Ideas for Running FATE Core Cthulhu

Fascinating....I will be watching and contributing as our work schedules allow our Fate Core game, inlfluenced by Cthulhu and Atlantis, and based on the US East Coast continues.

Found these suggestions on Black Dog of Doom's blog. Some stuff has been tweaked from Fudge to FATE Core:

Sanity and Going Mad

There is no Sanity statistic, but do not fear, characters will go mad!

Rather than tracking a figure for Sanity as the CoC system does, under FATE I suggest that you instead allow the characters to acquire negative aspects grouped under the heading of “Insanities”.

The Sanity test used under CoC system is paralleled under this modification to FATE. As already mentioned characters do not have a SAN statistic, but are under this system assumed to have a Sanity “skill” at the “Mediocre” level. If the characters come across a mutilated corpse or some such trivial horror they should make a die roll against a skill level of “Average”. if they successfully meet that challenge then the character does not suffer any ill effects. however if they fail...

If they meet a mythos beastie then the difficultly level level would be higher. Set the level as seems appropriate.

The CoC rules suggest that temporary insanity is often accompanied by a temporary phobia. Such a phobia can be tracked in this system as a negative Aspect, and rather than being temporary, they should be considered permanent. In CoC the rules suggest the phobia should be linked to the experience that created it and that should also apply under these rules.

As with standard Attributes phobias can be duplicated, so you could end up with something like the following :

Dendrophobia

Hydrophobia

Agrophobia

Do not limit Insanities to just phobias however, any number of other behaviours can be added to the character sheet under Insanities, for example:

Cannibalism

Obsessive hand washing

Psychopath

The player can ignore the aspect, considering the character to be overcoming any issues, until the aspect is invoked by the player or the GM.

This allows the player to continue playing with even the most insane PC, but the number of insane events that take place will increase. The compelling of such aspects means that the player will find that the restrictions imposed by the insanities, is balanced by the number of Fate points received. Remember, many people considered insane have achieved great things, so these additional Fate points will allow the character to shine!

Mythos Tomes and Spells

Reading Tomes

Mythos tomes often have spells within and the horrid truth about the nature of reality that can shake a persons sanity. Unlike in CoC, simply reading a Tome under these rules does not cause any Sanity loss or automatic spell gains.


The reading of such a Tome of uncommon lore requires effort and time. Depending on the books obscurity or value, set an appropriately difficult Static Challenge and limit the progress to perhaps one roll of the dice per game week.

Once a character has completed the challenge they gain one of the spells therein. They do not gain any Insanities at this point. Only when a spell is first successfully cast does it move from obscure theory to reality and its at this point the character should gain an appropriate Insanity. The GM on his own or in discussion with the player decide what the Insanity may be. Remember this only happens when the spell is first cast, not on each subsequent re casting.

Having read a Mythos Tome the character is eligible to select the “Cthulhu Mythos” skill during the next Advancement. Once gained this skill is treated as other skills and can only be advanced in the usual pyramid method. If the character has not read a Mythos Tome they may not select the skill during Advancement. The skill can only be improved if the character has read another Mythos Tome since the last Advancement.

Casting Spells

If a character has a spell it is listed on their character sheet in the same manner as an aspect (although not treated as an aspect).

Summon Mi Go

Invisibility

Summon Wind

To cast a spell the player spends a fate point, states they are casting the spell, has the character spend the appropriate time incanting/sacrificing, and rolls 4 fudge dice. A positive result indicates the spell is successful.

Once a spell is cast, tick it, as if it were an Aspect you had just used. That character may not cast that spell again until the next “refresh”, spells refresh at the same time as Aspects.

With respect to the suggestions about Corruption and Madness, in the first post, I asked the folks on the Yahoo!Group whether Provoke vs. Will to do Mental Stress Track damage was enough.

One poster answered, "Using Mental stress for Madness is one option, though it means that you can be taken out more easily if you were bullied at school that day. It all depends on what difficulty level you want it to be."

Another poster added:

"Just remember to afflict characters with it. I forgot that FATE has this system already. After all when you take too much mental stress you are out of action, take too much Sanity damage and you are out of action. I was never happy with the way mental illnesses are added to characters as a result of "madness" in Cthulhu gaming. Mental Stress may actually be a better model.

"It is even possible that after enough mental stress has been taken from Things ordinary causes of mental stress will no longer affect the character. After you have faced down a pack of Ghouls some guy talking smack in a bar just isn't going to get you riled."

Even developer Fred Hicks chimed in, "Don't be afraid to turn away from Sanity Damage as a meme in all of this, too. That's something that the original Call of Cthulhu trained us all to think of automatically for Mythos gaming, and as such folks don't think outside that particular box very much."

Some voices of dissent, noted, however:

"Trail of Cthulhu has both a Sanity rating and a [mental] Stability rating. Not all mental stress is going to affect your sanity, and you can be relatively stable even if you're suffering from a mental illness. If I was running a Lovecraftian Fate game, I'd definitely keep the Mental track and add a Sanity track."

and

"Madness really is just a use of the standard Mental Stress track and consequences, and would be cleared as in the Core rules. It's not so much a new set of rules as it is a set of suggestions for the kinds of things that would cause the stress, and what kinds of consequences would be appropriate.

"I like the Corruption stress track idea because it inflicts serious costs to willingly interacting with things man was not meant to interact with. You want to read that book? Sure, that will give you the ability to take a spell casting stunt at your next milestone -- and right now it will fill two Corruption boxes. I like that it lasts longer than Mental Stress would, and that you don't get any kind of roll to mediate it -- you take stress, period, and it stays with you until you take some real action to get rid of it."

I agree with keeping the normal skill pyramid (with the caveat below). CoC characters aren't adventurers, but they're generally skilled in their profession. I'd discourage anyone from taking a combat skill at Great, or probably even Good, because of that. Being a Great historian makes sense. Being a Great sniper does not.

I like the Mythos skill you have up there.

I would create a sanity stress track, myself. Stress tracks should be made based on the genre and setting needs. For example, in my Fallout game, there is a radiation stress track. Insanity would make great consequences from the new sanity stress. Remember to keep in mind the Fate Fractal. Situations are characters. So if the PCs end up seeing something that would normally make an attack against their sanity. ("Walls can't have eyes!" Attack +3 vs. Will) then hit them for sanity stress. Keep doing it, and they'll eventually take some consequences, in the form of psychiatric disorders. (They're Always Looking At Me). I wouldn't create a new subsystem for these aspects. I'd make the insanity consequences take up the same slots as the physical ones. That's just the dangers of investigation in the CoC world!

Mental stress would still exist, but it would be fore more mundanely stressful things that normal people would find difficult to deal with. This makes it a distinction between the crazy stuff and the really crazy stuff that happens in a CoC game. Being chased by a pack of wild dogs is going to cause you mental anguish. Being chased by a pack of wild dogs with three green glowing eyes, smell like garbage, and are covered in thumb sized insects is going to make you question your sanity.

I'd lump the corruption stress mentioned above (casting spells, using mythos artifacts, etc.) into mental stress. Its taxing on the mind.

Lore should be replaced by more exacting fields: History, Archaeology, Latin. Egyptian, Research, Medicine. This represents I'd probably increase the number of Average skills PCs have by one or two because of the increased number of skills.

Those are thoughts and ideas off the top of my head.

Cool! Thanks for the suggestions, TW!