Fhtagn! - The Board Game

[Swatopluk]

Here's my first design for a Cthulhu themed (simple) board game.

Principle: A number of cultists and Deep Ones try to reach the center of the board in order to wake Cthulhu. A group of humans tries to prevent that by use of Elder Signs. Humans and cultists can capture/kill each other while Deep Ones can only be killed by moving an Elder Sign next to them and them not moving away (cf. king in chess). Cultists can prevent movement of Elder Signs by stepping next to them. Two cultists next to an Elder Sign removes the latter from the board. If two attackers reach the inner circle, they wake Cthulhu who kills horizontally and vertically every human in line of sight (unless there is something in the way).
Cthulhu can be defeated by taking his freedom of movement, i.e. blocking him with Elder Signs.
Pieces move one step horizontally or vertically (not diagonally) except Elder Signs. Those move like rooks in chess.
Humans may not enter inner circle (the 9 fields in the center).
While Cthulhu is still asleep, Elder Signs may not move into inner circle (only out of and through).
Game ends when at least one side cannot win anymore. Remis, if no side can force victory.

Rules may be modified, should they turn out to be too biased towards one side.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

How many players, and who goes first, and do more than 2 players cooperate with each other?

[Swatopluk]

I'd say two players. I think it would require a bit of practical experience with he game to find out which side should start.
For the first few rounds I'd start with humans

I forgot something: Old Ones win, when no more humans are on the board. Player may not proceed, if he has only Elder Signs left.
Also: instant suicide moves are not allowed, i.e. Deep Ones may not move next to Elder Signs (e.g. to attack a human) and humans not into the sight path of (the woken) Cthulhu. The king in chess is the model here again. But it is allowed to make moves that allows the opponent to kill the piece in return
(Sketches to follow).

[Lindorm]

Interesting indeed! It does sound a bit like an eldritch version of Hnefatafl, the old norse boardgame -or at least some of the reconstructed proabable variants of how it might have been played.

I'd definitely would want to try this one out. The number of Elder signs available for the human player are probably crucial to game balance, so it would be interesting to experiment with the number of these. Perhaps a good way to give a handicap when an experienced player goes up against a newbie?

[Swatopluk]

The old Norse game came to my mind too and I think you are completely right about the number of Elder Signs being critical.
Without playing it I have no idea which side is stronger.
What makes the calculations especially difficult is that under normal circumstances humans and cultists can kill each other only in a tit for tat manner because one has to actively move a piece next to the other allowing the other to strike which only makes sense, if the moving piece is guarded by another. Otherwise only zugzwang is likely to create that situation. I guess the game would develop in a way that the human side tries to take out the Deep Ones and then blocks the cultists with Elder Signs to create favorable zugzwang. The Old One side on the other hand will try to remove as many Elder Signs as possible and then send the Deep Ones in to kill the humans. That would lead imo to a bipolar situation on the board with two teams of two cultists each attacking from opposite sides leaving two of the Deep Ones to fight for themselves.
But that is all pure theory without hard data from experience.

To defeat Cthulhu at least two Elder Signs are necessary (bottling him up in a corner) because even the dumbest Old One player would not provide other pieces to block all escapes. But less than four would allow a concentric attack of all Deep Ones at once with the Human player unable to keep them all at bay.
Originally I planned a smaller board but that would have led to a deadlock almost immediately.

There are a number of game vaiants I came up with that would shift the balance to one side or other. For example:
1. Humans can be turned into cultists and/or cultists can be freed
2. One or two humans have to be killed (sacrificed) before Cthulhu can be woken
3. The two attacker pieces reaching the altar have to be different (1 cultist + 1 Deep One)
4. The rising of Cthulhu and/or the defeat of Cthulhu are necessary to win
Especially the latter would completely change the tactics for the Human side because it would be necessary to allow the Old Ones to reach the center while building an inward defense against the deadly gaze.

[Swatopluk]

I just checked. The game could be played on a SCRABBLE board (15x15, only 13x13 is needed, so the outer ring would just not be used). There are enough letter variants to choose 1x8, 3x4 and 1x1 as stand-ins for the pieces. E.g. E for Elder Sign, D for Deep One, L for Human (Lovecraft)...

[Swatopluk]

I just played against myself (for lack of alternatives).
Does not look too promising with the original set of rules.
Deep Ones are wiped out quickly with none coming even close to the center. Probably due to mistakes on my human side the cultists managed to break in and wake Cthulhu. But when they tried to clear the remaining Elder Signs they inadvertently blocked him on one side and an Elder Sign closed the last gap. On the board there remained 3 cultists, three humans and a few Elder Signs.
I declared human victory.

I think either the Deep Ones need greater mobility or the Elder Signs less. Maybe the board size should also be reduced to 11x11.