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CoC atmosphere
- Thread starter Golandrinel
- Start date
d20 CoC
My $0.02
I like CoC d20 as much as I like the BRP version. This is due primarily to the way we use it. Most of our CoC games come off like horror movies. They are on-shot deals, though some take several sessions. Each player takes on a role in the movie and creates a character to fulfill that role. The goal is not to survive or level-up. The goal is to role-play a really scary and horrific story. With that as our MO, either system works wonders. But as has already been stated, the d20 system has the added advantage of pulling in the standard D&D hack-and-slash players, with little learning curve.
As to atmosphere, strangely enough I have found that playing on-line produces the best atmosphere. Most of the guys (yes, generally the men) in our regular D&D group aren't good role-players. They fancy themselves as strategists, and it makes them inhibited at the table. When they have 24 hours to think about their posts and write out their characters actions, thoughts, emotions, and words, they do quite well. We have had some damned scary games on-line. Slow . . . but scary!
My $0.02
I like CoC d20 as much as I like the BRP version. This is due primarily to the way we use it. Most of our CoC games come off like horror movies. They are on-shot deals, though some take several sessions. Each player takes on a role in the movie and creates a character to fulfill that role. The goal is not to survive or level-up. The goal is to role-play a really scary and horrific story. With that as our MO, either system works wonders. But as has already been stated, the d20 system has the added advantage of pulling in the standard D&D hack-and-slash players, with little learning curve.
As to atmosphere, strangely enough I have found that playing on-line produces the best atmosphere. Most of the guys (yes, generally the men) in our regular D&D group aren't good role-players. They fancy themselves as strategists, and it makes them inhibited at the table. When they have 24 hours to think about their posts and write out their characters actions, thoughts, emotions, and words, they do quite well. We have had some damned scary games on-line. Slow . . . but scary!
haiiro
First Post
dmbob1115 said:
I agree -- I won't take it over tabletop gaming, but I have found PBeM (the only way I've gamed online) to be an excellent format for horror. Quite apart from the elements that make it a good format for gaming in general, I found that it increased the tension and uncertainty in interesting ways.
The Great Sun Jester
First Post
If you don't mind somebody else shoving their oar in, this is something I've been wanting to come out and say for a while now. I'm sorry if this comes across as a little abrasive, but there are thing which I believe need to be said. The essential problem, to my mind, with D20 Cthulhu, is the same as with most, if not all, other D20 conversions, that all it results in is a D&D game in another setting. The D20 system is designed for 'epic heroic fantasy' roleplaying, and, for all its supposed flexibility, it is good for little else. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss its shortcomings within its own genre niche, though I would love for somebody to point out any character or characters, other than perhaps Robert E. Howard's Conan, in any decent fantasy novel or film that act like those of a D&D party. That it is ill-suited to Call of Cthulhu, however, is the point at hand.
I wouldn't argue that Chaosium's BRP system is an ideal one, even that it is ideal for Cthuloid horror roleplaying, it is itself somewhat old-fashioned in its style, and its rules slightly illogical in places, but it is nonetheless vastly more suitable than D20, as well as being simple enough for anyone to learn in half an hour. Furthermore, it has the advantage of twenty-odd years of support behind it, in the form of excellent supplements and campaigns: I doubt that TSR/Wizards could ever write as good a campaign as Masks of Nyarlathotep or Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Though Chaosium are releasing some dual-statted products, their geologically slow release schedules mean that you are unlikely to see any significant number of D20-ised Cthulhu books in the near future.
To put it another way, turn the clock back to 1990 for a moment. Go on, humour me.... Would anyone then have seriously attempted to have used AD&D 2nd Edition rules to play Call of Cthulhu? I doubt it. Would anyone even consider doing so now? I continue to doubt it. Yet, there exists undeniably more similarity, in terms of systems, between 2nd Edition AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D than between Chaosium's BRP and either of them. So why?
D&D hasn't really changed that much in two decades, certainly it's been refined, but the basic mechanics of race/class/level/hit points and Thac0 (or AB) haven't been altered, and neither has the central dynamic of player characters killing things, stealing their stuff, and gaining experience to advance from petty thugs to godlike heroes. If Sandy Petersen and Chaosium's other writers had thought, back in the early-eighties, that Call of Cthulhu, their game of eldritch cosmic horror based upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft, wherin the players portrayed ordinary men and women of the 1920s who became unwilling participants in a futile strugle, ending only in death or madness, against uncaring, unknowable gods in a bleak and uncaring universe, would have benefitted from a D&D-type system, wouldn't they have written it that way then? Enough other RPG companies of the time certainly produced D&D knock-offs, some of which are even still around today.
The only reason for Chaosium to have now released a D20 version of Call of Cthulhu is for the sake of selling their game to D&D players who, for some inexplicable reason, cannot envisage playing a different system. This would never have been necessary were it not for D&D's equally inexplicable stranglehold on the roleplaying games market in recent years. Thus they are marketed a game that is essentially D&D dressed up as Cthulhu, a principle which can be extended to most if not all other D20 conversions, certainly to those of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea.
There is, at least to my mind, no good reason for using the D20 system for Call of Cthulhu, and there are many reasons not to do so. Chaosium's BRP version is vastly more appropriate and playable. If you're looking for an alternate system to Chaosuim's BRP for a Lovecraftian game, or for any supernatural/occult/horror setting, then Atlas' Unknown Armies, White Wolf's Storyteller games, or even C.J. Carella's Witchcraft are all superior choices to D20. If you want to play heroic fantasy, and we all do, once in a while, then play D&D, or better still, play Ars Magica, or The Riddle of Steel.
I wouldn't argue that Chaosium's BRP system is an ideal one, even that it is ideal for Cthuloid horror roleplaying, it is itself somewhat old-fashioned in its style, and its rules slightly illogical in places, but it is nonetheless vastly more suitable than D20, as well as being simple enough for anyone to learn in half an hour. Furthermore, it has the advantage of twenty-odd years of support behind it, in the form of excellent supplements and campaigns: I doubt that TSR/Wizards could ever write as good a campaign as Masks of Nyarlathotep or Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Though Chaosium are releasing some dual-statted products, their geologically slow release schedules mean that you are unlikely to see any significant number of D20-ised Cthulhu books in the near future.
To put it another way, turn the clock back to 1990 for a moment. Go on, humour me.... Would anyone then have seriously attempted to have used AD&D 2nd Edition rules to play Call of Cthulhu? I doubt it. Would anyone even consider doing so now? I continue to doubt it. Yet, there exists undeniably more similarity, in terms of systems, between 2nd Edition AD&D and 3rd Edition D&D than between Chaosium's BRP and either of them. So why?
D&D hasn't really changed that much in two decades, certainly it's been refined, but the basic mechanics of race/class/level/hit points and Thac0 (or AB) haven't been altered, and neither has the central dynamic of player characters killing things, stealing their stuff, and gaining experience to advance from petty thugs to godlike heroes. If Sandy Petersen and Chaosium's other writers had thought, back in the early-eighties, that Call of Cthulhu, their game of eldritch cosmic horror based upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft, wherin the players portrayed ordinary men and women of the 1920s who became unwilling participants in a futile strugle, ending only in death or madness, against uncaring, unknowable gods in a bleak and uncaring universe, would have benefitted from a D&D-type system, wouldn't they have written it that way then? Enough other RPG companies of the time certainly produced D&D knock-offs, some of which are even still around today.
The only reason for Chaosium to have now released a D20 version of Call of Cthulhu is for the sake of selling their game to D&D players who, for some inexplicable reason, cannot envisage playing a different system. This would never have been necessary were it not for D&D's equally inexplicable stranglehold on the roleplaying games market in recent years. Thus they are marketed a game that is essentially D&D dressed up as Cthulhu, a principle which can be extended to most if not all other D20 conversions, certainly to those of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea.
There is, at least to my mind, no good reason for using the D20 system for Call of Cthulhu, and there are many reasons not to do so. Chaosium's BRP version is vastly more appropriate and playable. If you're looking for an alternate system to Chaosuim's BRP for a Lovecraftian game, or for any supernatural/occult/horror setting, then Atlas' Unknown Armies, White Wolf's Storyteller games, or even C.J. Carella's Witchcraft are all superior choices to D20. If you want to play heroic fantasy, and we all do, once in a while, then play D&D, or better still, play Ars Magica, or The Riddle of Steel.
The Great Sun Jester said:
The very good reason for using D20 Coc in my group is because, like it or not, they hate learning new systems. I would love to run UA (I love that mutant BRP system), but they would'nt bite.
So I run D20 style. It has worked quite well. The players are psyched because they get to tweak feats and carry all sorts of neato firearms, and think about what they will do when they reach 10th level.
I'm psyched because the gradual process of behaviour modification is bearing fruit. Seldom is heard the cry, "lock and load!", at the table. (I blame the Shoggoth frankly) Now before anything else happens, the players are talking about research and investigation. We rarely roll dice anymore.
When the cat jumps up behind the curtains or a car back fires in the street I smile wickedly when the four players around the table jump in their seats.
The D20 version book offers insights on many styles of play ranging from CR level heroic 'just kick in the door' bash fests to super gritty depressing assaults on futility.
The choices are really up to and limited by the individual keeper.
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The Great Sun Jester
First Post
quote
Originally posted by snak
The choices is really up to and limited by the individual keeper.
The choice here, as elsewhere, seems rather to be one decided by the limitations of the players.
Originally posted by snak
The choices is really up to and limited by the individual keeper.
The choice here, as elsewhere, seems rather to be one decided by the limitations of the players.
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The Great Sun Jester said:
Luckily my players aren't that limited to a particular style of play. Most of their resistance to different systems is resistance to buying new books. The D20 Coc included many similar mechanics to the D&D we were playing. I few supplemental rules I could type up and hand out. I've found it beneficial to be one of the only players with a book because it stunts the occasional meta-game thinker. The monsters and magic remain a dreadful mystery slowly brought into the light to parade it's horrid glory.
The Great Sun Jester
First Post
I agree with much of what you're saying about running Call of Cthulhu, but I fail to see how using the D20 version over the BRP is in any way condusive to the appropriate atmosphere of uncertainty and powlessness. The D&D attitude of the players' primary goal being character advancement achieved through combat, inculcated unequivocally by the D20 system mechanics, which carries over into any D20 system game, is antithetical to this atmosphere. To put it another way, it's not a setting where the players should be preoccupied with 'twinking feats and packing kewl firearms'. I realise that you clearly appreciate this, and wish to make your players do likewise, but using the D20 system, in which combat-oriented feats and unfeasably large quantities of firearms, as a substitute for magic swords, play a fairly central role, does not strike me as the best way to achieve this.
It's difficult to reasonably deny that, even in its adaptation to the Cthulhu setting, the D20 system, which assumes improvement in combat ability as the central priority of character development, and where two-thirds of the feats are combat-related, just providing even more exceptions to an already irritatingly exception-based rules system, is designed for a very different style of game. In next to none of Lovecraft's tales do the protagonists engage in combat, willingly or otherwise, though they often flee from it, or fail to, with predictable results, nor is it, save for a few exceptions, the solution. None of his heroes were martial artists, soldiers or 'hard men' of any sort, rather they were librarians, academics, artists and dilettantes. That these sorts of characters should increase inexorably in combat skill as the learn more of the Mythos, generally through investigation and research, not violence, defies plausibility.
I am not trying to prescribe to anybody how they should play Call of Cthulhu, or with what system they should play it, but, quite frankly, playing it with the D20 system as written will produce, not a game of one-sided struggle against terrifying mad gods in the vein of Lovecraft's works, but one at best reminiscent of Brian Lumley's ill-advised high-fantasy take upon the Cthuylhu Mythos, and at worst, D&D with Deep Ones instead of Orcs, and Shoggoths for dragons. D&D, and by association D20, is a game catering to the 'gamist' stance, Cthulhu is rather one of narrative and situation.
Regardless of your opinion of your players limitations, or lack therof, or any other Keeper's of theirs, for that matter, their refusal to learn any other system than D20, like that of so many others, strikes me as lazy and blinkered, and failing to grasp that different styles of play benefit from different systems is nothing short of idiotic. From what you've said of them, they seem to be stereotypical hack-n'-slash D&D types, if they're not, I apologise to them for any insult, but that's how, by refusing to even consider playing any other systems, especially systems as simple, intuitive and elegant as BRP or UA, they come across. Even if they are, then I've no issue with their enjoyment of that style of roleplaying, it's fine so far as it goes, but it only goes so far, and there's a lot more to roleplaying than D&D, or D20, really make allowance for.
From what you've said, I applaud your efforts to modify their attitude towards the game by emphasising the difference between the premises of the Cthulhu and D&D settings by generating the right Cthuloid atmosphere, and, I very much hope, punctuating your message with the graphic deaths of gung-ho player characters, but you'd have helped your cause from the beginning by using Chaosum's BRP rather than D20. Also, if you prefer for your players not to know the system well enough to metagame, and I suspect that what you mean here, but are too polite to say, is munchkin, then surely employing a system unfamilliar to them would be ideal? If they enjoy it, it might go some way towards showing them that there's much more out there, and that a game needn't come in a heavily-advertised glossy hardcover with full-colour art in order to be worth playing.
To conclude, a roleplaying/musical analogy coined by a friend of mine: D&D is N-Sync (sp?), Call of Cthulhu is Iron Maiden, which would you prefer to listen to?
... and yes there is a roleplaying answer for people who say they prefer Led Zeppelin, but not one for those who say Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
It's difficult to reasonably deny that, even in its adaptation to the Cthulhu setting, the D20 system, which assumes improvement in combat ability as the central priority of character development, and where two-thirds of the feats are combat-related, just providing even more exceptions to an already irritatingly exception-based rules system, is designed for a very different style of game. In next to none of Lovecraft's tales do the protagonists engage in combat, willingly or otherwise, though they often flee from it, or fail to, with predictable results, nor is it, save for a few exceptions, the solution. None of his heroes were martial artists, soldiers or 'hard men' of any sort, rather they were librarians, academics, artists and dilettantes. That these sorts of characters should increase inexorably in combat skill as the learn more of the Mythos, generally through investigation and research, not violence, defies plausibility.
I am not trying to prescribe to anybody how they should play Call of Cthulhu, or with what system they should play it, but, quite frankly, playing it with the D20 system as written will produce, not a game of one-sided struggle against terrifying mad gods in the vein of Lovecraft's works, but one at best reminiscent of Brian Lumley's ill-advised high-fantasy take upon the Cthuylhu Mythos, and at worst, D&D with Deep Ones instead of Orcs, and Shoggoths for dragons. D&D, and by association D20, is a game catering to the 'gamist' stance, Cthulhu is rather one of narrative and situation.
Regardless of your opinion of your players limitations, or lack therof, or any other Keeper's of theirs, for that matter, their refusal to learn any other system than D20, like that of so many others, strikes me as lazy and blinkered, and failing to grasp that different styles of play benefit from different systems is nothing short of idiotic. From what you've said of them, they seem to be stereotypical hack-n'-slash D&D types, if they're not, I apologise to them for any insult, but that's how, by refusing to even consider playing any other systems, especially systems as simple, intuitive and elegant as BRP or UA, they come across. Even if they are, then I've no issue with their enjoyment of that style of roleplaying, it's fine so far as it goes, but it only goes so far, and there's a lot more to roleplaying than D&D, or D20, really make allowance for.
From what you've said, I applaud your efforts to modify their attitude towards the game by emphasising the difference between the premises of the Cthulhu and D&D settings by generating the right Cthuloid atmosphere, and, I very much hope, punctuating your message with the graphic deaths of gung-ho player characters, but you'd have helped your cause from the beginning by using Chaosum's BRP rather than D20. Also, if you prefer for your players not to know the system well enough to metagame, and I suspect that what you mean here, but are too polite to say, is munchkin, then surely employing a system unfamilliar to them would be ideal? If they enjoy it, it might go some way towards showing them that there's much more out there, and that a game needn't come in a heavily-advertised glossy hardcover with full-colour art in order to be worth playing.
To conclude, a roleplaying/musical analogy coined by a friend of mine: D&D is N-Sync (sp?), Call of Cthulhu is Iron Maiden, which would you prefer to listen to?
... and yes there is a roleplaying answer for people who say they prefer Led Zeppelin, but not one for those who say Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Olive
Explorer
The Great Sun Jester said:
combat orientated feats and large amounts of fire arms are nt part of most players experiences of d20 CoC. Appart from the fact that you can manipulate the BRP system of skills to make your character extremely good at things, every game of CoC i've ever played has similarities: characters dying and going insane.
BTW BRP cuthulu has large numbers of guns as well (check Delta Green).
Really what it comes down to is that if a GM can't make CoC scary by using the d20 version, and blames the system, they're not a very good GM. the d20 system isn't like you descibe it. It's a matter of how you play. Your average first level character has one feat, and given that a huge number of shots will kill a character outright in CoCd20 anyone who trys to make a DnD style fighter character using that game is a moron. If you're going to take this line of argument, you'll need to do more than say d20 is twinky because DnD is twinky. You'll need to actually make an argument.
The Great Sun Jester
First Post
What I have been trying to address is the question of whether the original Chaosium BRP system or D20 is more condusive to a Keeper wishing to conjure up the requisite Lovecraftian atmosphere of horror and futility. I fail to see how using D20, where improvement in combat skills and survivability are the central pillar of character advancement, helps a Keeper to do this. D20, so far as I at least have observed, adds nothing worthwhile to the game that Chaosium's own system did not already offer.
Certainly, in the original BRP system a player character can begin with impressive combat skills, which will slowly advance if they are used in the course of games, if he's a soldier, federal agent, policeman or member some other profession where such skills would be appropriate. If, however, he's an academic, artist or socialite, then he, appropriately enough, won't possess combat abilities. Further, a character, no matter how fortunate and long-lived, remains realistically vulnerable to gunfire and everyday damage. Using D20, on the other hand, a character cannot aviod improving in combatitive ability, and will continue to accrue hit points until they are unrealistically tough and enduring. Worse than that, they get Sanity points back every level, eroding the fundamentals of the setting yet further. This is my central objection to the appropriateness of the D20 system to Call of Cthulhu. Not only is this, and the attitude it encourages amongst players, out of place in an atmospheric, investigative game, but it is essentially a rather stupid set of mechanics, which fail to sustain believability in a real-world setting. As I've said before, I wouldn't even use D20 for a high fantasy game, and yes I'm well aware that Delta Green contains some impressive lists of firearms, but Delta Green, excellent though it is, is a very different game, operating upon very different premises, and in a diferent setting, from those generally used in Call of Cthulhu.
As it stands, the D20 conversion of Cthulhu offers nothing of itself that the original does not, and adds the flaws of an imperfect conversion to an inappropriate, and already thoroughly flawed, system. Please, if you can, contradict me here, but to be brutally frank, the only reason that I can see for anyone to wish to use D20 in place of BRP is the lack of sufficient imagination to look for a better system, or indeed any system other than D20.
Certainly, in the original BRP system a player character can begin with impressive combat skills, which will slowly advance if they are used in the course of games, if he's a soldier, federal agent, policeman or member some other profession where such skills would be appropriate. If, however, he's an academic, artist or socialite, then he, appropriately enough, won't possess combat abilities. Further, a character, no matter how fortunate and long-lived, remains realistically vulnerable to gunfire and everyday damage. Using D20, on the other hand, a character cannot aviod improving in combatitive ability, and will continue to accrue hit points until they are unrealistically tough and enduring. Worse than that, they get Sanity points back every level, eroding the fundamentals of the setting yet further. This is my central objection to the appropriateness of the D20 system to Call of Cthulhu. Not only is this, and the attitude it encourages amongst players, out of place in an atmospheric, investigative game, but it is essentially a rather stupid set of mechanics, which fail to sustain believability in a real-world setting. As I've said before, I wouldn't even use D20 for a high fantasy game, and yes I'm well aware that Delta Green contains some impressive lists of firearms, but Delta Green, excellent though it is, is a very different game, operating upon very different premises, and in a diferent setting, from those generally used in Call of Cthulhu.
As it stands, the D20 conversion of Cthulhu offers nothing of itself that the original does not, and adds the flaws of an imperfect conversion to an inappropriate, and already thoroughly flawed, system. Please, if you can, contradict me here, but to be brutally frank, the only reason that I can see for anyone to wish to use D20 in place of BRP is the lack of sufficient imagination to look for a better system, or indeed any system other than D20.
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