I really really wanted to like Arkham Horror as a different approach from Chaosium, and the effort put into production is mighty.

But

Nah.

@Taskerland It's a bit board gamey, and a lot gamey-gamey.

The players start with the assumption that they've "had an encounter with" and so everyone has some sort of reason that they are occulti but that just turns it into a monster hunting game for me. Maybe that is it. It's a Lovecraft Monsterhunting game and I'm not really onboard.

But I really like little touches like the character sheet is a folder, with basic resolution rules in it so players don't need to refer to "big book"

@Printdevil @Taskerland The new Arkham Horror RPG feels to me very much like a lineal descendant of the board games that Chaosium started and FFG continued. It frames a struggle against the Mythos as a fight that is essentially winnable. With lots of tommyguns and dynamite and hanging off the running boards of a speeding car while using both. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't need Lovecraft and I think it is better when separated from him.

I was (foolishly) hoping for something like a CoC with the production of Arkham Horror. I still would like to see a theatrical boxed scenario that just deserves "open box on show" in a game shop as an antidote to soft-plushie owl bears.

I'm very spoilt by the murder mystery box sets, and underwhelmed by Chaosium reprints, and stunned by the price of HPLHS stuff.

Woe is my gaming dissonance.

@Taskerland @RogerBW

I could never get past the cover art on those novelisations, which I know is vapid of me, but they just looked like "nope"

@Taskerland @RogerBW

@Taskerland @Printdevil @RogerBW yet more reasons why i need to finish the bloodsuckers novella

No NOOoOO.. Noooo. I never recovered from Promethian

@Taskerland @vortiwife @RogerBW

Did it have a jaunty pulp cover that looked samey to all the other ones?

@Taskerland @RogerBW