D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[dave2008]

I think that @Imaro is correct. The only two cases of “heroes” using magic in Lovecraft that I can think of are Prof. Armitrage in “The Dunwich Horror” and the unnamed narrator in “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. In both cases, the heroes were sane, and using the magic does not seem to have had an impact on their sanity.

Oh, there’s also one whose title escapes me about a person who uses dream magic to travel across the realms. I fon’t think his sanity is affected either.

There is definitely discussion of insane magicians, but they are not the narrators or protagonist of the stories. In game terms: the NPCs of Lovecraft stories are often insane, but the PCs are typically sane.

 

[Imaro]

Have you actually played CoC? It sounds like you haven't.

You can't start with any points in Cthulhu Mythos. At all. You don't gain skill points by using Cthulhu Mythos. At all.

Let me quote DIRECTLY from CoC for you:

"Instead, points in Cthulhu Mythos are gained by encounters with the Mythos that result in insanity, by insane insights into the true nature of the universe, and by reading forbidden books and other Mythos writings. A character’s Sanity may never be higher than 99 minus his or her Cthulhu Mythos skill. As Cthulhu Mythos points proliferate, they crowd out Sanity points, and leave the investigator vulnerable."
It exactly works like I'm suggesting. EXACTLY. You're flatly and completely wrong. Your Mythos skill is acts a hard barrier to your max sanity. This is not how the suggested system in D&D works. It is how the SAN/ALN system I proposed works, though, but you ignored that in favour of the outright false claim that Cthulhu RPGs let you be sane and have high Mythos. They do not.

I will concede I was wrong on this. I haven't played it in awhile and only remembered it was a skill and assumed it worked like other skills, I was wrong.

 

[Ovinomancer]

ok you state the defintion form the DMG then...

EDIT: Nevermind here is the exact blurb from the DMG explaining Sanity...
Sanity: A character with a high sanity is level-headed even in the face of insane circumstances, while a character with a low sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reasoning.

Seems pretty close if not spot on to what I stated.

Nope. There's nothing there that suggests that you cannot learn Mythos unless you are sane, which is part of your definition. The DMG doesn't use SAN as a marker for ability to learn Mythis stuff, it's just a measure and perhaps ability to remain sane when you do so.

 

[dave2008]

I think, at this point in the discussion, if having to show you exactly where it says madness is part and parcel of mythos and that it is anti-rational, we're just not going to connect. I mean, the article we're talking about speaks of tge crazy guy being the only one with a clue, of mad cultists able to commune with eldritch beings. Arguing that it makes more sense to be sane if you want to be able to know about the mythos just seems to miss the point.

Maybe the issue is that in Lovecraft's work it is also the NPCs and not the PCs (narrator/protagonist) that goes made or insane?

 

[Imaro]

Nope. There's nothing there that suggests that you cannot learn Mythos unless you are sane, which is part of your definition. The DMG doesn't use SAN as a marker for ability to learn Mythis stuff, it's just a measure and perhaps ability to remain sane when you do so.

What?? Where did I state this? Please show me where I said you cannot learn Mythos unless you are sane... I didn't plain and simple.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I will concede I was wrong on this. I haven't played it in awhile and only remembered it was a skill and assumed it worked like other skills, I was wrong.

Okay do you now maybe understand why I was saying the D&D SAN approach is antithetical to Mythos stuff?

Because in D&D, it's like your you start off with Mythos equal to your Sanity, and when your Sanity goes down, so does your Mythos. Which makes no sense to the material!

Maybe the issue is that in Lovecraft's work it is also the NPCs and not the PCs (narrator/protagonist) that goes made or insane?

A lot of Lovecraft stuff is the literary equivalent of found footage and the narrator/protagonist is implied to be insane or dead. Not all but a lot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Er, that's exactly how it works in the source material, so "doesn't seem right" seems to suggest unfamiliarity with Lovecraft. Crazy or at least part-crazy people are better at casting spells in that, yes. And the theme that you have to go a bit mad to understand the Mythos is absolutely ever-present.

You're wrong, and it's hard to see why you'd think you were right, because it's pretty clear. Lovecraft's stories are not about level-headed and sensible individuals sanely staving off the Mythos with their sensible spells, for god's sake.

It varies a little bit, so Color Out of Space, or Dunwich Horror have rational systematic protagonists who, in the the later story, deploy SOME basic understanding of mythos concepts, along with guns, dynamite, etc. to fight Mythos threats (Color Out of Space could actually be colored as more outre sci-fi than mythos, and the protagonists actually don't DO much in that one, though).

But the idea that madness brings insight into the true workings of the Universe, and that said insight also BRINGS madness, that is a very well-established trope, and one that the Mythos/SAN rule in CoC directly addresses (your current AND MAX SAN decrease 1:1 with increased Mythos skill). I'm not sure if other Mythos games actually have an equivalent rule or not, but I'm pretty sure that in all of them sane rational people don't do things like cast spells, talk to aliens, etc.

 

[dave2008]

A lot of Lovecraft stuff is the literary equivalent of found footage and the narrator/protagonist is implied to be insane or dead. Not all but a lot.

Sure, but as @FrozenNorth pointed at the narrator/protagonist who do use magic, don't go insane from doing so, or are the required to insane to use magic.

There are quite a few Lovecraft tales were the narrator/protagonist is simply disturbed by what they found. I go back to "At the Mountains of Madness" because I reread the end of it yesterday and the narrator was involved first person in the events of the story and did not go insane (one of his colleagues did though), even facing down and elder thing (old one) and a shoggoth and reading the "real" history of the earth. He his disturbed by the experience and warns others not to go back, but it is from all appearance completely sane and rational.

 

[dave2008]

But the idea that madness brings insight into the true workings of the Universe, and that said insight also BRINGS madness, that is a very well-established trope, and one that the Mythos/SAN rule in CoC directly addresses (your current AND MAX SAN decrease 1:1 with increased Mythos skill). I'm not sure if other Mythos games actually have an equivalent rule or not, but I'm pretty sure that in all of them sane rational people don't do things like cast spells, talk to aliens, etc.

It is a trope; however, it is not 100% born out by the fiction that started the genre. There are plenty of examples of narrators/protagonist not going insane from interaction with the Mythos in Lovecraft's work. Much more frequent is the NPC insanity. So there is definitely precedent for the "heroes"* in the Lovecrafts work being able to withstand the mind bending influences of the Mythos.

*aka the player characters

 

[Imaro]

Okay do you now maybe understand why I was saying the D&D SAN approach is antithetical to Mythos stuff?

Because in D&D, it's like your you start off with Mythos equal to your Sanity, and when your Sanity goes down, so does your Mythos. Which makes no sense to the material!

Yep, from that perspective I can see why it doesn't work for you. I will state that for my purposes with the Stygia (which isn't Lovecraftian per se) it worked fine. I don't think it would be that hard to invert it though for your purposes. I mean instead of it being a bonus on skills dealing with that stuff it becomes a penalty.

Edit: Maybe I'll try inverting this when our campaign resumes... I'll see what my players think about it first though as I would be changing the agreed upon rules after the game has started.