Clunky tentacles: A Tiny Epic Cthulhu review

I've played a lot of Tiny Epic games; the entire...

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Nice review! I don't know that I've ever seen anyone use the word "Cthulhuian" before...

Thanks! Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly how to pronounce that, either...

Awesome review! I'm glad you went back to it after a bumpy start. I have really dug all of the Tiny Epic games I have played and, unlike you, I don't have THAT many Cthulhu games. I look forward to playing this one but I don't think I'll be picking it up before doing that.

Thanks! The only thing I'd suggest before your first play is to watch a couple videos and THEN go to the rulebook and sort out the path of play.

Honestly, it sounds like they need to employ some professional teachers to write their rulebooks. The rulebooks should also be tested, the same as the actual game itself. I prepare game guides for most of my games, using my 36 years of teaching experience, and people enjoy learning new games from me. Again, these guides get tested each time I teach the game and they get updated if I find something I can do better.

So, uhhh, iirc there's still debate as to whether the accursed chaos tentacles lead to more madness. I'm pretty sure the "official" response was that it WAS supposed to add to madness. I personally think that's too punitive and play your way.

But yeah, rulebook is awful (and has errors, make sure you download the latest), the flowchart is even worse, I should go look and see if someone on BGG has released something to fix this. I've played once and haven't gone back, though I'll give it another try at some point.

cdennett wrote: So, uhhh, iirc there's still debate as to whether the accursed chaos tentacles lead to more madness. I'm pretty sure the "official" response was that it WAS supposed to add to madness. I personally think that's too punitive and play your way.

Was it? I saw a couple different threads on BGG and I thought the final conclusion was that it wasn't "Temperament" but given that some BGG threads are akin to the awful rulebook, I wouldn't be at all surprised to be wrong.

Jackwraith wrote:

cdennett wrote: So, uhhh, iirc there's still debate as to whether the accursed chaos tentacles lead to more madness. I'm pretty sure the "official" response was that it WAS supposed to add to madness. I personally think that's too punitive and play your way.

Was it? I saw a couple different threads on BGG and I thought the final conclusion was that it wasn't "Temperament" but given that some BGG threads are akin to the awful rulebook, I wouldn't be at all surprised to be wrong.

I went back and looked, and I didn't see anything new on the subject, this was the statement from the publisher: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3434108/article/45426880#45426880

Again, I'd just play it the way you want to here...

Oh, and there was this discussion here, which I participated in: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3445926/beginners-guide-to-tentacles

I didn't look, but sounds like newer rulebooks clarified it?

cdennett wrote: Oh, and there was this discussion here, which I participated in: boardgamegeek.com/thread/3445926/beginners-guide-to-tentacles

I didn't look, but sounds like newer rulebooks clarified it?

Yep. It does. No more "Losing your Chaos tentacles is punishment enough!" It just clearly states that when the track is accursed, you move up the Delirium marker. I think we're going to stick with what we're doing now. We've had multiple instances of being well on our way to winning and just imploding because someone drew three or four Chaos tentacles on successive turns. That's the worst kind of "Gotcha!" ending because you can't really point to any mistakes on the players' part or even just "That's the way the dice rolled!" kinda thing. Also, the suggestion that you should spend your Chaos tentacles to avoid this kind of thing (as implied by Chris Washburn), I find disingenuous, since the opportunities to do so are often limited when you're rushing to the end and, again, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about the bag draw unless you're the Doctor (IIRC) who can put one back and draw another... not that that helps you if you drew four Chaos, since you'll still be Accursed.