Cthulhu 2210

I won a copy of Cthulhu Dice at a con, and it's become an obsession to try and find an actual use for this goofy die covered in Cthulhoid iconography, given that CD, as a game, ain't that hot. So I figured hey, what game appreciates a good bit of randomness and occasional hilarious unfairness better than 2210? So here's a new threat to add to your amoebas and zombies and alien conquerors, the mythos cults, with the twist that it's quite possible (and occasionally beneficial) to coexist with them. Right up until ol' tentacle-face eats you.

Setup: Draw a number of land territories equal to the number of players, or a minimum of 3, after all players have claimed their territories but before the 3-unit fortification begins. Place a cult marker on each territory thus drawn. Cult markers coexist with any units in a territory, and have no effect on that army until the end of the year. No territory can ever have more than one cult marker.

Roll: At the end of each year, roll the Cthulhu die.
Yellow Sign: Spread. Cults attempt to spread to adjacent territories.
Tentacle: Seduce. Cults attempt to seduce units both in their own territories and in adjacent occupied territories.
Elder Sign: Dark Power. All players gain energy equal to 1/2 the number of territories they share with the cults, rounded up.
Eye of Horus: Dark Reinforcement. All players gain MODs equal to 1/2 the number of territories they share with the cults, rounded up.
Cthulhu: Rising. Destroy 1 unit in every territory with a cult marker. Roll again.

Spreading: When a Yellow Sign is rolled, draw a number and type of territory cards equal to the number and type of territories with cult markers. If any of these territories are adjacent to a territory that already has a cult marker, but does not have one of its own, the cult attempts to spread. Roll 1d3: If the result is higher than the number of units in the territory, the cult spreads. Place a cult marker on that territory. Unlike invasions, the player who controls the territory may choose to voluntarily fail this roll, inviting the cult in. If a territory drawn has no adjacent territory with a cult marker, or already has a cult marker, it has no effect.

Assisting the cults: On their own, the cults may not spread to water or space territories. Players may opt to assist the cults, either to infiltrate rivals, because they hope to take advantage of the cults' very occasional generosity, or because they just want to make it somebody else's problem. A player with a naval commander and a territory with a cult marker may replace one land territory card the cult would otherwise draw with a water territory. A player with a space commander in play and a space station in a territory with a cult marker may replace one land territory the cults would otherwise draw with a space territory. Only one such substitution (either water or space) may be made per player. The cults, being reckless and in league with dark powers of both ocean and space, do not need to limit themselves to the prescribed landing zones and coastlines that limit traditional armies, and cards drawn from such assistance do not need adjacent territories to support the attack (in later turns, such assistance cards should be separated from water and space territories drawn normally). However, water and space are difficult for cultists to survive in, and their rolls to spread to such territories are made at -1 (thus a 1 always fails). If successful, the cult establishes itself in the new territory, and on future spreading and seduction results, draws a card from the appropriate deck. The cults may spread into water territories adjacent to coastal land territories with a cult marker, or any of the normal space landing areas if there is any land territory with both a cult marker and a space station.

Seduction: Seduction works similarly to spreading: When a tentacle is rolled, draw a number and type of territory cards equal to the number and type of territories with cult markers. However, there are several differences. If a territory drawn during seduction is entirely unoccupied, or only has a cult marker, or has no adjacent territory with a cult marker, it has no effect. If a territory drawn is occupied, has no cult marker of its own, but is adjacent to a territory that has a cult marker, the cult attempts to seduce the army there: Roll 1d3, and if the result is higher than the number of units on the territory, destroy one unit and place a cult marker (this can entirely depopulate a territory except for the cult marker). Again, the player who owns the territory may voluntarily fail the roll to invite the cult in, but they still lose one unit. If a territory drawn is occupied and already has a cult marker, roll 1d3+1: If the result is higher than the number of units in the territory, destroy one (again, this can entirely depopulate a territory except for the cult marker.

As with spreading, players may choose to assist the cults' seduction by replacing land territory cards drawn with water or space territories, with the same restrictions and the same exception to the need for an adjacent territory (an empty territory, or one with a cult marker alone, still has no effect). However, seduction does not have the same -1 penalty to expand to such territories as spreading, since they are co-opting the existent survival structures (and the cults roll 1d3+1 as above if the territory drawn already has a cult marker).

Dark Power: Rolling an Elder Sign provides a pure energy benny for those willing to put up with an occasional ritual sacrifice and the possibility of monstrous rising. All players gain energy equal to half the number of territories they occupy that have cult markers, rounded up.

Dark Reinforcement: Likewise straightforward, rolling the Eye of Horus means the cults lend their military power to those good enough to turn a blind eye to their doings. All players gain MODs equal to half the number of territories they occupy that have cult markers, rounded up. These MODs may only be placed on territories with cult markers, but may otherwise be placed freely

Rising: But it's not all gravy trains and bloody sacrifice. One unit is destroyed in every territory with a cult marker, and the die is rolled again. And yes, it is possible to roll Rising repeatedly.

Fighting the cults: Considering the nastiness of seduction and the always-present possibility of the big guy's rising, players may be justified in wanting to exterminate the cults. This is done during a player's turn as an invasion, including any bonuses for commanders, territory type or Command cards. Cults defend using a single d8, and win ties as normal. Cults cannot be purged from a territory with only one unit. A territory's surviving units may still invade as normal after purging a cult, and an attacker may purge a cult in an invaded territory as a continuation of the original attack (the defending player cannot use the cult to defend, and the attacker is not obligated to destroy the cult before occupying the territory).

The only way to be sure?: Nuclear cards only destroy a cult if they have already destroyed all other units in the territory and there is still at least one unit worth of overkill. Thus, the continental weapon cards cannot kill a cult unless the territory was already otherwise unoccupied; ditto scatter bombs. Other Command cards have no effect - Cults cannot be removed by MOD Reduction and are immune to Death Traps.

Potential variants being considered:
Weaker cults: Change the cults' defense roll to a d6. Makes them less of a hassle to wipe out, and thus less of a strategic concern.
Monstrous rising: When a Rising is rolled, 1d3 units are destroyed in each territory with a cult marker. Multiple risings are catastrophic, and cleansing cults becomes a major concern.
That is not dead: At the end of a year in which all cults have been destroyed or when there are fewer than three cult markers in play, draw three land territory cards and place a cult marker in each, then roll as normal.
Multiple rolls: At the end of the year, roll once for every (5/7/# of players in the game) cult markers in play, resolving each roll completely before the next is made. Risings (or multiple Risings!) and the following roll count as one roll.
Wiped themselves out: If a Rising is rolled and there are no other units in a territory with a cult marker, remove the cult marker.
These were the most loyal: In conjunction with the above, every time a cult marker is destroyed by a Rising, place it aside (on a doom track, if you will). It now counts as permanently in play for purposes of the number of rolls made if using Multiple rolls, above, or raises the minimum number of cult markers that must actually be in play for That is not dead, above, or adds an additional territory card to those drawn for That is not dead, or adds to any rolls made by the cults still in play, or if you're exceptionally masochistic, all of the above. For slightly less masochism, restrict this to one marker per Rising rolled, or one per year.
The End is Here: If at any time a cult marker would be placed and there are no more cult markers available, Cthulhu rises and nobody wins. The viciousness of this is dependent on how many markers are available (I have 21).

Oh, and for those of you who don't have the overpriced novelty die this is based on, you can replicate it with a regular d12:
1-5: Spread
6-9: Seduce
10: Dark Power
11: Dark Reinforcement
12: Rising

Why it sucks being a gamer

Trying to write an essay focusing on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the war machine makes it extremely easy to slide into thinking about Warmachine, with the result that time better spent trying to root out what the hell those French bastards were on about ends up being spent on "Seriously, there aren't any Trollblood channelers?".

Why I Like Small World

So I bought Small World¹, because it's terrific (hence the W.I.L.), and I also bought the various expansions because, as I've alluded to before, there is a hole in every gamer's heart that can only be filled by having every single possible bit for his chosen money sink². Thankfully, this was all less traumatic to the pocketbook than it could have been, thanks to the good people of Meeplemart, their reasonable (and Canadian!) prices and their startlingly fast delivery. Meeplemart: For when you simply cannot function until you've spent $200 on completely unnecessary Arkham Horror figures³.

Anyway, now that we're done polishing Meeplemart's tackle, on to polishing Small World's. Small World is a game with a spectacular amount of cardboard. There are two boards (with different maps on each side, so you can play with anywhere from 2 to 5 players), there are mountains, there are a bunch of cardboard Race⁴ banners with Generic Fantasy's Greatest Hits on them (You know Orcs, Halflings, Elves and the rest, although the expansions mix it up a bit with such examples of European cultural sensitivity as Gypsies and Pygmies⁵); there are a bunch more power banners, which are marked with adjectives like Flying, Peace-Loving and Marauding, and which fit into a groove on the race banners; there are troll holes and fortresses and dragons, and there are a shedload of little cardboard armies to punch out. Fortunately, the game also gives you a fancy little storage tray for the armies in the main set, and one of the expansions has another for all the ones from the other expansions. We're talking serious cardboard here.

The reason for all this is also the strength of the game: the Basic Rule. To conquer a territory, you need 2 armies, plus one for every bit of cardboard on it, including other armies. That's it. Oh, there's more to it than that - every race has its own power, and the special powers which combine with those, but once you get the Basic Rule you have a good 90% of the game well in hand.

Gameplay consists of buying a race (six races are doled out and given random powers, and as each is bought, another is added), taking over whatever territory you can with it, and taking victory coins equal to your occupied territories, plus bonuses from your race and power. Then other races come along and mess with you. Eventually, your guys will be killed off (when you conquer using the Basic Rule, one of the conquered armies gets discarded, the others get spread around the conqueree's remaining territory) or be spread out too thin, or just get boring, and you can put them into decline so they can continue making sweet victory coins for you while you get a whole new set of assholes to wreck shit up. Whoever's richest at the end of the game wins, just like in real life.

You may have noticed that the Basic Rule has no randomness to it. It's a sheer accounting measure. That's intentional - SW is, as barely mentioned above, from The Europes, which makes it one of those sneaky bastard well-polished Eurogames posing as a brash randomness-besotted Ameritrash game. Except that if you don't have enough troops to take one last territory at the end of your turn, you can roll a die to get temporary reinforcements. And that there's a power that lets you roll it too. And that there's a lot of randomness in how random races are linked to random powers and then arranged in a random order of cost ⁶. The Usual Suspects squabble over what this means and whether and how to remove Demon Unpredictability from their perfect equations, making for another fine example of how Taking It Too Seriously mucks up the fun.

And the game is fun, and fast, and surprisingly complex for all that it uses an icky-poo die. The satisfaction of trouncing an enemy gives way to the misery of being trounced in turn and then to the deliberation as to whether to go for one more landgrab, or put your race into decline and pick a new one next turn. Some power/race combos are legendarily good(/broken), others kinda suck, but they're all different and novel and influence strategy in complex ways. It's a game of Civilization in an hour, and without those crazy-ass wonder videos. So it's a wash, really, but it's a damn fine wash.

Finally, a word on customization. The base game has a black race banner and a blank power banner so you can make up your own, like Illuminati cards. The expansions add some more (and the expansions are largely made up of player-submitted powers and races. As I've said before, every gamer is a game designer). And the game itself inspires ideas at a phenomenal pace - My first game at 7 AM, on Boxing Day with no sleep and a beer in my hand, I was already crawling with ideas. Even the crusty BGGeeks, when they weren't figuring out how to replace the game's only source of randomness with bonus extra-dry strategy, produced some nifty print-and-play expansions. Truly, Small World just keeps getting bigger.<sup>7



1</sup> And in doing so managed to drunkenly break my vow not to buy any more games until I had a job like a real boy.

² Well, not every single bit. I left out the Tales & Legends action deck as a paltry attempt to prove that my dissolution was incomplete, like a drunk intentionally leaving the last swallow of his beer in the glass because that proves he's not an alcoholic.

³ Seriously, the game comes with cardboard standees and bases which have never failed me. All these figures are going to do is make your monster chits look ridiculous running around all Flatland at the 3D-realized feet of your investigators. And then Fantasy Flight comes out with a line of monster figures and oh my God that's brilliant.

⁴ I'd do some bog-standard grumping about how race is incorrect and they should really be species banners, but you can't fight the moonlight or the tide of nerd inertia. Inerdtia. Gygax called 'em races, they're races.

⁵ Those actually are races, which just goes to show. Although there is always that book that White Wolf put out about Gypsies being a separate genetic lineage of magical tricksters. I think it was just after their book on playing the ghosts of Holocaust victims, and just before somebody asked them what in the living fuck they thought they were doing.

⁶ This sentence is more or less just me trying to break my roommate Matt (of Fiasco badass mail-order bride Natasha and homeless cuckolded murderous gay dude fame). For reasons unknown, duder has a broom up his ass about the use of "random", not merely in its use to refer to wacky-loopy-freak-the-mundanes shenanigans (which is, of course, despised by all people of character and spirit), but its use to refer to anything which is at all dependent on anything else. Which leaves us with, I guess, singularities and the Primal Chaos?

⁷ UNBEARABLY TWEE FINAL LINE EXPUNGED. WE APOLOGIZE. TRUST US, THOUGH, IT'S A PRETTY FUN GAME.