Call of Cthulhu General Thread [+]

[GuyBoy]

As strongly as it's possible to suggest, don't prep a plot or story for the PC to follow. Prep a situation with NPCs who have goals. Having something solid in your head about scene A, then scene B, then scene C, etc will only end in frustration all around. Follow the advice in the core book, especially about obvious vs obscure clues. The three-clue rule and node-based design links in the OP are well worth the read.

Best of luck. There's definitely a learning curve for mystery and horror if you're coming from mostly D&D-like games.

Unless you're playing with a group of historians, it's a good idea to write up a quick one-sheet on the time period. What's been invented, what pop culture is like (movies, songs, etc), who the famous people are, etc. Nothing too detailed, but it can throw things for a loop when PCs start talking about things that won't happen for another decade or two. The 1920s seem to be an especially odd time for this. So much is familiar but it's also so different.

That's why I tend to go with Cthulhu by Gaslight, London in the 1880s. There's a lot more general cultural osmosis about that particular time and place.

Read up on daily life and ordinary topics that are generally overlooked in history books. These can add a lot of great texture and depth to the experience for the players. Period music along with horror soundtracks can hell a lot, too. You can also go intentionally incongruous with the wrong period music. Slightly later stuff or wildly later stuff done in an era-appropriate style.

Thank you so much for the advice. I will definitely act on it.

 

[Committed Hero]

The "solve a murder" mystery is the basic structure of most games. But you can also have a sandboxy "the cult is present, they're not trying to destroy the world, but their presence is nonetheless bad for everyone" setup. This might be preferable since a Keeper doesn't need to end the campaign catastrophically if a few rolls are failed.

 

[billd91]

This post is basically a summary of why Gumshoe exists.

That may be true, but I've found that much of this can be done without shifting rulesets as long as you follow some good GMing principles that can be applied to any game with mysteries to investigate (and probably should be). There's a lot of advice to this effect on theAlexandrian.net and not always tied to CoC.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Call of Cthulhu is about atmosphere. And it's not the kind of game you can "win". You're fighting against the heat death of the universe -- it's futile, but it's Life, you have to fight it.

There are a lot of possible adventure setups but generally the trick is figuring out what's really going on before getting in over your head. It can be a lot of fun to submerse yourself in the Jazz Era, but there are a ton of possible settings. The Cthulhu Reborn guys have created Cthulhu Eternal, which is broadly compatible with Call of Cthulhu, and has several packs for different eras:

• Age of Revolutions
• Cold War Era
• Jazz Age
• Modern Age
• Victorian Era

I will say, speaking of props, the Cthulhu Reborn guys have produced a Dateline: Lovecraft product, which is an actual newspaper -- the Arkham Advertiser -- where several of the articles have scenarios involved, which they also sell. This is fabulous, though tricky to include. You really need to fully flesh out your Arkham setting to get the value from it, but it looks beautiful.

EDIT: A trick for Keepers out there: you can buy pads of cheap drawing paper at the dollar store, which you can print newspaper articles on, and it feels perfect. Highly recommended.

 

[MGibster]

My hesitance for using the 1920s is mostly down to people (myself absolutely included) constantly flubbing things by decades. Having to look things up mid-game sucks, so I prefer not to. Making the wrong call and having something not invented until the 1940s show up as a dust-covered relic in an abandoned barn or something just became way too distracting. I could easily gloss over that or make it part of the mystery, of course. But it was too much to bother with. So I default to Cthulhu by Gaslight and London circa 1880s. Fewer things that are similar but different to keep track of.

My advice is not to sweat it. Has it happened to me? Yes. But it's never been something that affected the scenario in any significant way. Is it really important to know the electric starter became near universal on new automobiles in the 1920s? Is it important to know the the started wasn't activated by turning the key? Nope. You're not going to notice and neither are your players. You don't need to be an expert on life in the 1920s anymore than you need to be an expert on live in 1066, 1890, or 1980. I'm preparing to run a Vaesen campaign knowing very, very little about Sweden during the 19th century. I've done a little research just so I can help create an atmosphere, but I'm not going to worry about getting in 100% correct. I doubt most Swedes are going to be historically accurate.

 

[MGibster]

The "solve a murder" mystery is the basic structure of most games. But you can also have a sandboxy "the cult is present, they're not trying to destroy the world, but their presence is nonetheless bad for everyone" setup. This might be preferable since a Keeper doesn't need to end the campaign catastrophically if a few rolls are failed.

I don't care for apocalyptic cults very much. Or at the very least, I don't like cults whose goal is to destroy the world. Rather I prefer cults who have more realistic, human goals like attaining paradise, improving their lives, getting closer to god, etc., etc.

That may be true, but I've found that much of this can be done without shifting rulesets as long as you follow some good GMing principles that can be applied to any game with mysteries to investigate (and probably should be). There's a lot of advice to this effect on theAlexandrian.net and not always tied to CoC.

Gumshoe has influenced me greatly in how I run not only mystery games but just about any game.

 

[Velderan]

The starter set has a solo scenario, Alone Against the Flames, to help you learn the system. It also has a 1-2 investigator scenario, Paper Chase, which would be great for you and yours when you get to it. Edge of Darkness and Dead Man's Stomp are both for 2-5 investigators.

@Aldarc on top of these suggestions, there's a couple books Chaosium has published that only require the rules in the Starter Set. There's really not a huge need to buy the full ruleset if you find the Starter Set rules handle what you need in a ruleset.

Doors to Darkness and Mansions of Madness are the 2 books I'm thinking of. There may be others.

 

[Aldarc]

@Aldarc on top of these suggestions, there's a couple books Chaosium has published that only require the rules in the Starter Set. There's really not a huge need to buy the full ruleset if you find the Starter Set rules handle what you need in a ruleset.

Doors to Darkness and Mansions of Madness are the 2 books I'm thinking of. There may be others.

I appreciate the suggestions. It will probably be awhile before I get around to playing CoC. I would probably prefer playing Pulp Cthulhu, which I bought alongside The Two Headed Serpent, and I'm not sure if the Starter Set covers that.

 

[overgeeked]

My advice is not to sweat it. Has it happened to me? Yes. But it's never been something that affected the scenario in any significant way. Is it really important to know the electric starter became near universal on new automobiles in the 1920s? Is it important to know the the started wasn't activated by turning the key? Nope. You're not going to notice and neither are your players. You don't need to be an expert on life in the 1920s anymore than you need to be an expert on live in 1066, 1890, or 1980. I'm preparing to run a Vaesen campaign knowing very, very little about Sweden during the 19th century. I've done a little research just so I can help create an atmosphere, but I'm not going to worry about getting in 100% correct. I doubt most Swedes are going to be historically accurate.

Absolutely. It’s just one of those things for me. shrug

I don’t care about perfect, that’ll never happen. But I do care about not getting it egregiously wrong. I’m also a fan of verisimilitude, or even a vaguely passing attempt at faux-realism. Up until things pop off. A baseline of “normalcy” to contrast against the utterly weird, bizarre, and surreal horrors that come later.

Nothing wrong with any era, it’s just easier for me to do Cthulhu by Gaslight.

 

[Aldarc]

My advice is not to sweat it. Has it happened to me? Yes. But it's never been something that affected the scenario in any significant way. Is it really important to know the electric starter became near universal on new automobiles in the 1920s? Is it important to know the the started wasn't activated by turning the key? Nope. You're not going to notice and neither are your players. You don't need to be an expert on life in the 1920s anymore than you need to be an expert on live in 1066, 1890, or 1980. I'm preparing to run a Vaesen campaign knowing very, very little about Sweden during the 19th century. I've done a little research just so I can help create an atmosphere, but I'm not going to worry about getting in 100% correct. I doubt most Swedes are going to be historically accurate.

While not the thread for it, I would love to run either Vaesen or Cthulhu by Gaslight in 1840s Vienna. I wanted to get a map of how Vienna looked in the 1840s. The old city walls, which once surrounded the 1st District, were taken down after the Revolutions of 1848. Some of the current districts were towns that surrounded the city. It would be that lovely mix of the familiar and the foreign for us both.

My partner and I both lived in Vienna for eight years, but as a bit of a coincidence but we had actually both moved to Vienna in September 2015, though we didn't meet until about four years later.