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So there's silly old Arkham Horror, right? By the realities of the boardgame industry, copies you buy now are basically identical to the 2005 version (fixed a few cards, rules clarifications, that's it).

The expansions have added not just extra mechanics that really should be in the base game but entirely new (and better) ways of doing things and dealing with mechnical issues like deck dilution etc. However, these ideas can only be applied to the particular expansion (and later expansions) and not the cards in the original game.

Since a few people play AH here, what do you think the elements that need to be backported into the base game? Primarily I think Black Pharaoh needs serious structural work - it was clearly hte first, experimental expansion and the rules for it's use are complete shit compared to later small-box expansions like KiY. The ideas for other world encounters introduced in Innsmouth (very detailed encounters for a single world or 'discard and draw again') mean you can have interesting, choice based 'adventure' shit in other worlds without diluting the deck with seldom-appropriate cards. The KiY dual colour cards are a good idea that could benefit from this. The more 'interesting' Mythos cards, with no move, no gate, terror, all move, etc have a place throughout. The investigators and Ancient Ones need to be a bit more even (especially the dogshit Dunwich Ancient Ones which can basically fuck off) and ideas like Quattil Uttaus are a fantastic alternative.

In brief, since 2005 some really good ideas have come out and many of the basic problems of the base game have been resolved - but this only happens if you buy the expansions, and only works for those expansions. Things like cheaper but exhausting weapons, the different approaches to spells and tomes, etc all lead to imbalance and dilution because the base game hasn't changed. If they republished AH to the 'current' mechanical standard, it would be a far better - and simpler, more interesting - game, and you'd just need to reword some cards and introduce some expansion concepts. However, given the reality of the boardgame industry, this can never happen.

Here are my first impressions on Innsmouth. The investigators are a mixed bag, with some being fluffy but useless to something thats rocking but not very fitting in tone. The Ancient Ones avoid the fuckwittery of the Dunwich AOs but instead some of them bring new levels of inanity to the final battle.

Here is what I know from the one game I've played. The blood-sucking Ancient One, with Physical Immunity and eats cultists for doom tokens, is balanced. It has a good, interesting mechanic for it's attacks and it's environment effect adds pressure but doesn't completely change the game into something different. The investigators were a mixed bag consisting of Dexter, Wilson, Lily Chen, the Smuggler, and the Fed. Out of the five I personally felt that I, playing the Smuggler, was the most usesless out of the group. Innsmouth got very little action as we had no gate sealing going on as we pretty consistently burnt our clues to avoid being burned by crappy rolls, thus no very little gate bounces.

As for things that need to be backported into say Arkham Horror 3.0; gate bursts, as they cut down on the safety net of sealing the hot-spots in Arkham which get the most gate action and provide a more frantic game. Monster surges need to be added, as they provide more variance in the Mythos cards. Something that seriously needs to be changed is the monster cup. Currently there are far too many different monsters in there, leaving the Cultists alone in a sea of Hounds, Doles, and Colours out of Space. This badly affects the Ancient Ones whose special environment effects depend on Cultists.

What I propose is to have a base, generic group of monsters in the cup no matter what Ancient One, like Cultists, Madmen, and Zombies. Then each Ancient One has their own set of monsters that you add to the cup, giving them more flavor beyond their environmental effect and also making sure that the game has a more consistent difficulty. This would let Nyarlathotep see his Mask monsters more often, Azathoth would get more Madmen, and so on and so forth.