Arkham Horror -- Scary? How?

Shellhead wrote:

I do prefer UH's player aid to your flowchart, but I can see how your flowchart would be more popular with more BGGers.

Is that a back handed slap?

It all depends on how your brain works. I use to like UH's player aids until he started just raming the whole rulebook into 4 pages, at which point they stopped becoming player aids (for me).
For a branching step game like AH I prefer to see things laid out in a step by step fashion - aka a flowchart. Much simpler and easier to track during the game. I learned WOW:the boardgame via someones flowchart and now pretty much flowchart every game I get that has a lot of rules. Just easier for me to learn it that way.

But worrying about the thumb count of something is just wierd.

Meh, I guess I don't even notice the passive aggressive BGG-style attack a post like that MAY OR MAY NOT (hedge hedge) represent. Whatever.

I do want to THUMB Skelly's point about UH just jamming everything onto a 4-page 8.5" x 11" format. The little rules kit for AH got so small it was almost unreadable against the background. It's one thing to make a little handout for HIVE or something, but a player-aid for something AH needs some space to breathe if it's going to be complete.

In addition, AH is so procedural that it, more than most games, really benefited from the flowchart treatment. I've internalized it by now, and look at it now for references about Monster Limits and such, but for someone new to the game, it's a must have.

FOR ME.

jeb wrote:

The House Rules from the designer are also recommended.

[/ul]

Any of you guys use these house rules? I don't want to try the Stormknight variant. Anything unofficial seems iffy to me.

Some of the house rules look nice, but do they contradict any of the expansions?

Skeletor, I don't mean to badmouth your flowchart. If somebody doesn't have a clue about Arkham Horror and doesn't take the time to read the rules, your flowchart will take them by the hand and walk them through every step of the game. But I came to Arkham as veteran player of the original version of the game, published way back around 1987. And while there are large differences between the two games, the basic gist is similar enough that the flowchart would have slowed me down, while the UH aid would have been perfect for a topdown view of the unfamiliar new rules. It's like the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, I guess.

The scariest thing about Arkham Horror is how much table space it takes up.

Even scarier was the time when one of my players violated the "no food or drinks" on the table rule, and spilled a glass of water on the Arkham board. Fortunately, there were paper towels close at hand, and another player and I both reacted very quickly to save Arkham from a watery doom. It happened when we were putting the game away, so only the board got wet, and just very briefly.

Good job saving Arkham from what must have been the work of Father Dagon!

Shellhead, I had to cry reading your comment.