This game plays very well solo. Probably 50% of the player base is almost exclusively solo. The two main options for solo play are "two handed," where you would emulate a two-player game and play as two characters. This can be good when just getting into the game, as you probably won't have enough of a card pool to build a good "true solo" deck (where you would just be playing as one character).
I think a lot of people are in your situation, where they don't really have a playgroup that wants to play it. It's also has one of the best scaling systems I've ever seen.
The way the game is set up is through campaigns (called cycles), in which you buy a Deluxe Expansion (such as Dunwich Legacy, Path to Carcosa, etc.). That provides the first two scenarios of that campaign, and then there are six Mythos Packs that have one scenario each, for a total of eight in a campaign. Both the Deluxe and Mythos packs have additional player cards for all of the different classes, so this is how the player card pool gets expanded.
Trauma is Permanent condition so it basically give you damage or insanity tokens at beginning of scenario in the campaign. In Forgotten Age there are interludes between that let you get rid of trauma but generally not the case and they are there for the duration of campaign. I had a campaign where I started a scenario at -4 sanity and -5 health.
Yes, horror/damage that you start with due to trauma can be healed temporarily during the scenario. I can't really think of a thematic reason for that at the moment, but I'm sure someone could come up with a logical reasoning as to why that would make sense.
Yes, as Xshagrath stated you can heal back to your maximum health. Trauma does not reduce your maximum health or sanity, it just simply make you start off with damage or insanity tokens. This is one thing that confuse new comers to Arkham LCG. Think of them as more like tramatic experience that sort of haunt you or lingering physical damage which start you off on a down side of things but as any good investigator you shake it off by popping some aspirin or smoke some pipe and temporary heal yourself back up to face the elder god. Then as you move to the next scenario the trauma flare up again.
Cards that have encounter set icons (such as Earl Sawyer) can only be added via scenario events. Only class cards and neutral cards (usually all Level 0) can be added to a starting deck. If you're playing "stand-alone," you can add XP cards, but never any of the campaign-specific allies or other assets.
I stand corrected. I have never played stand-alone (and probably never will). When I glanced at the stand-alone setup, I saw some previous campaign decisions it wanted you to make, but I guess that's only if you didn't want to go back and pick things yourself.
I love sleeving and organizing cards. Last night I lit a fire, had a glass of wine, sleeved my second core, organized my box and built two decks while listening to podcasts. It was a perfect Sunday night.
Posting this here for anyone interested in getting some professional quality full campaign logs (like the ones found in the deluxe expansions) rather than using all the folded ones that come in the mythos packs. I've already put in my order for Carcosa and Dunwich.
This is not run by me, but by a member of the Mythos Busters discord.
For all those interested:
I am coordinating a group purchase for a printing of the Path to Carcosa campaign guide (as I have done so in the past for Duniwch Legacy). Here is how I am organizing it: I've put up a page at https://squareup.com/store/1-player-podcast-store for anyone interested to send money towards the purchase. The store site will be open April 6 at 9 am central time. At that point, I will close the page and send over the final total to the printer. You can also order a copy of the Dunwich Legacy campaign guide or a half-width Night of the Zealot campaign guide, which I've put together. (You can see the pdf of the guide here: https://goo.gl/Rtdpdg). The half-width guide is intended to fit easily on the top of a BCW 500 box or similar size space (and it's my hope that it will fit into the Return to the Night of the Zealot box well). For each item, if I do not get 10 or more people to group in on the buy, I will refund any money paid for that particular guide and not order it. (Sorry. So feel free to share elsewhere if you want to make sure the items can be printed.) Prices are: Carcosa - $15.80; Dunwich - $13.50; Zealot - $10.50. Shipping is $3 by media mail. Disclaimer: Prices charged are my costs only, including local sales tax. I receive no profit from this group purchase coordination and am using it for personal use only (to allow me to acquire a printed copy of the campaign guide, which I would not be able to obtain without working together with others). In the event that the group purchase receives enough interest that the printing costs get lowered (practically, 100 orders), I intend to reduce the costs for participants. I am using an actual store site this time to help organize shipping addresses and items wanted.
https://squareup.com/store/1-player-podcast-store
Here's an example of what his previous print-run for Dunwich looked like.
Friday, I'm playing it then. We finished the Forgotten Age campaign last week and my groups not quite done with the characters and (although technically not all of us made it) we are running them through the Abyss mini campaign as way of farewell before the Circle Undone.
I'm a sleever, mainly because I find shuffling sleeved cards easier. I can understand why you wouldn't sleeve though. It is a huge added cost over the course of time, and the art on the card backs is beautiful.
I'm also looking forward to going back to Arkham, and leaving that accursed jungle far behind!
I'm a big fan of all the games in the line as well, with the exception of Arkham Horror 2E. The 3rd Edition is a little weird to me, and I don't know where it fits in. It seems to have some of the streamlined systems of Eldritch, while wanting to have the narrative of the LCG. In most situations, my group will probably just prefer playing the LCG, and I would tend to agree with them. I'm sure we'll play the board game occasionally (and I'll also play it solo) though.
I think that's a fair assessment of 3rd at this point in its life. It's sort of a middle ground between Eldritch and LCG. I think it'll improve dramatically with expansions, but I do enjoy it a lot so far.
I played it at Invocation event. It was really hard but a lot of fun. It was a cross between the core 2nd scenario and Untamed. It was a long scenario for a stand alone.
