Spectre Miniatures: Cosmic Horror Regel-Preview

In einem Pre-Launch Kickstarter-Update teilen Spectre Miniatures einen ersten Eindruck von den Regeln für Cosmic Horror.

Writing the rules for Cosmic Horror

Writing the rules for Cosmic Horror presented a few challenges, one of which is the need for the threats that players face to be both physical and psychological. Having the focus on combat, in the way traditional tabletop wargames are structured didn’t feel right and wouldn’t bring anything new to wargaming.

The focus of the game is the players gathering and searching for knowledge and the concept of Cosmic Horror, the meaning of which is probably best summed up from this famous quote from The Call of Cthulhu:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

Games or ‘Incidents’ are focused around Mythos Locations. These are typically divided into Major, Minor and Living locations. All of these can be interacted with in order to gain Fragments.

Major Mythos Locations feature a card system, where successful investigations will reveal a card – the information on that card can reward players, punish them, alter the scenario story, or all three!

Minor Locations have limited Fragments, but their investigation can trigger Leads – which can alter the course of the game.

Living Mythos Subjects are similar, but when they are interacted with, they often force a player to make decisions, creating a dynamic and ever changing game.

Fragments are a sort of currency – they are scraps of knowledge and evidence that are collected and pieced together into Understanding.

Understanding can then be spent on new Mythos cards that can be introduced into games, creating the opportunity for players to collect powerful Artifacts.

One psychological threat is Horror accumulation. Horror can be gained from failing tests, killing a subject or as the result of an investigation. Not only does the amount of Horror that a subject has have an impact on that individual, it also contributes to a wider gameplay effect in the form of Cosmic Horror.

Cosmic Horror is a meter that rises when the collective Horror of all models on the table meets certain thresholds. As it rises, game wide effects come into play, becoming more serious, the higher the level gets. Cosmic Horror also affects the performance of Magic Equations. The more unstable reality becomes, the easier it is to manipulate.

Combat is an important, but secondary focus of the game. It’s commonly thought that guns and firearms aren’t very ‘Lovecraftian’ – but many of his stories feature them, as well as full on firefights (Whisperer in Darkness, Call of Cthulhu etc.) HPL also had a collection of firearms, which he would go target shooting with and wanted to join the war effort in WW1.

You’ll find combat useful for defeating your opponent in the short term – but it will have consequences in the form of Horror accumulation. When facing Entities, often combat won’t have a tangible effect, other than slowing the target down. Mere bullets are not enough to defeat entities that existed eons before man discovered fire and painted on cave walls.

We hope this has given some insight into Cosmic Horror. We will be previewing more and showing some gameplay videos soon!

Quelle: Spectre Miniatures auf Kickstarter