Call of Cthulhu

[Zappo]

In the Chaosium Cthulhu I played, freshly-made characters could actually be powergamed enough to take on weak monsters and have very good chances of coming up on top. A decent Dodge skill and the biggest gun you could find was generally enough to kill Deep Ones without too much danger, and advanced characters could defeat somewhat bigger nasties. You had no chance against any tough monster, of course. It doesn't seem to me that the situation has changed much in the d20 version... against a big creature, you are looking at doing a Fort save every time you're hit, and even the best in the world only needs to roll a 1 (just like the best in the world in the old version needed to fail his 93% Dodge...). I really don't think that smart players will try to fight any more than they did with the chaosium rules. By the way, what does it take to actually have a +14 or better Fort save? I doubt that CoC characters buy cloaks of resistance and amulets of health at their local mall...

 

[Bagpuss]

The Orient Express is another good one (although the players might not thank you at the end), a boxed set with lots of player handouts but really hard to get hold of I believe.

 

[Swack-Iron]

While on the subject,
I just got going in a Modern Cthulhu game (Old System) and love it so far. My Director for the game dislikes the new D20 for the following reasons.

You gain Hit Points every level, unlike my current 9 points in the old system.
No sanity points.
He feels as though with out these items you will be too tough and try and fight everything and there is no way of losing sanity.

He's wrong. There is Sanity in the d20 version, and the system is identical to the one presented in the BRP rules.

As others have stated, HP are almost meaningless until 10th level. If I was running a game, I'd probably consider limiting the number of hitpoints a character gets to one or two per level.

 

[kipling]

I'd like to try running the Jenkin Lives adventure, hidden in various places around the web. I think that would be a fun introductory.

 

[baileyrecords]

fun ....if you dont go into it expecting to whip down the baddies like you do in a d&d game......with with mood lighting and music..and the right GM it can be a blast

I'm currently in my recording studio putting the finishing wraps on both the CyberNet Official Roleplaying Soundtrack ("sci-fi electronica"/cyberpunk) and an indie horror film soundtrack called 'Deterioration Furthers'. I'm co-writing and releasing 'DF' with my buddy Bill Cory on my label Bailey Records. The album will be available in May with the purchase of CyberNet.

The point... 'Deterioration Furthers' is a soundtrack to the movie The Charnel Gospel by TR Mowery. 'TCG' is authorized and will be distributed by the company responsible for The Call of Cthulhu.

See here: http://home.indy.rr.com/dismantler/dv/distro.htm

So... this horror soundtrack might just be the right music that was mentioned earlier for you gaming campaign!

- Stratos

 

[Henry]

I really don't think that smart players will try to fight any more than they did with the chaosium rules. By the way, what does it take to actually have a +14 or better Fort save? I doubt that CoC characters buy cloaks of resistance and amulets of health at their local mall...

10th level character, with Fortitude as the good save, and the Great Fortitude feat, AND a decent CON score (say 14) produces a +11 to your fort save by 10th level. You fail 20% of the time, not too shabby, but you've spent a bit of resources to be hardy, and you've got an average of 55 hit points. So you can statistically take about 5 10 point hits, enough to kill a normal man 5 times over. However, that's still not outside the realms of believability - you're just built like Rasputin.

Above 10th level, you're laughing off fort saves 9 times out of 10, and if you get into a position where you have to make 10 fort saves in a game, you're SOOOO screwed. Besides, by 10th level, you're not investigating puny little obsessed serial killers or insane cultists anymore; You're trying to put a stop to the reappearance of Nyarlathotep, or the thrice-damned Forgotten Serpent God Kin-Harlat, or something else that you stand no chance against.

So there's no point about worrying about the Fort Saves of investigators - they'll die if they're stupid, same as the original version of the game.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

A person with a long-running CoC character (over 5 sessions) is either very cunning, or the GM is very lenient.

Why do so many people say this? You'd think they were talking about Paranoia, now Call of Cthulhu!

Horror should be the slow slide towards insanity, punctuated by the sudden "fall" from that brink of madness.

I've played CoC Campaigns...yes, Campaigns...that lasted months with only one death (and he died a hero, ironically). The investigators were a mess, and many sought help afterwards, but death for not necessary for a good horror game.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I think it's differing campaign styles, really. One thing that I've noticed about CoC, even moreso than things like D&D, is that it can be run as several different types of games. There's investigative mysteries, slow psychological madness, deadly splatterfests, cosmic explorations, etc. Of course, ideally a good game would mix all the elements together, but naturally people are going to focus on certain things. For a game that's based largely on the fictional work of a single author, people seem to have radically different ideas on how it should be run. Ironic, really.

I think a lot of the lethality reputation comes from the old days, when the game was still strongly supported and people tended to run published scenarios. Some of those early adventures are just ridiculously deadly. I remember an exploration scenario from Fragments of Fear, for example, which was really little more than a dungeon crawl through some different temples in a valley in Africa. Oh, and there were major Mythos beasts in every temple. And, if that wasn't bad enough, the entire valley was filled with zombies. Did I mention that the module describes the amount of zombies as "effectively infinite"?

Anyhow, you see what I mean. Compared to games like D&D or other more "heroic" games, CoC is definately going to come off as more deadly. In the beginning, this is what attracted me to it- I was sick of AD&D type adventures where people could just bounce back from death. I died a particularly gruesome death in the first CoC game I played in (tip for newbies: never play a cop in this game, you always get sent in first!), and absolutely loved it.

These days, I'd be far more likely to go for long-running characters and psychological horror themes. But, originally, there was definately something fun about the sheer mayhem and carnage that we used to inflict on each other. So really, like I said, it's all a matter of play style.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

The Orient Express is another good one (although the players might not thank you at the end), a boxed set with lots of player handouts but really hard to get hold of I believe.

I want to get hold of this set SOOO badly. I played a in 2 or 3 sessions of it years ago, and it was great fun. But it's almost impossible to even think of bidding on when it shows up on Ebay, since it sells for so much $.

 

[Henry]

I think it's differing campaign styles, really. One thing that I've noticed about CoC, even moreso than things like D&D, is that it can be run as several different types of games. There's investigative mysteries, slow psychological madness, deadly splatterfests, cosmic explorations, etc. Of course, ideally a good game would mix all the elements together, but naturally people are going to focus on certain things. For a game that's based largely on the fictional work of a single author, people seem to have radically different ideas on how it should be run. Ironic, really.

I get my play style from adventures like The Stars are Right!, Strange Aeons, the sample games in the core rules, etc. In those adventures, there are DOZENS of ways for players to screw up and be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you are facing off against some preternatural horror, he's going to eat someone at least once, and someone's going to die. Worse, they are going to likely see something that's going to cost them that precious 20% sanity in one blast, and their character is sidelined for game months.

Of the long-running games we played, only ONE player managed to get through five adventures only losing THREE sanity points total - the player had an uncanny knack for being at the right place at the wrong time, and intentionally missed out on all the big showdowns, monster stoppings, etc. He had a Sanity score like a bullet-proof tank, and never failed a check. When we retired the game about ten games later, he was the ONLY one out of the group of five that still had his original character.

CoC can be played a little more "normal," but that's not the style of the published adventures, with death and fire vampires and Cthulhoid Star Spawn hiding in every mine, condemned tenement, and small lake.