by Pesren
With the original seasons of the game, if someone asked how to teach the game, I would've 100% suggested Hastur over the other Gods, for a few reasons:a) He does a balance of health/sanity effects so he won't bum-rush your insanity like Cthulhu.
b) The Yellow Sign mechanics are pretty simple to understand
c) His minions are simple mechanically and not terrifyingly threatening
However, Tsath seems to really be even better now for a couple of clever design choices made by Marco & Rob.
a) The fatigue tokens come more rapidly than Yellow Signs, but crucially can be both removed, and at times it's "Choose an investigator" vice just dropping on whoever was investigating during mythos/escalation. This helps prevent Hastur's potential swinginess issue where one investigator has 4 yellow signs and the others have 0-1.
b) Like Yellow Signs, the fatigue goes from a mild nuisance to a gradually escalating concern as the game progresses. The impact is capped though, whereas Yellow Signs can escalate to nearly killing you every turn, fatigue constrains you gradually and can be manipulated to even help "catch up" insanity on investigators.
c) Like Hastur, Tsath doesn't "flood the board" with enemies. Cthulhu, Goat, and Yog to a lesser extent can all repopulate the board very quickly after a clear - which is fine, that's part of their challenge (and the game's), but for a new player, that can be overwhelming and distract them from the scenario/ritual goals. With a max of two Scions with low HP, this is even simpler than Hastur Disciples (which might also confuse players between cultist/monster designations).
d) The Amorphous Scions are a nice design since they have immediate impacts if you have fatigue, whereas the Hastur Disciples adding a yellow sign may not sound like a bad result to a new player, only for them to get hammered by that decision later on.
e) Tsath's dice escalation is more gradual than Hastur. Hastur goes from wimpy to deadly within a single Phase.
The results to me is that a new player gets introduced to the game concepts, a fairly simple mechanic in fatigue, and for the most part doesn't get any huge unpleasant surprise as the game goes on. It gradually escalates his powers, the concern of the fatigue, and the importance of mitigating those concerns. That means a new player inherently gets to focus more on their personal player powers, disrupting the ritual, and maintaining stress/health levels, all of which are core concepts necessary to ultimately win. Thus they spend time understanding mechanics & their interactions without being swarmed, quickly being put on death's door, or watching their insanity rocket upward without time to finish.
Now of course the biggest caveat to this is that so far it seems that Tsath is suuuuper easy, so the worst thing I can say is that it might give them a false understanding that the game is inherently easy, which would certainly be dispelled upon trying Azathoth afterward. Regardless, Tsath is a really good design that seems to smooth over and balance some of Hastur's swinginess in a way that makes it great for onboarding new folks.