Hi there.

>One thing that came up when we tried Cthulu 500 last night, was that if both the lead car and the tail are damaged, and the lead car fails to pass the tail, they switch places.

If both the lead and tail are damaged, they switch places if they take damage again (on a tied passing test roll). They don't switch places if the lead car just fails the passing test.

>1) Does the new tail car gain a lap token?
>2) This seems a little unbalanced, as the new lead car just needs to pass the tail again to get another lap token, without having to work his way through the ranks. I could easily see the same two cars just jockeying for position several times, quickly racking up lap tokens between them without having to interact much with the rest of the race.

This is really something I've never thought of before, and you're right that it's potentially a big problem for game balance. I'm going to forward it to the game's designer, Jeff Tidball, and see what he thinks. It should probably go up on the FAQ. Thanks for pointint it out!

-Michelle Nephew
Atlas Games

Hi there. I got a quick response to your question from Jeff Tidball, Cthulhu500's designer. I've pasted his answer below, and I'll put it up on the FAQ as soon as I have a chance.

-Michelle Nephew
Atlas Games

> One thing that came up when we tried Cthulu 500 last night, was that if both
> the lead car and the tail are damaged, and the lead car fails to pass the
> tail, they switch places.
>
> If both the lead and tail are damaged, they switch places if they take
> damage again (on a tied passing test roll). They don't switch places if the
> lead car just fails the passing test.
>
> 1) Does the new tail car gain a lap token?
> 2) This seems a little unbalanced, as the new lead car just needs to pass the
> tail again to get another lap token, without having to work his way through
> the ranks. I could easily see the same two cars just jockeying for position
> several times, quickly racking up lap tokens between them without having to
> interact much with the rest of the race.

Your initial reaction is correct: A car can't gain laps without actually
passing the entire pack, just by jockeying back and forth between the front
and back position.

The resolution to this sticky problem arises from the fact that there's no
functional difference between being at the head of the pack, and being at
the back of the pack with a lap token.

So, if there's ever passing or placement confusion between the car at the
front of the pack and the car at the back of the pack, the easiest thing to
do is to move the car at the front to the back, give that car a lap token,
and then resolve the passing, switching, or whatever, as you normally would.

So, for this problem, imagine this example, with cars at the left being at
the back of the pack and asterisks representing lap counters:

Car D -- Car C** -- Car B -- Car A*

If some passing situation between A and D should result in them switching
places, you can just move Car A to its equivalent back-of-the-pack position:

Car A** -- Car D -- Car C** -- Car B

And then resolve the switch of places between cars A and D:

Car D -- Car A** -- Car C** -- Car B

A semi-corollary of all this is that a car at the back of the pack should
really never be moved to the front of the back other than by passing his way
back up through all the cars in between. However, a more generally useful
rule is that moving from the front of the pack to the back of the pack
always gains you a lap counter, and moving from the back of the pack to the
front of the pack always *costs* you a lap counter. That's probably
something that should have been stated in the rules (though I honestly
wouldn't have been able to think of a way to get from the back to the front
"the short way"), and should definitely go into the FAQ.

Thanks!