I'm still fairly new to board gaming, and I'm trying to get a playgroup together. I'm a video gamer, and a lot of my friends are as well. This means two things:

1. They're gamers, so board games are at least in the ballpark so to speak.
2. They're comfortable with video games and that's what they want to do.

Yesterday 3 of my friends (Rob, Luke and Matt) came over for some gamin.' After playing Rock Band 2, then Castle Crashers on the Xbox they were showing no signs of stopping. I was having fun, but thinking "I can play video games anytime. I wanna bust out some board games." After Castle Crashers, Matt and Luke went out to get pizza. I seized the opportunity to get Rob to try TransAmerica with me while the other guys were out.

They got back to find us in the middle of a game. They asked about it, so we started a new game (no coincidence that TransAmerica is an easy game to play while eating pizza.) Everyone had a great time with it, so we proceeded to bust out Settlers of Catan which everyone was familiar with from Xbox Live. After Settlers, Matt wanted to play Arkham Horror (I've ranted and raved about it in the past.)

It's complex, but it's still a new game I'm excited about, and I feel I've just gotten a good grip on the rules. Plus I enjoy teaching, so I set up the table and we got started. Right off the bat, everyone thought the large selection of investigators was impressive, and they liked drawing them and drawing the Ancient One. There was definitely the "holy hell, look at all the pieces and cards!" sentiment at the table. Luke drew Hastur as the Ancient One, which I've never played with.

I started off with the overview explanation: "There is an Ancient Evil awakening in the small town of Arkham. We are investigators trying to prevent that from happening or, at worst, defeat it if that does happen." I then went through the first turn explaining each step as we went. Naturally it went a little slow for the first few turns, but once we got into the flow of the turn order, play went smoothly. We only had to check the rulebook a couple of times, and everyone got into the game pretty quickly.

Like I said, I'd never had Hastur as the Ancient One before. Let me say that Hastur is a jerk. He makes the cost of sealing gates 8 clue tokens rather than 5. This is a bigger deal than it sounds like. Rob had the gangster investigator, and he did what he was meant to do: killing monsters with his tommy gun. Matt had the lady scientist and was primarily focused on spellcasting. Luke had the adventurer, and honestly Luke had a hell of a time with the dice - a recurring theme with him from game to game. I drew the student - Amanda Sharp. I had a hard time with her, she doesn't seem very specialized; 5 SAN, 5 STA. I really didn't know how to play her.

Much of game consisted of us moving around the map and closing gates (but not sealing them) and new gates opening. Clue tokens weren't spawning very frequently, and that coupled with the high cost of sealing gates made it pretty tough. And Luke couldn't pass a skill check to save his life. Or sanity. And it seemed like every gate card he drew was nasty. You factor in that every time someone goes unconscious or crazy they lose half of their clue tokens (or is that just in the Other Worlds? Can't rmemeber right now) and sealing the gates was a hell of a task.

As the doom track filled up, the sense of urgency mounted. Rob (the gangster) was bombing around town in his deputy patrol wagon and closing gates. I was having trouble with my bank loan, while Luke and Matt tried to stem the tide of monsters in Arkham. We did ultimately get the last gate closed, just before the next Mythos card was going to summon Hastur for the final battle. Victory!

This game was long. Probably 3-4 hours, and these guys aren't board gamers that are used to this sort of thing. Plus, it ended just after 2am, so we were all pretty groggy. So it made me happy when everyone started exclaiming how great the game was and how much they loved it. Luke especially made it a point to say that he enjoyed the game even though he got the shaft more often than not. Everyone asked me when the next game night was.

We'll still be doing video games no doubt (not that I mind that at all.) But I may have planted the board gaming seeds. And how did I do that? Easy:

TransAmerica-->Settlers of Catan-->Arkham Horror. In one night.

love hearing stories like this. i play a hell of a lot of video games, but nothing beats a good boardgame (like AH) when you want a fun social experience. I feel sorry for your friends: first time playing AH + (GOO = Hastur) = boatloads of pain.

You guys are fearless, keep it on. I have to buy AH too, I'm a huge Lovecraft fan and I hope my friends will like it too. After reading this session report I know I must have it. Thanks.

If you got them through a game of AH with Da Big H, you're golden! (Yeah, 8 clue tokens is a bear.) This is one of my favorite games, with the right people, but it's long, and it's fiddly. Glad it went well for you!

Yeah... I remember my introduction to board games:

Puerto Rico and then.... a Twilight Imperium first edition, I didn't even know if I liked it or hated it by then, but the seed was planted and now here I am.

Awesome

I would actually venture to suggest that AH is a great game for newbies so long as there is an experienced player 'GM-ing' the game. So much of the game is driven by reaction to instructions on the cards that there's not much necessary to independently learn in order to play. And as it's a co-op which starts off with everybody doomed to fail there's nothing to put anyone off gaming if the things don't go well for them!

The fact that they survived this very long, very difficult, very late first AH session and loved it makes me happy.

I have only played this game once and fell in love with it. I definitely need to find some people to play this with again, specially after reading this session story.