I think the reason you see "release" on some cards and "return [those tokens] to the chaos bag," is that "release" only shows up on cards that actually seal tokens (they have the seal keyword). If the card doesn't seal, it can't release, so it has to just say what releasing is.

Yes, you would. I can't remember the specific page where the rule is mentioned, but swapping a level 0 card for another level 0 card costs 1xp. For this reason, Adaptable is a decent card. Personally, after paying a deck once, I know what I did wrong while building it and I'll give myself some leeway between scenarios 1 and 2, but after that I try to stick to the rules.

Yes; even if you had 4 gators/players, you'd still only use one set of weaknesses. Which is good, because it keeps you from drawing 4 Indebted or something.

The "open as you play" plan has additional merit since cards in later packs generally cost more xp. Opening them before beginning play only gives you an idea of what to save your xp for, which I'm into, personally. As has been said, whatever way you like is the correct way.

The card you discard from beneath her is not the card you draw; they're two separate effects. "Discard the card beneath Amanda Sharpe" actually means that you discard the card from beneath Amanda. If there's no card there, nothing happens. Then you choose a card from your hand, which now has 1 extra card in it, and place it beneath Amanda. There should only ever be 1 card beneath Amanda. Overpower's draw will trigger if you succeed, even though it will be placed back under Amanda instead of being discarded. This is because Amanda's effect only replaces the discard for committed cards, but has no effect on the card's text. Hope that helps! Edit: I also wanted to mention that Amanda's effect makes her the second Seeker that can draw a weakness before the game even starts, the first being Norman. Quite the club they're in.

Yes, Roland gets clues in all the above scenarios. The investigator who dealt fatal damage defeated the monster, and you deal all damage from sources you control.

Yes. Cancelling the attack happens whether you add tokens or not because of the "then" indicating that adding tokens only happens after you cancel the attack. You'll perform as much of the action as you can, putting however many bless tokens you have in the bag, because it's an effect of the spell and not a cost. Hope that helps!

I just use an app for the chaos bag >.> @Mimi61 I can't wait for your husband to come to the logical conclusion and set up a stand mixer next to the table.

4. If you're keeping the old decks from your core campaign, you'll begin Dunwich with whatever experience (and trauma, and weaknesses) you ended the last campaign with. If you're building new decks though, they'll always start at 0xp. You could even make new decks with the same characters and start at level 0 again.

We used to listen to videogame music, when we played in person. I've never been super interested in pushing the "horror" aspect of the game, though.

Speaking of economy of action, we just did return to Essex County Express - possibly the ur-example of a scenario where you cannot waste actions - and our survivor (Rita) played Armitage and track shoes on his first turn, and literally never played another asset. Armitage didn't even trigger, he just soaked damage. He was busy the entire game evading enemies and getting what clues he could, and we needed every action he had. It was basically the most effective I've ever seen an investigator with almost nothing in play.

Not to be a walking, talking ad for Team Covenant, but this thread makes me exceedingly glad that I've been subbed for every AH:TCG product (except novellas) since Where Doom Awaits and they've never let me down. The price is literally a few bucks more, and I never go through the kind of nightmares you guys describe. It's an option, if you can afford it. *shrug*

Replaying the scenario is my go-to answer if the other alternative is that I don't get to play anymore. In true solo I'll fudge things considerably to progress the campaign, but as the player count goes up I bend the rules less and less. Even at four players though, I'll propose a redo if things go badly enough; it's basically the least abusive form of save scumming. As far as the game harming the player, we generally keep it full tilt. As you imply, the game isn't fun if it's not trying to win. Recently though, we've started a three-man ironman run of every campaign, in order, so we decided to take half of the end-campaign trauma to keep it going a bit longer. Even with that rule in mind, if we'd been killed in the last scenario of the core campaign, we would have re-rolled characters. That doesn't really help in the penultimate scenario, where a level 0 deck couldn't hope to tackle the final boss, but it's useful earlier. Personally I've never had trouble with the asylum and it's been one of my favorite scenarios, but it is crazy that you can all die there. I submit that it's early enough in the campaign that you could roll a new level 0 team, but I find that hard myself if I haven't seen what the deck can do yet. It's definitely tricky.

I've told the story several times, but it's relevant here so I'll tell it again; similar to @Sir_Blacksoutalot, my friends and I were playing Essex County Express and we drew all three Ancient Evils in the first mythos phase, after spending the first round setting up (i.e. not moving). Spoilers: It was a hilariously short scenario. In general though, it's never a sustained run like you describe; usually it's just 3 auto-fails back to back or the tablet when any other token would be fine. Maybe I just don't notice it when it happens, but I feel like I'd remember 5 tablets in a row. I think my record's 3 or 4.

Often the card back is a good hint; the security guard you refer to has an encounter card back, not a player card back, so you can't shuffle him into your deck anyway (barring sleeves). Also, his text is irrelevant outside of his scenario, so why would you want him? If you really want to be sure though, check the resolution of the scenario. There should be a bullet point with, "any player may choose to add Lady Esprit to their deck. This card does not count towards deck size." If there isn't a sentence like that in a resolution, you can't take the ally.

In general, we try to advance the act with as many actions left this round as possible. That way if it causes something horrible, we can deal with it, maybe. If we're four handed and the last person to go gets the last clue, we'll try to wait until next round to advance. There's exceptions to that of course, especially if we know what advancing the act will cause. Another case where we'd wait is if we thought we were ahead and wanted to get more VP.

Saved me a trip to google!

In general if a player isn't specified, the lead investigator is the one doing the thing, but I don't have a concrete rule to support this. In other similar situations, it's almost always the lead investigator doing the thing.