CALL OF CTHULHU

Hey there! Welcome to the world of Call of Cthulhu. It’s a super cool card game where you get to be an investigator and face all sorts of terrifying horrors. It’s pretty intense, but I think you’ll have a blast. Ready to give it a go?

SETUP

Alright, let’s get things set up. First, we need to set aside the cards F156-F165. Don’t worry about those for now. Next, it’s time to choose your deck. Just pick the one that calls out to you. Once you’ve got your deck, give it a good shuffle to make sure the cards are all mixed up nicely. We want things to be totally random, you know?

So, here’s how it works: I place the game board right in the middle of the playing area, making sure it’s easily reachable for all players. Those success and wound tokens? Oh, they go into the Deep area on the board. Now, one of us shuffles the story deck and deals three story cards face-up onto the board. The rest of the story cards? We’ll put them in their special designated spot on the board.

Now, it’s time for each of us to make some choices. We’ll each pick three cards that we won’t use in the game. These cards will create our domain, and we’ll place them facedown next to our deck. Then, we’ll each draw eight cards from our own deck, creating our very first hand. From those eight cards, we’ll pick five to be our opening hand, and the remaining cards will be our starting resources.

After that, we’ll take our three cards and attach one to each of our domain cards. Only the bottom of the card and the resource should be visible. And just like that, we’re ready to dive into the game!

Welcome to the Game

When it comes to playing the game, it’s all about taking turns. Each player gets to complete their turn before the other player even gets a chance. However, before we dive into the details, let’s determine who gets to go first. We’ll leave it up to you and your opponent to decide.

Now, let’s break down a turn into five distinct phases. These phases ensure that gameplay flows smoothly and everyone gets a fair shot. Ready? Here they are:

Phase One: Refresh

At the start of your turn, you get to choose one of your insane characters. Reveal that character by flipping it face up, and exhaust it. This means you’ve used it, but don’t worry, it’ll be ready to go again on your next turn. While the character recovers, go ahead and remove any tokens from it. Remember, you can only refresh and ready characters at the start of your turn.

Those were the basics to get you started. Now, let’s explore the rest of the phases and get ready to dive deeper into the game. Are you excited yet? I know I am! Let’s keep going!

When I reach the end of the story phase, I have one more chance to make some moves. After that, it’s your turn, and you start with the refresh phase.

Draw Phase

During the draw phase, I get to draw two cards from my shuffled deck. But if I don’t have any cards left in my deck, I’m out of the game right then and there. You win!

Resource Phase

Now it’s time for me to choose a card from my hand and put it faceup, but flipped upside down, onto one of my domains. It’s important to keep track of the types and amount of resources I attach to each domain because they come into play if the domain gets drained. Once a resource is attached, I can’t use it for anything else.

Operations Phase

When I’m playing the game, I have a phase called the Hand Phase. During this phase, I can play character and support cards that I have in my hand. It’s important to note that when I play a card, I need to make sure I have enough resources from one of my domains to pay for it.

I can only drain a domain if it has enough resources attached to it. And once I drain a domain, I can’t drain it again until it has been refreshed. For a card to be played, at least one of the resources on the domain needs to match the faction of the card.

Next up is the Story Phase.

During this phase, I commit my characters to stories in an attempt to score tokens. But here’s the catch, my opponent is trying to block me from getting those tokens. The Story Phase has three steps: I commit my characters, my opponent commits theirs, and then we resolve the stories.

So, here’s the deal. When I’m playing this game, I get to decide which character I want to commit to one of the three stories. When a character is committed, they become exhausted and are moved to the front of the story card. I can have as many characters as I want committed to each story, as long as they’re not already exhausted.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. After I commit my characters to a story, my opponent has a chance to do the same. They can commit any of their ready characters to the same story that I committed at least one character to. It’s like a race to block each other from racking up tokens. Sneaky, right?

Okay, so once we both commit our characters, it’s time to resolve the stories. I get to choose which story I want to focus on. And here’s where things really heat up. The characters in that story go through a series of struggles, and it’s up to me to determine if they succeed or not. It’s kind of like a rollercoaster of emotions!

Oh, and when a story is resolved, all the characters go back to their respective players. So, it’s like a fresh start for everyone.

Let’s Talk about Icon Struggles

When it’s time to figure out who comes out on top in an icon struggle, you and your opponent have a straightforward task: count up all the matching icons on your characters for that particular story. Whoever has the most matching icons wins. Icon struggles come in different flavors, like terror struggles, combat struggles, arcane struggles, investigation struggles, and determination struggles.

If you lose a terror struggle, you’ve got a tough choice to make. You have to pick one of your characters and send them spiraling into madness. That character’s out for the rest of the story. And if you lose a combat struggle, you’re facing an even harsher outcome. You’ve got to choose a character to be wounded. Oftentimes, that means the end of the line for that poor character.

Whenever I win a challenging battle, I can free up any character that was involved in that event. And when I triumph in an investigation, I get to place a success token on the story card that we’re currently resolving. It’s exciting because this success could mean that I win the story card almost instantly.

Once all the struggles are done, I need to figure out if I’ve succeeded in the story. To do this, I add up my total skill points. If my skill is higher than my opponent’s, then I succeed!

The game keeps going like this until one of us manages to win three story cards. That’s when everything comes to a close, and we have a winner!

The End of the Game

The game ends when a player wins their third story card. And that player is crowned the ultimate winner!