Of Dice and Eldritch Horrors – Elder Sign Review

Reviewed by: Fwooshe

I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I’ve been investigating this cursed museum for days. The more time I spend here the more mysteries I encounter. I have so many questions but I’m terrified of discovering the answers. I’ve started seeing things that aren’t real… surely they’re not real… the things that haunt this place.

I stand in an occult exhibit studying a painting depicting three hooded figures huddled around a strange artifact. Shadows obscure their facial features, except for their glowing red eyes. Their eyes seem almost too vivid to be a painting. The scene is unnerving, yet I feel inexplicably drawn to it. Compelled, I take a step forward-

“Oy, Thompson!”
I nearly jump out of my skin! Heart racing, I turn to face my colleague, Joe.
“Come with me to the archives, I found something interesting.”

For a fleeting moment I see- no, imagine- an ominous flash of red in his eyes. There I go seeing things again. I rub my own tired eyes and follow him. As we exit the exhibit I glance over my shoulder for one last look at the painting. An icy chill pierces my body.

There are now only two hooded figures.

Of all the board games in my collection today, Elder Sign may be the one I have had the longest. It definitely makes the top five. It is among my personal classics. I admit that part of its value is sentimental in nature, but it continues to regularly hit the table because I genuinely enjoy playing it.

Let’s Play Elder Sign

Elder Sign is a co-operative, luck-heavy, dice rolling game for 1 to 8 players. Players are investigators exploring Miskatonic University Museum, where eldritch activity has been detected. An Ancient One is stirring and it is only a matter of time before it awakens and unleashes unthinkable evil upon humanity. Resolve encounters throughout the museum, hunt for clues, gather resources to help you on your missions, slay monsters that slip through the interdimensional cracks, and collect Elder Signs in attempt to seal away the Ancient One.

The clock is ticking. Will you and your team of expert investigators rid our world of this cosmic threat? Or will you be devoured one by one…

Elder Sign Gameplay

Every player chooses an investigator card, and, as a group select one of the eight Ancient One cards. Each Ancient One imposes a condition at the beginning of the game; for example, Cthulhu reduces everyone’s maximum health and stamina by 1 for the entire game. They also have special attacks that will come into play should they awaken.

Draw six adventure cards and lay them on the table face-up. Take your starting items, set the clock to midnight, and draw the first Mythos card. Mythos cards typically consist of one immediate effect and one lingering daily effect. In true Lovecraftian fashion, typically both are stressful.  

On Your Turn

You have two options:

1. Attempt to resolve an Adventure card
2. Choose an action from the Entrance Sheet

1. Resolve Adventure Card

Adventure Cards represent rooms, exhibits, and events in the museum. Each card contains rows of symbols, referred to as “tasks”, which correspond with dice results. To resolve an adventure card, you must complete all the card’s tasks on your turn.

• Place your character marker on the card you want to challenge.
• Roll the six green dice, plus any additional dice granted to you by items or powers.
• If your dice results match the combination symbols in one task, that task is complete. Set those dice on the Adventure Card.
• Use the remaining dice in the pool to attempt the rest of the tasks on the card.
• If the dice results do not satisfy any tasks, it is considered a failed roll. Remove one die from the pool and try again.

Adventures become more and more difficult with subsequent failures because every failed roll reduces your dice pool by one. Luckily, there are ways to mitigate the damage:

• Spend clue tokens to re-roll dice before determining whether a roll has succeeded or failed.
• Once per turn you may “focus” one die after failing a roll. Set one die aside, keeping its result, to use for a task later this turn.

If you complete all tasks on your Adventure Card during your turn, then you have successfully resolved the adventure! Collect the rewards listed on the card. Take the Adventure Card as a trophy and replace it with a new one from the deck. If you run out of dice and fail the adventure, suffer the penalties listed on the card. This usually involves losing sanity or stamina, adding monsters to the field, or adding doom tokens to the Ancient One’s doom track.

If at any point your stamina OR sanity drops to zero, you are DEVOURED. Discard your character and all your items and trophies. Pick a new character to play.

2. Take an Entrance Action

Place your character marker on the Entrance sheet and take one of the available actions. Spend Adventure Card trophies to heal and to gain items, spells, clues, allies, etc.

At the end of your turn, whether you have chosen Adventure Card or Entrance Action, advance the clock by three hours. When the clock strikes midnight, draw a new mythos card to reveal the new day’s effects. Note that every time the clock reaches twelve it is considered midnight. There is no noon. This phenomenon is not explained in the rules. Let’s just chalk it up to Lovecraft things.

Gameplay continues until one of two things happens:

1. You collect enough Elder Signs to seal away the Ancient One: Elder Signs are rewarded from Adventure Cards and can be purchased at the Entrance Sheet for ten trophies each. As soon as you have enough Elder Signs, you win the game! Congratulations!
2. The Ancient One Awakens: This happens when the Ancient One’s entire doom track has been filled with doom tokens. But don’t panic yet! There is still a chance to win- unless you’ve challenged Azathoth, in which case the world is immediately destroyed… Otherwise, proceed to:

Ancient One Battle

Attack the Ancient One in the same way that you resolve Adventure Cards; roll the dice and match the dice results to the symbols on the Ancient One card. Each time you succeed at the task, remove one token from the doom track. When you run out of dice, your turn is over. Advance the clock by three hours. At midnight the Ancient One attacks, whittling down investigators’ sanity and stamina. If your stamina OR sanity is reduced to zero, you are DEVOURED. Except now you do not respawn. You are eliminated.

There are two potential outcomes to the Ancient One Battle.

• You WIN if the last doom token has been removed while there is at least one investigator still in battle.
• You LOSE if all investigators are devoured.

Our Thoughts on Elder Sign

Have you ever played a board game with great mechanics and gameplay, but whose theme feels like it was slapped on as an afterthought? Elder Sign would be the inverse of that. I love the theme of this game and I think it is well executed. A few elements that contribute to the atmosphere:

• The art looks very “eldritch”, with ominous colours and lots of symbols, tentacles, creepy-looking rooms, and people with warped/horrified faces.
• Every adventure card is a specific location or event with narrative flavour text, so it almost feels like an interactive novel.
•  You’ll dread the approach of midnight, for that is when bad stuff happens.
• As negative effects pile up throughout the game you get closer and closer to being devoured.

In stark comparison to the game’s robust atmosphere, the gameplay itself is very one-note. You essentially just roll dice the entire game. Every adventure consists of rolling dice and matching symbols. Sometimes monsters spawn in the museum, which are also defeated by rolling dice. And if the Ancient One awakens, you fight it by- you guessed it- more dice rolling. The gameplay never builds or varies. You interact with an Ancient being of indescribable evil on the verge of devouring the world, in the exact same way you interact with the administration office.

Since Elder Sign revolves around a single mechanic- dice rolling- nearly all the items, spells, and abilities in the game pertain to this mechanic. They let you add dice, save results, change results, reroll dice, etc. So while the items are indeed helpful, they are repetitive and not very exciting. I would say the strongest interplay between theme and mechanics occurs when you’re trying to decide between attempting an adventure and choosing an entrance sheet action. You may be desperate for healing, but reluctant to waste time as midnight approaches. It can be a difficult choice that often feels “lose-lose”, which I find very on-brand for a cosmic horror experience. 

Despite the anti-climatic gameplay of Elder Sign, I really like this game. I happily lean into the atmospheric elements of Elder Sign. Besides, I don’t think every game needs be super thinky and strategic. I find it refreshingly low-pressure, especially for a co-operative game. I appreciate that this game offers a robust experience without demanding much mental energy. Sometimes that is exactly the kind of game I feel like playing!

Elder Sign is a great option for:

• Lovecraft/cosmic horror enthusiasts
• Co-op gamers
• Those looking for an immersive yet low-demand board game
• Halloween season

Potential Caveats:

• Luck-based, one-note mechanics
• Mechanics feel disconnected from the theme
• Anti-climatic and “samey” gameplay
• Can feel grindy, especially if the theme isn’t doing much for you