by Dormammu
By design, every scenario has specialized actions that relate to no other scenarios. That’s actually a core element of the game, so episode 1 is totally fine. I’d recommend playing the episodes in order.Hastur is probably easier than Cthulhu on average, but I think he’s more fiddly and complex rules-wise. Either works honestly.
If you want to make it easier on first time players, choose investigators with Arcane Mastery, as it’s a little more powerful than other skills on average and makes rolling dice feel more forgiving.