Soth: Frequently Asked Questions

Soth is my game of small-town cultists trying to summon a dark god. It's a cross between Breaking Bad and the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.


Frequently Asked Questions


"What should someone running the game for the first time focus on?"

I'd suggest choosing players for your first game who are:

• creatively enthusiastic about noirs and villains
• familiar with the time period and the tropes of Lovecraftian fiction, and/or
• willing to mine the subtext of trying to pretend to be normal, functional members of the community while plotting murders.

Players with this qualities will add lots of stuff to the game, which will give you time to get comfortable with Soth's rules.

I'd also focus on applying the 'Mask of Sanity' rules and the 'Table Talk' rules. 

Aside from that, I'd focus on portraying the NPCs in ways that make them sympathetic, nosey, hateful, and just generally human.

"How does reputation affect deceiving someone flawlessly?"
If a cultist is deceives someone or covering something up and they pull it off flawlessly, they earn:

• -1 Suspicion, if their reputation puts them at a disadvantage in the situation
• -3 Suspicion, if their reputation puts them at an advantage?