[CoC] What is it, exactly?

[Henry]

Sam, WayneLigon, and the good Colonel pretty much summed it up, but the only other thing to add is that you will see a lot of discussion here and there about "which system is better" to play the game with - the original game system by Chaosium (BRP), or the one that WotC designed (d20).

To me, the original system fits the concept of plain humans fighting to stave off cosmic horror and insanity. The d20 version is slightly more heroic in that, since characters gain levels and therefore hit points, they can take a LOT more "nickel-and-dime" punishment overall, although the way the system is built, one REALLY solid hit or gunshot will be fatal. And big 20 foot tall monsters with tentacles are ALWAYS fatal.

If you were rating them as movies, the original system would have a feel more like Steven King's "The Stand," while the d20 version would feel more like Friday the 13th, or the Halloween series.

 

[Olive]

...but you have a group of people (rather than the more common Lovecraftian situation of a lone individual) and your party actually learns more about the deeper mysteries of reality and then wants to aid humanity by stopping these beings, unlike the standard Lovecraftian "hero" who goes insane and realizes that there is little or nothing humanity can EVER do to them.

Ya reckon?

All the games I've played have involved party/individual stummbling upon something wierd, investigating and then going mad/dieing.

Apart from the party, ain't nothing unlovecraftian about that. How are your players not going insane? Plus some of lovecraft's protqgonists don't go insane, but they lose some of their grip on reality... just like your characters losing sanity points.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Ya reckon?

All the games I've played have involved party/individual stummbling upon something wierd, investigating and then going mad/dieing.

Personally, I've yet to have someone actually go insane from seeing something that might actually be brain-bending. People seem to go nuts all the time from seeing relatively mundane things like mutilated corpses though.

Apart from the party, ain't nothing unlovecraftian about that. How are your players not going insane? Plus some of lovecraft's protqgonists don't go insane, but they lose some of their grip on reality... just like your characters losing sanity points.

Almost none of lovecraft's protagonists go insane. There are one or two who fall into a fugue and somehow escape a situation during it, but most of them hang onto their sanity. It tends to be non-protagonist characters who go bonkers.

My problem with the basic game system is that most characters will have only minimal chances to succeed at mundane tasks. Which means that the keeper can't rely on his players finding clues (for instance), and often means that he'll have to just throw things at them. In fact the only thing that PC's seem to end up being able to do with any reliability is kill mythos creatures, which kind of defeats the point of the game.

 

[Wraith Form]

Almost none of lovecraft's protagonists go insane.

Hunh?

I argue that most of the narrators in Lovecraft's stories are ALREADY insane as they begin their narration. They just don't come across as your typical, overt, 12-Monkeys-Brad Pitt psychotic.

Like most things Lovecraftian, the protagonists' insanity is subtle and...hinted at, rather than thrown in your face with a frothing mouth and rolling, crazed eyes.

Besides, it wasn't "correct" or "proper" to have overt insanity written about in the '20's when H.P. set pen to paper....it was more "civilized" and hushed up.

 

[Henry]

Lord de la Poer, the narrator of "Rats in the Walls," was definitely nuts. I know that the narrator of "Mountains of Madness" was.

Past that, the line gets fuzzier to me. "The Call of Cthulhu," the titular story, it's hard to say because the narrator is not actually present in the story, as far as I can tell; it's written rather objectively. Inspector Legrasse stayed pretty cool while shooting up Louisiana cultists, and the Norweigan fisherman's cool was what saved him in the end.

But I can agree that at least half of Lovecraft's protagonists were pretty sound of mind - From Armitage on down; that's what the game is really based on; those stalwarts who DID go into incredible danger and came out saving the world, or at least New England.

 

[Cyri'kazzen the Drow]

Filling in missing pieces of information

Others have filled in the details as far as occupations and mythos and game play. So I will turn to several areas I haven't seen written about the game in this thread.

I have to agree with Wormwood, that it is the best roleplaying game I have played. The focus is much more on mood, atmosphere, investigation, and the unknown. I believe it was also the first horror roleplaying game out there.

Originally, there were several eras that the game could be played in (1890s Victorian England, 1920's, and Cthulhu Now, although you can move the game into any era with a little work). Most of the Chaosium products are set in the 1920s, although lately I have noticed a plethora of Cthulhu Now products. I believe they are coming out with Pulp Cthulhu (1930s) and Dark Ages Cthulhu (1000 AD) supplements as well. Depending on one's tastes, there is alot of variety in terms of settings one can play. Everyone has their own preferences, but I have always enjoyed the 1920's game the most.

I think both systems have positives and negatives depending on what type of game you want to run.

I also recommend reading Lovecraft's stories to get a sense of the nihilism that he conveyed.

 

[Wombat]

Okay, there is also this point --

How many of Lovecraft's heroes, after finding out about the eldritch blasphemous horrors go back for a second helping?

Yet again that is the common form for CoC.

This is a hard thing to reconcile. I like playing the game, as long as it is run by a competent GM, but I just don't think the game has a terribly Lovecraftian feel to it -- too much action, too much hope, too much going back for more, too big of groups, and the players usually feeling like they can actually do something against the Big Bads.

CoC, more than any other game I have run across in my 25+ years of gaming, requires a good GM and a solid group of players. I have run across far too many sessions of CoC being run by unprepared GMs or GMs who didn't know how to get the mood right, that slow creeping feeling that something is wrong, as opposed to "a dozen screaming cultists come after you with knives and tommyguns". Far too many games have devolved into monster-killing sessions or face downs with Nyarlathotep rather than questioning whether you are sane or not (or how to convince others of The Truth once you have convinced yourself that you are sane, no matter what others tell you).

In the end, I have run three very succesful CoC games. All there were me and a single player. None of the Old Ones ever materialized. It was claustrophobic and none of the players ever wanted to run their characters again, feeling the characters were to emotionally scarred to ever do anything normal again.

Hmm, maybe that would be the way to run the game after all...

 

[Cyri'kazzen the Drow]

Wombat, I am not sure I agree with all of your points, but several really hit the nail on the head in terms of my experiences with CoC.

The games I have either GMed or played in were rarely high on action and much more investigation driven. In numerous one-timers and over several major campaigns, I believe there were only one or two times where we encountered a Great Old One or Outer God. Of course, those whose minds weren't fried, were simply easily killed. There was little hope as I recall, which is different than your experiences. This really drives home the point that like any game, CoC is played very differently by different folks.

Now I agree with you completely about the game requiring a competent GM and solid group of players. The right mood for the game can be tough to attain without a GM who tries to evoke it in numerous ways and by players who buy into setting the mood. Preparation is also essential for the game, probably more so than other games in my opinion. It doesn't have to turn into a fightfest every session provided that people don't like that style.

As I mentioned above, our games rarely resorted to a ton of gunplay and concentrated more on investigation and horror. Thats not to say that there wasn't action, there just wasn't excessive action. Which was good because we weren't really into that much action.

Most of our games were with 2-3 players and a GM, so it was small enough to easily create atmosphere. There were several characters that lived a few scenarios and half the enjoyment for the players was role-playing these low sanity individuals. Its definitely a difficult game to build a more powerful character, but thats not the games purpose. Once we learned that the game was more about the storyline of the scenario than the investigators we were playing, there was no expectation that our investigators were going to live long and no one really seemed to mind. It was more about evoking atmosphere and the unknown for us.

 

[Olive]

Okay, there is also this point --

How many of Lovecraft's heroes, after finding out about the eldritch blasphemous horrors go back for a second helping?

Yet again that is the common form for CoC.

We only play it as one shots, and I've never met anyone who did differently.

 

[Felon]

I've been extremely intrigued by the Call of Cthulhu references I've been running into. Can someone explain the story and gameplay in simple terms for me?

Sure.

Ready....?

GO IN THE HOLE AND DIE