CoC atmosphere

[Wraith Form]

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.

I, for one, am behind you 100% on this--I think d20 is utterly inappropriate for CoC (and other "mood- or narrative-based" rpgs). You expressed eloqently the very feelings I had about the BRP vs. d20 debate.

I especially agree with you regarding the BRP system's learning curve--when I first learned the 5th edition CoC rules, I had it down in (as you mentioned) about 1/2 hour. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, it's just that BRP is that easy to learn--it's very intuitive. I've had the core d20 books, the d20 CoC product and d20 Modern since their respective release dates--and I'm STILL trying to wrap my brain around some of the over-elaborate complexities offered in them, over three years later.

d20 has it's place, no denying that--but it's function as a combat-intensive miniatures-based war game seems to be increasing and it's usefulness as a ROLE-playing product seems to be diminishing.

Whatever. Easy solution: use the game engine you want with the style/genre you prefer. Some people actually LIKE d20 Cthulhu.

 

[snak]

d20 has it's place, no denying that--but it's function as a combat-intensive miniatures-based war game seems to be increasing and it's usefulness as a ROLE-playing product seems to be diminishing.

Whatever. Easy solution: use the game engine you want with the style/genre you prefer. Some people actually LIKE d20 Cthulhu.

Looking back I did make my players out to look like twinking munchkins. They are not. Aside from the occasional Monte Python slippage they are a mature bunch.

In the end all I really wanted to say is that I've run a successful (fun) D20 Cthulhu game. I feel that atmosphere stems more from the keepers skill and players participation than which game mechanic is being used.

I've played both Brp and D20 versions. I'm not judging which system is ultimately better.
D20 has research to Brp's library use.
Each BAB/skill in D20 roughly equates to 5% in Brp.

The type of scenario depends on the keeper. The keeper regulates the potential consequences of a characters action. If they go in guns blazing when evasion would be better then let them experience the futility of engaging an enemy immune to gun fire.

Atmosphere comes from description, pacing of action, and keeper regulation of game reality, not the type of dice you use. It's not like D20 Cthulhu is Feng Shui (which I also enjoyed reading).

 

[The Great Sun Jester]

Well, between ourselves, I think we've said most of what really can be said in this particular debate, and done so quite reasonably and politely. It's probably thus time to close this discussion, and to move on. It's nice to read that other people have a range of opinions on the subject, and are willing to express them in ways that are neither combatative or doctrinaire. It's sad, but inevitable, that no one's opinions are going to change: I am not going to stop loathing and disdaining D20, nor are other people going to stop tolerating it.

There is one final thought which I can't resist sharing, however. The consensus expressed across this forum thread has been that, regardless of one system's or another's suitability to Lovecraftian horror roleplaying, what is most essential to invoke and maintain the atmosphere necessary to make a game of Call of Cthulhu, or any horror game, is a good, scary, thought-provoking story, told with appropriate pace, colour and drama. In this we are all, I think, in agreement.

In this, BRP possess one unarguable advantage over D20; a wealth of truly excellent published material. Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep, Beyond the Mountains of Madness, Unseen Masters, and the Lovecraft Country series, as well as Pagan's Delta Green, Coming Full Circle and Realm of Shadows are, in terms of depth, intelligence, innovation and sheer quality of writing, amongst the best campaigns ever published for a roleplaying game, and have rightfully been festooned with awards, having even recieved commendations from outside the roleplaying industry. Whilst Chaosium have begun to release some dual-statted books, they will never provide the range of options offered in Cthulhu's already-extant library of campaign and source material. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend their utility, even to Call of Cthulhu Keepers using D20 rather than BRP.

That said, I welcome D20 players taking up an interest in Call of Cthulhu, whatever system they use for it, it's still better than Forgotten Realms, and sincerely hope that this raises the profiles of both Chaosium's roleplaying games, and H.P. Lovecraft's stories, whithout which none of this would ever have got started.

 

[Olive]

D20, so far as I at least have observed, adds nothing worthwhile to the game that Chaosium's own system did not already offer.

I don't think it does. It does however bring the system to more people and make it easier for DMs to introduce to players who aren't so interested in learning new systems.

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. .

Except they aren't because you never get around the non-optional (well it is really but the rules don't list it as optional) death from massive damge rules. Every shot has a chance to kill you as any PC who takes 10hp of damage has to run the risk of dying. In order to avoid this ana verage person with a con of 10 who puts their good saves into fort has to be 6th level to survive this 50% of the time. Does that sound like a system that encourages a combatative style of play? Similarly, in order for an invetigator with a dex of 10 to hit a Deep One with a pistol, you'd need to a) have a feat to use the gun, which the GM can clearly not allow you average scholar/journalist etc to have. b) take the ofense option, which again the average GM wouldn't let a journo have and c) be 6th level, all to hit 50% of the time. Personally, I've played a bit of CoC (motly BRP) and I've never seen a PC get to 6th level... but if I had, I'd wouldn't be playing a cop or anythign else. I'd be playing a nerdy professor, taking the age penalties and all.

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.

a) it's optional. See the paragraph 'recovering sanity' on page 50. The main point about tPCs going insane regardless is the one I subscribe to. as in b) 1d6 per level? They wouldn't lose that in an average encounter?

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.

BRP CoC had some fairly rediculous posibilies in the rules too. And I still say that if people want to play a scary game, rolling a d20 instead of a d% doesn't make a difference. Given that PCs are going to die, go insane and other such things, a good GM and a keen set of players should eb able to make it work just fine.

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.

So you're looking at a d20 board why? And the aim of the book (writen as it was by the DG co-author) was to provide rules for all kinds of CoC experience. I fail to see how this is possibly a bad thing? There are generic rules for firearms as well, so use those. Play a 1920's game and kick out a player who asks for an AK-47.

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.

I think I have, but you probably won't agree. Regardless, I don't think that imagination is the issue. I think it's "hmm, not every one can come tonight, lets do something different", or it's "let's play a different kind of game for a bit, don't worry you casual gamers who never thing of RPGs when you're not here and have been playing 3e for a year now aren't going to have to learn many new rules. Just some new preconceptions. Bwahahahaha."

 

[The Great Sun Jester]

Sigh. At least I thought we could all consider the arguement a draw and leave it at that. Ah well, people can go on about the massive damage rule, or the innumerable other caveats and fixes proposed in the D20 Cthulhu rulebook, in an attempt to make the rules for a high fantasy game, one which is frankly closer, in terms of rules and ethos to wargaming than to roleplaying, appropriate to one of sophisticated, psychological, realistic horror, but they're nonetheless just that: fixes. The addition of more and more exceptions to the already exception-based, loophole-ridden D20 rules system is not something to be applauded, rather the quantity and obtrusiveness of the modifications necessary to make this botch-job of a conversion only further demonstrate the system's limitations.

Moreover, however efficient these fixes, I consider them intrusive and unrealistic, other people may disagree, they nonetheless do not produce any kind of positive arguement for using D20 over BRP. Indeed, the only arguement produced thus far has been the vague notion that there exists some nebulous group of players who have been desparate to play Call of Cthulhu for twenty years, but somehow unable to comprehend, or bother to learn, Chaosium's BRP rules system, who can now at last play the game, thanks to the all-encompasing Open Gaming License and D20. Perhaps I overstate my case there, indeed I certainly do, but it remains that I find the suggestion that gamers cannot, or should not, learn to use more than one system to play different games, fatuous. BRP is hardly complex, is it? Furthermore, the failure, inherent in the ethos behind D20, to grasp that different styles of game benefit from different systems flies in the face of more than a decade's worth of well-established thought within the games industry. In any case, who are they, these players who can't cope with more than one system? They may well be out there, but I know a lot of roleplayers, and I don't even know one. To my mind, presuming that these people exist, and are not merely a fiction created by Wizards' marketing department, then if they lack the imagination or intellectual energy to comprehend the utility of using a different system for a different game, then they can stick to playing Dungeons and Dragons until they acquire them.

It should be pretty clear from the above that I don't like D20, but I have had little cause to take issue with it until it began to impinge upon games I do like. Playing D20 Cthulhu, to my mind, is very likely to put potential players off, or to give them only a partial, or a very inaccurate, appreciation of Lovecraft's world. Further, I suspect that, should D20 Cthulhu become popular, it will lead to a significant dumbing-down of Call of Cthulhu releases to make them more appealing to D20's predominantly early-to-mid-teens audience. Having finished ranting, my point stands: I have yet to be presented with any good positive reccomendations to using D20 to play Call of Cthulhu with.

 

[Olive]

It should be pretty clear from the above that I don't like D20, but I have had little cause to take issue with it until it began to impinge upon games I do like. Playing D20 Cthulhu, to my mind, is very likely to put potential players off, or to give them only a partial, or a very inaccurate, appreciation of Lovecraft's world. Further, I suspect that, should D20 Cthulhu become popular, it will lead to a significant dumbing-down of Call of Cthulhu releases to make them more appealing to D20's predominantly early-to-mid-teens audience. Having finished ranting, my point stands: I have yet to be presented with any good positive reccomendations to using D20 to play Call of Cthulhu with.

I'm not going to keep arguing the rules with you as you don't seem willing to actually do so. Needless to say, until you actually give me some concrete examples, i remain unconvinced that BRP is in any way better for anything than d20.

I, however, will point out a few things.

WotC market research tells us that, despite popular opinion in some sectors, the average age of DnD players is something like 18-35. Or in other words, the average age of roleplayers. Every poll on this board has borne that out. This has caused WotC to aim their products at a higher age bracket than they did previously, leading to the huge number of complaints on these boards when Dragon magazine has words that the boards won't let me type in it.

Furthermroe, if the presence of d20 and BRP stats in a Chaosium CoC product (and as far as I know Pagan is the only other company that has the right to publish CoC stuff at the moment), is impingment well then you might need to grow a thicker skin. All the dual stat products so far have been identical reprints with extra stat blocks.

How pwople become so obsessed with a rules system that the mere presence of a kind of stat block some how ruins the product is beyond me, but needless to say I don't think it's d20 players who need to grow up.

I still think that BRP CoC players should be pleased. I could care less what version anyone else plays (something that you should prehaps consider adopting as an attitude), but the fact that d20 vastly outsells BRP should help to make sure that CoC prodcts keep on coming for sometime to come, or even start to be produced with more regularity. If the products get dumbed down it won't be the fault of d20, it will be the fault of prejudices that d20 is some how a morons system, predjudices that aren't borne out by reality.

In any case, who are they, these players who can't cope with more than one system? They may well be out there, but I know a lot of roleplayers, and I don't even know one. To my mind, presuming that these people exist, and are not merely a fiction created by Wizards' marketing department, then if they lack the imagination or intellectual energy to comprehend the utility of using a different system for a different game, then they can stick to playing Dungeons and Dragons until they acquire them.

You're missign the point. People should play whatever they want. If they want to play BRP then mroe power to them. If they feel that d20 does the job, then why does that bother you so much? Anyway, I should point out, as you're new here, that d20 bashing goes down pretty badly on these boards. Especially when you question the intellect of people who choose to like a system. It's just bad form.

 

[gamecat]

I can sympathize with The Great Sun Jester. My current campaign is freeform RP. No rules. It's made beautiful roleplayers out of opportunistic munchkins. The thing I'm beginning to think is that rules are just things for players to exploit to "Beat the game".

 

[The Great Sun Jester]

Deeper sigh. I do not consider myself to be, as you would have it, Olive, obsessing over rules systems, when all that I have been trying to do has been to make some input to this discussion, predominantly one-sided as it has been, of which system, Chaosium's or Wizards' is the most appropriate to running Call of Cthulhu, and to have an interesting debate.

I'm sorry that you seem to feel so stung by the suggestion that D20 might be less than the perfect all-things-to-all-settings system that it is marketed as that you feel compelled to attack me. If you believe that rules systems are unimportant, though seemingly you believe so only so long as that system is D20, then you're welcome to so believe. Accept, please, that a good number of other people, including a lot of game designers, think differently, and believe that an appropriate system complements its setting, and makes it easier for the GM (or Keeper, or DM, or Hollyhock God, or whatever) to establish an appropriate atmosphere.

Neither do I question anyone's intellect, even yours, what I am perhaps seeking to do is to encourage people to question the basis of their decisions. You come across, I'm afraid, as rude, doctrinaire and blinkered, but feel free to prove me wrong by actually advancing an answer to the question I posed, of what positive reccommendations D20 had as a system for Call of Cthulhu, rather than simply attacking me for having a different opinion and daring to share it.

I particularly resent that you feel obliged to point out that I'm new here, as if that should somehow cow me, and encourage me to watch what I say, and toe some indefinable party line. I trust most people to be capable of discussing something without rancour, and to enjoy arguing with someone whose opinions differ from theirs.

 

[Olive]

Deeper sigh.

Indeed.

I'm sorry that you seem to feel so stung by the suggestion that D20 might be less than the perfect all-things-to-all-settings system that it is marketed as that you feel compelled to attack me

I don't think anything of the sort. I've played BRP CoC, WFRP and a bunch of other games. But the attacks started with lines like this:

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

To my mind, presuming that these people exist, and are not merely a fiction created by Wizards' marketing department, then if they lack the imagination or intellectual energy to comprehend the utility of using a different system for a different game

So when you say

Neither do I question anyone's intellect, even yours, what I am perhaps seeking to do is to encourage people to question the basis of their decisions.

Then I say you are, in fact questioning people's intellect. And I reacted. I almost certainly over reacted, and I'm sorry for that, but remember that this is a two way street.

I particularly resent that you feel obliged to point out that I'm new here, as if that should somehow cow me, and encourage me to watch what I say, and toe some indefinable party line. I trust most people to be capable of discussing something without rancour, and to enjoy arguing with someone whose opinions differ from theirs.

Believe it or not, this wasn't how I intenede for that to come off. Mostly I was jsut trying to say that the mods here have a low tollerance for questing the intellect of people who liked20 systems. More a firendly warning than anything else.

Have a good day!

 

[Patrick O'Duffy]

I love arguments that boil down to this:

Person One: You can't possibly play a game based on System X in anything but this style.

Person Two: I play it in a different style.

Person One: Aren't you listening? I already said that isn't possible!

Person Two: Nonetheless, I play it in a different style.

Person One: You're wrong!

Sigh.

Having played the original version of Call of Cthulhu for nearly 20 years, and having played the d20 version, I'm certainly convinced that both play about the same way, support the same styles of play, and (most importantly) support the same flavour and tone.

If you want to assume that I'm wrong or lying or crazy, go ahead. Me, I'll assume that my experiences are in fact what I think they are, and that other people's rejection of those experiences says more about their mindsets and prejudices than about mine.