I picked up Black Goat today (Save Dark Pharaoh, which I'm waiting for the reprint, I'm not caught up on Small Box!), and started looking through it. Now I've heard previously through comments that people don't join the Cult often. I'd assumed it was because most people decided it wasn't worth the risk. Then I looked through the cards. There are, by my count, a grand total of just FOUR oppotunities to join the Cult - 1 at the Unvisted Isle and Black Cave, and 2 at the woods. With just the base game and the expansion mixed togeether, that's a 1/10 chance at just two locations, and a 1/5 chance at 1 location. I don't think I normally have an encounter at a location 5 times in a game, much less 10. That's ridiculously low - that's way lower than even drawing the Act cards in KiY (and those are SUPPOSED to be really rare). Even if you force them to join when they draw the card, it's so rare that it's almost impossible.

So, I think I've hit upon a house-rules solution to make it slightly less rare. Whenever you defeat a Cultist (or a monster treated as a Cultist), you may voluntarily join the Cult or pass a Will(+0) Check or avoid being forced to join the cult. The in-story idea is that the Cultist is impressed with your fighting prowess, and makes you an offer to become one of the Thousand. That should make it a bit more likely to get a chance to join the Cult, and actually make all these cult encounter cards and corruption cards worth something.

What do you guys think? Do you just ignore the Cult mostly?

While I'm still waiting for my local hobby shop to receive TBGotW ExpansionI like your idea for giving the Cult some teeth and actually getting out there on a robust marketing and recruitment scheme.

Also remember there is a corruption (Speak to your friend) that forces one of your pals to join the Cult (otherwise you have to discard the top corruption from the Corruptions deck). Nonetheless, Corruptions also appear very rarely, unless you're playing with the Herald (or with the Sheldon Gang custom Herald created by Amikezor, or some of Avi's custom league scenarios), so having something to boost cult activities can be good. Anyway, even if an investigator has a Cult Membership, it doesn't matter, he simply can avoid some locations and that's it.

Honestly, the cult idea was cool, but it's one of the worse developed ideas ever

I've uploaded a small add-on which you can find at board game geek. A ceremony marker moves around the town. Whilst the ceremony marker is in place all checks at that location are at -1 and an additional monster appears at gates where the ceremony is. Players can move to the ceremony marker and join the cult for one Stamina and one Sanity, but they get a clue token and they draw two cult encounters and choose the best when they attend a ceremony. Whilst this doesn't fix all the problems of the cult (too difficult to join and not sufficeint enough reward) it does go some way to fixing the problem. Hopefully MH will include new ways to join the cult and a far more rewarding cult deck

Master Fwiffo said:

More like the Cult ignores us.

Like you, I thought the Black Goat Expansion was going to be neat. But after only a few plays, I noticed that the expansion rarely did ANYTHING to get itself noticed. Unless you play with the Black Goat Herald--the most brutal official Herald to date--Corruptions rarely happen, but it barely matters because games with that Herald end in a half hour anyway.

The ONE good thing about the Black Goat expansion is that there are Gate Bursts in the Mythos deck that do not rely on ANY OTHER expansion being in play, which cannot be said about any Gate Burst from Dunwich, Kingsport, or Innsmouth. Meaning that you can add the Black Goat Mythos to ANY combination of expansions to increase the chances of Arkham bursting. Black Goat (or Lurker, same deal) Mythos complements the Innsmouth Mythos deck PERFECTLY.

Hopefully, the new Miskatonic "grand mix" will breathe some life into the Black Goat components...

Master Fwiffo said:

I think you hit the nail on the head. It's almost impossible the join the cult. Even if you manage to join (or if you start an investigator or two with a cult membership), it's still statistically unlikely that a cult member will go to one of the three cult locations. And even if it does happen, the cult encounters are usually no big deal.

Master Fwiffo said:

I think that's a good idea. I like that there is a way to join the cult that doesn't require a trip to one of the three cult locations. The biggest flaws that I see are 1) it's still fairly uncommon to encounter cultists at random and 2) even once you join the cult, there's a good chance that you'll have no reason to visit the Woods, the Black Cave, or the Unvisited Isle.

My own house rules for the cult do away with cult locations entirely. When the Black Goat herald is in play, if you're in any street area or unstable location, you may spend 2 Toughness worth of hexagon monster trophies to join the cult. Once you are a cult member, if you have an encounter at an unstable location, you may choose to negate the encounter and draw a cult encounter instead. If you do so, then whatever you draw for the cult encounter is final. (Also, these rules don't apply to the Silver Twilight Lodge).

These house rules aren't necessarily better than yours, or anyone else's. But their advantage is that the cult cards are not tied to specific locations on the board. There's also a clear benefit to cult membership, while still keeping it dangerous.

avec said:

I LOVE the Cult Encounter at an Unstable Locations rule. That certainly gives it some benefit, especially if you don't want to deal with a Gate and Monster suddenly appearing. I think I'll apply that alongside the cultist rule I put in there. I don't want you to able to join the Cult for no reason whatsover (the Cultist does give you a connection, and you're bound to run into at least one cultist during a game, especially with the extra cultist monsters in Black Goat), so I think that's a good compromise. Though, I'll keep it that you're still forced into a Cult encounter at a Cult location.

Each investigator is given a membership in order to infiltrate the cult. The first encounter at each unstable location in the town of Arkham is with the Cult. (I place a card on each unstable location.) The goal is the become the Chosen One and sacrifice yourself to remove 1 Doom Token.

Actually I've changed at the Cult encounters and corruption cards. The green ones are even more friendly than they are now and the red ones more nasty.

There are 6 Chosen one cards in the Cult encounters: Each one reads: "You find yourself at a gate summoning ceremony. You may choose to interfere with it or take a Corruption card. If you interfere roll 2 dice. Pick one dice and remove that much Sanity, then pick the other dice and lose that much Stamina. If you remain both sane and conscious, you may close and seal and take as a trophy one gate marker of your choice, otherwise a gate is summoned."

So each such encounter gives one of the following outcomes. Devoured, hospitalized insanitized, corrupted or hero (seal/close and gain gate trophy).

Master Fwiffo said:

Thanks! It seems like there's lots of good ways to use the cult cards. Though Avi might complain that we're turning the Black Goat into a Guardian.

mageith said:

This sounds more like a scenario than a herald. With these rules, I suspect that the cult cards tend to dominate gameplay. It sounds like fun though. I take it that there is more than one type of "Chosen One" card?

Already mentioned it is very rare for it to be meaningful. Even if you join the cult it is very rare that you have a chance to use the membership (because the locations are the most unstable and you are usually busy elsewhwere).

My personal playstyle for BGOTW is to use the herald but ignore the Pagan Rights section. At least this way you get the corruptions in play.

Using the cultist monsters as an entry into the cult is a good idea.

I'm not so sure about passing a combat check and then failing a will check to join, it seems more likely that you should fail then combat check and then fail a will check to become brainwashed into joining the cult.

Once you've joined the cult you could encounter the cultist monster tokens, and draw from the cult encounters, instead of engaging in combat.

I've had a quick scan through Miskatonic Horror and there are a few new ways of joining the cult.

Each expansion board has an encounter that allows you to join the cult, another time has an encounter that allows you to join as well. There is a skill that allows you to join the cult (and draw 2 cult encounter cards and choose the best) and there is a relationship that allows you to join for free when you parter joins the cult.

It was just a quick scan through so there may be extra ways of joining that I missed.

There are also encounters and mythos cards that have effects based on if you have cult membership.

Its just a shame they didn't add an institution for the cult so investigators could start as members.

avec said:

I suppose you could call it a scenario, but the rules on fit on a normal card. But it is a fairly extensive revision. Actually there are six exact copies of the Summoning card--other than that each of the other Cult encounters have no duplicates. I've recently changed the card to read ...otherwise a gate BURST is summoned, rather than merely a gate is summoned.

As to dominating play, Cult Encounters certainly are a factor, but I only put them in Arkham town, not the other board unstable locations. Usually at least one investigator becomes very corrupt and only 1 and sometimes 2 gates are sealed via the summoning and very seldom is an investigator devoured by this (drats!)

avec said:

How did I miss this one? Avi does complain that you're turning the Black Goat into a Guardian! Well... It's still not as bad as Lurker.

mulletcheese said:

Almost all the new cult encounters allow others to join the cult as well, problem is all these things are still very diluted already.

I got my fist game today with the black goat expansion, but i didn´t understand: you have the green and red corruption decks: when are you supossed to use wich? or is green first and then red?

satanito said:

Just an idea on how to force people to draw cult encounters... (maybe this should be posted in the Custom Heralds thread). Start of the game: one investigator must have a Cult membership. Everytime an investigator kills a cultist or a maniac, he receives a Cult membership. If he already has one, roll a die: on a failure, add a doomer to the doom track. Every investigator with a cult membership entering any unstable location must draw and resolve a Cult encounter before the normal encounter has place

Julia said:

That'd definitely work. You should build a herald around it :')

Avi_dreader said:

Yeah, It'll be done. Not so sure if a Herald or an Institution, too. Suggestions?

Why when you kill a cultist of a maniac. What about when you encounter them (they speak to you before you running on them with a weapon). There was a herald by dietch that sounded very similar... let see:

http://www.horreuraarkham.fr/stockage/Dietch/VO/Cult-Worshippers.jpg

(this one was difficult to find :-)

amikezor said:

That's pretty good. I don't remember ever seeing it though, was it not posted in the forums, or was I just more senile than usual?

Yeah, it's an interesting Herald!

Yes, I like this one too. I found it back from another forum but I have no idea if dietch posted it on that forum or not in the end... so many post I read. I am confused now

I'll ask him on another place where he is easy to reach. --I think he is not haunting this forum anymore... --