Frequently Asked Questions

Gameplay:

Q. Do the cards in my hand count for anything? A. No. Only the cards in your fate pile count toward your final score. Q. When do I Swoon? A. Whenever you have five or more Infection Points you swoon, regardless of whether or not it's your turn. You keep the cards in your hand, but you must discard all of the cards in your fate pile. Q. What the heck is "This Corrosion"? A. It's a song by The Sisters of Mercy, and considered by most to be the quintessetial goth anthem. The lyrics can be found here, but, of course, if you've never even heard of the song to begin with you're certainly not goth enough to earn those points. Q. When do I have to sing "This Corrosion"? A. When you declare yourself "Gother Than Thou" you must sing at least four lines from "This Corrosion" if the card is in your fate pile and you are counting the five points toward your final score. If you have 25 or more points even without the card, then you don't have to worry about it. Q. Does "Hey now, hey now na-now" count? A. No. Q. I'm a little unclear on how "That Wasted Look" works... A. "That Wasted Look" gives you goth points equal to your total infections x2. If you have "Crying Yourself To Sleep" for 4 Infections, then it gives you 8 Goth Points. If you then get an "Ointment" (-2 infection) then it only gives you 4 Goth Points. Also, "That Wasted Look"s are cumulative, so if you have 4 Infections and 2 "That Wasted Look"s then they're giving you a total of 16 Goth Points.

Technical Issues:

Q. The rules say that there should be 55 cards in a deck, but I have less/more than that. Which cards am I missing or which cards do I have extra? A. Each deck of "Gother Than Thou" should contain the following cards in the following amounts: 1 Crying Yourself to Sleep 2 Sing This Corrosion to Me 2 Ancient Egyptian Doodad 2 Wardrobe Sale 2 Face Like Murphy 2 Voice Like Morrissey 2 Disturbing German Accent 2 Disturbing Southern Accent 2 Absinthe Minded 2 Fun With Eyeliner 2 That Wasted Look 2 Up Before Noon 2 Visit From Mom 2 Dire Fashion Blunder 2 Genital Piercings 2 Boots!! 3 Ointment 3 Gullible Roommate 3 Deep Newsgroup Posts 3 Tinfoil on the Windows 3 BlueBlack #124 3 Big Tin Ankh 3 Pet Named Hecate 3 Steady Clove Supply = 55 cards total If you are missing any of these cards, email us and we will send you the missing cards. If you have any extra cards, on the other hand, then you are legally bound to bake them into a pie and eat them. Q. Is there a recipe available for this ? A. Alas, due to a legal oversight, there is no recipe specified. The baker is encouraged to do his/her best with the ingredients at hand, but is reminded that (s)he is legally required to consume the result of his/her labors. Q. That sounds complicated. Can't I just pour milk over them and eat it for breakfast? A. Only if you do so while spouting a Sartre-esque diatribe about how you could bake them into a pie if you wanted to, but you choose instead to defy the very definition of pie (which is clearly a supposition by a repressive over-society of invisible schemes and manipulations) by instead treating the "pie" as a bowl of Count Chocula. Alas, our legal guidelines were written in a rushed and slipshod manner, and allow multiple loopholes for existentialism and surrealism. Our legal team feels quite confident that we do have dadaism well covered, however.

Q. What's the difference between the different "editions" of "Gother Than Thou"? A. The first printing of Second Edition was printed on standard playing-card stock (as opposed to the slightly thicker stock of First Edition), and has higher quality boxes and a smaller rules sheet. The first printing of Second Edition also, unfortunately, has a couple of misprints (one of the "Deep Newsgroup Posts" cards is untitled, and one of the "That Wasted Look" cards has the wrong picture), and while this doesn't affect gameplay, it is kind of annoying. We've been meaning to run a printing of replacement cards, but we've gotten so few complaints and it would be so expensive that we've sort of swept that little idea under the rug. There is another printing of Second Edition, which we like to call version 2.1 (or sometimes "Norma") that has these errors corrected. It can be distinguished from the original Second Edition by the words "Printed in India by Goodprints.com" on the bottom of the box underneath the URL.

Other:

Q. How long did it take you to make this? A. "Gother Than Thou" was in development for about three years. Steen did the artwork for it as a means to pay rent while he lived in the closet under my stairs (really). All of the photography was done by myself and Celine Harris, who is not credited in the rules because she left the project on bad terms, but has recently made amends and is now at least credited in the Info section. Q. Where did you get this assembled? A. All assembly on the first edition was done by my former roommate, Megan, whose multitude of terminal diseases, aversion to sunlight, previous work in mortuaries and the CDC and obsession with bubonic plague qualify her as suitably goth for the job. Behold her lovely countenance and despair!

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