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I am teaching the game to a ton of new people this week. I was going to be playing with only 3 others and planned to join in myself, but now that we're up to 8 players including me, I figured the game would be more fun if I keep things moving as a non-player Arkham Master. Staying out of the game as a player and act as rules guardian, referee for things 1st player normally resolves, reader of cards, and general knowledge base.

How can I keep the game running smoothly? With only one experienced investigator (has played a single game a month ago) still in the group. We have either 4.5 hours or if we're lucky, 6 hours to play the game in, and I think we all know that even with an experienced group 6 hours can be too short.

I'm playing Vanilla, and they're up against Yig, so as a light sleeper, that should make it easier. What techniques, homerules, and other adjustments have you developed to counter game-length creep?

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  • I've voted to close this as a duplicate because, though the other question isn't about new players, the advice essentially all applies whether the players are new or not, and the remaining unique thing about this question is quickly teaching, which you've already asked another question about.
    – Cascabel
    Mar 7, 2013 at 5:57

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It may sound silly, but in these cases (especially with so many players) the "we came here for kicking monster asses, not for pleasure" attitude should help immediately. Focus is a key word. Make sure those aren't playing at the moment are planning for the next round, it could help the focus effort.

In addition, I'd try to hint or even say straight up that they need to get themselves up with a strategy; it could be some kind of role separation - who closes the gates? who clears the monsters? Who gets the weapons and distributes them? - it could be geography separation, etc. But it'll keep the players focused on what they should do every turn instead of re-strategizing everything every time a monster pops up.

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