I've been hearing about cenacle multi-player rules lately and have no idea what they are? Does anyone here have any experience using them? Are they better than the official multi-player rules from FFG? My group plays a lot of multi-player games, so if there's a superior rule set out there I'd love to give it a try.

I found something online about it but everything is in French, and alas I majored in Spanish (and convincing my wife to dredge up her French to translate CoC rules would probably add significantly to my "honey-do" list).

Thanks for your assistance!

http://dosexplora.free.fr/telecharger/rules_multiplayers_cenacle.pdf

Here are the rules in english, after playing quite a lot of multiplayer myself I can only say that these rules rock compared to the normal multiplayer games that just drag on forever and ever. Sharing a story with each opponent (in slightly different ways with 3 or 4 players) means that the stand-offs that normally occur in multiplayer are basically unheard of.

In four-way multiplayers, conspiracies also really come into their own when you place on top of existing stories. The dirty tricks producable this way are just so darn fun (think you're winning? Lets see what you say about 10 success tokens to win that final story!).

So check it out, with some nice highlander decks the 4-player cenacle rules are my favorite flavor of cthulhu lcg.

I appreciate the link, but unfortunately it won't open properly for me (something about the PDF formatting).

It will be a little harder to read without the diagrams, but here is the plain text of it:

Call of Cthulhu - The Card Game
Non-Official Multiplayer Rules “1 versus 2”
This document contains the unofficial rules for
the Call of Cthulhu multiplayer format “1 vs 2”
edited by Le Cenacle Chthonien. Call of Cthulhu The
Card Game, Living Card Game, card illustrations
are ©2003 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc., all rights
reserved. The cenacle’s logo and the illustration for the
domains are ©2009 Alexandre Temple for “Le Cenacle
Chthonien”.
SET UP
Each player must bring their own deck and story deck.
Important: you’ll need at least one story deck for each
player. Players can choose either the story deck from
the Coreset or from the Secret of Arkham.
No changes to deckbuilding rules. You keep the usual
LCG tournament format (50 cards at least, no more
than 3 copies of each card in a deck).
Each story deck is shuffled. Then each player draws 2
cards from his story deck and place one story in front
of him. This story will be shared with the 3 players.
He places the second one at the left hand between him
and the left player. This story will be only shared with
the 2 players. (For visibility, you can put a token
or something else on the stories shared by the
3 players). Once done, you will have in play 6
stories (you can have a same story in play at the
same time). The diagram on the right gives you
an idea of the suggested play area.
One player is appointed First Player (choose who
starts with a dice or a jan-ken-pon).
RULES CHANGE
Commitment
An active player can only commit his characters
as attackers in the 3 stories in front him (the story
shared by the 3 players, and the 2 story only
shared with the right or the left player).
A non-active player can commit characters to defend in
only 2 stories: The story shared with the active player
and the story shared with the 3 players only if the other
non-active player choose to not commit to defend this
story (proceeding clockwise to know if a player wants
to defend the story). You can’t have at the same time
characters from both non-active players to defend the
story shared with the 3 players. He can commit only in
stories where the active player has committed at least
one character (as the normal rule).
Winning a story
After a story card has been won by a player, he must
draw another story card from his OWN’s story deck
and place it where the old story was.
First turn
On the first turn of all players, the player draws only 1
card and skips his entire story phase.
Important: Play proceeds clockwise beginning with
the First Player.
D
D
D
D
Discard
Deck
Story Deck
Domains
Player
Stories shared by the 3 players
1
3 2
For 3 Players
Playing Event cards and triggering effects
Every player may trigger card effects or play an action
as normal, targeting an active or non-active player
during the turn of each player, starting with the active
player and proceeding clockwise. You can also play an
effect on characters committed to a story where you
cannot commit your characters at.
Conspiracies
You cannot have more than 3 copies of the same
conspiracy on your deck.
Conspiracies are played from the hand or from the
deck normally (you need to pay for them in a way to
have them coming into play), but their use is different.
You play a conspiracy in a way to replace a story card
actually in play. There is no restriction to target a story
card, you can target all story cards in play.
The story card is kept under the conspiracy card,
and the conspiracy becomes the legal story card. She
inherits every success tokens that were on the previous
story card. If the conspiracy card is blanked or leave
play by any means, she is removed from the game
and the previous story card take its place back on the
board, keeping the success tokens that were on the
conspiracy.
Talking and Negociations
You can speak with your opponents, propose them
alliances and betrayed someone if you want to. The
only thing is you cannot take any advice concerning
how to resource or how to commit. This is strictly
personal to the player.
The diagram bellow give an example to commit yours
characters to the stories.
D
1
3 2
This story is shared with
Player 1 and Player 2
This story is shared with
Player 1 and Player 3
Rules version 1.0
Paris, 07.20.2010
Player 1 is the active player, he can commit his characters to the three stories in front of him (green arrow).
Player 2 can only commit to defend in the story shared with player 1 (red arrow), he can also choose to defend
in the central story if Player 1 has characters.
Player 3 can only commit to defend in the story shared with player 1 (blue arrow), he can also choose to defend
in the central story if Player 1 has characters AND Player 2 have not committed characters.
Call of Cthulhu - The Card Game
Non-Official Multiplayer Rules “1 versus 3”
This document contains the unofficial rules for
the Call of Cthulhu multiplayer format “1 vs 3”
edited by Le Cenacle Chthonien. Call of Cthulhu The
Card Game, Living Card Game, card illustrations
are ©2003 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc., all rights
reserved. The cenacle’s logo and the illustration for the
domains are ©2009 Alexandre Temple for “Le Cenacle
Chthonien”.
SET UP
Each player must bring their own deck and story deck.
Important: To play, you need to have 2 identical story
decks (2 from the Coreset or 2 from the Secret of
Arkham). One deck is the main story deck, the other
one is the extra story deck.
No changes to deckbuilding rules. You keep the usual
LCG tournament format (50 cards at least, no more
than 3 copies of each card in a deck).
One player is appointed First Player (choose who starts
with a dice or a jan-ken-pon). The Second Player is at
left hand, etc.
The First Player takes the main story deck and shuffles
it. Then each player draws 1 card from this story deck
and places it at the left hand between him and the left
player. This story will be only shared with the 2 players.
You have for the moment 4 stories in play. Then, the
First Player draws another story card from the main
deck and places it in front of him. This story will be
only shared by Player 1 and Player 3. For visibility,
the Player 3 takes in the extra story deck the same
story card and places it in front of him (see the red
arrow). Player 2 and 4 do the same thing (draw a story
card from the main story deck and the Player 4 takes
the same story in the extra story deck, see the green
arrow). This story will be only shared by Player 2 and
Player 4.
Once done, you will have in play 8 stories. The diagram
on the right gives you an idea of the suggested play
area.
RULES CHANGE
Commitment
An active player can only commit his characters as
attackers in the 3 stories in front him.
A non-active player can only commit characters to
defend in the story shared with the active player. See
the example on the next page.
Winning a story
After a story card has been won by a player, he doesn’t
keep the story near him but returns it at the bottom of
the main story deck (he takes a token or something
else to show he has won a story). He draws a new story
from the main story deck and places it where the old
story was (and if necessary, he takes in the extra story
deck the same story card and places it in front of its
opponent).
The game ends when a player has won 3 story cards.
D
D
D
D
D
Discard
Deck
Main story Deck
Extra story Deck
Domains
Player
1
4 2
3
For 4 Players
First turn
On the first turn of all players, the players draw only 1
card and skip their entire story phase.
Important: Play proceeds clockwise beginning with
the First Player.
Playing Event cards and triggering effects
Every player may trigger card effects or play an action
as normal, targeting an active or non-active player
during the turn of each player, starting with the active
player and proceeding clockwise. You can also play an
effect on characters committed to a story where you
cannot commit your characters at.
Conspiracies
You cannot have more than 3 copies of the same
conspiracy on your deck.
Conspiracies are played from the hand or from
the deck normally (you need to pay for them in
a way to have them coming into play), but their
use is different. You play a conspiracy in a way to
replace a story card actually in play. There is no
restriction to target a story card, you can target all
story cards in play.
The story card is kept under the conspiracy card,
and the conspiracy becomes the legal story card.
She inherits every success tokens that were on
the previous story card. If the conspiracy card
is blanked or leave play by any means, she is
removed from the game and the previous story
card take its place back on the board, keeping the
success tokens that were on the conspiracy.
If a conspiracy is played upon a story shared by player
1 and 3 or by Player 2 and Player 4, flip face down the
story in front of the other player to symbolize the fact
this story is now a conspiracy.
Talking and Negociations
You can speak with your opponents, propose them
alliances and betrayed someone if you want to. The
only thing is you cannot take any advice concerning
how to resource or how to commit. This is strictly
personal to the player.
Alternative
If you have 4 story decks you can also make a big main
story deck with 20 story cards and an extra story deck
with 20 cards also. The cards in the 2 decks must be
the same (you could for example use 10 stories from
the Coreset and 10 stories from the Secret of Arkham
to build your big story deck). In this case, when you
win a story card you keep it next to you as the normal
rules.
Rules version 1.0
Paris, 10.04.2010
D
D
D
D
1
4 2
3
This story B is shared with
Player 1 and Player 2
This story A is shared with
Player 1 and Player 3
This story is shared with
Player 1 and Player 4
Player 1 is the active player. He commits a character in
the story A in front of him (the story shared by Player
1 and 3) and a character in the story B at the left hand
(the story shared by Player 1 and 2). An action step
is possible, then defenders can be committed. Player
2 can only commit to defend in story B, Player 3 can
only commit to defend in story A. Player 4 can’t commit
characters because there are no attackers in the story
shared by Player 1 and 4.

@dboeren

Thank you for putting up the cenacle rules. With the help of another Cthulhu gamer in our group, I was able to download a copy of the PDF. The diagrams do make a difference.

This seems like an exciting way to play CoC. I have a "Cthulhu Game Night" tomorrow evening so hopefully I can convince everyone to give it a try. Perhaps some beer bribery is in order?

We played this variant at the Stahleck Championship in 2010. It's great fun, particularly since it allows you to make good use of Conspiracy cards. I definitely prefer it over the official multi-player rules.

I'll have to read through the rules and see how it works then. However, I usually only have one other opponent so I may not get a chance to try it other than maybe at Gencon in August.

A suggestion to those who have trouble opening the PDF in Firefox. I tried it in Google Chrome and Explorer, and it worked perfectly.

I updated to Adobe Reader X and it opened without a problem. The rules are much easier to read and understand in the PDF format!

So far my group has really enjoyed the Cenacle multiplayer rules, with one player who had previously quit playing CoC in anything but 1-vs-1 coming back into the fold. On the other hand, there have been a few too many "French 3-way" jokes...