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You could try setting things up at home beforehand. I find that setting it up at home often takes much less time than doing it with everyone around. Make all the decks but don't shuffle in the villains and henchmen. If a player (or two) doesn't show up, then you can subtract a location. Technically you could de-construct it and put those cards back in the deck for random draws, I suppose.
Barring that - it shouldn't take 90 minutes to set up...maybe 10-15. Is anyone else helping to shuffle? If I'm doing it in a group, everyone takes a card type, shuffles, and then goes around the locations putting out cards (the turntable kind of helps with this; we just rotate it and everyone stays right where they are, doling out cards).
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And if you don't have a turntable, the large playmat that Ultra Pro created for the game does help with setup. People know where things go. Calthaer is correct when you have others help you shuffle the different decks.
If I know I have to start a session quickly, I will assemble the location decks prior to the game. Keep the villains and henchmen separate so you can introduce them to the group prior to shuffling. (Sometimes knowing what's ahead helps choose Loot cards.) Also count out the blessings deck beforehand. Setup shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. Longer when you add a new Adventure Deck into the set.
It can take me 30 minutes to set up a six-player game by myself. Breakdown is faster.
If other players can take a card type when setting up the locations and put that type in the location decks, then help out shuffling, you can setup a six-player game in under 10 minutes.
Even with the base and character set, it's taking at least half hour to set up all the locations, which can be daunting when showing people for first time. I notice this scales considerably as I'm up the third scenario(Tempest Rising).
For this to be true, the issue might be with your method of shuffling. How do you shuffle exactly??
I currently separate the scenario decks, but any thoughts or suggestions on how to speed up setup/teardown would be great.
I don't know why you would do that? Are you playing several groups at a time, that have progressed to different ADs? Even so, you say some of your mates bought S&S as well - you better split the games so one box accommodates one group. (And if not - I can see your issue, if you have a group at AD1 and another at AD3 - adding adventures 2&3 for the second group and then removing them - and deconstructing characters- for the first is an absurd amount of work, that there's no easy way around)
Also, as a random aside, should playing scenario 3 also include the cards from the previous scenarios as well?
Now this might be part of your problem - yes, you add all of new AD's cards to all previous AD's cards in the box. What have you been doing - finish AD1, remove all AD1 cards from the box, then add all AD2 cards to the Base Set/Add-on cards?
When you begin a new adventure, you add all of that adventure's cards to the box, mixed in with every card already there. You do not remove cards from the box when you begin a new adventure -- the Adventure Path card tells you when and how you will remove cards from the box (basically, when you begin Adventure 3 you start removing cards with the Basic trait when you would banish them, and when you begin Adventure 5 you do the same for the Elite trait; removing boons this way is optional while removing banes is mandatory).
If you're playing multiple groups out of the same box, then setup is going to be painful no matter what. It's slightly better if every group is on the same adventure, but you still need to manage which cards are in which decks (decks you are not playing with should not remain constructed if you are playing with a different group) and which cards you've removed from the game for each group. It sounds like your friends also bought the game, so try running different groups out of different sets so you don't need to manage all of that.
Setup time really shouldn't scale as you progress in adventures provided you are only running a single group out of the game box. It scales a bit by number of players, but everyone can chip into the setup process to speed things up.
We are usually 4 to 6 veteran players. As a result set up is around 5 to 10 mns max. One guy reads the scenario and location powers to all of us. During that time b-guy grab and distribute our decks, c-guy builds the blessing deck and special stuffs like ship and plunder, d-guy search and adds villain and henchmen to locations, e-guy adds cards to locations. Then each guy grabs a location and shuffles it. Lots of synch work. Someone rolls a die to know who starts first and the guy starts while others finish drawing their hand.
Chief Technical Officer
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(The following assumes the scenario has no special setup rules.)
Step 0: Get your group to shuffle monsters, barriers, and non-loot boons. Prioritize shuffling in the order they're listed on the location card, which is the order you'll be needing them in step 4. While they're doing this, you'll do Steps 1 through 3.
Step 1: Pull out the Adventure Path, adventure, and scenario cards. I make sure these are always the first three cards in their slot. (When I complete a scenario, it goes to the back of the slot, so the next one is always right there.) This takes about 5 seconds.
Step 2: Pull out the locations for the current scenario—all locations are kept alphabetized so they're easy to find—and line them up side by side, with the deck list side facing up. Even with 8 locations, this takes about 30 seconds, so we're now at about 35 seconds.
Step 3: Put the villain in front of a location, and then put each of the henchmen in front of a location; when there's a card in front of every location, you're done putting out henchmen. Again, villains and henchmen are kept alphabetized, so this takes about 30 seconds. Pick up the villain and henchmen and shuffle them together, then deal one to each location. This takes about 10 seconds, so we're now at about 1:15.
Step 4: Pick up the first deck of cards called out by the location card list—monsters—and deal the appropriate number into each location. This takes less than 10 seconds per card type. Repeat for each of the 8 card types. As long as you're not waiting for your shufflers, this whole process doesn't take much more than a minute, so we're still under 3:00.
Step 5: Count out the blessings deck. Then count it again, because it's worth double-checking. We're still under 4:00.
Step 6: Read out the relevant rules from the Adventure Path, adventure, and scenario cards. Unless there's something especially tricky, this takes under a minute, so we're around 5 minutes.
Step 7: Read the details of each location card. While doing this, pick up each location deck and shuffle it, then move the location and it's deck to the middle of the table. In my groups, we work out who is most likely to go to each location as we read them, and place each location nearest the characters who are likely to start there. So by the time this step is done, each character has chosen a starting location and we're ready to play. This is the most variable step, but probably averages under a minute per location. Even if you had to wait for your shufflers, you're probably still under 15 minutes.
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I'll admit, when I play the game by myself I find it much more arduous than when I get together with friends. With friends, we just bang out all the locations real quick while chatting about stuff (or, often, someone reads aloud the flavor text while we prep the locations).
Good luck!
I always set up the next scenario at the end of a game, then pop it all in a deck box so it's good to go whenever.