Month: January 2022

“You are an intrepid researcher, unearthing words man was not meant to spell.” Well isn’t that a promising description? For a more mechanics-based synopsis, I’d say Unspeakable Words is a bit like Scrabble, but with cards instead of tiles, less spatial awareness, and more sanity loss.

Here’s how it works: each player starts with five sanity tokens (Cthulhu pawns) and a hand of seven cards. Most cards are letters, assigned a corresponding Lovecraftian monster and a point value based on the number of angles the letter has. For instance, U is for Ubb, and worth 0 points. (Sorry Ubb! It’s not your fault.) On your turn, you may make any common English word of three or more letters using cards from your hand. The total value of the word (the sum of the letters’ values) is added to your score, and the word is written down – it may not be used again by any player for the rest of the game. Additionally, you must roll a sanity check. Roll the d20 – if the roll is equal to or higher than the value of the word, you lose one Cthulhu pawn. (Exception: a roll of 20 is always a success, even if the value of the word is higher.) The results of your sanity check do not affect whether you get to score points for the word, and you always draw back up to seven cards at the end of your turn.

You may notice in the image above that there are a few nuances. The first of these is non-letter cards: I don’t know how many of these are unique to the Deluxe version, which is what we have, but they’re quite useful and shake up gameplay a bit. For instance, you can discard the Yellow Sign card to reroll your sanity check. Another point you have have noticed is that “cx[w]” is definitely not a word, which brings me back to the title of this post! If you have only one sanity token left, you’re officially unhinged, and as it turns out, “unhinged folk can believe anything is a word.” In other words (many), you can now score any word from as many letters as you want, regardless of whether it actually exists in the English lexicon. Convenient, right? Don’t get too ambitious with your nonsense, though – if a player loses all their Cthulhu pawns, they’re out of the game.

For those of us (‘us’ being used very loosely here) who still have enough sanity we’re bound to conventional vocabulary, there may be times we just can’t make a word. And that’s ok! Instead of playing a word that turn, you’d just discard your entire hand without scoring and redraw. In fact, two of the optional rules build on this mechanic, the more benign being Psychotherapy: if you’re playing with this rule, then when a player discards their hand, they may roll against its total value and, if they roll higher than that amount, regain a sanity token. Another option is the Chewx rule, which stipulates that single-sanity players must provide a definition for their gibberish words.

Whatever modifications you’re playing with, the goal of the game is to be the first to reach 100 points without going completely insane. There’s a catch, though. If your word would put you over the victory condition, you must succeed your sanity roll; otherwise, you score no points that turn. You also still take the standard consequence for failing the roll, which means even if your opponents are way ahead of you, there’s a chance you’ll win anyways by being the last one with sanity.

I wish I could take credit for that witty title, but no, that is actually the name of the game. And – surprise! – it’s about gnomes! The objective is simple – be the richest in gems at the end of the game.

There are several ways to get gems, but they all start by rolling the die and moving your gnome; then, you may choose to play a card. There are three types of cards in Oh Gnome You Don’t: Purple (Actions), Green (Items), and Red (Interrupt, Remedy, or Attack), though Red cards don’t actually have to be played on your own turn. Actions are fairly self-explanatory. For instance, the image below shows the “Mining” action, which lets you roll a die and take that amount in gems. You may notice there’s only one gem in the picture – that’s because it’s blue, which actually has 3-gem value; the key for which gems have what value is posted above the Gem Mine on the board. It’s actually a rule that when collecting from the Gem Mine, you have to collect in the highest denominations possible – this is because there are several cards that let you rob your opponents of a gem of any value (except gold, which is the highest, and usually off-limits).

The more honest way to make an income is to collect items along the way (in other words, you always draw a new card at the end of your turn) and play them, tabling the card in front of you to be sold later at a business. This is important because while you can only play one card per turn, you can sell as many of your tabled cards as you want. There are four businesses on the board, and you don’t need an exact roll to enter them – if you choose to stop, your gnome steps inside and your movement ends immediately. Unless a card has interfered in your affairs, this is the only time when you may neither play nor draw a card; instead, you may exchange your tabled cards for their value in gems and discard them. Note: items have specific businesses at which they are worth more (Ex: Firewood is usually worth 4, but sells for 6 at Gnome Depot) and if you want to hold onto some (but not all) of your items because you know they’ll be worth more later, you absolutely can. You can also choose to sell nothing! Moving into a business may still be a strategic move for you, as while you’re in them is the only time you may “change up” your gems for higher denominations (preferably gold, since those are usually safe).

There is one important exemption to the standard business mechanics, and that would be the last one: the Tinker’s Cart. Here, the value on the item card is disregarded, and the price is bartered by a roll of the die. Any remaining tabled items when you reach the end of the trail are sold for half price, rounding down, so it’s up to you whether you think bartering is worth the risk. There are a couple other places on the board that have special rules, too. The first is the Slug Slime space, which acts sort of like a ladder in Chutes and Ladders – if you land exactly on its start space, you slide right on over to the other side and get to skip the path in between. You can actually see my gnome, Barney (yes, they all have names) at the Slug Slime exit in the photo above. The other spot is the Troll Bridge, where you can either pay to cross the bridge or hazard the path beyond it; these spaces are rife with penalties such as “Roll for gem loss” and “Lose 2 items.” Honestly, if you can afford to take the bridge, I’d advise you do that, though my opponent skipped the dilemma altogether by playing a card that let her teleport to my space… safely past the toll and its alternative.

If you’re playing with the advanced rules, sharing a space isn’t just a way of cheating the troll out of its fee; it’s also an opportunity to brawl! Any gnome sharing a trail space with another player may choose to start a brawl, regardless of whose turn it is or how they got there. All players on that space then look at their brawl deck (numbered from 1 to 10), select their card of choice, and reveal – whoever has the highest card wins the brawl! They also collect the difference in gems from their humiliated opponents. You collect separately from each of them, so if Jud’s player played “6-Shin Kick,” Wayne’s played “3-Nose Tweek,” and Dave’s played “8-Head Butt,” Dave would collect two gems from Jud and five from Wayne. Because there’s nothing that says “friendly competition” like shaking your friends down for loose change! Be careful, though, because once you use a brawl card it’s discarded for the rest of the game, and if you tie (like in the picture below) nobody wins anything! Also: no brawling in businesses. It’s rude to the proprietors.

Scoring is pretty simple. When you reach the Gnome Cottage at the end of the trail, you get a reward dependent on how many folks have already arrived (unless you’re fifth or sixth, in which case there’s a penalty), you can no longer play cards nor be affected by anyone else’s, your hand is discarded and your remaining tabled items are totaled and sold for half price, rounding down. Once everyone has reached the end, whoever has the most gems wins!