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Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a social deduction game with secret identities. Players are either Investigators trying to keep Cthulhu from waking and controlling the world, or Cultists that want to bring the world to a disturbing end.
The game takes place over four rounds. The Investigators must uncover all the Elder Signs to win; the Cultists win when Cthulhu is revealed or if the game ends before all the Elder Signs are discovered.
Before each round players receive a number of Investigation cards, which they look at but then shuffle and put in front of themselves so they know what cards they have, but they don't know which card is which. Each round has a number of actions equal to the number of players in the game. Players take actions to reveal Investigation cards, and gather all unrevealed cards are shuffled an redistributed evenly among the players.
Reveal Cthulhu, and the Cultists win instantly. Reveal all the Elder Signs, and the Investigators win. If you want to play multiple rounds (it's highly recommended), the losers in each game get Insanity tokens. Get three tokens, and the night is over with the winner(s) being those most sane.
Don’t Mess with Cthulhu Deluxe is a new edition of this game with the Necronomicon and Objects of Power that allows for play with 4-8 players.
Don't Mess With Cthulhu - How To Play
- The ability to lie and bluff is a fundamental part of the gameplay.
- The tension of deciding who to give the flashlight to is a challenge.
- cultists trying to bring terror onto the world, investigators trying to stop them
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Players take turns selecting a facedown card from another player to reveal.
- bluffing — Players can lie about their roles and the cards they hold.
- deduction — Players must deduce who is who based on their declarations and actions.
- hidden roles — Players are secretly assigned the role of either a cultist or an investigator.
- set collection — Investigators win by revealing all Elder Sign cards, and cultists win if the Cthulhu card is revealed.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- don't mess with an elder god but some people refuse to listen
- you'll never be sure exactly how many cultists are at the table
- you can say anything you want at any time and it does not have to be true