Arkham is superb

[klecser]

Here are my thoughts on Arkham after spending time with the PDF. I am saving up for the Leatherette. It's that good. It is an invaluable Keeper toolset for Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Jason Farrell]

I've looked for reviews that address this, but haven't found any.  How does this edition compare to the previous edition?  My assumption at present is that it is largely the same material (down to the same exact writing), and as such don't plan to get the book.  I would love to hear that I'm wrong about that.  Anyone have both who could offer a brief comparison?

[EldorfDragonsbane]

This version is more of a Directory of the town then the previous editions, as it doesnt contain any scenarios, though it does contain some seeds to get one thinking about their own scenarios. There are some additional updates such as tables for local Arkham gossip, family names, weather, etc... This also contains a chapter dealing with Arkham Investigators, such as if they were born and have lived in Arkham all their life then they start of will start of with Navigate (Arkham) xx% and History (Arkham) xx%. Theres also an Arkham reputation table/mechanic, you do something good and are seen doing it roll luck to see if rep improves, do something bad (breakign and entering, killing someone, etc...) and seen roll luck to see if you are penalized or not.

 

Obviously theres other stuff included but I think its worth it to get it, even if you have the older books, as for one you have the updated NPC stats for 7th ed and this edition is initially set in 1922 instead of 1928 giving you almost the entire decade to "build" Arkham up, and allows the Investigators to interact and possibly take part in some of Lovecrafts stories that happen in Arkham before the previous editions were set.

[werecorpse]

I haven’t got the recent one yet as I am also trying to work out how it compares to my 1990 copy of Arkham Unveiled and if it’s worth it for me.

looking at the table of contents of Unveiled as compared to the new one 

Unveiled has a 6 page orientation section, which is about how to live in Arkham, reputation etc. This seems to be covered by the new 7 page chapter on Arkham Investigators although there is also a 14 Page chapter on Arkham miscellany which seems to partially cover the same area - suggesting this has been expanded upon

Unveiled has a brief history of Arkham from pages 13-16, the new one has a history of Arkham coincidentally covered in the same pages.

unveiled has a 2 page directory - this might be in the appendices of the new one.

unveiled then has a guide from page 19-94 the new one has a guide from page 61-228 so that’s 75 pages vs 167 which is a substantial difference

The rest of Unveiled is 4 adventures 

The rest of the new one is some appendices that doesn’t look like new material. 
 

Bare in mind the above summary is just from looking at the table of contents available on drivethru as a preview.

Seperate note: I don’t get why you would have seperate skills of Navigate (Arkham) or History(Arkham). It seem to me that if you are an Arkham native you just get a bonus die or two to your relevant base skills if you’re in your hometown.

 

[klecser]

There's many new things. Art matters to me. The art in the new book is spectacular, the cartography is better, and the character portraits are far more superior. The book comes with two brand-new, double-sided maps and a copy of a new Arkham Advertiser. I find these to be invaluable updated props. I couldn't showcase them because they didn't come with the review copy I received. Whether or not these new things meet your threshold for "worth it?" I have no idea. You may need to hit up your FLGS when it gets there and flip through the book. I'll also be posting an Unboxing when I receive my Leatherette, so if you subscribe you'll be notified when that video hits: https://www.youtube.com/c/rpgimaginings/videos 

Quote

Seperate note: I don’t get why you would have seperate skills of Navigate (Arkham) or History(Arkham). It seem to me that if you are an Arkham native you just get a bonus die or two to your relevant base skills if you’re in your hometown.

Options, options, options. As a Keeper, I interpret anything in a book as options. I may run a game almost exclusively in Arkham, and as such, grant Navigate (Arkham) and/or History (Arkham) as player post-session awards/updates. If that were the case, I might discourage my players from wasting character creation skill points in Navigate, in favor of a broader array of skills. Not all skills are intended for character creation.

Edited February 26 by klecser

[EldorfDragonsbane]

16 hours ago, werecorpse said:

Seperate note: I don’t get why you would have seperate skills of Navigate (Arkham) or History(Arkham). It seem to me that if you are an Arkham native you just get a bonus die or two to your relevant base skills if you’re in your hometown.

 

Easyly explained, do you know all the history of your town, everyone in your town or where everything is located in your town? Probably not. Most likely you can locate the local High School, Post Office, City Hall, Police/Fire Station(s), etc... If I had to assign a History or Navigate score for my real life knowledge of my hometown that I have grown up and lived in all my like, I could say its as follows: History 25%, Navigate 40-50%. I have a basically familiarization of the Town History from elementary school, one of my teachers was a big history buff, while for navigating around the town I am familiar where most the restaurants are, along with the grocery stores, pharmacy's, all the elementary schools, middle school and high school are, along while the banks, churches, gas stations, care dealerships, hardware stores, etc... are, now as for the city residents I am only familiar with my neighbors, and I cant tell you every store in the town.

 

Now the same can go for any lifelong resident of Arkham, they may know most the town "stories" but not the actual facts behind the stories, and they may know the area of town the live in, along with major landmarks/locations but ask them where the local quilting circle meets there's the possibility they don't even know about one existing let alone knowing where they meet.

[klecser]

7 minutes ago, EldorfDragonsbane said:

Easyly explained, do you know all the history of your town, everyone in your town or where everything is located in your town? Probably not. Most likely you can locate the local High School, Post Office, City Hall, Police/Fire Station(s), etc... If I had to assign a History or Navigate score for my real life knowledge of my hometown that I have grown up and lived in all my like, I could say its as follows: History 25%, Navigate 40-50%. I have a basically familiarization of the Town History from elementary school, one of my teachers was a big history buff, while for navigating around the town I am familiar where most the restaurants are, along with the grocery stores, pharmacy's, all the elementary schools, middle school and high school are, along while the banks, churches, gas stations, care dealerships, hardware stores, etc... are, now as for the city residents I am only familiar with my neighbors, and I cant tell you every store in the town.

 

Now the same can go for any lifelong resident of Arkham, they may know most the town "stories" but not the actual facts behind the stories, and they may know the area of town the live in, along with major landmarks/locations but ask them where the local quilting circle meets there's the possibility they don't even know about one existing let alone knowing where they meet.

Well described. And noteworthy that this book is easily multiple campaign's worth of material that could concentrate in and around Arkham. CoC 7 has focused a lot on globe-trotting, and there is nothing wrong with that. I also think that this book, like Berlin and Regency, is particularly focused on one region, therefore regional skills make sense, especially as play rewards. I would start residents at 25-50 in Navigate (Arkham) depending upon how long they've lived there and their occupation. I would also increase Navigate (Arkham) by d6 after every session that they had to move around within the city.

[g33k]

In practical terms, knowing the history (in particular, local events from the time before you were an adult) is IMO/IME an entirely-different thing from being able to navigate, the on-the-ground realities of knowing roads, neighborhoods, directions, etc.

My wife & I went through a period where we moved every few years for jobs.  I would make a point, in each new area, of spending several hours every week just driving around to get a sense of the place.  My "Navigation" skills rocketed upwards, but I never spent any effort digging into old news archives, nor hanging out listening to gossip at the local watering-holes.

In my hometown, as a youth, I was an avid cyclist & rode widely.  Again, solid Navigation skills.  But also, a bit of an introvert, so I wasn't really tied-in to the "local doings" the people might talk about over drinks, at a neighborhood BBQ, etc.

[tsnouffer]

Received my hardcopy today. I love Chaosium and everything they've done with 7e and am very grateful for the quality of product they almost always put out. But . . .

In this case, I can't help feel disappointed in Arkham. Not in content, but in pricing and formatting. It is about the same size as Cults of Cthulhu and A Time to Harvest but 20% more in price. Arkham is $67 US after shipping. Even the Keeper's Rulebook, which is noticeably larger, costs less. And to top it off, the type size in Arkham seems to be smaller than any other 7e book I checked. Noticeably so compared the Keeper's Book. Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into pricing, but one can't help but compare.

Of all the existing books redone for 7e, it is the least impressive. Sorry. So a welcome product, but overpriced and not without formatting disappointments. 

Not the end of the world of course . . .

[Dr_Zarnak]

To answer the question about how the the new Arkham sourcebook compares to the older editions, you get more than a graphic update and the 7e stats. Some people and places have been replaced:  Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his residence are no more, for example. Ditto The Eye of Amara occult society and its eccentric guru. Pin Liou is now Jin-Pin Liou a.k.a Louis Pinelli. Arkham Sanitarium has been replaced by the Pickering Psycopathic Hospital. And so on. Personally, I plan to keep some of the older NPC’s, perhaps move them to a different neighbourhood if I happen to also like their replacement (the case with Shrewsbury).

The absence of adventures is disappointing but understandable given the size of the book. One or two scenarios making use of the people and places of the new Arkham would have been nice, like “The Condemned” did in Arkham Unveiled, and perhaps even serve to kickstart a new campaign. Now we can only hope that the promised adventure collection isn’t too far off. 

[Mike M]

The Eye of Amara society is in the new book. 

[Dr_Zarnak]

My bad, they are indeed in the new edition. I was thinking of the psychic Gerrhardt Wvinch, a useful ally in our campaign who had been made a member of the order by our then Keeper. His residence in 111 Terrace Building is now occupied by one Minerva Coleman. I like the new character but have a sentimental attachment to herr Wvinch, who helped our intrepid bands through some harrowing times.

[EldorfDragonsbane]

10 hours ago, Dr_Zarnak said:

My bad, they are indeed in the new edition. I was thinking of the psychic Gerrhardt Wvinch, a useful ally in our campaign who had been made a member of the order by our then Keeper. His residence in 111 Terrace Building is now occupied by one Minerva Coleman. I like the new character but have a sentimental attachment to herr Wvinch, who helped our intrepid bands through some harrowing times.

You also need to remember this edition is set years earlier, Herr Wvinch might not have moved into 111 Terrace building until later, after Minerva Coleman had vacated the premises.

 

Not sure why some of the locations were left out or moved (Arkham Sanitarium and Sefton Asylum being absent while the Unvisited Island was moved to a different spot in the river).

 

As for scenarios utilizing some of the Arkham residents, I believe the book with Arkham Scenarios is due out with in the next month or so, though I could be wrong.

 

Just got my Physical Copy today, and over all frrom what I have seen from a quick flip through and reading through the pdf version, I am liking it. I will be going though it along with the pdf of HP Lovecrafts Arkham that I got off of DrivethruRPG. I will be making a list of NPCs that were dropped that I want to use along with any dropped location that I might want to use, for those that were replaced with something/someone new I will probably just relocate them a house/building or two away on the same street.

[MOB]

8 hours ago, EldorfDragonsbane said:

You also need to remember this edition is set years earlier, Herr Wvinch might not have moved into 111 Terrace building until later, after Minerva Coleman had vacated the premises.

As noted in the book's introduction, the primary purpose for presenting Arkham in 1922 is to enable Keepers to take full advantage of the decade to build a campaign that could, if desired, include events and characters from Lovecraft’s and others’ fiction. Thus, rather than being too late to join Dr. Henry Armitage on his mission to defeat the Dunwich Horror, or miss out on becoming embroiled in the Edward Pickman Derby and Asenath Waite affair, this book provides useful information for Keepers to weave into their campaigns so that their players can indeed become part of those stories and, in doing so, make them their own.

Quote

Not sure why some of the locations were left out or moved (Arkham Sanitarium... being absent

The Arkham Sanitarium is present - as noted in the text of the book (see p.95), that's how locals informally refer to the institution whose official name is the Pickering Psychopathic Hospital. Just like how in RW London St Bernard's Hospital was colloquially known as the Hanwell Insane Asylum (being located in Hanwell) or how the Philadelphia State Hospital was popularly known as the Byberry Asylum, being located in Byberry.

(Even DC Comics' Arkham Asylum has a formal name - it's the "Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane".)

Edited March 1 by MOB

[MOB]

On 2/29/2024 at 11:15 AM, tsnouffer said:

It is about the same size as Cults of Cthulhu and A Time to Harvest but 20% more in price.

Note that unlike Cults of Cthulhu and A Time to Harvest, Arkham comes with three physical add-ons slipped within the covers: two fold-out maps and the Arkham Advertiser newspaper (which I'm holding in my hand right now; it is a wonder to behold, and a testament to the fiendish genius of Andrew Leman and Sean Branney of the HPLHS).

On 2/29/2024 at 11:15 AM, tsnouffer said:

Even the Keeper's Rulebook, which is noticeably larger, costs less.

Yes, however the Keeper Rulebook was first released nine years ago (and the MSRP hasn't changed). However all the development costs to create new books have increased in that time.

As a point of comparison, WotC's latest release Vecna: Eve of Ruin is 256 pages and has an MSRP of USD$69.95; Pathfinder's next release the Tian Xia World Guide is 305 pages with a MSRP of $79.95; C7's coming Warhammer 40K book Aeldari: Inheritance of Embers is $46.00 and 160 pages; and FL's recent Walking Dead RPG core rules is $55 and 175 pages long. Their Mork Borg game is $43, but's only 96 pages long. There's a $43 preorder for the 228 page Dragonbane rules too, but that's in softcover.

We think the $59.99 MSRP for our 270 page Arkham Book is on the mark, and excellent value.

 

Edited March 1 by MOB

[tsnouffer]

All excellent comparisons MOB. Sounds like a larger industry (and life) trend. Thanks for the context.

Edited March 1 by tsnouffer

[SunlessNick]

One change I like is that Greg the Monster (a cannibal homeless guy) now comes in two options, one of which is a misunderstood innocent and subject of cruel rumours.

[werecorpse]

Schrodinger’s monster?

[EldorfDragonsbane]

On 2/29/2024 at 8:47 AM, Dr_Zarnak said:

Some people and places have been replaced:  Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his residence are no more, for example.

It looks like the replacement for Shrewsbury is pretty much just that, the character looks to now be a female version of Shrewsbury just with a new surname.

 

Glancing through my physical copy and comparing locations to a printed copy of the pdf copy of Lovecraft's Arkham from Drivethru RPG some location changes actually make sense, such as the Pump House and Water Tower, they were moved to a slightly closer location to the river. Some other changes are simple renumbering of the buildings such as 104 W Blank St becoming 105 W Blank St (NOTE used Blank St for illustrative purposes only for an example since I do'nt have my copy of Arkham or Lovecraft's Arkham in front of me at the moment to look up  one of the actually examples), while other locations have totally moved from one street to a different one (though it looks like they have kept these within the same neighborhood so far and haven't moved the location from say the Northside to Rivertown). Once I am done comparing the locations between the different versions I will them bring out the Arkham Gazette #1 and start comparing/adding in locations.

 

Over all I am actually liking the new Edition, with it better art work, expanded location entries, and the full color neighborhood maps. Eagerly awaiting the MU, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport updated books especially if they look as good as this one.

[Kettlehelm]

I quite like the Future section for some of the listings and how it mentions scenarios associated with locations, it saves having to flip through to the Arkham Unveiled book to find out what will change in 6 years. But I still feel like opening my copy to compare with who has moved or changed between 1922 and 1928.

[SunlessNick]

8 hours ago, EldorfDragonsbane said:

It looks like the replacement for Shrewsbury is pretty much just that, the character looks to now be a female version of Shrewsbury just with a new surname.

She has a couple of advantages over Shrewsbury.  Her most recent departure from Arkham is only a year or so ago, compared to thirteen years for Shrewsbury in Unveiled's 1928, making it more likely that her house is still intact - and there's someone cited as likely to know where she was planning to go.  What Mythos she was into, and the nature of the notes she left behind at the Miskatonic, is left undefined, and thus easy to customise.  Sure, you could change all that stuff with Shrewsbury, but a character with it all built in is better.

[EldorfDragonsbane]

5 hours ago, SunlessNick said:

She has a couple of advantages over Shrewsbury.  Her most recent departure from Arkham is only a year or so ago, compared to thirteen years for Shrewsbury in Unveiled's 1928, making it more likely that her house is still intact - and there's someone cited as likely to know where she was planning to go.  What Mythos she was into, and the nature of the notes she left behind at the Miskatonic, is left undefined, and thus easy to customise.  Sure, you could change all that stuff with Shrewsbury, but a character with it all built in is better.

I fully agree Judith does seem to be a better fit, as she seems to be closer to the age of most Investigator character, so I could see them being more invested in helping her if she comes back, or wanting to ind/rescue her then they might be for the older Shrewsbury (who I always imagined from the art work in Arkham Unveiled and HP Lovecrafts Arkham as being in is mid/late 70's to early 80's).

 

One thing I like about this edition is as I believe I previously mentioned the expanded location information, where before some locations only had a brief, bare description paragraph, this edition they have expanded and given most locations additional info to use as possible seeds for scenarios. The full color overhead view of each neighborhood as I mentioned before is also nice, as if gives you an idea of how close a location is to a neighboring building, such as is it only a few yards or is it dozens of yards away from the closest building (great to know as both a keeper and a player in case an investigator decided they need to break a window or they do something that might make enough noise to attract the attention of a neighbor that lives close by). The art work is also a vast improvement, especially the NPC portraits, with them being color they give the NPCs more "character" then the old black and white line drawings or the very poor computer generated "3D" portraits that were from HP Lovecrafts Arkham (I seriously think in the mid 2000's some of the gaming companies thought the computer generated "3D" portraits were everyone seemed to have puffy faces was a good idea).

[EldorfDragonsbane]

Yes I know a double post, but would like to draw attention to a very nice "easter egg" location in this edition. Outskits location 109- Herber's Hill, Named after Keith Herber a musician from the late 1800's. I can only assume this is an homage to the late great Keith Herber who gave us the original Arkham Unveiled.

[SunlessNick]

12 hours ago, EldorfDragonsbane said:

One thing I like about this edition is as I believe I previously mentioned the expanded location information, where before some locations only had a brief, bare description paragraph, this edition they have expanded and given most locations additional info to use as possible seeds for scenarios.

Very much so!  And the historical/useful/look to the future notes that come up are great for making Arkham a living town.  (For those yet to read it, "Useful" refers to a place's potential for contacts and clues, while "Look to the future" mentions how places or people will figure into Lovecraft's stories, but also how the next decade might affect them in mundane terms - not all places have them, but plenty do).

[Mike M]

Thanks for all the responses to Arkham. Great to see everyone digesting the information. As I say in the intro to the book, this is "Chaosium's Arkham" rather than being overly aligned to any previous fictional versions - of course, it aims to remain (mostly) in line with the original source material and Keith Herber's vision, while at the same time enabling Keepers to adapt and change things to make the setting "yours." Moving the "start time" of the book to 1922 from 1928 enables a far greater range of possibilities for game play.

I look forward to hearing all manner of stories from everyone's games set in the legend-haunted town!