Invited into Call of Cthulu, have some questions!

[Naoki00_]

Hey good people of the forums, I've been invited to join a Call of Cthulu game(think I spelled the right >.> ) and since I've never played and only have a barely fundamental knowledge of the game I'd like to ask a few questions on here to get some more opinions, especially since the DM has little experience in the game himself.

Firstly I'd like to simply ask if a person like myself would enjoy a game like COC, I'm kind of an optimizer in most things due to how little I enjoy the idea of a character I spend 3-4 hours of time on character story dying, and I tend to not trust a dice roll that often, while I can really enjoy a good horror story and intrigue, I also have a mentality of "so the monsters evil and wants us dead?...why don't we just kill it and be done?" sorta 'big darn heros' thing. You know that Fighter who breaks down the door and lops heads like a boss? that's my guy(even if I love magic too), thus, unsure if CoC will be exciting.

Next would be how exactly is it even handled? I know that it doesn't have classes, but I don't have a rulebook yet and am having difficulty finding one, so is it like a d20 modern thing with professions or something?

Lastly is that magic seems to be...well worthless from what I heard from the GM. not that he thought so but that if it's true most spells require ability drain I see little point in using them at all. I could send a death wave out and kill 10 guys, but I likely couldn't do it again without very crippling side effects and seeing someone I worked hard on wither away by using their main schtick sounds more depressing then the story, so is that true or am I thinking just too extremely on it?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions, but these are the major ones right now, thanks for anyone who answers!

 

[Nagol]

Hey good people of the forums, I've been invited to join a Call of Cthulu game(think I spelled the right >.> ) and since I've never played and only have a barely fundamental knowledge of the game I'd like to ask a few questions on here to get some more opinions, especially since the DM has little experience in the game himself.

Firstly I'd like to simply ask if a person like myself would enjoy a game like COC, I'm kind of an optimizer in most things due to how little I enjoy the idea of a character I spend 3-4 hours of time on character story dying, and I tend to not trust a dice roll that often, while I can really enjoy a good horror story and intrigue, I also have a mentality of "so the monsters evil and wants us dead?...why don't we just kill it and be done?" sorta 'big darn heros' thing. You know that Fighter who breaks down the door and lops heads like a boss? that's my guy(even if I love magic too), thus, unsure if CoC will be exciting.

My experience with CoC is fading into the mists of history a bit, but your questions are pretty general.

First rule of CoC club is every character will be lost. The question becomes how and what story will lead to the loss? If a character doesn't die then he will almost certainly go mad from SAN loss.

Next would be how exactly is it even handled? I know that it doesn't have classes, but I don't have a rulebook yet and am having difficulty finding one, so is it like a d20 modern thing with professions or something?

CoC is not based on the accumulation of experience. CoC has a large set of percentage-based skills. A profession just changes hte starting values for those skills. Progression is earned through successful use of a skill and then an after-adventure check to see if the skill improved 1%. Anyone can learn magic, but at a SAN cost.

Lastly is that magic seems to be...well worthless from what I heard from the GM. not that he thought so but that if it's true most spells require ability drain I see little point in using them at all. I could send a death wave out and kill 10 guys, but I likely couldn't do it again without very crippling side effects and seeing someone I worked hard on wither away by using their main schtick sounds more depressing then the story, so is that true or am I thinking just too extremely on it?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions, but these are the major ones right now, thanks for anyone who answers!

Magic can be useful, but it is quite dangerous -- the more powerful effects take SAN every casting. Typically magic draws on your power score which refreshes itself over time.

 

[nerfherder]

Hmm, though both are Role Playing Games, CoC is a very different experience than D&D. I love both, but I have a friend who doesn't like CoC because he just hates his character getting weaker (in terms of SAN generally declining) the more it is played.

You can download a quickstart copy of the rules from Chaosium here.

It may not be to your taste. All I can recommend is to try and play with no pre-conceptions based on previous RPG experience, and have a fun time.

 

[Janx]

So basically, you're going to make a PC who is a professor, mechanic, retired soldier, or some such.

He's going to get roped into checking out this haunted house or mysterious happening over in some New England town because you haven't heard from your friend from there in a while.

Then you will see odd stuff. Then it will get dangerous. then you will run or you will die.

Once you understand and accept the basic premise and flow of the game, go with it. Be the big damn hero who sacrifices himself to save the party (who later get killed anyway). Be the coward who runs away. Be the hungry scientist who thinks he can harness this occult knowledge and tame the beast.

But in the end, accept that death is the common ending.

 

[nerfherder]

That's a nice description of an archetypal CoC game.

In the game I'm playing, we've actually survived quite a while, but this is due to a bit of luck and deciding to run away at the right time. Of course, our characters are slowly descending into madness...

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Call of Cthulhu does not typically match with the game experience that you are describing. Unlike D&D, the point of the game is not to level up and become a demi-god. It is to explore interesting stories and when (not if) you go, you go out in style.

You do improve your skills as you go, but you don't gain more hit points, so a crazed cultist with a shot gun will always be a danger.

I also have a mentality of "so the monsters evil and wants us dead?...why don't we just kill it and be done?"

Because it just as likely to kill you, if not more so. There will certainly be some low powered creatures that you have a decent chance of killing, but there are also things so terrible that you have no way to defeat them in a fair fight.

That being said, if you want to the kick but method, a gangster armed with a Tommy gun can do a lot of damage. But eventually he will bite off more than he can chew.

 

[Nytmare]

First and foremost, I think that there are two flavors of Call of Cthulhu out there at the moment, and I'm only really familiar with one of them. But, that being said, if you are playing the CoC that I AM familiar with, and you're expecting to play a character whose key concept is "I want to be the fighter who kicks down the door and cuts the head off the monster, thereby solving the problem" you should expect your character to lead a very exciting, but short life.

If you're completely unfamiliar with the kinds of stories a CoC game are trying to recreate, they tend to be tales of ordinary people who stumble headlong into the literally unimaginable who spend the entire story trying to save if not themselves then at least their sanity. They tend to be very bleak stories of horror and self sacrifice against unbeatable odds where oftentimes death is the light at the end of the tunnel.

A kick down the door, and dive, guns blazing into the unspeakable edlritch darkness kind of character can definitely work, and can be an incredibly interesting and satisfying character to play. But straight out of the book, the game isn't a game about combat and battlemaps.

It's not an optimization or broken combo set of mechanics. There's magic, but it tends to be less of the flight and magic missile kind of magic that you might be expecting from D&D, and more along the lines of "if you survive reading this ancient tome, you lose d20 sanity and learn the spell Paralysis of Shub Nyogoth. You can only cast this spell 3 times before you reduce yourself to a drooling, gibbering, madman." It's horrible stuff, and the only people who really want to use it are the bad guys who are already crazy to begin with.

If (and I'm probably way off on this) you're playing the other flavor of Call of Cthulhu, I think that the game is more combat oriented, and you're playing the part of a government/military agent where you're running around X-files style and going on monster hunts.

 

[wingsandsword]

It is a horror game. Remember that.

There are plenty of mythos creatures that could take down even a heavily armed and well equipped group of humans. Against actual deities? Yeah, you're not going to win. You're probably not even going to last one round. If you're familiar with D&D, remember the Far Realm? Yeah, that was pretty directly inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos. Imagine a modern-day low-magic setting where people try to deal with occasional planar incursions from the Far Realm (which is still high-magic).

As for going slowly insane the more you learn. A good analogy that is often used (I think it was actually used in a CoC book once) was the terminator movies. Replace robots from the future with tentacled abominations from the stars and throw in a little dangerous magic and it's a pretty good fit.

Sarah Connor starts out as an everywoman. A 18 or 19 year old young woman working as a waitress with a roommate. Kinda bright, but not very skilled.

Then, she gets caught up in a wild adventure as this strange "monster" starts hunting her for reasons beyond her comprehension. A crazy man finds her and saves her from the monster (shooting it repeatedly with a shotgun, which at most briefly slows it down). He explains what is happening, but even she doesn't believe it. The police don't believe it either.

Then she sees what he was talking about is true! Something that shouldn't be. It's unstoppable, it's real, and nobody believes them. They barely stop it, barely.

She realizes nobody will believe her. She goes off and becomes a survivalist and learns to shoot guns and build bombs, but gets thrown in a mental hospital after trying to blow up a factory. Nobody believes her when she says that something horrible is coming.

 

[amerigoV]

This will get you started

Knights Of The Dinner Table: Episode 6 - YouTube

From your post, I sense you might be Dave in this scenario....

 

[billd91]

Before you spend too much more time looking for a rulebook, make sure you're looking for the right one. There are 2 flavors of Call of Cthulhu out there (only 1 still in print) and at least one (maybe two) flavors of Trail of Cthulhu - a similar game by subject matter but with some variations in mechanics. Most likely, you've been invited to play classic Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium but there is also a d20 version (now out of print) by Monte Cook that is very good.

The classic version of Call of Cthulhu is technically classless but relies on archetypes/professions to determine how to spend your character generation skill points. You have rolled statistics that help determine how many skill points you get. Most are spent on archetype/profession-based skills, but you always get some to spend on whatever skills you feel might be useful. All will ultimately be rolled on d100, so heavy investment in a few key skills tends to be better than low investment in many. Many skills also have a starting level that everyone gets for free.

Definitely ask your Keeper (the GM in CoC-parlance) for advice on building your character since this is your first time. He should be able to help you avoid building a character that won't fit the setting.

Playing Call of Cthulhu like D&D is a quick way to get yourself killed. Kicking in doors without knowing anything about what's behind them can get you into trouble. Research and recon are very useful tactics. Coordinating with other players is also helpful. Having a few specialize in physical confrontation and exploration while others focus on forbidden knowledge is a good thing.