Call of Cthulhu vs World of Darkness

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Pot calling Kettle? You chose Hunter's Hunted as your example! I'm well aware of nWOD but both nWOD and cWOD are World of Darkness.

[edit] and if you want to get into details about it VtM is available POD and the new V20 version (and werewolf soon to follow) so that makes cWOD more nWOD than nWOD I guess... Nothing wrong with nWOD but WW/CCP is going to support both lines from here until the money runs out.

I feel like you skipped a bunch of posts in this thread.

 

[GrimGent]

Similarly, in the nWoD Changeling rpg you play a (formerly) normal human that has been kidnapped and taken to the Fae realm and managed to escape back to the real world. The experience has changed you somewhat, but you're still no supernatural creature (and definitely not a 'monster in a dark world').

Well...

The changelings don't strictly speaking qualify as quite human any more, physically or mentally, and what they've been through definitely has left them supernatural through and through. However, that in itself doesn't make them "monsters", except maybe in the eyes of the kind of people who view an exotic skin colour as a lynching offence. The central themes of the game line revolve around building a new life after a traumatic stay in Faerie, and the Lost have no inherent reason to harm anyone except the Gentry and their minions. Rather, they have time-honoured traditions of protecting those that they care about from otherworldly dangers, guarding mortal dreams against fae depredations, and preventing others from being changed as they were. Changelings are basically people like anyone else (some good, some bad, most somewhere in between), but it's an explicit setting conceit that the PC types stand in for the "fairy godmothers and guardian angels" from the old tales, the "Good Neighbours" who may actually care about humanity's well-being, unlike the lords and ladies of Faerie.

In comparison with CoC, one interesting detail about Changeling: The Lost is that it replaces the Storytelling System's customary Morality (or equivalent) with a sanity mechanic, in the form of Clarity which measures the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, the supernatural from the natural, and what shouldn't exist on Earth from what should. Unlike Morality, it may be reduced not so much by what the characters do as by what they experience, potentially under circumstances over which they have no control. For example, being fired from a job or learning about the death of a friend can threaten the mental balance... but so could even finding a demanding new job with excellent benefits or getting married after a whirlwind romance. Encountering the Gentry? The worst of shocks! And obviously, this also means that a character with low Clarity isn't necessarily a "bad person" in any way, simply... unhinged. Therapy helps.

And yes, as already mentioned earlier in the thread, the new WoD at its heart is all about regular folks facing the unknown, not unlike CoC. CtL, and the other similar lines as well, is essentially an expansion set for the basic game and requires it to play. "Changeling", like "vampire" or "mage", is that expansion's featured major template which may be applied to a mortal character, either straight out of chargen or later during a campaign. But by default, all the PCs are mortal with no special powers, and a typical group might consist of, for instance, just a cop, a reporter, and a teacher.

One day I'd like to run a game based on no other setting material than that "Voice of the Angel" piece from the core book, all about the mysteries of the God-Machine disrupting everyday life and with the more nebulous "Second Children" instead of the familiar roster of WoD supernaturals.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The most successful horror fiction, in whatever medium, is all about exploring humanity's darker side. Otherwise, it's just a mismatched action adventure.

Interesting discussion point. I hope you won't take offense if I agree somewhat and offer an alternative observation. I think the darker side of humanity is a strong element in horror, but I think much of it also also about confronting our own mortality and fragility. What I find scary about zombie films for example isn't that it highlights humanity's darker side (though that is a common theme in zombie movies) but that the visual of a zombie basically says "look this was a person just like you, and now he is a disfigured shell: this could be you". Maybe this aspect of horror is just something I am noticing because I've been sick lately, but I suspect it is pretty universally shared.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think that the best horror games that I've played in have probably been Dread. However, I don't know that I'd be able to run a good Dread game; I'm more familiar with traditional adventure design and so for myself I'd choose CoC over WoD. I have used CoC adventures in many Sci-Fi games I've run though, so I think it is more about the principles of the adventure than the game system itself.

Apart from the aforementioned Dread, that is. Don't know if I could run a campaign with that system though.