House Rules for Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Last updated January 25, 2025

Introduction

The topic of house rules in Arkham Horror LCG comes up quite often, so we decided to put together a repository of all of the house rules we could find so that there’s one easy place from which to reference them.

These house rules were sources from:

If you have additional house rules that are not listed on this page, we’d love to hear from you! Click on the Submit a House Rule button below to email us (or manually send your email to mythosbusterspod@gmail.com), reach out to us on Discord, or call our hotline at 203-493-MYTH (6984).

Submit House Rule

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Head Librarian Chad – an avid Arkham LCG player, friend of the Mythos Busters podcast, and host of “The Restricted Collection” podcast – for putting this list together and sifting through all the source material. If you found this list useful, please send them a note of thanks on Discord!

Table of Contents

The topics listed below each have their own section in our house rules list. Click on any of the links below to jump to that section of the page.

RULES BY GAME PHASE

DECK BUILDING

SETUP

DURING SCENARIO

SCENARIO: RESOLUTIONS

MISCELLANEOUS RULES

HOUSE RULES FOR SPECIFIC CAMPAIGNS

HOUSE RULES BY GAME PHASE

DECK BUILDING: PLAYER CARDS

  • Taboo / Restricted / Unrestricted List:
    • Taboo is optional. [Discord: FFG, Mythos Busters, and many more]
    • I have one house rule about lvl 0 taboos. Players are allowed to add lvl 0 taboos (e.g., Reinfield) to their starting deck, subtracting the additional XP cost from their total after the first scenario. That way, you still pay the “fair” price for such a good card, but you can still have it in your starting deck just like any other lvl 0 card. In essence, you buy Reinfield “on credit” so you can have it for the first scenario. [Reddit: RightHandComesOff {updated to relevant example by Editor}]
      • Building off the lvl 0 taboo rule above, you can potentially balance it a bit by saying that you’re paying for the upgrades “on credit,” and if you can’t fully pay for the upgrade by the end of the first scenario you have to take X amount of trauma (or some other negative consequence). The threat of these negative effects stays in effect until the XP cost is paid in full, ideally by the end of scenario 1-2, but that way there’s a little danger around it. [Discussion on Mythos Busters Episode 150]
    • I play selectively with taboo, and only use the cards that have been taboo’d to make them more powerful. I’m sure I’m not the only person that does this, but I figured it’s something you could throw into your upcoming episode on house rules. [E-mail: XShagrath]
    • We have added a restricted list. Max 5 copies of cards from this list. It makes deckbuliding much more interesting imho. [Facebook: Jakob Törneke Fd Sjögren]
    • Many cards are taken out of the pool like flamethrower and pretty much every card on the taboo list. [Reddit: BelialSirchade]
    • Barkham horror is always legal. [Reddit: USB_FIELD_MOUSE & others]
  • I started to use set rotation to make deckbuilding more interesting and the game a little bit harder. I randomized the order in which I rotate out sets. [Reddit: eelwop]
  • 9xp starter [Reddit: EnginerringDevil]
  • Technically playing two handed is a house rule, but loads of people do it. [Reddit: slyjeff]
  • At the start of a campaign, start off with a set amount of experience points when building your deck. This opens up the card pool for characters quite a bit, and can offset the weakness of a small collection of player cards. [Reddit: tatoolo]
  • Solo Companion Project (“SCP”) (https://imgur.com/a/cbtpf0s) [E-mail: Motux]
  • We have recently had a lot of fun with mixed-up deckbuilding restrictions. Aside from custom investigators (which are fun in their own right) we had a blast with Rita using Wendy deckbuilding (Rogue 0-2 instead of Tricks), and I‘ve been meaning to try „non misprinted Daniella“, I.e. Survivor into Guardian, so that she can actually use all the great cards that are absolutely made for her archetype and ability (guard dog 2, hunter’s armor, survival knife 2, counterpunch 2, etc.). [E-mail: Tobias „Der Biasto“]
  • Ultimatum of Chaos: Each player’s starting deck of non-signature, non-weakness cards must be selected at random from among all eligible options in that player’s collection. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • Ultimatum of Bline Chaos: Each player’s starting deck of non-signature, non-weakness cards must be selected at random from among all eligible options in that player’s collection. Another person must build the deck, giving the player no insight into the deck’s composition. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • Ultimatum of the Highlander: Each investigator’s deck can only include 1 copy of each card, by title (unless multiple copies of that card are required by that investigator’s deckbuilding requirements).[FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Orthodoxy: Play the game using the Taboo List. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (UPDATE) Ultimatum of Induction: Campaign Mode only. Investigator decks can only contain level 0 cards. Investigators cannot earn or spend experience. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Boon of the Ancients: Campaign Mode only. Each investigator begins the campaign with 5 additional experience. [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Olive McBride (Investigators): Once you finish a campaign with an investigator, that investigator becomes forbidden until every investigator is forbidden. [Discord: LiquidMercury8]

DECK BUILDING: BASIC WEAKNESSES

  • Weakness Draft [Draw X,  Remove X, and Either Choose or Randomly Pick from there]:
    • At deck creation, draw three/X basic weaknesses, pick one. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit & many others]
    • I draw 3 weaknesses, choose 1 to remove and choose from the last 2 at random.[Reddit: The-Eye-of-Truth17, dagens24 & many others]
    • I am of the opinion that a character’s unique weakness should be the harsher of the two.[Reddit: Borghal]
    • I do the draw 5/discard 1, so there are 4 potential weaknesses I choose from randomly, but I don’t know which I got until it hits me. [Reddit: Xhus21]
    • After deckbuilding, shuffle the weaknesses together, and deal yourself the 13th and 26th ones. Choose one and discard the other. [Reddit: gamingwithabsinthe]
    • For a four player game, I was thinking it would be more fun to draw three and have your “friends” vote on which you should get (three way ties mean you choose). [Reddit: TheGoddamBatman]
    • At higher player counts I’ve also had players “draft” you draw player count+1 random basic weaknesses and each player selects one in turn…table talk is banned during drafting. [Reddit: KissMeWithYourFist]
    • A variant that I’ve had some fun with in the past is draw 3, cut the worst and best. That way you don’t get a cakewalk, but you don’t have your deck implode. [Discord: Whimsical]
    • When playing with a group I like to use a draft. Draw 1 per investigator + 1 basic weaknesses. Each player picks one of them and adds it to their deck. Often leads to group discussions, generally after the “obvious” picks are done. [Discord: Whimsical]
    • When doing my deck builds for multihanded (or my group doesn’t want to do draft). I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that I’d rather just cut to the heart of the issue. I’ll flip a weakness, if I don’t like it, I’ll keep drawing replacements until I get something that’s acceptable to me. [Discord: Whimsical]
  • Ironman weakness draft – draw from the full pool of weaknesses, redrawing if you get one that doesn’t apply (e.g. a multiplayer-only weakness when playing solo). Choose to either accept the weakness and begin playing or reject the weakness, loudly exclaim “I am a coward and I reject my fate!” and draw a replacement weakness. You must use this second weakness as long as it is an eligible include. [Mythos Busters Ironman tradition]
  • I don’t have a specific house rule for this but I will absolutely re-roll my basic weakness if it :
    • Completely crushes the deck/character’s core concept
    • Is way too mild or even beneficial (ie. curse weaknesses in a cursed deck)
    • keeps popping in my campaign over and over. [Reddit: Vathar]
  • Restricted Weakness Pool:
    • I curate the basic weakness deck. [Reddit: evian_water]
    • Doomed is removed from the pool.[Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
    • I mainly do it because some just aren’t very thematically Fitting for some campaigns. For example, I restrict Drawing the Sign to pretty much Carcosa only. [Reddit: Eldan985]
    • We always pick five thematic weaknesses for each investigator and we randomly pick from that pool. [Reddit: Anim4-Mundi]
    • Random weaknesses, though I make sure they wouldn’t be crippling enough to be unfun (lose all resources in a big money build, that kind of thing) [Reddit: Salaf]
    • I pick thematically appropriate weaknesses. Mark got Overzealous which was hilarious. Lily got Leg Injury because with all those martial arts moves, she always pulls her hamstring sooner or later. [Reddit: MindControlMouse]
    • I’ve added a “cooldown” to my basic weakness deck. When I’m done with a campaign, I set the basic weaknesses accrued during it in a side deck for three campaigns and keep stuff rotating. It doesn’t matter if they were powerful or mild, I just want variety. [Reddit: Vathar]
  • I stopped adding the random weakness at deck creation. Minor change that makes the investigator decks feel more consistent and drawing a weakness (feel-bad moment) happens slightly less often. [Reddit: Yog-SoHot]
  • If you hate your basic weakness you can choose another one at random. [Reddit: theforestgirl]
  • We draw our weaknesses blind (with a small piece of tape on the back of Indebted so we can tell that one apart so it doesn’t get shuffled into the deck). Then we don’t look through our deck until permitted by a game effect – so usually the first time we see it is when we draw it! [Reddit: looooopedin]
  • I also choose basic weaknesses rather than picking them randomly, but I bar myself from picking anything that would be too trivial for my character (IE Accursed Follower with a curse build). I just don’t like too much randomness. [Reddit: Llancarfan]
  • If I play standalone I dont add second weakness for 19XP dec, I add first one for 29XP ans second one for 39XP [Reddit: bpoldo]
  • (UPDATE) Ultimatum of Disaster: Each investigator’s deckbuilding requirements gain “1 additional random basic weakness.” [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Olive McBride (Basic Weaknesses): Once you finish a campaign with a basic weakness, that basic weakness becomes forbidden until every basic weakness is forbidden. [Discord: LiquidMercury8]

DECK BUILDING: BETWEEN SCENARIOS

  • Level 0 Cards:
    • Swapping lvl 0 cards is XP free for the first two-three scenarios of a campaign, for fixing a bad deck only [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
    • The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is when I got a pack or a box mid-campaign, swapping in a level 0 card from that pack/box was allowed for free until the next scenario. [Reddit: TrueLolzor]
    • Level 0 cards can be switched out freely between scenarios. [Reddit: dagens24]
      • As long as they are not for teching against the upcoming scenario. I would rather someone’s deck work like they want so they have fun. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad & Messianiclegacy]
      • We allow swapping level-0 cards for no XP cost, if we didn’t use those other cards due to card availability reasons. For instance, if we could use level-0 purple cards, but didn’t take Ward of Protection(0) because it was already in someone else’s deck, we’ll allow picking it up for 0 cost if that other person takes it out of their deck (e.g. by upgrading to Ward of Protection(2)). [Reddit: fishsupreme]
    • Removed cards are available to return to the deck rather than having to buy again if you choose. (Unless they were an upgrade, or a special rules like decrypting the book.) This makes spending XP for level 0 cards OK, because you’re increasing that character’s “pool”. [Reddit: konsyr]
    • This is my house rule I always use, and sneakily tell people what to do when teaching the game to newbies. When upgrading a level 0 card, I treat it as a level 1, for the purposes of how many xp to use. This is what I believed was the correct rule, as the rulebook says level 0 cards cost 1 xp to add to deck, so in a way they work like level 1 cards. I believe that upgrading a level 0 to a level 3 card of the same name should only cost 2 xp. Otherwise, its just replacing a card instead of upgrading it. [E-mail: Matt Crawley]
  • Use standalone rules to bring in a new investigator to replace a dead investigator mid-campaign. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • Spend 5XP to heal a trauma. Spend 10XP to remove a surplus weakness (not including signature or first basic weakness).[Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
    • Can’t heal trauma from player card effects (In the Thick of it) [Reddit: JayWoz]
  • Cards that cost XP can be traded in for their XP cost -1.[Reddit: dagens24]
  • I will occasionally swap out basic weaknesses if they have either never come up four scenarios in or I’ve dealt with them multiple times a scenario (thematically I justify it as overcoming it, or killing the mobster and him not showing up in the Dreamlands three scenarios later lol). [Reddit: pparke2]
  • You can determine a set of responsive basic weaknesses (curated list of 3-4 most likely) that you can swap in between scenarios based on thematic things that occur during the campaign. [Mythos Busters Episode 150]
  • One deck rebuild, between scenario 1 and 2. This is to account for the fact that I do 100% of the deckbuilding, and if they don’t like what I throw together (on a character they chose mind you), they can at least edit the premade decks. [Reddit: Salaf & theforestgirl]
  • I just absolutely ignore the deck evolution  rules, and make a new deck swapping any number of card (but following the XP value) between each scenario [Reddit: Arkkane404]
  • Replacement cards house rule idea: it’s nice having the option to play with the replacement cards along with the base signature cards for Carolyn, Roland, and Jenny, but taking a second signature weakness is rough. I was thinking of house ruling that you can take the replacement or vice versa with XP, but I’m not sure they are all weighed equally. For example, Foolishness is pretty difficult to work with as an asset. I was thinking each replacement signature just counts as an exceptional level 1 card and it counts against deck size. [Facebook: Christopher Urbanczyk]
  • So there’s this board game Dream Crush, where you have to choose between three people to take out on a date and guess whom everyone else at the table picked. Take that board game and instead of choosing between the people in the box, you play it with the most dateable Arkham investigators, allies, and enemies. Each round is a new date to go on and a new personality quirk for each of the choices, and let me tell you you haven’t lived until you’ve had to pick between Chuck Fergus, Dexter Drake, and Rex Murphy to go to a couples baby shower with, only Rex has a podcast about microbrews and Dexter won’t shut up about his time in Japan. There’s no better way to wind down from a long Arkham session. [E-mail: McCaber]
  • One house rule I’ve seen referenced a lot is “Don’t pay XP upfront for side scenarios”. As we know (and sometimes ignore), it costs 1-3 XP to do a side scenario, which is a tough prospect when you’re not confident you’ll actually earn that much XP (plus, you won’t have that XP for the scenario you’re playing!). So I’ve seen a lot people do a side scenario and then subtract the cost of it from their final XP total. That way the worst that can happen, XP-wise, is a break even. Seems good to me! This gave me the thought – why not try something similar for chained cards. By all means, go ahead and include that XP-chained card in your deck at level 0. Heck, include 2 copies! But then make a promise to yourself that you’ll pay back that XP as your first purchase. (Personally, I would limit this to 1 card and only use it on chained cards – if I want a higher-level card I would force myself to take In The Thick Of It. But I wouldn’t be opposed to combining the two effects.) I see this house rule as addressing two things, primarly. The first is that oft-noted thing where we basically treat chained level 0 cards as if they didn’t exist anymore. We said it about Machete in the past, we say it about Renfield now, and it’s just not usually practical to reconfigure your deck around going a scenario without that staple. The second thing this does is help you *get* the XP to purchase that chained card in the first place. If you want to run a Renfield deck, and your deck doesn’t really work without him, how the *hell* are you supposed to get that XP? It probably involves multiple scenarios of less-than-ideal results. But if you could start with him, you’re much more likely to cross that inital pay-for-Renfield XP threshold. I’m not sure I’d do this one myself (Anyone who plays with me knows I’m a purist), but I thought this one might be helpful to someone out there. [E-mail: Fylion]
  • I allow my self to undo my last experience spend. This let’s me test cards in a deck and swap out the cards that don’t work. [E-mail: Egothha_skulls]
  • You get 2 XP discount total during a campaign when upgrading from a lvl 0 card. This makes players use more of some basic cards that normally wouldn’t see play. [FFG Forums: Raahk]
  • Arcane Research grants 1 XP instead of it’s normal effect, but all players must either add another random weakness or 2 trauma. We often play with 2 of them, so all have 3 weaknesses. Only some seekers tend towards trauma cause they go through their decks quicker. [FFG Forums: django042]
  • Charons Obol grants 2 xp to everyone, but if we repeat a scenario it’s reduced by 1 each time. We usually repeat if one person dies or too many negative random things happen like auto fails that make success basically impossible. [FFG Forums: django042]

SETUP: CHAOS BAG

  • “Stan-hard” difficulty. Playing with the standard chaos bag and Hard scenario card, or Hard bag and Standard card. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • We run the hard difficulty variant where you use the hard tokens, but the standard reference for the spooky tokens. [Reddit: Pollia]
  • Add a second Elder Sign token, additionally or in lieu of another token, to double elder sign abilities firing off. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • I like turning +1 into the Elder Sign, just makes me happier to have more effects go off. [Reddit: andoCalrissiano]
  • Adjusting difficulty by tweaking the chaos bag in one way or another. eg. Add a 0, remove a tablet, swap an elder thing for a skull. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • When I first started out I played on Very Easy by shifting the chaos bag up a little in terms of the tokens. Essentially having it be +2 up would be a pass unless you autofailed or the scenario card was particularly mean. [Reddit: pparke2]
  • Added another -1 to the standard bag when first teaching my people. [Reddit: Salaf]
  • The auto fail token is removed from the bag. [Reddit: bmtrocks]
  • I’m pretty fond of the idea of replacing the auto-fail with a -8 token. That way it’s approximately the same, but players have the option of going all-in to overcome the auto-fail. I think that eventually this will be bad for the game, though. Once enough cards come out, people will just build engines which can power through any chaos token which isn’t auto-fail. [Reddit: ksion314]
  • Because we’d heard how punishing and tricky The Forgotten Age is (our first full-campaign), we actually added 8 bless tokens to the bag at the start of the campaign. We started with one fewer every scenario (since we had XP to beef up our decks). It’s gone really well for us. [Facebook: Michael Haight]
  • Spiking the Chaos Bag with a Damage and Horror token or worse. We still pull another chaos token after this damage or horror is pulled and then it’s removed for the rest of the scenario. [Facebook: Dewayne O’Brien (editor’s note: this post included a picture where among the chaos tokens in coin capsules, there was a capsule with a 3 Damage token. Ouch.)]
  • Ultimatum of Failure: Add an additional Auto-Fail chaos token to the chaos bag..[FFG Ultimatum]
  • (UPDATE) Ultimatum of Broken Promises: Remove the Elder Sign token from the chaos bag during setup of a campaign or standalone scenario. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Instead of playing normal Hard, we draw more encounter cards with Stanhard options (hard bag which is what we usually do, or hard symbols). This feels less random so we’ve been doing it for more than a year now and it feels equivalent to Hard but more skill-based instead of drawing -8 skull tokens twice in a row (thanks Hemlock). One player draws another encounter card every 12 cards. So every 6 doom for 2P, 4 for 3P, 3 for 4P. Then next time around, the next player in player order gets the encounter card. We use a lil tally sheet with tokens flipping one every mythos. Sometimes it doesn’t make much of a difference but you can get combo’d like Frozen in Fear -> An enemy, or two enemies at once in general etc. [Reddit: RoshanCrass]

SETUP: ENCOUNTER DECK

  • Ultimatum of the Party Crasher: Shuffle the Ghoul Priest into the Encounter Deck during setup. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]
  • (NEW) Boon of Vermin: When constructing the encounter deck, include each card in the Rats encounter set that is not already included or set aside. [Discord: Lemunde]

SETUP: MULLIGAN

  • Starting with Specific Cards:
    • Begin with signature cards in-hand, but can’t mulligan (except weaknesses) [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
    • Me and the wife always play with our signature cards in our opening hands, and take the 5 usual opening cards on top of this. Makes sense thematically to us, and we’re in it for the fun! It’s nice to build decks around knowing that you’re going into the game, signature card ready! [Reddit: LateNightCroissant]
    • We allow the option to either start with your signature card in your opening hand OR be able to mulligan as per the normal rules. Some investigators just feel like they are built with their signature in mind (Zoey, for example), and some of the folks we play with enjoy the consistency / the flavor of having their character be able to do ‘their thing’. [Reddit: Aroghast]
    • You start with your signature card or a story asset as one of your starting cards. Your choice. So we see those cards more often throughout the campaign and the investigators play more thematic and distinguished. [Reddit: nerdmeetsyou]
  • When drawing a starting hand, draw 10 cards (excluding weaknesses), and discard 5. [Reddit: dagens24]
  • Sometimes I will pick the best hand from both mulligans if I toss it all the first time and still end up with crap, or even do a third draw from scratch with no mulligan. [Reddit: pparke2]
  • I’ve “loaded” my hand at the start sometimes by carrying over a card I kept “alive” through most/all of the previous scenario and drawing one or two less. [Reddit: pparke2]
  • You draw 3 extra cards in your starting hand. When you finish the mulligan, you have to shuffle back those 3 in your deck. This way we have much less non-games because you never draw the cool cards in your deck. [Reddit: daniel_balard]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Forbidden Knowledge: Each investigator begins the game with 1 fewer card in their opening hand. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Boon of Destiny: Before drawing your opening hand, you may search your deck for 1 copy of a card and add it to your hand (this does not change the number of cards in your opening hand). [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Boon of Thoth: Each investigator begins the game with 1 additional card in their opening hand. [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Boon of Cutlery: At the start of the game, search the collection for one copy of “Knife” and put it into play. Do not add it to your deck. When that “Knife” would be discarded, remove it from the game instead. [Discord: Lemunde]

SETUP: Miscellaneous

  • (NEW)! Ultimatum of Hardship: Each investigator begins the game with 2 fewer resources in their resource pool. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Ultimatums: Campaign Mode only. Before each game in the campaign, choose 1 ultimatum/boon at random and begin the game with that boon or ultimatum active. (This does not apply to ultimatums or boons that affect deckbuilding or chaos bag construction.) [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Boon of Hades: Each investigator begins the game with 2 additional resources in their resource pool. [FFG Boon]

DURING SCENARIO: CHAOS BAG 

  • NOPES / Redos:
    • We do one redo of a bad pull from the chaos bag per character per game. [Reddit: tripngroove]
    • At our table, you get one auto-fail mulligan per campaign. Because sometimes that red token hurts your soul just a little too much. [Reddit: clarionx]
    • 1 ‘nope’ from the chaos bag per scenario. To explain, once per scenario we could cancel a token drawn from the chaos bag and draw another one to replace it. [Reddit: PlayerTw0 & ikingdoms]
      • I feel to bring balance to the force you should loose one experience point for every nope or place some doom on the agenda. or take a shot [Reddit: tonyrockatansky]
      • If chaos token from bag in skill test defeats me – I draw new token (if I dont have any other means to deal with it, as lucky, bandages, defeat ally,…) [Reddit: bpoldo]
    • We are VERY generous about “rewriting history”. Like if we fail a test but we didn’t realize there was a -4 in there we are allowed to retake it, committing cards if we like. Generally used for situations that are like “if I’d been thinking about this thing I actually would have done things differently.” [Reddit: theforestgirl]
      •  I do this too, on the theory that it’s a disadvantage to playing solo. Another player might have said, “wait, wouldn’t it make more sense if you do X before Y,” or “don’t forget we just had to add that elder thing token to the bag” but since I don’t have that second brain to keep me in check, I allow myself to redo things if I realize shortly afterwards that I would have done them differently if I’d thought about it a little more. [Reddit: coldt0es]
  • X Tokens in a Row:
    • Can’t pull the elder sign or auto fail two times in a row (made this one after pulling the auto fail 5 times in a row once) [Reddit: Farmermaggot14]
    • I think I draw the auto fail token about 5 times more than I draw the elder sign token. The third time I see the auto fail without having yet seen the elder sign, I put it back. [Reddit: Sarumanly]
    • If you pull the same token three times in a row, and I think we all know what I am referring to here, call B on that S and redraw something more humane ffs. [Reddit: 1GoodTurn]
  • Temporarily Removing Tokens / Waiting to Put Tokens Back:
    • Chaos tokens only get replaced into the chaos bag during upkeep, after it is empty (somehow), or auto-fail/elder sign is drawn. [Reddit: konsyr]
    • We play with the chaos bag a little differently – to make the game a little more strategic. When we resolve a token we remove it from the bag, until the Elder Sign is pulled and then everything goes back in. This means we see the Elder Sign more often, and it also lets us be a little more strategic with commits and when/if you’ll go for a critical test. For example once the Tentacle is out, you will know what’s left in the bag in terms of how much you need to commit to succeed. Or, you may decide not to risk your best cards if a lot of bad tokens are still in there. Maybe right now you feel good about squeaking by with a +1 to test, but maybe another time you know that you need at least +3 and might pull Tentacle. [Reddit: time4tiddy]
    • Whenever i pull the autofail token, I fail, then put it near the act/agenda decks until one of them changes, then i put it back in the bag. [Facebook: Ryan Landino]
    • The Third Time the Auto-Fail Token is drawn, it shall forthwith be banished from the Chaos Bag for the remainder of the scenario. [E-mail: Christopher Kolz]
      • House Rule Rationale: We play the game for the story, so we play on the Easy difficulty. It’s okay to have a foolproof plan fall completely apart occasionally (i.e. draw an Auto-Fail when it’s the only token that can cause you to fail), but our hard limit on that is 3 times per scenario. [E-mail: Christopher Kolz]
    • Ultimatum of Decline: When you draw a token from the chaos bag, set it aside instead of putting it back in the bag. When the Auto-Fail token is drawn, put all set aside tokens back in the bag. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • Whenever you draw an auto-fail, add an extra Elder Sign into the bag (we use coin capsules to “proxy” these, but extra +1s work as well). Whenever you draw an Elder Sign, remove it from the bag. This helps to offset the horribleness of getting auto fail over and over while also letting the Elder Sign abilities actually happen for once. [Reddit: MoonE513]
  • One lighter-weight change is to remove the autofail/tentacles and the elder sign token from the bag. That makes it possible to guarantee success, and removing the elder sign balances it *a little bit* (although it definitely doesn’t fully make up for it). [Reddit: nomine_ignoto]
  • Commit cards AFTER the token is drawn.  (Yes, yes, I get that this completely changes the game and renders some cards useless).I was inspired to try this based on Marvel Champions.  The beauty of Marvel Champions is that painful decision between using a card as a resource and using it for the actual asset/power. [Facebook: Jay Fournier]
    • One possibility so that you can play this way but potentially balance it a bit more is that if you draw the auto-fail token, you have to discard a random card from you hand. That way you still aren’t safe from the threat of the auto-fail, and you preserve some of the “cost” that it sometimes inflicts by making your committed cards fizzle. [Mythos Busters Episode 150]
  • For some games i’ve played, we treat the elder sign token as an auto-pass (similar to how the auto-fail token works). in these games we sometimes disregard or modify the elder sign ability of the investigator. Facebook: Chi-Chung Lai]
  • (NEW) Boon of Athena: The first time each game you draw the autofail token, you may cancel that token, return it to the chaos bag, and draw another in its place. [FFG Boon]

DURING SCENARIO: MYTHOS PHASE

  • Ancient Evils:
    • Ancient Evil is considered to have Victory 0. [Reddit: dagnes24 & others]
    • Use Resurgent Evils in place of Ancient Evils in all instances. [Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • Ancient Evils can only be drawn once per Mythos Phase to prevent instant loss scenarios. [Reddit: t0ny510]
  • I’ve considered a house rule along the lines of “Anything that can automatically advance the agenda only does so if this is the first extra doom placed via encounter cards this round”. Because Mysterious Chanting into Ancient Evils into Ancient Evils is misery in 4-player. Extra doom on the agenda is fine. Just don’t advance us out of nowhere. [Reddit: hascow]
  • The draw encounter cards step of the Mythos phase is skipped on a round when the Agenda advances. [Reddit: dagens24]
  • My biggest house rule is when I shuffle the encounter deck. We play 3-handed, so if the encounter deck runs out after the first two investigators, the 3rd does not take an encounter card. It does not happen all that often – maybe once every 3 scenarios? [Reddit: Cambob101]
  • New player is always lead investigator. [Reddit: Pirate_Ben]
  • Plan of Action works in the mythos phase. [Reddit: McCaber]
  • When my group played Innsmouth we found the early scenarios got a bit too stressful even though we were playing on Easy, so we added a Lucky Coin to the game. The coin was passed to the left at the start of each round, and the bearer didn’t have to draw an encounter card. It helped reduce the stress levels to a bearable level as we were at least able to have one player make some progress each round. [Reddit: toothball_elsewhere]
  • prey goes straight to the target, instead of whomever drew it. Makes more sense imo. [Reddit: Battleraizer]
  • Choose lead investigator depending on the first scenario flavor. For example I just played Minh and Jim & Minh in Carcosa and she was the lead first because duh, King in Yellow. [Reddit: j_seb]
  • When drawing encounter cards, draw two and choose which one to resolve; place the other on the bottom of the deck. This one can throw the game balance out the window, but I could see it being useful for someone who wants to ensure that they are able to play to their investigator’s strengths by avoiding cards that really stop forward progress dead in its tracks. This also empowers the player by giving the players more choice in the game. As a variant, you could draw encounter cards for all the investigators at the same time, and decide who gets which encounter card to deal with. [Reddit: tatoolo]
  • We agreed that when enemies appear of the encounter deck gives us something like locked door it always has to go in the worst possible place for us at that moment given the game state. It’s quite fun seeing everyone argue over how everyone else is clearly doing something far more vital than they are. [Facebook: Alex Joss]
  • Player order is variable. The player order going into the mythos phase is the order we took our turns in the last round. It creates some interesting decisions. [E-mail: LordBatBoy]
  • Ultimatum of Dread: Do not skip the mythos phase during the first round of each game. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Devastation: After each investigator has drawn their encounter card during the mythos phase, the lead investigator reveals the top card of the encounter deck and chooses an investigator to draw it. If there are four investigators, do this a second time afterward. [Discord: obsidiandice]
  • (NEW) Because we usually play 3- or 4-player, Ancient Evils is a real pain in the butt. Scenarios are usually pretty well designed to account for that encounter set when it’s included – but it can get a little out of hand in scenarios that involve a lot of encounter deck cycling. To soften Ancient Evils just a little bit, we amend it to the following (amended text in italics): “Revelation – Place 1 doom on the current agenda. This effect can cause the current agenda to advance, in which case, send this card to the victory display.” [Reddit: 2DiePerchance2Sleep]

DURING SCENARIO: INVESTIGATOR PHASE 

  • Extra Actions:
    • If I’m playing with my family, we’ll usually make a rule where you can take 2-3 extra actions at any point in the game. It’s more fun than reducing the difficulty in the bag and it gives people more of an opportunity to do what they’re wanting to do when normally the game can be severely punishing. It feels nice to know if you had one more action you could do your thing you were planning, so you spend one of the 2-3 bonus actions. And if the scenario isn’t too difficult we just don’t take the actions. [Reddit: magicchefdmb]
    • True solo gets two extra actions first turn. [Reddit: User Account Deleted]
    • I usually play with 4 actions per turn instead of the normal 3. If that seems too powerful you could say it can only be used for certain things (like actions on encounter cards and moving etc.) [Reddit: Uberbassman1]
    • Moving once is a free action, you then get your three actions to do what you want inc. moving again. [Facebook: Fewkes To Be Determined]
  • Take a drink each time an action is spent on liquid courage. [Reddit: Pirate_Ben]
  • Always read the flavour text when you enter a location or draw a new encounter card for the first time. [Reddit Pirate_Ben]
  • Forgotten actions, or invalid actions that were caught shortly after, are automatically converted into gain resource actions, if you are able to do it and there are no repercussions. [Reddit: Salaf]
  • The only rule I really change is that for cards like Lockpicks or Spectral Razor, where you add another skill value to a test, you’re allowed to commit cards with icons of the added skill value. With Lockpicks for example, as it stands in the current rules you can’t commit cards with Agility icons to boost it, only Intellect. This doesn’t feel intuitive to me so I change it, not a huge deal really but I feel it makes more sense my way! [Reddit: TheHarp]
  • Undo-Actions:
    • Refund actions as long as you haven’t pulled a token and no new info was presented. [Reddit: Salaf]
    • We can “rewind” an action or two if we realize a player was confused or ignored/forgot about a mechanic/rule/trait/etc. (This isn’t a do-over for skill checks or pulls.) [Reddit: indifferenttosports]
    • Rewind to let someone deal with an enemy they forgot they were engaged with. We then try to match the game state as close as possible. Only one person has needed it, but if we didn’t they’d explode from the 4 free attacks (3 action+enemy phase). [Reddit: Salaf]
    • My group is pretty lenient about take-backs. It’s the honor system: you can have plenty of take-backs, as long as (1) they are reasonably easy to implement (no rewinding multiple turns) and (2) you don’t abuse it to undo a bad token pull or compensate for an unexpected encounter card. [Reddit: RightHandComesOff]
  • For my group when engaged with a monster and you move away, they don’t follow you they just hit you as you leave. We do this mainly cause we thought those were the rules until we re-read them, but we’ve played every scenario like that so we keep it. [Reddit: SmittyTheFirst]
  • Allow investigators at the same location to pool resources for asset cards. I get why it is not allowed, but thematically it just seems silly, and it helps quite a bit when you are starting out. [Reddit: rgtd]
  • “Cover Up” says “Whenever you successfully investigate your current location, you may discard a clue from Cover Up instead of all other beneficial effects of that investigation.” [Reddit: chris_woods_hex]
  • Once per turn, if you fail a test, you can get a resource or a card. If you fail with a tentacle, you can get both or a extra action in your next turn. [Reddit: daniel_balard]
  • For hard mode; a turn timer. A little sand timer for a few minutes. You get to flip it after the player phase, but if it runs out, you all take a horror. Play fast or die! [Reddit: ArgusTheCat]
  • If we decided not to use ammo on an Asset we control, give it a try but fail the skil test we may use ammo afterwards to succeed (limited to once per round) [Facebook: Korinna Elísabet Bauer]
  • I really don’t like that when you resign you have to drop your clues in the location! so I decided that my investigator can decide if he wants to drop the clues or not! But only when resigning! if defeated you have to drop it! [Facebook: Nic Michaud]
  • We add a Free Parking location to every scenario and if you land on it you get 500 resources. [Facebook: Scott San Filippo (editor’s note: likely sarcasm / joke)]
  • My game partner and I play that we’re allowed to use lockpicks or spend an ammo to use a firearm for a locked door test. Might have to give Daniela a “percussive maintenance” ruling too. [Facebook: Wm Bridger]
  • (NEW) Boon of Hermes: Each investigator may take an additional action during their turn, which may only be used to move. [FFG Boon]

DURING SCENARIO: ENEMY PHASE 

  • A test to avoid an enemy attack (I may not hit but the enemy always hits?) [FFG Forums: Creedmoor65 (Editor’s note: no further information is provided. This appears to be more of a suggestion)]
  • (NEW) We use “random” movement when enemies have equal pathing options. If an enemy can go A or B because both are valid options, we flip a coin. I never liked the idea of investigators making everything in their favor for antagonistic forces, and I wish there were more things like the Dunwich Horrors that have random movement. [Reddit: RoshanCrass]

DURING SCENARIO: UPKEEP PHASE

  • Upkeep is signaled by a screaming goat figurine that lives with our arkham supplies. It’s amazing how Pavlovian my response is to hearing the goat scream; I immediately take a resource and a card. [Reddit: theforestgirl]
  • If you draw a card, and it’s a weakness, you can draw another card after resolving the revelation. This one is to stop the all feel bad when you are hoping for some action and you get no action and a weakness. [Reddit: daniel_balard]
  • Ultimatum of the Hunt: At the beginning of the Upkeep phase, if a non-elite enemy has not moved yet this turn, move it one space closer to the nearest investigator. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • Ultimatum of Poverty: After the upkeep phase, each investigator must either discard a card or discard a resource. If they are unable to either of the above, they must take one horror. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]

DURING SCENARIO: MISC

  • Damage / Horror / Trauma:
    • When I assign damage or horror to an asset/ally I don’t assign overflow damage/horror. e.g. if Aquinnah takes 2 or more damage from 1 source, she just eats everything and dies, and the extra damage doesn’t go onto my investigator [Reddit: wxdthepro]
    • For me, trauma has always been a permanent reduction to an investigator’s health. He/she begins with X damage/horror and it never goes away. [Facebook: Eric Martin]
    • Ultimatum of Sacrifice: If a unique ally dies, exile it from all decks. They cannot be purchased for the remainder of the campaign. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
    • Ultimatum of Agony: When assigning damage or horror, investigators must assign as much damage or horror as possible to a single card before any excess damage or horror may be assigned to a different card. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • You may attack an evaded Aloof enemy without engaging it. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]
  • If you take control of a story ally during a scenario, then for the purposes of that scenario they don’t take up an ally slot. You don’t immediately kill off your Leo de Luca by taking control of Sergeant Monroe, for instance! [Reddit: gamingwithabsinthe]
  • I give players bonus “story asset slots” equal to their usual slots (at least while playing the campaign/side-story that the story asset comes from; using side stories in campaigns can complicate that, and I’m not sure how to handle that yet). This allows players to actually enjoy the story assets (especially allies) without having to throw away the allies that they’ve specifically included in their deck construction (or even spent xp on). In the vanilla rules, story assets FAR too often just get pitched for icons or stuck in hand, and it’s both a lot more fun AND provides more of a “unique campaign feeling” to have them actually show up in play regularly. EDIT: (To clarify, “equal to their usual slots” generally means that Charisma will give you a second story-ally slot in addition to a second normal-ally slot, which matters for heavy story-ally campaigns like Dunwich.) [Reddit: tandtmm]
  • If you don’t address players by their character names, you are banished from the game for being no fun. [Reddit: indifferenttosports]
  • Mr. Rook is lame-o and we’re gonna make tons of jokes at your expense if you play with him. [Reddit: chris_woods_hex (editor’s note: this was from a post before Rook was tabooed)]
  • We also disregard the “roleplay” recommendation of the rules and openly state information like “I have card X and can do Y. Who needs a Z?” because we value discussing a common strategy more highly than immersion (we do keep mum about hidden treacheries, perils, etc., of course). [Reddit: Sorden]
  • You can have two footwear items but it costs your hand slots for the second pair. [Reddit: suddenmove]
  • If your card runs out you don’t get to reshuffle it in by taking a mental damage.[Reddit: BelialSirchade]
  • The Springfield works on massive enemies. [Reddit: BelialSirchade]
  • The Lola player drinks for free. [Reddit: 1GoodTurn]
  • All campaign decisions must be made “in character”. So if we have a play with a lot of criminal characters, we have to pick campaign options that are more shady or morally grey. This forces us out of going the same path each campaign, while the overall rules and play of the game stays the same. [Reddit: newuser05]
  • If we go over 7 players, enemy health is capped at 65, and investigators get +1 action. So far, we’ve only been up to 8. Yay. [Facebook: Erich Johnson]
  • If I’m playing true solo, I bump up my lowest stat by 1. [Facebook: Joe Barlow]
  • Treat the „max once per round“ from the taboo list as „per player“ instead. This concerns „Ace in the Hole“ and „Quick Thinking“. The „max“ keyword transcends players and multiple copies of a card. While we agree that recursion of such action generation is too strong, preventing different players from each using their own copy just seems weird and unnecessary. Besides what fun is it to play two rogues side by side, if you can’t even take like 16 combined actions in one round? [E-mail: Tobias „Der Biasto“]
  • Machete and Zoey work with massive enemies. Zero people who read Machete or Zoey and then see a massive enemy would think that they do not interact. Of course Zoey gets a resource when there is a massive enemy at her location, and of course she gets the ‘only engaged with one enemy’ bonus (if that massive enemy is the only one there). [E-mail: Aaron Foss]
  • “Automatically (thing)” is synonymous with “Successfully (thing)”. Patrice can get rid of the Watcher From Another Dimension with a Stray Cat. Any other interactions that require ‘successfully’ doing a thing can be done by automatically doing that thing. Again, nobody would look at that interaction and assume it doesn’t work. [E-mail: Aaron Foss]
  • Ultimatum of Progression: When the Act advances, each investigator must loose one: lose 2 Resources; take one direct horror, or take one direct damage. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • Ultimatum of Monsterous Beasts: Increase each enemy’s fight and evade values by one. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • Ultimatum of Addition: When counting the number of investigators, increase that number by 1. [Fan-made Ultimatum: Author Unknown]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of the Broken Veil: Anytime 1 or more weakness cards are discarded from the top of an investigator’s deck, shuffle those cards back into that investigator’s deck. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (REPLACE) The Ultimatum of Sacrifice with Ultimatum of The Scream: Campaign Mode only. When a unique non-story and non-weakness ally asset you control is defeated, remove it from the game. You cannot play that card for the rest of the campaign. After the scenario ends, remove that ally and all copies of it from each player’s deck. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Boon of Osiris: The first time each investigator would be defeated in a scenario, after suffering trauma, heal all damage and horror from that investigator. That investigator cannot be damaged until the beginning of their next turn. [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Self-Loathing: When you would draw a basic weakness and your signature weakness is not in play or in your hand, discard that card and search your deck and discard pile for your signature weakness and draw it instead. (Shuffle your deck.) [Discord: Lemunde]

SCENARIO: RESOLUTIONS

  • My group has a rule we call “The Salty Run-Back.” It doesn’t happen that often, but sometimes you just get a string of autofails, or draw your weaknesses back-to-back in on the first two turns, or the mythos deck just hammers you out of nowhere. Sometimes we take our licks and trudge through, sometimes we enact “The Salty Run-Back:” just reset the scenario and give it another go. Doesn’t change the difficulty at all, but just helps us accept that sometimes the luck of the game was out to get us. [Reddit: fractalhack]
  • Trauma, Death, and Insanity:
    • I ignore trauma. Honestly, I just don’t think it’s a fun mechanic, and to be honest, half the time I don’t use it because I genuinely forget to apply it until halfway through the next scenario. As I get better with the game, I may get a feel for it, but I find the game to be challenging enough without bothering. [Reddit: alex-alone]
    • Our biggest rule change is not taking mental or physical trauma from dying due to damage or horror. (All other trauma is unchanged.) My group hates having to start with a fresh investigator knee-deep into a campaign, and playing with an investigator who only has two health or sanity makes scenarios swingy and unfun. I know we lose the tension/strategy of deciding when to resign from a scenario, but we gain the tension of always sticking it out and playing until your last health point. [Reddit: User Account Deleted]
    • A player can spend 5 resources as a free action at the beginning of a scenario to heal one physical or mental trauma. [Reddit: PitchesoToole]
    • If you are knocked out because your health or sanity reaches 0, you are dead. This makes self-preservation a important priority, which means players are very much less inclined to become a hero, and actually consider using resigning as a means to proceed with the story. Cards like I’ll see you in Hell can still be played as you do not get knocked out because your health reaches 0. [Reddit: Battleraizer]
    • If a player is eliminated from the campaign due to a scenario resolution their new investigator may use 1/2 of the total xp earned up to that point in the campaign. It still has the sting of losing your investigator but takes away the feel bad of starting at 0. This does not apply to retiring and investigator voluntarily, in that instance they still start at 0. [E-mail: Chris Byer]
    • If your investigator gets defeated, they die instantly (instead of retaining trauma) but the upside is that the player gets to take all of the previous investigator’s Deckbuilding Requirements and put it into his/her deck as an extra 3 or so cards. Similar to how it functions in Eldritch Horror but somewhat different since the transition is effortless also you’re punished a little bit for doing it by gaining the extra weakness. [Reddit: bmtrocks]
      •  I actually tested out my rule. First I must say how I didn’t expect how different the games would go when going into the Dunwich Legacy. Me and a friend are doing it with Jenny + Rex, right? I used DOUBLE signature cards with Jenny, and she ends up dying in the second scenario. I ruled it so signature cards + Basic weakness + XP transferred on over, and I didn’t buy anything yet for Jenny so I replaced her with Mark and bought myself a level 3 First Aid. Going into Miskatonic Museum Mark kills it. I gain quite a bit of XP and starting saving for Stick to the Plan and got Ever Vigiliant early on in preparation for it. By Blood on the Altar comes around, Mark is yet again killing it but unfortunately I got down to 2 horror and all of a sudden an instant fail on Rotting Remains which causes Mark to go insane and get defeated right towards the end. Somehow or another my friend’s Rex has made it all the way through to the end and was able to win the scenario in style by getting all of the clues off the Hidden Chamber. Then I replaced him with Zoey cause I still want to do Stick to the Plan as my main deck theme, and ruled it that I can trade-in cards with level 1 – 5 for XP as a way to “reimburse” myself for having this hefty deck full of weaknesses and signature cards, lol. [Reddit: bmtrocks]
    • Ultimatum of Finality: Campaign Mode only. If an investigator is defeated by physical damage, they are killed. If an investigator is defeated by mental damage, they are driven insane. [FFG Ultimatum]
    • Ultimatum of Survival: Campaign Mode only. If an investigator is killed or driven insane, that player is eliminated from the campaign and cannot continue playing as a new investigator. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • I don’t fail forward. I repeat a scenario if my investigator is defeated; but I do keep the consequences of whatever resolution I end up with aside from defeat. (Too many hours playing video games with a save option, probably). [Reddit: Murderedbytheweb]
  • You don’t have to reduce the locations to 0 clues to get the XP. [Reddit: Daghora]
  • I replay scenario if failure means end of campaign. [Reddit: bpoldo]
  • New / Replacement Investigators:
    • My personal house rule is a little something I call “Campaign XP.” How it works is when I earn XP at the end of a scenario, I add it to both my investigator’s XP and the Campaign XP. Normally if your investigator is killed or driven insane, you have to pick a new one and build a deck full of only level 0 cards from scratch. But if that happens for me, I use my Campaign XP to purchase higher level cards so I’m not going into harder later scenarios with a basic starting deck. As a caveat though, I also use the deckbuilding rule from Standalone mode: for every 10 XP I spend, I have to take an additional basic weakness. [Reddit: Hugh_Jidot]
    • Replacement ‘gators get 2XP per scenario completed by the team. [Reddit: chris_woods_hex]
  • No shared world. If Jenny dies in scenario 7, next gator has to start at scenario 1, because it hasn’t happened yet. [Reddit: TheScarecrowKing]
  • All campaign decisions must be made “in character”. So if we have a play with a lot of criminal characters, we have to pick campaign options that are more shady or morally grey. This forces us out of going the same path each campaign, while the overall rules and play of the game stays the same. [Reddit: newuser05]
  • In-play assets can carry over from scenario to scenario at each player’s discretion (or, for something a little less powerful, one in-play asset per investigator can optionally be repurchased at full price at the end of a scenario to have it start in play in the next scenario). [Reddit: PitchesoToole]
  • Unspent resources carry over from scenario to scenario. [Reddit: PitchesoToole]
  • Grant each character 1 or more bonus XP at the end of each scenario, or an XP minimum. [Reddit: tatoolo]
  • If a scenario is lost by exactly one action we can take trauma to continue as if that final action had succeeded; yes it makes the game easier but still is more fun for our group. [Facebook: Sam Chapman]
  • For each auto fail drawn in a row after the first gain an xp. Takes the sting out of constant auto fails. [Facebook: Sean Grady]
  • Occasional replays of scenarios are allowed, usually whenever the game decides to get rude (i.e. extremely excessive tentacles or ridiculous encounter deck combos) or there were major play mistakes (i.e. more than one time an investigator bought one of the permanent skill boosters and forgot to use it the entire scenario) [E-mail: bigkahuna]

STANDALONES / SIDE SCENARIOS

  • Side Scenarios are played as standalone or at the end of campaigns with no XP cost. We don’t think it makes sense to jet off to Louisana to hunt Werewolves while things fall apart in Dunwich. [Reddit: t0ny510]
  • Do not pay XP for standalone scenarios upfront. Instead deduct them from earned XP at the end. We used to meet once a week, play a scenario and upgrade decks inbetween. Sometimes when someone couldn’t make it we would insert a standalone. With the upgrades already done, we would have had to go back and revert some of the upgrades, which just sucks. [E-mail: Tobias „Der Biasto“]
  • Another idea I had was to try and putting a campaign scenario into a different campaign like a side scenario. ( yes we should pay xp for the “privilege” but eh). As in adding City of Archives to any campaign, makes just as much sense as stopping by Venice to go to a carnival. Or adding Fatal Mirage to Dunwich. Treat the expedition team as crossed off and follow their memories to gain some much needed xp. (for a total of 18 xp if you can do all 9). [E-mail: Egothha_skulls]
  • The Flashback Rule: The flashback rule applies to side scenarios inserted in the middle of a campaign and states that the side scenario cannot end your campaign. You pay the xp cost and play the scenario, but if you fail it, you refund the xp, and continue with the campaign. The scenario is a flashback, showing an earlier adventure the investigators had together, so it makes no sense that the scenario ended life on Earth as we know it. I decided to use it because I realized I had several of the standalone scenarios I never played, because I dared not risk them ending my campaign. And it provides the headcanon for why you are going to Cairo in the middle of the Dreamlands campaign… [E-mail: Morten Dall]
  • The only house rules we play is during The Night’s Usurper. We reset the strength of the abyss to 2 instead of carrying it over from the Eternal Slumber. TNU is hard enough without the extra strength. [FFG Forums: Magneto]

MISCELLANEOUS RULES

MULTI-CAMPAIGN INVESTIGATORS

  • If using the same investigator in another campaign you can keep level 3 and below XP cards at the cost of keeping whatever trauma you have built up or 1 Mental/Health trauma per card, you want to keep or go in a clean slate. [Reddit: t0ny510]
  • I like doing a “marathon” mode where you play through every campaign in order, unlocking cards as you go. And when you die you just pick up a new investigator with a little less xp instead of none. [Reddit: justanothertransgirl]
  • The Final Fate of Arkham: [E-mail: Dude in process /Arkham Historian]
    • Investigators play through the chronology of the AH:LCG catalog with the option of any surviving investigator carrying over to the next campaign. 
    • Once an investigator is driven insane, or killed, they cannot be selected by a player as an investigator for the rest of the campaign. 
    • You may optionally retire an investigator between scenarios. Retired investigators can re enter the campaign, if the original player chooses to do so, between any two scenarios.
    • The Chaos bag is set at hard mode at the start of each campaign, removing any previously added tokens from the prior campaign.
    • Any unique cards can only be in one investigator’s deck at a time. For instance you may not include Dr Milan in your deck if he is currently in another investigator’s deck.
    • The most recent Taboo list is always in effect.
    • Side quests can only be played between campaigns, using that scenario’s chaos bag’s hard difficulty.
  • (NEW) I know the general consensus is that carrying investigators over from one campaign to the next is a bad idea, and in general, I agree… Some folks in my playgroup, however, get VERY attached to their decks and are hesitant to let them go, so I’ve decided to take a stab at creating carryover rules that strive to lessen the negative impact while heightening the potential fun.
    • The problems I’ve most commonly seen mentioned with respect to carryover investigators can be broken down into one of three broad categories:
    • The best way I could think of to address the first two points (aside from starting again with a fresh level 0) is to institute the following rules when starting a new campaign with a carryover investigator:
      • All carryover investigators have +15 deck size
      • All carryover investigators must add one additional random basic weakness to their hand (does not count towards increased deck size)
      • All carryover investigators lose any unspent experience, and all 15 of the cards added to conform to the increased deck size must be level 0 and cannot be upgraded or replaced until after the first scenario of the new campaign is completed.
      • (Optional) All carryover investigators must have a minimum of 2 trauma for each campaign they have completed (add trauma of the player’s choice if these thresholds have not been met)
      • (Optional) Any campaign with one or more carryover investigators must be attempted at a difficulty that is one level harder than the highest difficulty from among the campaigns most recently completed by each carryover investigator. If the difficulty cannot be increased further, players must instead select a non-deckbuilding ultimatum and play with it for the new campaign and all future campaigns with any of the same carryover investigators. (In any subsequent scenario where no carryover investigators are present, players may elect to stop using the selected ultimatums)
    • The key to this proposal is the increased deck size with the additional basic weakness. Increasing the deck limit results in draws that are both less reliable and less powerful (on average); the additional basic weakness keeps the ratio of weaknesses roughly consistent with most new investigator decks. The increased deck limit also provides players with carryover investigators a new deckbuilding puzzle: with 15 new level 0 cards in the deck, experience becomes meaningful and interesting once more.
    • The optional components are there to ensure that playgroups can place hard (trauma) or soft (difficulty/ultimatums) caps on how many campaigns a given investigator can participate in.
    • I don’t feel at all compelled to address the lattermost of the three points, because retiring an investigator when they’re no longer viable should be a choice (and, hopefully, an interesting one). Even in a given playgroup, players should feel compelled to mix carryover investigators with fresh level 0 investigators — with luck, this ruleset will help make that a viable, interesting, and fun prospect.
    • I haven’t yet had a chance to test this extensively, so any and all constructive comments are welcome! [Reddit: Temporary_Case_2709]

DAMN CTHULHU TO HELL RULES

CAMPAIGN-SPECIFIC HOUSE RULES

NIGHT OF THE ZEALOT HOUSE RULES

[None at this time.]

THE DUNWICH LEGACY HOUSE RULES

  • I allow myself the experience point from the clover club back room exit in house always wins. [Reddit: JoshuaIan & Vathar]
    • I do the same, and also make the parley action automatic when running this scenario second. Makes R3 a bit more reasonable and thematic at low player counts. [Reddit: UncleRiker]
  • Add 1 or 2 XP to the Victory Display at the end of each scenario to compensate for the low XP of TDL. [Editor has seen this around but doesn’t have a source]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Invisibility: Undimensioned and Unseen. Each Brood of Yog-Sothoth (Dunwich 255) gains the Elite trait and is immune to all player card effects except for the effects of Esoteric Formula (Dunwich 254). [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Multiplication: Undimensioned and Unseen. Instead of the standard setup instructions, begin the game with all five Brood of Yog-Sothoth cards in play: one in each of the five locations besides Dunwich Village (Dunwich 242). During this scenario, whenever an effect would cause you to spawn a set-aside Brood of Yog-Sothoth, you must instead place one doom on the current agenda. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) CHALLENGE “THEN IT MULTIPLIED”: Undimensioned and Unseen. Play with the Ultimatum of Invisibility, Ultimatum of Multiplication, and Ultimatum of Orthodoxy. [FFG Challenge Scenario]

PATH TO CARCOSA HOUSE RULES

  • We start the party scenario in Carcosa wearing our Fine Clothes. After all, we’re going to a party, we’re not going to wait until we’ve been there a while to get dressed. [Reddit: pattersonjeffa]
  • For Return to the Path to Carcosa: The Agents of Hastur set is used rather than replaced with Hastur’s Envoys in The Unspeakable Oath, and used in addition to Hastur’s Envoys in A Phantom of Truth, in order to not reduce the amount of experience available in those scenarios (this is particularly important for The Unspeakable Oath, because part of the fun of that scenario is working out whether you want to push your luck by shuffling additional Monsters into the deck and waiting to see if they spawn rather than escape, in order to get more experience points, but if there’s only one VP enemy in the Monster deck, it’s just not worth trying at all). [FFG Forums: Allonym]
  • (NEW) Boon of the Path Not Taken: Curtain Call. After the Man in the Pallid Mask spawns, take the remaining set aside location and put it into play. (I don’t like randomly losing an XP.) [Discord: Whimsical]
  • (NEW) Boon of The Last King: The Last King. When a Sickening Reality needs to be flipped, only use the cards corresponding to guests you’ve interrogated (unless there are none, then flip at random). I like the scenario, but as usual, I don’t like the randomness involved. [Discord: Whimsical]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of the Unspeakable Name: If you heeded Daniel’s warning is recorded in your Campaign Log, each time you speak the name of HASTUR aloud during setup or play of a scenario, in addition to taking 1 horror, suffer 1 mental trauma. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Death: The Pallid Mask. After setup, immediately advance Agenda 1a to Specter of Death (Carcosa 241b) and spawn it at your starting location, exhausted. Agenda 2a (Carcosa 242) gains +6 doom threshold. Specter of Death gains the following text: “Forced – When Specter of Death is defeated: Instead of adding it to the victory display, heal all damage from it and exhaust it. It does not ready during the next upkeep phase.” [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of The Man: The Pallid Mask. For the purposes of Corpse Dweller ‘s (Carcosa 259) spawn ability, The Man in the Pallid Mask does not count as a Humanoid enemy. While it is Act 2, The Man in the Pallid Mask cannot leave the Tomb of Shadows (Carcosa 257). [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) CHALLENGE “DEATH ITSELF”: The Pallid Mask. Play with the Ultimatum of Death, Ultimatum of The Man, and Ultimatum of Orthodoxy. [FFG Challenge Scenario]

THE FORGOTTEN AGE HOUSE RULES

  • Play TFA with Return to… rules even on first/blind playthru.[Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • Also TFA, buy supplies dynamically during play instead of at the start.[Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • Whenever a scenario effect tells you that you are now permanently a Yithian, you are free to ignore this because it’s stupid. [Reddit: DerBK]
    • I also ignore the permanently turning into a Yithian, but for us, you have to take 2 trauma, just so we can feel a bit better about ignoring it. [Reddit: TastyToast1]
  • For TFA, we doubled the number of supply points for each load-point in the story. [Reddit: MarkFynche]
  • We also started the Chaos Bag with 8 bless tokens, and put one less in, for each subsequent scenario, so by the end of the campaign, there’s only one Bless token at the start of the game. [Reddit: MarkFynche]
  • We also followed many of the Return To rules for Checking Supplies and the Explore Deck. [Reddit: MarkFynche]
  • While I’ve never ran it, something that I’ve discussed is changing The Forgotten Age to use X+1 Treacheries in the Explore deck. So, you’d only end up with 2 in solo, but still the full 5 in 4 player. The explore mechanic is just unbelievably punishing in solo. [Reddit: Veneretio]
  • Only houserule is free poison removal after threads of fate. If Miskatonic university cant affort to pay for it after all we’ve been through, i’m out XD [Facebook: Etienne Jasmin]
  • The only other thing we have kind of house ruled is the first scenario in TFA. We build the chaos bag a level easier than what we’ll run for the rest of the campaign, because that is a beastly 0 level scenario. I mean, what’s the point if everyone dies before they even have a chance to befriend Yaotl, and hang out with him while he gives you archery tips and makes snide comments about Alejandro? [FFG Forums: Mimi61]
  • Supplies are chosen as for a single investigator, but apply across all investigators. This reduces some of the interesting play for multiple investigators, like prioritising actions depending on who has what, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid the poor scaling of the Supplies mechanic. So if an effect provides an investigator with additional exp or additional trauma if they do or do not have a certain supply, that effect applies to all investigators at once. Crossing off provisions or medicine removes one of those supplies and applies the relevant effect to all investigators at once. This does make the campaign somewhat easier, especially with larger player counts, so not recommended for difficulties of Standard or Easy. [FFG Forums: Allonym]
  • For the first two scenarios of the campaign (The Untamed Wilds and Doom of Eztli), the “Easy/Standard” side of the scenario card is used even on Hard or Expert. Really, the problem is just the effects of the Elder Thing token, so you could just rule that you’re using the Easy/Standard Elder Thing effects, but it’s easier to just have the Easy/Standard side up than flipping back and forth. This is because the Elder Thing effects for Hard/Expert for these two scenarios are, frankly, stupid – hitting you with unavoidable effects or arbitrarily poisoning you – they don’t really enable interesting counter-play or risk/reward analyses, they just screw you over by pure happenstance and reduce interaction with the game. [FFG Forums: Allonym]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Venom: Each copy of Poisoned (Forgotten Age 102) gains “Forced – When the game ends, if you have not been eliminated: Suffer 1 physical trauma.” [FFG Ultimatum]

THE CIRCLE UNDONE HOUSE RULES

  • In TCU, skip replaying the prologue and pick outcomes at random.[Reddit: K1ngsGambit]
  • If the Lodge Wins the Campaign, the investigators win the campaign. However, then the campaign continues in a parallel universe where the investigators instead decided to betray the lodge at the last moment, playing the last two scenarios with no mementos. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]
  • (NEW) Boon of The Survivor: Return to The Circle Undone. Before drawing Tarot cards to skip the Disappearance at the Twilight Estate, choose a player at random. That player automatically draws The Magician or The High Priestess for their neutral investigator, with the result “1-2: (character’s name) disappeared into the mist. 0 pieces of evidence were left behind.” [Discord: obsidiandice]

THE DREAM EATERS HOUSE RULES

(NEW) Boon of The Dreamer: Where the Gods Dwell. After advancing to Act 5, advance to agenda 3a and remove all doom from it. This agenda gets +2 doom threshold. [FFG Boon]

THE INNNSMOUTH CONSPIRACY HOUSE RULES

  • A rule in considering is to ignore any time Innsmouth tells you to wait on spending XP. I get what they were trying to do with it with regards to flashbacks, but in the end it’s just much more irritating than it is flavourful. I don’t think it will upset balance much since it’s only a single scenario either way. [Reddit: RoastedChesnaughts]
  • Play the scenarios in chronological order. [Podcast: BigKahuna]
  • (NEW) Boon of Memories: Ignore the “do not spend experience” instructions. Not even because I’m upset about not having the XP. I just find remembering which scenarios have that line, and actually tracking the XP, to be too much of a bother. [Discord: Whimsical]
  • (NEW) Boon of Suspicion: The Vanishing of Elena Harper. Each non-kidnapper Suspect added to the victory display is worth 1 Victory Point.
  • (NEW) Boon of Leads: The Vanishing of Elena Harper. Either don’t shuffle a new card into the encounter deck, or make it so that when you trigger the ability at the Innsmouth Harbour, you may choose to shuffle the revealed card into the deck or not. [Discord: Whimsical]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of the Drowned: Into the Maelstrom. Each agenda gets –1 doom threshold. The Forced effect on Dagon’s (Innsmouth 330b)(Awakened and Enraged) side instead reads: “Forced – After Dagon is evaded or dealt damage: Do the same to a copy of Dagon’s Brood in play, as well. Ready Dagon.” The Forced effect on Hydra’s (Innsmouth 331b)(Awakened and Enraged) side instead reads: “Forced – After Hydra is evaded or dealt damage: Do the same to a copy of Hydra’s Brood in play, as well. Ready Hydra.” [FFG Ultimatum]

EDGE OF THE EARTH HOUSE RULES

  • When an effect has you select a partner, draw two and pick one. [Discord: Mythos Busters]
  • When an effect has you select a partner, you may designate one partner who is not shuffled into the deck. [Discord: Mythos Busters]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Annoyance: When the campaign begins, shuffle 3 random cards from the Tekeli-li encounter set into each investigator’s deck. [FFG Ultimatum]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Frostbite: During campaign setup, add one Frost Token to the chaos bag for the rest of the campaign. For the remainder of the campaign, Frost Tokens cannot be removed from the chaos bag. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of Tekeli-li, Tekeli-li!: During setup for each scenario, shuffle one random Tekeli-li into each player’s deck without looking at it. If there are not enough Tekeli-li weaknesses, each player begins the scenario with an additional horror instead. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]
  • (NEW) Ultimatum of the Irresolute: Throughout the campaign, no partner may become Resolute, be selected two scenarios in a row, or be granted ‘Plot Armor.’ [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]

THE SCARLET KEYS HOUSE RULES

  • For every two cities around the world you go to but do not have a scenario, gain +1XP. [Editor has seen this around]
  • If you have an effect that damages or evades multiple enemies, or discovers multiple clues, you may turn any combination of those into exposing Concealed Mini Cards. For example, Dynamite Blast would damage each enemy at the location and then expose all Concealed Mini Cards at that location. For example, if you discover two clues, you may discover one clue and expose one Concealed Mini Card. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]  
  • If you go to a non-scenario city on time 35, finish the event at that city before being kidnapped by the Coterie in event Omega. [Discord: Head Librarian Chad]

Feast of Hemlock Vale House Rules

  • (NEW) Boon of the Dance: When choosing residents to share a dance with during Prelude: The Second Evening, players may check the Relationship Level requirements of a codex entry before resolving it. [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Boon of Bliss: Fate of the Vale. Each agenda gets +2 doom threshold. [FFG Boon]
  • (NEW) Boon of the Miners:Fate of the Vale. Fate of the Vale (v.III) (Hemlock 159)’s first ability should read “[ACTION]: Spend X clues: Place X resources on your location, as kindling…” and its second ability should instead read “[FREE] If your location has 1/per investigator kindling on it, remove all kindling from it: Draw 1 set-aside Fire! treachery. (Group limit once per location.)” [FFG Boon]

SOURCES