouldalways at least include?
What are your thoughtson the various classes?
And there are five, right?
There are guardians, seekers,mystics, rogues, and survivors.
Is there a hierarchy here?
Go ahead, Paul.
- I really don't think so, butthere are bad combinations.
The seekers and roguesare generally poor fighters.

(15:36):
And so if you want to do fighting,having a pair that's a seeker and a rogue
is going to make thisscenario extremely hard.
But then again, there'sno crystal ball, right?
Once you've played thescenario, then you can realize, oh,
these are all the perfect charactercombinations for this scenario.
But before the fact,there's no way to know.

(15:56):
- Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Now, in general, itdepends on if you're playing
first a true solo with oneinvestigator, or if you're
playing a team, then youcan kind of balance out.
If you're playing true solo, youhave to be pretty good at everything.
And that's not just the class, butthat's also just how you build your deck.
You can make a clue absorbingsurvivor or something like that.
But I think in general forthe, to prepare for a scenario

(16:17):
you don't know, you musthave somebody that can fight
and you must havesomebody that can gather clues.
- Agreed.
- They might throw otherthings at you, but those are key.
So at its core, if you don't know whatyou're up against, a guardian and a seeker,
that's usually almost the like,the tonic ideal of you going in.
- My personal preference is a survivorand a seeker, but it's the same idea.

(16:40):
- A fighter and they call them clovers.
Like a hoover, somebodythey can hoover clues.
- Sink a fighter and a clover.
- Yeah, but then you, you know,they, of course the designers know this
and then they throw in ascenario where you really
have to do well and will toget through this scenario.
So if you don't have a mystic,you could have some trouble.
So right, you know, it's a form that theyset up and then start bending as you go.

(17:02):
- So I want to hear your confessions here.
How often do you allowyourself to replay a scenario?
Like if you fail, do you just moveforward or do you allow yourself to go back
without restarting the entire cycle,campaign, whatever you want to call it?
- For me, it depends how close we were.
If it's an epic fail, then I am sounsatisfied that I have to replay it.

(17:24):
But if it's like, oh, we were soclose, we failed at the very final inch.
Then I'm like, okay, let'ssee what the designers intend
for us to do and what'sgoing to happen going forward.
- You know, there's actually a goodvibe in the online community about this
is that most people will admitthey flood things here and there.

(17:46):
And even the hardcore players arelike, the point of the game is to have fun.
And we know it's a punishing game.
And if you're in the thirdscenario and you're taking
like four trauma, you'rejust not going to have fun
for the next fourscenarios to get out of
this campaign, replayit, flood it, have fun.
It's your game and your experience.
So accept punishment, but at thesame time, don't make it miserable.

(18:09):
- Yeah, I completely agree with that.
But it did feel a little, I'mnot dirty, but you know, it felt
a little wrong saying, oh, I'vegot to go back and replay this
because we got it handedto us in this last scenario.
And can't you have investigators die?
- Yeah.
- And then you can, thenyou have to pick another class
that wasn't in therebefore and bring them in.
And now they don't have this, huh?

(18:30):
- That's a drag.
- Yeah, yeah, that's all a drag.
The other part that stillstands out is like you
only have that first timethrough experience once.
The genuine, I'm going to be surprisedand have to figure out the puzzles.
You only get that experience once.
And so that's the flip side of, doI allow myself to replay anything?
Because now I have advancedknowledge and it's like,
oh, well, I'm going to sendmy secret down to the basement

(18:52):
because there is goingto be clues down there.
I'm going to send myguardian up to the attic
because I knowthere's a fight up there.
You know, that sort of thing.
- Yeah.
There are a few scenarios thatreally open up on a second play.
I've done it with, they have a fewtimes where we replayed a scenario.
It was like, we don'tremember this at all last time.
- Where do you ask them from?

(19:13):
So there are several scenarios thathave that discovery more than once.
- Well, because they branch,you know, some scenarios you
can get to the end by findingthe science to do something.
I'm thinking of specificallythe Miskatonic University one.
It's like, you can go to the lab and getthe potion and that'll get you through.
Or you can just go tothe dorms to protect the
students and just putup a stand and fight.

(19:33):
So there's the story branches.
And so every time you play it,you might get a different experience.
- Right.
- And sometimes, you know, I've just rifledthrough a scenario where I got lucky,
I got all my clues andI'm over in 20 minutes.
Like I don't feel like I really gotinto the depths of that scenario.
So next time through, it's a whole newexperience 'cause I hadn't seen most of it.
- That makes sense.
And I agree with the branching.

(19:54):
Have you ever intentionally taken a branchthat you know you didn't take previously?
- Oh yeah, for sure.
- Can I like flipping back to theChoose Your Own Adventure book
to the previous decision andthen picking the other one?
- Yeah.
- It's playing solo, justlike I read those books solo.
(laughing)- Yeah.
- All right, so this game has been out.
It was originally released in 2016

(20:14):
and there has been just amassive volumes of content
that have been releasedfor it in different cards.
And these TCGs or you know, LCGs, as faras you can get every card that's out there,
it can be daunting to getstarted and understand how do I
do the deck building andhow do I keep track of all this?

(20:34):
The deck building, the metaaspect of the game is almost as
much time, if not more, thanactually playing the scenarios.
What do you guys use to make that easier?
- I am a big fan of thewebsite ArkhamDB.
com and that is a site wherepeople will build decks and it
has all the cards listed soyou can go look at the cards.
If there's comments onthe cards, people say I like

(20:56):
comboing this with that orhere's what's good about the card
and gives you ways to think of what a cardmight do that you maybe hadn't thought of.
But then you can goon there and build a
deck, save the deckand then put it out there
for other people to lookat to comment on the deck.
And it's just such a great resource.
You know, deck building can be daunting.
You know, I've donea lot of it, I'm okay at it,
but at the same time, sometimes I justwant to play and like, give me a good deck.

(21:19):
So I'll go on there, I'lllook for a popular deck,
I'll read the write up on itand say, yeah, I'll give it a go.
I'm gonna try their littlescheme with this deck
and they even will have anupgrade path or something like that.
So it can take the deckbuilding out of the game
and just give you achance to go in and enjoy it.
So it's a fantastic resource.
And most of the card gameslike this have a, you know,
Marvel DB or Lord of theRings, the card game DB.

(21:41):
So most of them have this deckbuilding website that fans have made.
- Okay, that's cool.
- Yeah, I myself have spentvery little time building decks.
I just crib them from that website.
(laughing)
- There's an app that I have loaded.
I think it connects to itand that's Arkham cards.
Yes.
- Oh yeah, that's a good app.
- Arkham DB, I mean Arkhamcards doesn't really do any
deck building for you, butjust that it syncs with that.

(22:04):
So you can find them on Arkham DB.
But Arkham cards is a campaign tracker.
And I don't even get thelittle booklets out anymore.
I track my entire campaign log,read the verbiage campaign set up.
That's all in that app.
- Save so much time.
- Yeah, it's so great.
It even has a chaos bag,which will get into that.
You were jingling your chaos bag earlier.

(22:24):
(laughing)
- It was this sound.
- Right, well, and you've got the, we'llsay essential coin capsules on there.
I mean, if you're going to staywith your original components,
these cardboard chips will work out reallyquickly if you just put those in a bag,
which you have to alsoprovide your own bag, right?
- Yeah, that is my biggestgripe with the game.

(22:46):
(laughing)
Why do you include somethingto draw these chips out of?
Come on.
- Well, that goes to the, I guess ArkhamHorror of the board game was like that too,
'cause I remember a friendof mine and I used to play
and we would put allthe chaos tokens into a
gravy boat, which we callthe gravy boat of doom,
and that's where you wouldreach in to find out your fate.

(23:06):
- Yeah, I would use redcups when I was in college.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
I either through my ownacquisition or through friends,
had a supply of Crown Royalbags, and so I would always just
grab one of those off theshelf and throw it into a box.
(laughing)
- The Crown Royal of doom.
- Yes, Knivesky and gaminghand in hand since the '70s.

(23:29):
(laughing)
- I mean, since prohibition, right?
- Yeah, I guess so.
Wow, which is an appropriatetimeframe for this game?
- But yeah, so you're right.
The coin capsules, or youcan buy acrylic components,
a la quacks of Kedlenburgor something like that,
but just the base cardboard tokensthrown into a bag or a cup, not satisfying.

(23:51):
Just they're gonna wear out for sure.
You need a solution ratherthan what comes in the box.
- Right, there is a rule inthe Arkham Horror games,
and I believe it carriedover into this one too, right?
The Grim Rule, whichbasically says, if ever you get
into a situation where youthink the outcome is unclear,
you pick the option thatis the worst for the players.

(24:13):
Just how evil is that rule?
- No, it's a kindness.
'Cause look, what it's doingis keeping the game moving.
It's like, don't get caught up diggingthrough your rulebook, looking for a solution.
Just pick whatever's worse and move on.
- Yeah, I only recall using itonce when I was playing with Dave.
- Yeah, the rules are surprisingly clear.

(24:35):
The verbiage is very specific on thecards, and as everything comes out,
there are sometimes in any game like thiswhere you have massively growing content,
that there are gonna be some confusionswith timing and things like that.
And rather than get bogged down in it,
just choose the timing thatworks a little bit against you
and just move on and keepplaying and having fun with the game.
- Interesting.

(24:55):
Okay, you know, when you saythe rules are surprisingly clear,
I mean, they're settingup the framework for
the game, and I wouldagree that that is clear
and they describe how theicons are going to interact.
But my experience withactually playing the game is it can
be super fiddly, and that'sbecause each of the scenarios
is implementing itsown little twist on things.

(25:16):
And suddenly it's like,oh wait, did I forget that?
We've got this other thing in play
that came off of the encounterdeck or something like that.
Like there are all theselittle things that crop up
or when we were playing machinations,it was like, oh, we're supposed to start up
by putting a horror onthese cards, but we didn't
understand why, andthen another term came up,
and we didn't understand yetwhy that term was being used.
And there's a lot of that,especially on your first

(25:38):
time through a scenariowhere there's just unfamiliarity
and you're not going to get clarificationfrom the rules, from the framework,
because the rules you're concernedabout have not been introduced to you yet.
- I definitely agree that it isconfusing and overwhelming,
but I also agree with Dave in thatit's clear if you know where to look.
(laughing)

(25:58):
The writers, the rules writersdid an excellent job with this game.
- Absolutely, when theyintroduce a new word in a cycle
like peril, and now foreverwe can use this word peril.
And once you understand what those mean,
and you've got the book where you can lookthrough, or I'm constantly just, you know,
arc and horror peril onmy phone while we're
playing, and the rulewill come up for me.

(26:19):
So there are a lot of thosedetails, like what is a persistent yet,
or I forget what the cardsare that stay in front of
you all the time, likecharisma or something like that.
So yeah, there are enough things like thatto where it can start to feel overwhelming,
and even at this late inthe game, I'm still constantly
Googling like, wait, whatdoes this mean again?
- That's the dynamic I'mreally referring to, is like,

(26:41):
this is a game whereresearch is a component of it.
And unfortunately, it's notresearch in the investigator sense.
It is literally researching,what is this gonna mean here?
It's like, you need a compendium tohave all this information in one place,
which if you areplaying off of just the
physical componentsalone, it's not there, right?
The rule books I have from 2016
don't have terms thatwere introduced later.

(27:03):
- That's right.
And there's also taboos.
- Oh, right.
So some cards you have from 2016might not be, but again, it's your game.
When Paul and I were playing,we were aware of the taboo list,
but we would just playthe cards as written.
- Right, because I think, I mean, at leastfor me, let's talk about the taboo list.
For me, the taboo list applies when Iam combining cards from different cycles.

(27:25):
- Right, yeah.
- When Dave and I played,we decided to play as if it
was the period of time whenthose cycles were released.
And so we just played with the cards as theywere, and we didn't grab into the future
to pull cards and make ourinvestigators more powerful.
- And that's why we ignored the taboo list.
- Got it.
And then I ignore the taboo listjust because I'm not that robust

(27:47):
in my understandingof the game's limitations.
I play the game that I have, andthe game that I have includes cards
that are old and have sincebeen retired, but that's okay.
- Yeah, I think the taboo listonly really applies for conventions.
- Right, right.
If you're playing in somesort of organized setting,
or I don't know if there are competitiveoptions, but something like that,
you have to have a, you know,'cause of power creep and all these,

(28:10):
you know, there is nothingcompetitive about this game.
(laughing)
- That's what I think.
That's why I was doing there isn't, right?
- You got beat up less badlythan the other people, well done.
- What about the balance?
Do you wanna talk about balance?
- Sure.
- What do you mean by balance, Paul?
- So we mentioned it a little bitbefore, but every turn each investigator

(28:32):
is gonna draw a mythos card, andthen they're gonna get three actions
to deal with it and progresstowards the goals of that scenario.
If you have to spend allthree of your actions dealing
with the mythos card,you're not progressing at all.
And if you can ignore themythos card or deal with
it easily, then you'readvancing quite quickly.

(28:53):
So I feel like this game is at its bestwhen you're only advancing just enough.
If it's too difficult or too easy, thenyou end up not having much fun.
- Yes.
- And I think that's the cruxof the design of this game.
- Mm, which is amazing when it works.
- Yes.
- But you're right, youget three actions per turn.

(29:14):
And so if you draw a mythos card,
will this happen to us whenwe play the other night?
We drew a monster thathad a health of seven.
- I was gonna bring that up.
- Yeah.
- That is even though I had a spellin play that I could do two damage.
I used all of my actions andgot it down to one hit point.
Did nothing to advance the story.
Didn't move my location.

(29:34):
I accomplished nothingexcept for hurting this creature.
And it really hurt the tempo.
And I think Meghan came over andfinished it off or she did whatever it was.
Yeah, so we had to work together on that.
But yeah, Paul's right, when you draw amythos card, then sometimes you do get lucky.
You draw a mythos card and like, hey, thisis meaningless to me or it's a will check.
And my will is, you know, through the roof.
So it's easy and it's out of the game.

(29:54):
But then sometimes you draw that card thatjust, you know, is a kick in the pants.
- So then is the right approachto determine which mythos
cards you can either ignoreor absorb their damage.
Otherwise you're fleeingfrom them and you're trying to
get out of the scenario andyou just leave them unresolved.
- As a player, that is the strategic goal.

(30:14):
Yes, it's about action efficiency.
But as a designer, lookingat this game's mechanics
and design, I think theideal experience is when you
have just a little bit ofplay to advance the story.
- Yeah, no, the bestgames were you fought hard
and you barely made itbecause you hadn't just enough.

(30:36):
- Exactly.
I mean, it shouldn't be easy to defeat
an interdimensional, galactic,evil, world-eating entity, right?
- Right.
But sometimes it is.
(both laughing)
- All right, well, then let'smove on to the prompts.
Wait in complexity on boardgame geeks scale of one to five.

(30:57):
How would you rate the weightof Arkham Horror, the card game?
Paul, you can lead us off.
- I rate it a four.
This game is very hard to learn, especiallyif you haven't played anything similar.
I tried to teach my wife and shejust flipped the table, basically.
(both laughing)
- Dave, it's definitely a five for me isthat there is a lot of rules overhead.

(31:21):
Like I said, we're stillthis late in the game.
Looking up, what does this particularkeyword mean or something like that?
And if you don't have somebodywho knows the game well, who
can run the bureaucracy, youcan really get bogged down on,
the steps are clear as yougo through the mythos phase,
the investigator phase,the enemy phase, all that.
All that is really well done in therule book and on the cards themselves.

(31:43):
But it can just, thebureaucracy and everything
can really start tofeel overwhelming.
And then beyond that, like wesaid, with the punishing scenarios,
well, you also have toknow how to play your deck.
You have to understandthat, okay, I've got a deck that
makes me, you know, thegrave digger shovels so I could,
grave digger so I can pullthings out of my discard pile
and what's the magic in this deckthat I can make it do what I need to do?

(32:04):
And that's a whole other leveland there's 30, I don't know, 40
different characters, maybe 50investigators you can choose from
and near infinite numbers of decks you canbuild and being able to make those decks
sing, you know, to, youknow, run through a campaign.
It just takes a lot of overhead.
- Absolutely.
I had this down as a for as well.

(32:25):
So we all rated it high interms of weight and complexity.
And my focus was onthe complexity of the game
and that it's easy to overlook somethingin a scenario as we've already discussed.
And at least with myowning the original core sets,
the rule books are notset up for easy fact finding.
So I'm always having to rely on otheroutside resources to answer questions.

(32:46):
And if you have to do that in a game,
automatically the complexityis getting ratcheted up.
But then you have all of those gameplaydecisions that you brought up Dave.
So yeah, I think you can actuallydefend a five very well also.
- Yeah, I subscribe to thepage on Board Game Geek
and I get notifications literally everyday on somebody asking a rules question.
Somebody who's new tothe game or has been playing

(33:06):
for a while like, whatdo I do in this situation?
And there's a group of saints out there,
just heroes of the gamewho it's the same, you know,
10 guys who show up or,you know, guys and girls
who show up and answer the questions, eventhough it's been asked 40 times already.
But here's where it is in the rule book.
Here's what you do in that situation.
And it's, you know, very helpful community.
But the fact that literallydaily people are asking

(33:28):
rules questions, that'sanother level of complexity.
- Right. And what's theturnaround time on that, right?
If you assume thatthere's a game that is
unpause, waiting forour response, that's ours.
- Yeah.
- Well, that's when you use the grim rule.
- That's when you use the grim rule.
- Exactly.
- That's right.
That's why it's there.
- Yeah.
- Maybe it is a kindness.
So strategy on the same scale, one to five.

(33:50):
How much strategy do youthink there is in this game?
- For me, it's a three.
- One mistake canbasically kill your character.
(laughing)
Deck building, super important.
But winning comes down to how you react
to the luck of the cards,which is not strategic.
So to me, strategy comesto play in recognizing

(34:11):
which tests are must win and all the otherones that you can just take a chance on.
- All right.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I would say a three.
There's some basic tenets of strategy.
You know, get your assets into play.
Your items, your allies that you wantto do that in the beginning of the game.
So you're geared up and ready to go.
And then it's tacticallychoosing your path as you go.

(34:32):
So and understand themakeup of the chaos bag.
To know that you draw into that chaos bag
on a skill check and it'sgoing to give you a modifier
to help, you know, plus or minus asto whether you might achieve this skill.
Knowing that if I'm at plus two, thenI have a 60% chance of succeeding.
Or do I need to go to plusthree and just understanding

(34:52):
the makeup of the bag, verysimple kind of strategic stuff.
So strategy is light, butthat doesn't mean it's easy.
- Right.
I also had it as a three.
I think the strategy cameinto the deck building portion
of the game and understandingwhat it is you're trying to accomplish.
And you were setting out a long range goal
with that composition,but then you're letting it run
and you're hoping for thebest and often getting the worst.

(35:14):
And so it's not completelystrategy at that point.
There is a fair amount ofchaos that's being introduced,
which means luck onthe scale of one to five.
And you've got to dealwith this sound, right?
And are you going to draw that one coin
that's got the tentacleson it that tells you, yeah,
you automatically loseregardless of how much

(35:35):
advantage you thoughtyou brought into it.
In my brain, this game,you can try to do a lot
to mitigate luck, but itcan never be completely
mitigated and thatbag of doom, lux of four.
And it's a gloriouspart of the game for me.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
What do you guys think?
- Well, I'll go and say,I'm thinking luck is a three.
I mean, really your question Ithink should be not how much

(35:57):
luck plays a factor, but howmuch does bad luck play a factor?
Because that's the onlyluck that you're recognizing
in the game because ofthe nature in the game.
- Sure.
- You know, you rarelyare you putting yourself
into a position where like,oh, look, I drew a plus two.
Like I got lucky and got the right thing.
More often, you're just trying to mitigatethat bad luck that could happen to you.

(36:17):
And really drawing into thatbag I mean, if you're just willy-nilly,
going after your skill checksand drawing into the bag,
it feels lucky, butreally you can calculate,
I've got a 75% chance that75% of those tokens mean I pass.
And that's very calculable becauseyou should know what's in the bag
and you know you're coming in atplus three or plus one or whatever it is.
So it feels lucky because those badluck times when you draw that tend to fail,

(36:40):
that's the one thing you'regonna remember from that game.
So the thing is is theluck is not constant,
but when it hits, you feel itand you remember it forever.
So there's definitely a selection bias.
Yes, that's what it is.
- So I thought about this question a lot
and it really comes downto how you define winning.
If you define winning as getting thebest outcome, then the luck is high.

(37:04):
However, that's notwhat this game is about.
And so I rate luck as a two.
- Okay.
- A game allows you to carry oneven if you fall unconscious or go crazy
and that mitigates the luck tosomething minor, in my opinion.
- Yeah, I like that a lot.
That's a great point.
It's when you get out of themindset of winning and losing,

(37:24):
which we talked aboutin the beginning a little bit,
when you get into the mindset ofjust, this is what happens in the story.
- Yeah, you're a character in a story.
- Yes, then there is no luck.
There's just what is.
This is what happens.
This is how the story goes.
- Did you survive your loner scene?
(both laughing)
- Nope, not a main character.
(both laughing)

(37:47):
All right, then theme.
How much do we think the themehas been integrated into this game?
- I mean, never wasthere a game more themy.
It's a five.
I mean, not only doesthe theme integrate so well,
I mean, when thedesigners are doing things
like, a perfect exampleis the aloof keyword,
is that there's a scenariowhere you're in a casino,

(38:07):
the pit bosses are enemiesthat kind of roam the casino
and they're aloof, meaningthey're not gonna attack you,
you're not attackingthem, they're not hurting
you, they're just kindof walking around.
But when they're in yourvicinity, there's certain things
you can't do because they'relooking over your shoulder.
And just this idea of analoof enemy roaming the thing,
it works out thematically soperfectly by just having that keyword.

(38:28):
And there's countless of theseideas that they put into the games
and how this affectsthe way the game plays.
It's through the roof, right?
- Yeah, I think it stands on theshoulders of the games that came before it.
And like we talked aboutbefore, it's the pinnacle.
So I rated a five and it's theprimary reason I play this game.
- Well, on that Paul, so I was just,I'm always behind in my podcast.

(38:50):
So I was just recentlylistening to your guys's
obsession podcast,which I'm really loving.
I'm not done with it yet.
And I love Paul'scomment is that, you know,
when going to five, hesays he'd rated a bunch
of other games at theme five andobsession has more theme than even those.
So it must go to six.
So.
(laughing)
I mean, if those games are only five

(39:11):
and this is more themy,where do you go from there?
So obsession compared to ArkhamHorror, what do you think theme wise?
- For me, obsession justconnects with me better.
That's why I said that.
But yeah, Arkham Horror is superpolished, well integrated theme.
- So I remember on oneof the earlier podcasts,
I mentioned that there was the18-17 rule when it comes to complexity.

(39:35):
(laughing)
It was the rule.
I know the reference, but with the rule.
- Just the fact that there's agame out there called 18-17,
it is a five and therefore, incomparison, everything else must be less.
(laughing) Yeah.
And I think in that one, Paul was like,
oh, that one's a six oran 11, something like that.
(laughing)
And I would say that Arkham Horror,the card game is the 18-17 of theme, right?

(40:01):
I would say it's even better thanobsession, but it's a close race.
- Or terrifying of ours?
- I don't think terrifyingMars has as much
theme and it's everywhereand yet this is more.
The way that the actdeck and the agenda deck
are creating this narrativeexperience that's interactive
and you are revealing itas you go and it's masterful.

(40:24):
This is the reference Cthulhu experience.
This is theme on steroids, it's fantastic.
- It can be, it usually is,but sometimes it's not.
- Okay.
- If you draw the cards in thewrong order or the bag hates you,
it can just feel like anexercise in self-torture.
- A utility, yeah, a utility, yeah.

(40:44):
- Well, and then thenarrative that's created,
the fact that we still talk about storylines from when we played before,
whenever we played the Excelsior Hotel andwhen it Greg just went up to a hotel room
and just started shot gunning theguests, like he became the bad guy.
(laughing)
I don't even remember the details, but just a...- Let's remember that event.
- That's even happening.

(41:04):
- Yeah, or it's not from the card game,but from Arkham Horror of the Board Game,
I remember it, which, you know, thematicallyfits very close to this, obviously.
I remember a time whenwe were just getting beaten,
I think Megan and I weregetting beaten up by monsters.
Todd jumps into a carthat he finds across town,
comes flying across town,runs over the monsters,
steps out like the Terminator with theChicago typewriter and just mows 'em down.

(41:26):
I just, I'll never forget thosemoments that these stories
that these games create,they're just, they're so fantastic.
- I agree.
So then what's your favoriteplayer count for this game?
It plays one to four.
I think this is gonna bean interesting discussion.
What do you find to be the best playeraccount for Arkham Horror of the Card Game?
Is it gonna be interesting?
(laughing)
- For me, the best player count is one.

(41:50):
- Oh, maybe it will be interesting.
- I thought one of youwas gonna do it, that's why.
- This is my favorite solo non-video game.
And yeah, like we talked about,
it reminds me of theold "Choose Your Own
Adventure" novels orrole-playing video games.
- Okay, so Dave, what did you have?
- Well, I agree with that.
This is my favorite solo gaming experience.
In fact, before this game, I would nothave considered myself a solo gamer.

(42:13):
I would rather go play avideo game or read a book
than sit down and even my good sologames, I would never play them solo.
This is the first time where I loveto play it solo and I do all the time.
But to me, my favorite playercount by a mile is two player.
Having that jointexperience with a friend and
laughing and crying togetheras we go through the game.

(42:34):
Because when I play solo, I don'tplay true solo, which is one investigator.
I don't enjoy that.
I don't like the balancedeck you have to build.
I will only play two-handedsolo, so two investigators.
So the game rolls outthe same as two player.
I'm just, I'm doing it by myself,I'm doing all the bureaucracy.
So for me, that's the onlyway I wanna play the game.
But having another person do itwith you is just, it's by a mile for me.

(42:59):
- Right.
And you got the same answerI did for those same reasons.
I love playing it with a second person.
And the other side of it is, Iknow that everything scales, right?
So a lot of times you're gonna haveget so many clues per investigator.
And so as you add moreinvestigators, it gets harder.
You have to acquire moreclues and it scales out.
Yeah, you have more actions, butyou're also drawing another mythos card.

(43:23):
And so that's, you know, the encounterdecks getting more overwhelming.
Two feels like the perfectbalance between all of those things.
So if I was playing solowith two investigators
or better yet, playing a twoplayer game, which is my favorite,
then the balance between difficultyand experience and time is spot on.
- Agree.
- So then what's yourleast favorite player count?

(43:44):
And I think we're probably gonnabe unanimous on this, but maybe not.
- Nine?
(laughing)- Oh my gosh.
- I picked multiple players.
- Yeah, that goes to 12.
- Okay.
- But yeah, I feel like the game
was originally packaged anddesigned for one or two players.
And so taking it to three or four justadds way too much downtime and chaos.

(44:09):
- Right.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Again, four by a mile.
- Yeah.
- It's so long.
It's, you know, you gotta come up with16 clue tokens to get past this pointer.
It's long and arduousand just lots of downtime.
It really drags and reallymakes a great game boring.
- Agreed.
By the way, I also had it at four.
So totally agree four is too many.

(44:30):
Five is right out.
(laughing)
- So actual playing time, theoriginal box said 60 to 120 minutes.
And that actually got revisedwith the revised edition.
So what are your thoughts on playing time?
- It's really scenario-dependent.
So I can paint with a broad brushand say it's about 45 minutes per player,

(44:51):
but some scenarios are halfthat time and some are double.
- Right.
Maybe 45 minutes per investigator.
So when I play solo, I almost perfectlycome in at 90 minutes every time.
Now, of course, there are some times
where I just, you getdestroyed and by turn
three, those are muchshorter games, you know,
took you longer to set it upand tear it down than to play.

(45:11):
But for the most part, a standard scenario,I'm you generally coming in at 90 minutes.
Whether I'm playing, youknow, two player or by myself
with two investigators, itcomes in at 90 minutes.
Three to four player forsome reason is five hours.
I don't know what it just addingthat extra player, it goes forever.
- Right.
I would agree with 45minutes per investigator,

(45:32):
which gives you arange of 90 to 180, right?
If you're assuming that you're notplaying true solo with one investigator.
So the original box was 50%underrepresented in its playing time,
which is exactly what theyposted on the revised edition.
So the revised edition says 90 to 180.
And I think that's actually spot on.
So which edition of the game is the best?
So we really only havetwo to choose between here.

(45:52):
We have the originalor we have the revised.
Two core sets, one bigbox, but different changes
that have been incorporatedinto the revised edition.
Do you have an impression here?
- I mean, we already talked about it.
I hated the old mythos packs.
So now that I could buythe game without figuring out
which mythos pack goes towhich cycle, I'm much happier.

(46:12):
- Right.
Yeah, for sure, the new distribution style.
But as far as the core sets, I mean, Iguess we could revise the old saying
it's two half dozens inone or 12 in the other.
I guess we could put it that waythat, the revised core really is,
I think there was somechanges to some of the artwork,
but basically it's exactlytwo of the old core sets.

(46:33):
So it really isn't different.
If you have two old core sets, don't wasteyour money and go buy a revised core.
It's the same thing.
So revised core is what's available.
Go ahead and get it, eventhough I preferred the old style.
If you could get your hands on onefor 25 bucks, try that way to get in.
- Right, yeah, I agree.
I would say that there are someorganizational changes which are nice.

(46:54):
So there's definitelyno need to go out of your
way to find the oldversion is what I'm saying.
Is that the current availablerevised edition is great.
Go with that.
So expansions.
Now on the game page on board gamegeek, including all of the promo cards.
So this number is gonnabe artificially inflated.
There are 108 expansions to this game.

(47:15):
We're not gonna cover them all.
What I'd like to know iswhat was your favorite cycle?
Dave?
- My favorite is probablythe path to Carcosa.
And I just have a lotof familiarity with it.
I played it so many times.
And it's just, it's solid through andthrough pretty much every scenario.
I'm getting a little tired of the story'cause I've played it so many times.
But when you're looking at thecycles and actually I forgot to count,

(47:35):
what do we have to eight cycles,nine cycles or something like that?
There really isn't a stinker in the bunch.
I think the dream eaters is probably theleast favorited, but people still love it.
And then path to Carcosa and the forgottenage are always the most favorited.
And I would probably agree with that.
I'm happy with everyonethat I've played so far.
It's just, there's not a bad choice.

(47:57):
Except for the stand-alones.
Now we could talk about that here.
- Sure.
- We have not been havingany luck with the stand-alones
'cause we try to playthem at three and four
player and they justeat up so much time.
And maybe we're notgiving them a fair shake.
We need to set aside like allday Saturday to try to play it.
We're trying to squeeze it in ona Monday night before 10 o'clock.
But I'm not enjoying thevast scope of the stand-alones

(48:20):
where it's gonna betwo, three, four hours.
It's, I don't know if that's my shortcoming
or if it's just, it's not whatI'm looking for in the game.
- I would say it's not whatI'm looking for in the game.
I don't sit down and intend to play oneof the cycles front to back in one sitting.
What's kind of great about himis it's broken up into scenario.
So I'm gonna do this,I'm gonna work on the
next one and I can takethat at my own pace.

(48:42):
Whereas the stand-alone,you're expecting to sit down
and well, it may not be the entirecycle, which used to be eight scenarios.
And if you're playing those in anhour and a half, that's 12 hours of play.
So even if they gave you half the content
as what's in a cycle, that'sstill sitting down for six hours.
- Yeah.
- That's a lot of timeto dedicate to that style
of game, especiallysix hours of punishment.

(49:04):
So Paul, what was yourfavorite cycle in the expansions?
- Well, my favorite play was murder atthe Excelsior Hotel that Dave mentioned.
And that's primarilybecause one of our players
went full role-playingand he started using
the police badge cardthat he played as a prop
to deliver lines like, "I amthe law and stop the police.

(49:25):
" (laughing)
- Way to go, Frank.
- It was amazing, yeah.
But I think my favoritecycle has been the first one
done with Legacy and that'sbecause the story's solid.
I really enjoy the characters and thecards that they released with it as well.

(49:46):
- Right.
- And it's not too muchextra rules overhead.
- Right, that's true too.
So Pat the Carcoso was the nextcycle after the done with Legacy.
And I don't know if that was just, whenI was playing this game consistently,
where I was in my understanding of the game,I was like hitting everything in stride.
It felt like thedevelopers hit their stride.
I had the best experiencewith that particular cycle.

(50:09):
And every since I've goneback and played a couple more,
there has been some element of, "Oh,I've got to re-familiarize myself with it.
" 'Cause I didn't staycurrent or fresh on the game.
So I have the fondestmemories of Pat the Carcoso.
But I wasn't surprisedDave Uni said that it and
Forgotten Age are the twomost favoriteed of the batch.
- They're also great.

(50:29):
- So most recognizablecomparison, what's the highest
ranking game that remindsyou the most of this one?
Dave, I'll give you thecourtesy of First Choice here.
- I was gonna say, I'll go last.
So I picked three just so I'mcovered if you guys get my answers.
- I've got two, so I'll let Paul go first.
- Yeah, I couldn't decide between ArkhamHorror and Android Netrunner actually.
And I guess I'll talkabout Android Netrunner.

(50:51):
Android Netrunner took an old game
and re-themed it to theFantasy Flight Android universe.
But they changed thegame to give every player
a starting card that defined whotheir character or corporation was,
and then add in some uniquepowers and abilities that they could do.

(51:13):
And also on the backside of that card,
tell them how they can buildtheir deck in a special way.
And Arkham Horror the cardgame did the same exact thing.
And I think that is one of the main things
that elevates it above all thecard games that came before it.
It really puts you into a frame of mind

(51:34):
that I am this characterand I love that about it.
- Nice, such a good game.
We're gonna have to do anepisode on that one at some point.
- For sure.
- But I feel like there's a lot morepreparation I'm gonna have to do for that.
Okay, so Dave, I'll go second.
And I was conflicted onwhich way to go for this one.
Do I go with the Cthulhutheme or do I go with

(51:54):
the deck constructionfor storytelling purposes?
I'll go with Cthulhu and then we'llsee what you have for your choice.
So for me, that would be Mansionsof Madness and specifically
the Second Edition, which wasan improvement over the first.
The first was good.
The second is great because it added an app
that took care of a lot of thebookkeeping and bureaucracy.
And it just got you downto dealing with the story

(52:18):
and the tasks and solving thepuzzles to get through that experience.
So Mansions of Madness, Second Editionis my pick here for most recognizable.
- I'll be honest, I constantly confuseElder Sign and Mansions of Madness.
One of them to me felt likepandemic, but Cthulhu Mythos.
Is that right?
- Well, no, pandemic and CthulhuMythos is Arkham Horror Third Edition.

(52:41):
- Well, sort of, no, but there was onevery much so 'cause you have outbreaks.
- But one of them has a world map.
It's been so long.
That was back in Bloomingtonwhen we were playing.
- That is neither Elder Sign or Mansionsof Madness that would be Eldritch Horror.
- Yes, Eldritch Horror,that's pandemic, but Cthulhu.
- Right.

(53:01):
- Yes, those all run together for me.
I don't have a ton of experience with them.
Well, since you'retaking those, then you
guys didn't even touchinto my three choices.
I could have used themall, but I'm gonna go
with Marvel Champions,which I think is an obvious comp.
- Right.
- It is, you know, a lotof similar mechanisms.
It is not, the overheadis not as intensive.
The deck building is a little bit easier,

(53:21):
although there's still MarvelChampions, DB or whatever it is.
There is a website whereyou can find decks to use.
They've started incorporatingsome campaign style boxes,
but they're not as fluid orcohesive as the Arkham Horror ones,
but there is some carryoverfrom one scenario to the neck,
some decisions you makeearly do carry with you.

(53:42):
So it incorporates that a little bit,
but obviously the superherotheme versus Arkham Horror theme,
but under the hood,they're very, very similar.
- Right.
Yeah, I considered that one.
- Yeah.
Well, Marvel Champions isa lot more pick up and play.
We could just pick upand play a game right now.
The thing with ArkhamHorror is if we play right now,
we also have to scheduleseven more times in the
future that we're goingto get together and play.

(54:03):
And that's a little difficult.
- Agreed.
All right.
So what's your lessrecognizable comparison?
So Dave, you can go for us this time.
- Well, I already toldyou guys in chat before,
I'm going to go with EarthborneRangers, which is up and coming.
It's only a matter of timebefore it hits the top 750.
So if we recorded this a year from now,
we might have to be one of themore recognizable comparisons.

(54:23):
But, you know, theEarthborne Rangers is from
some of the originaldesigners of Arkham Horror.
And there are definite similarities inhow it comes together and how it plays out.
But it is a new, fantastic wayto do this sort of storytelling.
And it's not so conflict heavy.
It's, you know, very quest driven, is thatinstead of like fighting these beasties,

(54:47):
maybe we need to go fishing, 'causewe need to get some food for the village.
Or maybe, you know, there'ssome elk in the countryside.
And we need to movethese elk, or we need to make
friends with them becausethey're afraid of something.
And it's just, they're getting so creativeon the types of stories that can be told.
And it's such more of a lived-inexperience and we're not where

(55:07):
you've got ghouls creepingover your shoulder at every turn.
I'm pretty new to thegame, but as I play it,
it's giving me a lot of theArkham Horror experience.
Maybe without the anxiety of it.
But I mean, in a good way,anxiety, but it's fantastic.
Paul, how about you?
What did you have for yourless recognizable comparison?
I mean, I could just double down and saysystem gateway, but I am gonna pick unlock,

(55:31):
which is kind of a fudgebecause there are unlocks
that are more recognizable andunlocks that are less recognizable.
But unlock, with an exclamation mark,
is a kind of escape roomgame based on a deck of cards.
So it's a cooperativegame and you start
often with just a singlecard in front of you.
And then you have to find clues on thatcard that allow you to turn over new cards.

(55:55):
And the new cards build a map muchin the way that you do in Arkham Horror.
Okay.
And you cooperate withother players to be observant
and use outside the boxthinking to continuously find clues.
And then it requires an app to play.
And so it will tell you how toproceed and some of the gateways

(56:20):
that you have to pass requirecodes that you have to type in.
And those codes canbe solved just from the
pictures and cluesthat you're turning over
and all these cards thatcreate this map in front of you.
Sometimes of a room, sometimes ofa town, sometimes of a whole island.
Okay, I have not played that one.
Yeah, and usually plays in about an hour.
So it's a really good game.

(56:40):
I enjoyed a lot.
I would like to try that.
Another couple of optionshere, I'll go with what for me
was an obvious comp and thatwas Star Wars the card game.
It was another fantasy flight LCG format
and it had the samedistribution paradigm, right?
They were sending out six packsplus a deluxe for each of their cycles.
That was more of a duelthough that was happening.

(57:01):
And so the packs and upgrades were addingflavor, different cards you could assemble.
So now we're going toduel on the Hoth, right?
And so I got all of the packs and Ican apply my things are now on Endor.
But it was still a battle betweenthe rebellion and the Empire.
It wasn't a cohesivestoryline the same way.
And now it's a dead game.
So sorry to prop up a deadgame, but it definitely had the

(57:22):
same feeling as ArkhamOhora the card game at the time.
So house rules, how wouldyou improve the game?
So let's talk about,you know, are there
essential upgrades thatthis would be the time?
I had a couple of actual house rules.
Now, one, use a bag, right?
Well, yeah, what were a cup?
Well, this is where I have to confessthat I often use the app, Arkham bag,

(57:43):
when I'm playing by myself,where I just touch the screen
and it gives me one, you know,gives me my next chaos token.
But when playing with others,then we usually use the bag.
But a house rule that a lot of people use,I don't use it, I don't like it as much.
I really haven't triedit, but the idea of it,
I'm not sure, is that in your opening hand,you always start with your signature card
because each investigatorhas their signature card,

(58:04):
whether it's Jenny's gunsor something like that.
You always start with that, butthen you don't get to Mulligan.
So that way your characterhas all of its thematic components
right from the start, except for theweakness that you might draw later.
I don't use that as much,but a lot of people do
and they really like it,though I do like to house rule
when you're drawingweaknesses for your deck,
draw two and pick one, rather thanjust draw and you get what you get.

(58:25):
Some of those can be pretty devastating andthey're gonna come up almost every game.
Yeah, I've always done that.
I thought it was part of the rules.
I didn't realize it was a house rule.
Yeah, as far as I know, you're supposedto just draw one and you get what you get.
Oh, wow, okay, interesting.
So we talked about coin capsules.
We talked about the bagand how you use Arkham
cards and you actuallyuse it to replace the bag.
No, Cthulhu's listeningand so it's picking the token

(58:47):
it wants to give youwhen you go the app route.
So you can stay silentin control of your fate
if you're using the bag,I'm just gonna say, right?
It's also great for takingnotes though, the app.
It is.
And for double checking all of thechecklists that you have to complete.
Yeah, the Arkham cards app,which that does have a bag in it,
but I use a separateapp for the Arkham bag.

(59:09):
Okay.
Because that one is just the bag.
You put in what tokensare gonna be in there
and that's the one we use theother night and you just touch it.
I'm sure the one in Arkham cards is good up
for some reason, I just,I never used that one.
But the campaign trackerArkham cards, to me, it's essential.
It's just so easy and you can put yourgame down for a month or two and pick it up
and it tells you right whereyou were, tracks your decks.

(59:30):
It's just fantastic.
Awesome.
Other house rules?
Well, I also have acrylicclue tokens and doom tokens.
And I mean, you can, youcan spend a lot of money
at see, you know, I've got those playerboards that you were using the other night.
Yeah, those are crazy.
I really like those andthey've got little special slots
where your sanitypoints go and your health
points go and a placeto keep your tokens.

(59:52):
And yeah, I went a little bit crazy.
Oh, and sleeves, I think are anecessity, especially for the standard set,
because you're constantlyseeing a lot of those
encounter cards overand over in everyone.
So I feel like you have to have them sleevedand then you have to make that decision.
Do I sleeve my entire collection?
No.
Which I don't do becauseI have so many cards.

(01:00:14):
I will sleeve a player deckat the beginning of the cycle
and when the cycle is over, I'll un-sleeveit and that's my next player deck.
Yeah, welcome to the world of Dominion.
Do you sleeve every card?
No. Yeah.
Well, in this case, I mean,you could be spending as much
or more money on sleevesthan you are on the actual game,
especially I like the dragonsleeves with the mat back.

(01:00:35):
I don't like to mess with stickysleeves and things like that.
I just, I want it to be perfect.
All right.
So if this game is being played at gamenight, what do you wanna play afterwards?
What's the best double featuregame that goes along with it?
Ball?
For me, it's usually morelike a more of the card game.
Let's play the next scenario, right?
That's not the case for me.
I'm usually pretty spentat the end of a scenario.

(01:00:57):
Like, it feels pretty daunting tokind of set up and start fresh again.
But being in that deck building mode,
I like the other night, wewent right into Dune Imperium
uprising and I like keepingin a deck building mode.
So I'm gonna say playingone of these new deck building
work replacement gamesthat we've been enjoying.
And look, having a night of Arnik and Arkham,even like fanatically kind of lines up.

(01:01:21):
So, wow. Okay.
I originally had, I'm gonna pull a pollon this one and say play the second time.
But since we let Paul gofirst, my other option was
there was a Cthulhu reskinof the Game Star Realms.
That was perhaps unimaginatively calledCthulhu Realms by Tasty Minstrel Games.
And I played the heckout of that on my iPad

(01:01:43):
and I've got a copy andthat would be a great,
almost tongue-in-cheapcartoonish follow up
and get a little more competitive,obviously, since it's not a cooperative game
to be dropping theking and yellow on, you
know, your opponentis always a lot of fun.
So I would also play Cthulhu Realms.
- You know, I'll throwin 'cause I think it might
be a good fit justthematically where you are.

(01:02:03):
How about a game ofMysterium when we're all done?
- Oh, yeah.
- Kind of lights kind of fun.
It's in kind of, you know, old creepy mode.
- I like it.
I like that a lot.
So what feature of thegame still stands out to you?
What's aged the best?
- The writing and the story crafting.
You know, that's the reason I pull itout and that's the reason I buy more.

(01:02:24):
- Right?
Good point.
- Yeah, with each newcycle or new scenario,
the ingenuity of waysthat they're using the cards,
where especially the first time you play,and, you know, if you haven't gone through
and looked at any spoilers on the cards,when all of a sudden you turn this ally over
and they've become this hellhound orsomething, where on the other side of a card
is an enemy version of that character,or this location comes out of nowhere,

(01:02:48):
put it into play, and justthose sort of surprises,
that they're getting so just creativewith how they've set the framework
and then how they implementit with all the new cycles.
It's just been so fantastic tosee what they're gonna do next.
- I agree.
I also like that you'vegot the right soundtrack for
the game with all of theinterdimensional screeching.
- Good luck with the edit, Todd.
(laughing)

(01:03:09):
- I didn't even notice.
Sorry about that.
I should have muted and waited.
- Oh, no, no, no.
You're, that's fine.
I'll mute for now.
- It does sound fitting.
- It did.
I mean, it was eerie screeching.
It was good stuff.
- I agree.
I'm in love with the act and agendadecks as plot advancing devices.
That concept was so goodand implemented so well
that they basically lifted itfrom the card game, modified it,

(01:03:32):
and re-implemented it in ArkhamHorror 3rd Edition as the codex.
And I think that's what makesthis game truly unique and superior.
What feature of the game now disappoints?
- For me, it's the variance.
The fact that you canplay the same scenario
of the same characters, and one time it'seasy, and the next time it's impossible.

(01:03:52):
- Okay, Dave, were there anyitems that didn't age well for you?
Sometimes, you know, I havethese nights where I'm like,
I'm gonna play Arkham Horrortonight, and then I think about it,
and I think, and it isso daunting to get it out,
set everything up, and it'swhere am I in this campaign
at this point, and it can feel alittle overwhelming sometimes.
But just that, once I getit out, I'm having a blast,
but there are times whereI just end up not playing

(01:04:13):
because I'm a little overwhelmedby putting it all together,
and, you know, now I gotta build adeck before I can even start, where am I?
I don't know, maybethat's a feature, not a bug.
(laughs)
- Fantasy Flight has republished certainelements of this game several times, right?
They streamlined this,they've given you a little
extra of that, now theyhave a new version of it.
I think the Dunwich legacyhas been reprinted three times,

(01:04:35):
'cause you had the original cycle, thenyou got the return to the Dunwich legacy
that came in the bigger box, andit had a couple extra cards in it,
and then they came outwith the revised edition,
and the new format,so if you've been buying
it as you go along,then that's a problem.
But, you know, the good newsis, if you're new to the game now,
you get the best version on first buy, sothis could just be me having sour grapes.

(01:04:59):
- Well, I wanna hear from Dave, do youhave any gripes about the return to boxes?
- Basically, I paid $25for a storage box with
a return to, becausethey're a great store,
they store an entirecycle for their small on the
shelf, but I don't playthe return to scenarios.
You know, they give you acouple of cards, and it makes
sense, you know, I've playedDunwich legacy so many times,

(01:05:21):
next time I play, I probably willplay Return to Dunwich legacy,
so it gives you a twist, because you'reconstantly revisiting these scenarios,
but it does have a, it's therefor the completest sort of feel,
and I do like the storagebox, but it's kind of an
expensive storage box,the way that works, right?
- Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of them,
but I own all of them, Ithink there's five of them.

(01:05:42):
- All right, I haven't paid for any, so Iwanted to hear from you, thank you.
- All right, so do this gamereplace a previous one?
- Yes, it replaced Arkham Horrorsecond edition, and perhaps third edition.
- You are reading my pageright now, I had the same thing.
It definitely replaced the 2005,
you know, informallysecond edition of Arkham
Horror, and it preemptively,as it would turn out,

(01:06:04):
replaced the third edition that wouldn'tcome out for another couple of years.
- It replaced the gamethat hadn't come out yet.
- Which is appropriate, foran interventional stuff, right?
- That could have been through time.
(laughing)
- What did you have, Dave?
- My answer's the same, I mean,
I have all of Arkham Horror,the board game second
edition, it has not hit thetable since before 2016.

(01:06:26):
- Right.
- So has this game since beenreplaced, and if so, by what?
- Well, no, but also earth-worn rangers.
(laughing)
- I thought you were gonna sayyes, but yeah, for me it's just a flat no.
- Yeah.
- For me, it was Marvel champions.
Although, now that I feel like I'vereached superhero saturation, - Yeah.
- Coming back to Arkham Horror, thecard game was actually a welcome event,

(01:06:48):
and it got me re-energizedto play this game more.
Soundtrack, what would you wannalisten to while playing this game?
- Yeah, that's a really tough question,because my experience has been
that most of my time playingthis game, things are semi-normal.
(laughing)
So, the soundtrack I want for those times

(01:07:08):
of playing the game are like1920s swing music-style soundtrack.
But then, you get thefinal scenarios of the
cycle, which are justcompletely out there.
Swing music doesn't work at all.
(laughing)- Right, great.
Yeah, Dave, as much as I wanna saysome good old fashioned goth music,
like Dead Can Dance orBauhaus's Bella Legosi's Dead,

(01:07:31):
I don't think those wouldactually work well-playing.
- You could not listen to thatsong on repeat, I'll tell you what.
Once is enough for a couple ofweeks- - It's such a long song, though.
You don't need to repeat it thatmany times for your hour and hour.
(laughing) That's true.
- But Spotify is full of good darkacademia, playlists, dark ambient,
where it's then kind ofthematic sort of background.

(01:07:53):
There's actually an artist called KnoxArcana, which shows up on a lot of those,
which Spotify describes as neoclassicaldark ambient, which I think fits perfectly.
And it is, it's just great background vibes
for their perfectly.- Yeah, it's a dark ambient or drone.
- Yeah, yeah.- It's the key words for that kind of music.

(01:08:14):
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Okay, I mean, I might wannahave that on just during the day.
I'm gonna have to go check that out.
So that was Knox Arcana, Knox Arcana.
There's even an albumcalled The Necronomicon.
- Okay, awesome.
There was an HBO series that came out
called Lovecraft Countrythat took on a version of this.
And if you go to the instrumental portions

(01:08:37):
of the soundtrack, thereare some great options
in there, but they areso situational, right?
Kind of to Paul's point islike, I don't necessarily want
the loud clanging, bombasticstuff when things are normal.
- Exactly.
- So what I decided to go withwas the Diablo 4 soundtrack.
(all laughing)

(01:08:58):
- Because that doeshave a lot of good, calm
background stuff, likeFirebreak Manor, perfect.
And then you can segueover to stuff like a Shava
for whatever the lastfight in the scenario is.
So rating on Board GameGeek scale of one to 10 now,
how would you rate ArkhamHorror the card game?
- It's a 10 for me, you know?
In fact, when people ask me, you know,especially people who don't play many games,

(01:09:22):
'cause when you introduceyourself as somebody who plays
games, they always ask,well, what's your favorite game?
And this is often my answer.
I mean, the truth is I'm a grownup.
I usually don't have favorites.
Like, I don't understand being a grownup
and having a favoritecolor, it's just colors.
(all laughing)
But anyways, if youare gonna have favorites,
but I mean, but people wantan answer when they ask
that question and it iscertainly in the conversation

(01:09:43):
for one of my favoritegames of all time.
So it's become my stock answer.
- Nice.
Paul, what did you have it down as?
- On the whole, I rate Arkham Horror a nine,different expansions I rate differently.
It's on the whole end of the nine.
- Yeah, I also had it down as a nine
and it's still the best Cthulhuexperience that's available.

(01:10:04):
Is it replayable and how soonwould you want to revisit the game?
So I could say solo, I could play thisgame every week, couple of times a week.
Group wise, I don't thinkI'd wanna dedicate the time
to solely focus on this game and giveup the other games that we're playing.
So I could play it once a month, maybeas a group, probably even less than that.
But I think as a sologame, it's highly replayable.

(01:10:24):
- Yeah, I'm right there with you.
I could play it anytime solo,but multiplayer, no, thank you.
(laughing)
- Well, by its verynature, it's replayable.
I mean, it's not just variablesetup and these things
that we have in games thatmake them unique experiences.
This one, literally, it is acompletely different experience
because of the scenariothat you're playing.

(01:10:45):
Even when you're replaying a-- - I wasgonna say as long as you're paying for it.
(laughing)
- That's right, wow.
Yeah, it's pay to play, that's for sure.
But it's also one where, I mean, I thinkthere's a ton of content in the revised box.
I think you could just buy that with thefive investigators and the three scenarios
that work together as a campaign andget six months to a year of consistent play

(01:11:06):
before even branching outbecause there's so much in there.
But for the most part, you gottakeep paying to keep playing.
So either play it a lot or don't bother.
- Right, agreed.
And with that, we havefinally shut the dimensional
portal that was spillinghorrors into our world.
- Whew, for our nextepisode, we'll try to take
over the world throughmore traditional means.
And by that I mean capitalism.

(01:11:28):
(laughing)
So thanks guys, I reallyappreciate you being available today.
This was a lot of fun.
- Yes.
- We're in 90 minutes, so yougot a lot of editing to do here.
(laughing)
Thank you forlistening to "Replayable.
" Support for our podcastcomes from listeners like you.
You can find usonline at replayable.
fm, on Twitter as"Replayable FM"

(01:11:50):
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" You can also join our teamat patreon.com/replayable.
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(01:12:11):
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