At the start of this scenario, the chaos bag has no in it. This act, along with each of the next two, permanently adds a to the chaos bag upon its completion. By my reading (tell me if it's wrong), this means that if the investigators are defeated before advancing a single act, they'll play the rest of the campaign without any in their chaos bag. Yes, you'll take a trauma from the defeat, and you'll miss out on 10 or 12 experience... but maybe this isn't a totally incorrect option?

Pros:

• Three tokens which, on Hard/Expert, ramp up to -6 or even worse in the next three scenarios, are excluded from the bag. You can almost think of it as three Permanent versions of Protective Incantation
• Cards which particularly want to avoid the , such as Baseball Bat, Old Hunting Rifle, and "Hit me!" can be used with nigh-impunity
• Mental bandwidth requirement of first scenario reduced to zero

Cons:

• Up to 12 potential XP left on the table
• Jim Culver's passive ability loses its effect on the chaos bag
• Song of the Dead can no longer deal bonus damage
• Fun of first scenario also reduced to zero

Notes:

• William Yorick can get 1 XP by burying his Graveyard Ghouls or another Weakness enemy
• You can avoid adding another negative token to the chaos bag of this campaign in Interlude III: The Great Ones, by either playing it as a standalone campaign, or by winning scenario I-B while choosing to leave Dr. Maheswaran with her patients, or by resigning or losing that same scenario. If you take the doctor with you and then win, whether she survives or not you will find that "The dreamers grow weaker" which results in the additional negative token.