Integrating Custom Content Into the Main Game

Design Level

When you are designing custom content, think about how your design choices can reduce or eliminate the need to mix components. While you are at it, think about the number of components you are proposing. Custom components can be expensive to print and time consuming to assemble, so try to use components wisely and keep the number of new bits down to a manageable number. Don't get me wrong: if you have a great idea that requires 50 new unique items, go for it. I'm just suggesting that you spend a moment thinking things through to ensure that the design warrants the extra complication for players. But that's enough lecturing; here are some suggestions to consider when designing content:

1. Choose component types that don't need to be mixed with official components, such as scenarios, guardians, heralds, game difficulty cards, expansion boards, and case books.
2. Instead of adding cards to an existing deck, create a new deck. One example of this is the Exhibit Item deck that was added in Curse of the Dark Pharaoh (instead of adding new Unique Items).
3. As an alternative to the above, you can create a separate "subdeck" that is drawn from only when the player is directed to do so. Suppose the purpose of your expansion might be to add more variety to the human monsters ("variant" cultists such as Fanatic, Psychics, Corrupt Official, and what have you). Your rules might direct the players to create a second monster cup with just your monsters, and to draw from it whenever a Cultist, Witch or High Priest is drawn from the main cup (returning the official monster to the cup and substituting the new draw). Spawn monsters are another example; in this case, the number of monsters is so low that they can just be shuffled instead of being put in a second cup.
4. Alternate draws between new and old content. For example, if you have 1/2 as many custom cards as official ones, draw two cards from the main deck, then 1 card from your custom deck. This can work very well for the Mythos and Gate card decks. Sometimes it works better to roll a die before each draw and decide which deck to draw from based on the result. For example, when drawing an Investigator each player should have an equal chance of getting a custom card. Consider this carefully, though: rolling before each draw becomes awkward when you need to draw cards many times throughout the game.
5. Instead of supplementing a deck with new cards, replace the entire deck. The Gilman Memorial Exhibit does this for the Exhibit Item deck.
6. Instead of mixing a card in with an existing deck, tie its use to another component. For example, create an investigator with a new item in his or her fixed possessions instead of making it part of a deck.
7. Instead of adding something new or extending a deck, reuse an existing deck for a new purpose. For example, if you need to trigger an effect from time to time, you could reuse the The Next Act Begins cards from The King in Yellow. If you need the trigger to fire more often, you could tie it to a type of Mythos card, such as Environment (Mystic) or whatever is appropriate.
8. Instead of using an existing card as a trigger, you can also repurpose an entire deck by substituting your own rules. There are a number of decks in Arkham Horror that are only used in certain expansions or only if a certain optional rule is used. If you are not planning on using that expansion with your content, you can use those decks for your own purposes. Here are some decks that could easily be adapted for use with other rules: the Benefit/Detriment cards and the Exhibit Item decks (from Curse of the Dark Pharaoh), The Blight deck (from The King in Yellow), the various guardian decks (from Kingsport Horror), the corruption and cult membership decks (from Black Goat of the Woods).  Sometimes you can provide players with the option of printing custom cards or substituting an existing deck. One way is to provide an index from the official deck to an equivalent card in your deck. That way, the lazy or cheap can avoid printing a bunch of cards, while those who don't have the expansion or who want the "deluxe version" can print the additional cards.
9. Balance your decks. Provide a mix of powerful and weak (or even dangerous) cards so that just knowing that a card is "new" should not be enough to determine whether you want to draw it or not. This is especially important with item decks, as they are balanced to have a particular average cost. (The cost of purchasing a random item of that type in the investigator editor.) Custom item decks should have an average value approximately equal to the average value of the original deck.
10. You can reduce temptation even further by making some copies of a few official cards and mixing them into your deck. This can work well for the monster cup, too, since in most cases the player will be able to tell by feel if they are drawing a custom or official token. The idea is to separate the fact that new tokens feel or look different from the fact that they have new content, so there is no way to take advantage of the different look/feel.

Production Level

You can't always eliminate the need to mix components, and even if you do you still want to produce nice-looking results.  These suggestions should help:

1. One technique is to buy an expansion that includes cards of the type(s) you wish to mix.  You can print just the fronts of the new cards on self-adhesive ("sticker") paper and  stick trimmed card fronts onto existing cards. (Or use regular paper and a glue stick.)
2. If you want your cards to be completely indistinguishable at the cost of increasing play time, you can write on the fronts of the replacement cards with a marker (check that it doesn't seep through to the back of the card) instead of using sticker paper. Write an index keys on each card like A1, A2, etc. Then create index pages that map each key to a new card. When you draw a marked card, look up the index entry and take the custom card (from a separate deck) instead. Keep the marked card underneath the custom card: when you discard the card, put the custom card back in the custom deck and discard the marked card to the main deck.
3. Instead of marking the cards, you can just make the index using the original card name and cards from an expansion you are not using, but this is slower and a bit more error prone.
4. For monsters, you can mix unused spawn monsters into the monster cup and then draw a custom monster (from a separate cup) whenever one of the spawns is drawn.
5. If you don't want to buy an extra expansion, another option is to use an online printing service that can print custom playing cards. In most cases, they won't have cards of the right size, but you can trim them down as needed. This way your cards will still have the right thickness and finish, and will be printed at high quality. There are also some companies that offer card printing paper and playing card coating that you can print and finish at home.
6. Set up your deck on paper sized at a standard photograph size, add your cards, export the deck to images, and send it off to a photofinishing company for printing. You get a good quality print at a decent price (figure out how many cards you can fit on various print sizes to figure out what size works out to the best price per card), and it is printed on heavier than normal stock to boot. You can print both sides and glue them together, or print the fronts and glue them to real cards.
7. Print the front and back of your cards on sticker paper. Stick one side to thin card, such as cereal packet, and then cut out the card. Carefully stick on the back side, then trim the card.
8. Instead of using special playing card coating to coat print-at-home cards, spray them with a spray varnish. For a thicker coating, you can water down white glue and paint a very thin layer over the card, then spray the card with varnish after the glue dries. (Dried white glue tends to become tacky again if it gets wet; spraying a final layer of varnish over the glue should prevent this.) If you have problems with ink bleeding when doing this, try spraying the cards with varnish, then the glue layer, then varnish.
9. Instead of using glue to assemble your fronts and backs, you can use book binding or packing tape. Carefully wrap it around both sides, press, and trim. (Taped cards will usually be much glossier than normal cards, though.)
10. Once you have a set of cards, putting the deck in card sleeves will make it harder to tell the custom cards from the originals.
11. Another way to use protective sleeves is to print your custom card on regular paper and slip it in a sleeve with an official card of the correct type as the back. This is similar to buying an expansion and sticking new fronts on, but it has the advantage of being non-permanent so you can use cards from an expansion that you aren't playing at the moment instead of buying more cards. Alternatively, you can buy sleeves with solid or patterned backs (that you can't see through), and slip cut-up playing cards in as the back instead.
12. When assembling monsters, if you are willing you can use one of the lids from a spare expansion box as a source of thick card. You'll need a good craft knife to cut the cardboard, a metal ruler, a supply of extra blades (paper dulls blades quickly), and a cutting board. [Be sure to use proper sense and precautions, and always point the blade away from yourself when cutting, don't cut directly on any surface you care about, get help from a grown up, etc., etc.] I use a 25% cotton linen paper designed for printing certificates to approximate the texture of monsters and expansion boards. (I'm not sure how well this paper would work with inkjet printers, but it works fine with my laser printer.)
13. As a final touch, for games like Arkham Horror that have black card edges, you can trace along the cut edges of the card with a black marker. This will help to mask any difference in thickness between your cards and the originals.

Player Level

In the end, most expansions will mix at least a few custom and official components, and no matter how hard you try, careful inspection will allow you to tell them apart. If your gaming group is an agreeable bunch that is out to have fun, and if the designer has done a good job of minimizing the usefulness of knowing whether or not the card is custom or official, it won't matter. It is a cooperative game, after all, so just ignore the little differences and concentrate on having fun weaving together a stirring tale of apocalyptic horror with your friends.

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March 28, 2007  — Updated January 01, 2011