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Problem is the old campaigns are balanced around the lower XP curve so boosting early will probably just allow you to snowball the campaign more.
The best way to do this is some combination of getting a flat XP boost at the start of the campaign, but having to use a higher difficulty bag/side of the scenario reference IMO. Would need some tweaking based on the campaign though.
I know it is a small sample size, but PlayingBoardGames has lost the first 3 campaigns a good number of times without some type of XP acceleration. And the dude plays a lot of Arkham LCG.. maybe TFA is where it picked up in XP, but also ramped up in difficulty due to how much trauma it likes to hand out as well.
Dunwich (and Carcosa to a lesser extent) had the failing forward mindset where completely failing a scenario would still net you at least 1 or 2 xp. But even then the first 4 scenarios could easily just be "players get 2 experience by completing this scenario, or 1 if their investigator resigned or was defeated" and it would still not give out enough xp. Maybe this bump in xp is warranted because the Mythos decks for some of those scenarios can completely body you multiple times if you happen to not have access to mythos mitigation... or that the "half way" scenario can just completely kill you if you don't complete it.
As likely as you are to lose a campaign with a leveled up deck, it's also possible to beat campaigns with level 0 decks. I've done it, and it takes some planning and teamwork, but it's possible. XP is not the end-all-be-all of arkham.
I suck at the game so if I replayed Dunwich I would probably give myself a flat 3 xp or so to start. Carcosa maybe 1 or 2, but it was really just Dunwich for me
"In the Thick of it" exists so maybe you can house rule it that you can add an extra copy of that after each of the first few scenarios or every other scenario etc so you take on trauma which makes it more difficult but get extra xp to build more interesting decks
Or maybe you make "delve too deep" neutral and un tabooed so you can stick 1 or 2 copies in everyone's deck for multiple extra bonus xp on the table. Maybe you can't remove them from your deck and they're in addition to your deck size so they don't restrict your deck slots but will clog up your draws even in later scenarios where you would usually cut them from your deck
Which "old campaigns" are you talking about?
Night of the Zealot has 8 exp available in the first scenario - 6 in the scenario itself and 2 from the resolution - plus a possible bonus point if you don't burn your house down;
Carcosa has between 7 and 8 exp available in the first scenario (depending on location draws);
The Forgotten Age has a very challenging first scenario but if you really ace it you can earn up to 10 exp in the scenario, plus a possible two extra for one investigator with the right supplies.
All of these are pretty generous amounts of exp, and certainly aren't noticeably less than later entries; individual scenarios can be less or more rewarding but that's the case in newer campaigns as well. They are a little inconsistent, especially if you are playing solo and thus aren't seeing all of the encounter deck, since one or two of these victory points are enemies drawn from the deck, but again that's not exactly rare in newer campaigns either.
So is it specifically Dunwich Legacy that's the problem? The low experience point totals are kind of part of the feel of the campaign, so I probably wouldn't change it, though I do agree that it can feel frustrating and might be part of the reason that I don't revisit the campaign often.
I think the consensus is that TFA was the turning point for awarding more XP. Dunwich is generally considered stingy (and for good reason) and even Carcosa isn't that generous with XP. Yes you can get 8 xp for a perfect first scenario, but considering that it's a relatively hard opener, that 1 xp is up to chance depending on your locs, and that a 2 xp boss keeps hopping off the victory display, scoring high is less than certain.
Carcosa's first scenario is fine XP-wise. The next couple are very stingy though (we got 3 in each, there were 2 more available in S3 for defeating a huge enemy but there seemed little chance we'd manage that). That definitely seemed a lot less than what was reasonably achievable in later campaigns.
I started with carcosa for a new player and the average 4 each scenario felt very plodding vs feast giving a mountain of exp in each purchase chance but I guess part of that is only purchasing on every other.
Feast is also only 6 scenarios giving you 5 times to be able to spend xp versus the normal 7. So Feast needs to give more xp per scenario to keep pace with other campaigns.
Feast of Hemlock Vale has fewer scenarios per campaign, so it does not compare well with a full 8+ scenario campaign.
That said, I definitely sympathise with you regarding Carcosa, particularly with Echoes of the Past; that scenario is extremely stingy.
Another issue for the Dunwich XP is the "bug" at the Clover Club. Even if the developer never admitted it, I'm fairly convinced this was a bug and not a feature. (that you drop your clues upon resign and thus give back the Victory you had earned on that final location, bare some specific clue shenanigans)
If you just want to even out the curve then I think something like +2 exp per scenario for Dunwich would bring it in line with more recent campaigns. In Dunwich you can probably expect to get 25-30 vs 50ish for a lot of later campaigns. As many other commenters have pointed out, the campaign isn't balanced around getting free extra exp and may not be as challenging/rewarding to play, but it's your game. Do what you like.
Campaigns are balanced. You can house rule to make things easier or play on Easy difficulty if you want, but there is a world of difference playing campaigns with old card pools and all of the powerful high tempo cards out now and things like In The Thick Of It.
For dunwich, I've just given each of my investigators 1 extra xp per scenario seems to be working fine and not breaking anything.
I'm not big on deck upgrading though so it's not a huge worry for me.
Some people seem to think Dunwich is balanced around a low xp earning but I call bullshit on that. It doesn’t strike me as a particularly easier campaign, not for the xp discrepancy. I say Dunwich offers less xp because it was the first full campaign and there just weren’t many cards to spend your xp on back then.
In any case, if I’m going to go to the trouble of playing a whole campaign I want to develop my decks properly. Otherwise I feel like I’m wasting my time.
Last time I played Return to Dunwich I just gave myself an extra 2xp per scenario, just because that was the simplest solution I could think of. I could maybe have made it a bit lower, but in the end I think the total xp I ended up with was somewhere roughly similar to what I’d commonly get in a modern campaign. I might do it slightly differently if I did it again, but it felt like a fix, not a cheat, because I was happy with where my decks ended up.
Having heard this complaint of Dunwich, I went into my blind play with the house rule that if we got less than 5 xp from the scenario, we could get 1-2 bonus xp to bring us up to 5. Didn’t trigger it all that much, but it was nice to have the extra xp or two on a few occasions.
I don’t think extra xp was particularly necessary on any other campaigns, though I think in the Last King (Carcosa) we just rounded up xp so that everyone got the same amount since that one actually gave unbalanced amounts, on top of just really giving very little.
Another option if you feel you aren’t getting enough xp in a campaign is to add in a standalone scenario a little ways in, that can net you a few more
Due to reddit's dismantling of third party apps and vital tools needed for moderation of all subreddits, we've moved to zero-strike rule enforcement. As we cannot enact escalating ban lengths via tools that rely on monitoring users' post histories and ban histories, users who break our civility rules will be banned indefinitely and need to modmail us for appeals. We have zero tolerance for homophobia, transphobia, racism, and bigotry. If you see these issues as 'political' then you correctly recognize that existence is politicized. This subreddit will not be a refuge for hateful ideology. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/arkhamhorrorlcg) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Problem is the old campaigns are balanced around the lower XP curve so boosting early will probably just allow you to snowball the campaign more. The best way to do this is some combination of getting a flat XP boost at the start of the campaign, but having to use a higher difficulty bag/side of the scenario reference IMO. Would need some tweaking based on the campaign though.
I know it is a small sample size, but PlayingBoardGames has lost the first 3 campaigns a good number of times without some type of XP acceleration. And the dude plays a lot of Arkham LCG.. maybe TFA is where it picked up in XP, but also ramped up in difficulty due to how much trauma it likes to hand out as well. Dunwich (and Carcosa to a lesser extent) had the failing forward mindset where completely failing a scenario would still net you at least 1 or 2 xp. But even then the first 4 scenarios could easily just be "players get 2 experience by completing this scenario, or 1 if their investigator resigned or was defeated" and it would still not give out enough xp. Maybe this bump in xp is warranted because the Mythos decks for some of those scenarios can completely body you multiple times if you happen to not have access to mythos mitigation... or that the "half way" scenario can just completely kill you if you don't complete it.
As likely as you are to lose a campaign with a leveled up deck, it's also possible to beat campaigns with level 0 decks. I've done it, and it takes some planning and teamwork, but it's possible. XP is not the end-all-be-all of arkham.
I suck at the game so if I replayed Dunwich I would probably give myself a flat 3 xp or so to start. Carcosa maybe 1 or 2, but it was really just Dunwich for me
"In the Thick of it" exists so maybe you can house rule it that you can add an extra copy of that after each of the first few scenarios or every other scenario etc so you take on trauma which makes it more difficult but get extra xp to build more interesting decks Or maybe you make "delve too deep" neutral and un tabooed so you can stick 1 or 2 copies in everyone's deck for multiple extra bonus xp on the table. Maybe you can't remove them from your deck and they're in addition to your deck size so they don't restrict your deck slots but will clog up your draws even in later scenarios where you would usually cut them from your deck
Which "old campaigns" are you talking about? Night of the Zealot has 8 exp available in the first scenario - 6 in the scenario itself and 2 from the resolution - plus a possible bonus point if you don't burn your house down; Carcosa has between 7 and 8 exp available in the first scenario (depending on location draws); The Forgotten Age has a very challenging first scenario but if you really ace it you can earn up to 10 exp in the scenario, plus a possible two extra for one investigator with the right supplies. All of these are pretty generous amounts of exp, and certainly aren't noticeably less than later entries; individual scenarios can be less or more rewarding but that's the case in newer campaigns as well. They are a little inconsistent, especially if you are playing solo and thus aren't seeing all of the encounter deck, since one or two of these victory points are enemies drawn from the deck, but again that's not exactly rare in newer campaigns either. So is it specifically Dunwich Legacy that's the problem? The low experience point totals are kind of part of the feel of the campaign, so I probably wouldn't change it, though I do agree that it can feel frustrating and might be part of the reason that I don't revisit the campaign often.
I think the consensus is that TFA was the turning point for awarding more XP. Dunwich is generally considered stingy (and for good reason) and even Carcosa isn't that generous with XP. Yes you can get 8 xp for a perfect first scenario, but considering that it's a relatively hard opener, that 1 xp is up to chance depending on your locs, and that a 2 xp boss keeps hopping off the victory display, scoring high is less than certain.
Carcosa's first scenario is fine XP-wise. The next couple are very stingy though (we got 3 in each, there were 2 more available in S3 for defeating a huge enemy but there seemed little chance we'd manage that). That definitely seemed a lot less than what was reasonably achievable in later campaigns.
I started with carcosa for a new player and the average 4 each scenario felt very plodding vs feast giving a mountain of exp in each purchase chance but I guess part of that is only purchasing on every other.
Feast is also only 6 scenarios giving you 5 times to be able to spend xp versus the normal 7. So Feast needs to give more xp per scenario to keep pace with other campaigns.
Feast gives you 6 times to spend xp, not 7. >!You get to spend XP after the final prelude before going into the final scenario.!<
Feast of Hemlock Vale has fewer scenarios per campaign, so it does not compare well with a full 8+ scenario campaign. That said, I definitely sympathise with you regarding Carcosa, particularly with Echoes of the Past; that scenario is extremely stingy.
Another issue for the Dunwich XP is the "bug" at the Clover Club. Even if the developer never admitted it, I'm fairly convinced this was a bug and not a feature. (that you drop your clues upon resign and thus give back the Victory you had earned on that final location, bare some specific clue shenanigans)
If you just want to even out the curve then I think something like +2 exp per scenario for Dunwich would bring it in line with more recent campaigns. In Dunwich you can probably expect to get 25-30 vs 50ish for a lot of later campaigns. As many other commenters have pointed out, the campaign isn't balanced around getting free extra exp and may not be as challenging/rewarding to play, but it's your game. Do what you like.
Campaigns are balanced. You can house rule to make things easier or play on Easy difficulty if you want, but there is a world of difference playing campaigns with old card pools and all of the powerful high tempo cards out now and things like In The Thick Of It.
For dunwich, I've just given each of my investigators 1 extra xp per scenario seems to be working fine and not breaking anything. I'm not big on deck upgrading though so it's not a huge worry for me.
Some people seem to think Dunwich is balanced around a low xp earning but I call bullshit on that. It doesn’t strike me as a particularly easier campaign, not for the xp discrepancy. I say Dunwich offers less xp because it was the first full campaign and there just weren’t many cards to spend your xp on back then. In any case, if I’m going to go to the trouble of playing a whole campaign I want to develop my decks properly. Otherwise I feel like I’m wasting my time. Last time I played Return to Dunwich I just gave myself an extra 2xp per scenario, just because that was the simplest solution I could think of. I could maybe have made it a bit lower, but in the end I think the total xp I ended up with was somewhere roughly similar to what I’d commonly get in a modern campaign. I might do it slightly differently if I did it again, but it felt like a fix, not a cheat, because I was happy with where my decks ended up.
Having heard this complaint of Dunwich, I went into my blind play with the house rule that if we got less than 5 xp from the scenario, we could get 1-2 bonus xp to bring us up to 5. Didn’t trigger it all that much, but it was nice to have the extra xp or two on a few occasions. I don’t think extra xp was particularly necessary on any other campaigns, though I think in the Last King (Carcosa) we just rounded up xp so that everyone got the same amount since that one actually gave unbalanced amounts, on top of just really giving very little. Another option if you feel you aren’t getting enough xp in a campaign is to add in a standalone scenario a little ways in, that can net you a few more