My wife and I bought two sets of Cthulhu Dice and gave it a try but we ran into some of the same issues people are talking about here (turn order is confusing, don't like playing multiple cultists, game is too short, not a lot of strategy).
The concept of the game is cool, and the big `ol dice is awesome. The fact that it's simple and fast is great. But we were hoping for something a bit closer to Zombie Dice than what we got.
I wrote up some alternate rules and we tried them out for the first time tonight. It was pretty fun! The game is still simple and I tried to keep all of the stuff that works well, but I tried to eliminate the things that our gaming group found confusing or weak.
Here are my alternate rules. If anyone gets a chance to try them out, or has any questions, or comments, or suggestions, please post. I'd be thrilled to hear it.
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Alternate Cthulhu Dice Rules
Setup
You will need:
- 1 Cthulhu die
- 1 d6
- 10 tokens per player + 5 for Cthulhu (stones, pennies, etc)
- 1 Cthulhu doll (not required but it's more fun that way)
Give each human player 10 sanity tokens. Place the Cthulhu doll prominently. Give him 5 sanity tokens.
Play
The owner of the game decides who goes first.
Take turns rolling the Cthulhu die. Based on the results do the following:
- Yellow sign: _bet_ against a human opponent
- Tentacle: _bet_ against Cthulhu. If he has no tokens, you get nothing.
- Cthulhu: all players lose 1 sanity to Cthulhu
- Elder sign: choose a human opponent. That player loses 2 sanity to Cthulhu.
- Eye: steal 2 sanity from Cthulhu. If he has no tokens, you get nothing.
Play continues until only one player has any sanity left. That player is the winner.
If all players lose their sanity to Cthulhu then Cthulhu wins!
Madness
In a game of 3 or more players, if a player loses all of their sanity tokens they go "Mad."
When a player is Mad they roll the Cthulhu die as normal. However, the rules are slightly different:
A player who is mad can only receive sanity from Cthulhu. If the
Yellow sign appears they lose their turn.
If a
Tentacle appears they have a chance to regain their sanity without making a wager. The Mad player rolls a d6 and if they get a 6 they reclaim 1 sanity.
The
Cthulhu,
Elder sign, and
Eye symbols have the same effect as normal.
If a Mad player has any sanity tokens at the end of their turn, they are no longer mad and may play normally again.
Betting
The betting player wagers 1 - 5 sanity tokens.
He or she then rolls a d6.
If the roll is
greater than or equal to the amount of the bet, the rolling player steals the wagered amount from their opponent.
If the roll is
less than the player's bet than they lose all wagered sanity to their opponent.
A player cannot lose more sanity tokens than they have. If a player wagers 5 tokens and wins against an opponent who only has three tokens, the player will only receive the three. (i.e. don't wager more tokens than your opponent has to lose).