The Other Path
by Marius Hartland
Welcome to the fourth installment of the Call of Cthulhu LCG Core Game Story Cards preview. So far we picked a card, any card, watched willpower being broken, and took the familiar route with a returning effect – In more ways than one. Now we'll see that while running at stories we can also take The Other Path.
Story cards walk a tight rope. One of the main win conditions of the game is winning three story cards. To keep the excitement level and the dramatic tension high Story Card effects need to have powerful, possibly game-changing abilities players are likely to want to activate (or prevent from being activated, depending on where you’re sitting!). But on the other side of this rope, giving Story Cards effects that are likely to end the game there and then means that the whole "Win Three Story Cards" idea becomes moot.
A major downside of wanting to activate a Story Card is that it usually works out where for all practical purposes, it gives something to your opponent first. Forcing everyone to draw ten cards is usually only useful if you're playing something geared towards discarding your opponent's deck. Most Story Cards give all players a resource, but with one downside: Since your turn ends with the Story Phase, the other player is more likely to use them first.
Combining all these thoughts is important when coming up with nicely balanced Story Cards. But the Call of Cthulhu Card Game is a game about chaotic entities that could strike at any time. The Horror of the unexpected. You think you have another turn to live and then you're caught unawares… Designer Nate French decided to take a walk on the wild side, and introduce a Story Card that will help you reach the finish line right now, or suffer the concequences:
The "two or fewer" wording on this card more often than not doesn't matter. It does — like Dreamwalkers — force you to think about the resolution order. If you choose to resolve The Other Path last, you might deny yourself some free Succes Tokens. Choose Dreamwalkers first, and you deny yourself a full story. Buridan's ass or just a rock and a hard place?
You know what to expect from the game right now: Humans are weak, but fast enough to collect 5 tokens in two uncontested story runs. Most monsters take at least three story phases to win a story. Now, every few games, the math changes. Monsters can take the rare Investigation Icon they have and shave off a turn by winning the Other Path. The frequency of that happening isn't high — less then once in every 3 games you play — but it'll happen often enough to worry about it. Or just embrace it in order to win more games.
Another fortunate side effect are the cards that use Success Tokens as a resource. Jim Black's Descendant of Eibon is one. Sacrificing your third token to get it right back via The Other Path with some return on the investment doesn't seem much of a sacrifice at all. Yes, your opponent gets some too, but if you set up some defense using Realm of Ice and Death and use the extra token to rain some polar death on anyone coming near Stories you usually should be fine. Or stock up on cards like Cave In! to make the extra tokens a particularly lopsided affair.
Next time we'll relive the horror of the past and swap our minds with those beings from down under in The Shadow Out Of Time.
"That the Starres eat… that those falling Starres, as some call them, which are found on the earth in the form of a trembling gelly, are their excrement."
— Henry More, 1656
