Cthulhu Dice

Written by Rob | 24 March 2012

Almost assuredly designed to be a drinking game, Cthulhu Dice contains little to no actual skill. Luckily, it’s an extremely simple mechanism that I can easily program into Excel (I think/hope).

The basic concept is that each player begins the game with Sanity. They roll the die in turn and either lose or gain sanity. When all their sanity is lost, they become mad and complete the game in a different state of being. There is an AI opponent called the Cthulhu that basically saps up all other players’ sanity for himself. The only way to win the game is to be the last player with any sanity. It’s also very likely that all players will lose the game to the Cthulhu.

Cthulhu Die – This is a 12-sided die with the following symbols:

Sanity Token – Anything that can serve as a pip in the game. Each player begins with 3.

There are four types of Player at any given time:

Active Player

The Player whose turn it is. This Player begins the turn by selecting a Target and proceeding to roll the die.

Targeted Player

The Player being acted upon in any given turn. This Player always must respond by rolling the dice after the Active Player. Note, the Elder Sign or Eye is the only die result wherein the Targeted Player will receive sanity points.

Rolling Player

This is the Player who is rolling the die. This can refer to either the Active Player or the Targeted Player.

Cthulhu

The Cthulhu is the Old One. While not really any kind of active player, it serves as a centerpiece that would, in a casino, be called the House. Its job is to take the sanity points from the Players.

The Players have two states:

Sane

This type of Player still has sanity points. He or she is affected by the rolls of the die as normal.

Mad

This type of Player has lost his or her last remaining sanity point. This Player still takes his or her turn as normal but can only gain a sanity point and become sane again by rolling the Elder Sign or The Eye.

There are some quick notes on the odds for a given turn. Note that the percentages are approximate given that there are a few variables: Should the Player roll “The Eye” and should the Cthulhu have 0 Sanity points. I’ve used the maximum possible percentage in each case (or so my limited abilities lead me to believe). Any discrepancies (greater than 100% sums) take into account mad players (players with zero sanity) and Cthulhu at the start of the game (no sanity).

It’s fairly obvious by this table that the targeted player is at a ridiculous disadvantage. In a multi-player game, if one player is targeted in the first three consecutive turns, there’s a 98.7% chance of his being driven mad. This doesn’t much matter, since in an 8 player match, if the 8^th player never is targeted, there’s still a 1-2% chance that he’ll be eliminated by the Cthulhu. This isn’t all that much, but considering that the odds of him being eliminated without being the target increases to about 50% after almost 2 complete rounds (he’s only had 1 turn at this point) seems kind of remarkable.

Though the game is primarily luck, there are points of decision. At the onset of every turn, the decision must be made as to whom the Active Player will target. There are a couple of ways to look at this:

Target the leader

Targeting the leader feels like a cop out of sorts. When targeting the leader, though a large chance exists of benefitting from this person (41.7%), it’s more likely that you’ll simply damage them into no longer being the leader (76.4% they’ll lose 2 Sanity Points).  Note that there’s also a nearly 10% chance of losing points in any given turn and a nearly 50% chance of not benefitting at all. So what to do? This brings us to the next strategy…

Target the weak

Targeting the weak is beneficial in that a single attack is extremely likely to knock a losing player out of contention. The one thing to watch out for is retribution which brings us to a third strategy…

Target the player further away

Targeting a player who won’t be rolling for several turns plays on two things. First, the concept of retribution is minimized since by the time it’s their turn they may be angry at somebody else. Second, it increases the chance that that person will be eliminated before they get to roll. While a mad player still may roll, they’re less likely to be invested in the outcome, other than the 1/6 chance of hitting the Elder Sign or The Eye to bring them back into the game.

Exacting revenge via random chance isn’t all that interesting, it turns out.

The only other player choice comes down to rolling The Eye. The Active Player now gets to choose what happens. For the most part, the decision is simple, get a Sanity Point any way you can. Sometimes, getting a Sanity Point isn’t an option at which point hurting everybody becomes the next best thing. For the Attacking Player, hurting only the Target would generally be the best way to go.

The Eye in reality presents very limited choice at all. The choice is purely defined by the circumstances of the game and these circumstances don’t present enough variables to make a decision difficult.

This game is pretty well known to have some design flaws. This section lists some ideas that may or may not improve the title.

The game has a collaborative element hidden within it since the group can lose as a whole. One thing that can really be accented is the group’s desire to defeat the beast. First, a round-counter can be added to give the players a goal to shoot for in terms of their survival. Second, a way for players to replenish their sanity without being forced to roll the die should be available.

To help underline the collaborative effort, allowing one (or more) player to face the Cthulhu alone so that one player may gain an extra sanity could be a way to go. If the player whose turn it is only has one sanity point, two other players may give one sanity each to the Cthulhu while the remaining player takes one from the bank.

1. The Cthulhu never relinquishes sanity.
2. Players no longer attack one another (unless mad)
3. Mad players switch to Team Cthulhu and their win conditions change. They will never be sane again.
   1. Restraints: Instead of gaining sanity, the Elder Sign gives the team the ability to select the Mad Player’s opponent.
   2. Note, if a restrained Mad drives another player Mad, the restraints are removed.
   3. Restraints can be placed on a Mad player if a Sane player “attacks” the Mad.
   4. If the Sane players decide not to oppose the Mad player, he is removed from his restraints automatically and a Sanity goes from the pool to the Old One.