Cthulhu and violence

[Nisarg]

If some of you saw my cthulhu thread, you'd notice that mine is not a typical campaign, and its got more of a pulp or high adventure feel to it.

However, I have been told by more than a few people that this is not a "standard" campaign for more than the feel, but also for the level of violence in the game.

Now, I have played the "typical" cthulhu for 15 years or so, and while I agree my current campaign has a serious difference of tone, I do NOT think it is any more violent than most campaigns.

This is where Cthulu and its fans go into massive hypocrisy. They say that in Cthulhu violence never solves anything, and should best be avoided, and is highly dangerous.

In reality, only the last is true. Violence IS highly dangerous in CoC, but it usually CAN'T be avoided, and it usually does end up being able to solve a few things.

Most published scenarios have high levels of violence.
Virtually all adventures I've ever seen, run, or participated in have had violence as a requisite to the solution (stopping the cultists, shooting the mad wizard or blowing him up, trying to shoot up the deep ones/mi-go etc etc).
The only exceptions to this are when the PCs can get help from the authorities, in which case those authorities solve the problem with violence so its the same thing really; and when the pcs are dealing with a monster too huge to be stopped with a gun or even a bomb, and then have to rely on some spell to send the big bad back to his home dimension.

Now, I'm sure I'll get a few posts on here from people saying that combat is not essential to CoC, but then you'd better answer me this: barring "gimmicky" adventures, how does one resolve the typical CoC adventure WITHOUT using violence?

Do you politely ask the nice cultists to please not do their nasty sacrifices anymore?

Nisarg

 

[Henry]

I'm actually in agreement - violence is a larger part of traditional cthulhu scenarios than some of its adherents contend. But the other traditional solution is what Hitchcock would call "The Macguffin Solution" - the investigators must find the spell / sacred altar / magic phrase / what have you that can solve the problem. Looking back through adventure series such as The Stars are Right!, the answer is usually "discover the ritual" or "stop the ritual by blowing something up."

HOWEVER, the point that tackling the Elder God Minion directly is well-taken. I guess if someone says, "violence doesn't solve the problem", they may be talking about the traditional D&D approach of blasting the monster. Usually, in CoC the solution is to blast the people summoning the monster, before they can do so.

 

[WayneLigon]

HOWEVER, the point that tackling the Elder God Minion directly is well-taken. I guess if someone says, "violence doesn't solve the problem", they may be talking about the traditional D&D approach of blasting the monster. Usually, in CoC the solution is to blast the people summoning the monster, before they can do so.

True, true. Pulp/high adventure and the Mythos are certainly not strangers. The violence level involving the minions, the priests and some of the more terrestrial (ie, hurt by mortal weapons) creatures can be pretty amazing.

Just because Lovecraft's heros didn't think of stopping a degenerate Bayou ritual by lobbing a Mason jar full of nails and nitrogycerine into the middle of the cultists doesn't mean you shouldn't. Not that we've ever done such a thing.

 

[Nisarg]

True, true. Pulp/high adventure and the Mythos are certainly not strangers. The violence level involving the minions, the priests and some of the more terrestrial (ie, hurt by mortal weapons) creatures can be pretty amazing.

Just because Lovecraft's heros didn't think of stopping a degenerate Bayou ritual by lobbing a Mason jar full of nails and nitrogycerine into the middle of the cultists doesn't mean you shouldn't. Not that we've ever done such a thing.

Well, as a matter of fact, Lovecraft's solution was violence more often than not as well. His Bayou full of cultists in Call of Cthulhu don't get politely asked to stop, they get raided by the FBI. Innsmouth is blown to bits.
And Cthulhu is beaten by being rammed in the head by a ship!

Not by some kind of angsty role-play.

Half the time Cthulhu is about confronting unspeakeable incomprehensible evil and going mad. The other half of the time its about confronting unspeakable incomprehensible evil and kicking its ass.

Nisarg

 

[Desdichado]

There's a lengthy discussion on this very topic at rpg.net currently, for those interested.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=165356

 

[Nisarg]

There's a lengthy discussion on this very topic at rpg.net currently, for those interested.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=165356

Yes, I noticed it.
I found it very interesting that not ONE of the people arguing that "problems Cthulhu really shouldn't be solved through combat" have been able to propose any alternate solutions.. as in, when the cultists are plotting, and sacrificing virgins, and the tentacly thing is coming through the dimensional gate.. wtf else are you supposed to do? Ask them all politely but sternly to behave?

Nisarg

 

[philreed]

There's a lengthy discussion on this very topic at rpg.net currently, for those interested.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=165356

Thanks for the link!

 

[Henry]

Well, the old saying goes in CoC, "If you have to resort to violence, you've failed." Believe it or not, it's still true, because you're resorting to violence when you have to blow the tentacly thing back to the stone age because you couldn't stop him from coming.

Good example of Violence failing:

-I ran a d20 Modern / Cthulhu mix a while back, where the Government Agents were supposed to be infiltrating the survival cultist hideout. Instead, they waltzed right up, made themselves conspicuous, and started lobbing grenades (!!!) when it went sour. They made the Waco Davidian incident look really, really pacifistic by comparison. They alerted the ENTIRE compound and grounds, caused the cultists to kill all the innocents inside, burned the place to the ground, and STILL didn't stop the summoning ritual they were supposed to stop, and in fact caused the cultists to hasten it. In the end, they had to call in a government airstrike to napalm and bomb the entire COMPOUND AND SURROUNDING LANDSCAPE to blackened ash to control the situation. The agents were courtmartialed, and the campaign kinda ended.

Mainly because one player had had a bad week at the office, and the rest decided to go along with it. So violence will go badly in some cases.

 

[Narfellus]

I'm totally in agreement with the original poster. Violence and CoC go hand in hand. Me, I do run a pulp/high-adventure campaign. We've been playing roughly every other Sunday the Masks of Nyarlathotep and they're in the London scenario now. So far they have gunned down nearly 30 naked cultists in NY, questioned then killed Silas, burned down a hotel in London to cover their tracks, shot up the countryside in Lesser Edale, and filled a snakeman full of holes in Soho. (the last scenario ended with cops barrelling down on them; they can't get away with that stuff forever) The players are ruthless, and i admit, a little too trigger-happy. But we're all seasoned DnD players, and the transition from that game FULLY to Library Research in CoC woluldn't be as much fun as packing shotguns and solving problems the old-fashioned way.

This is not to say the campaign is not deadly. I keep telling them a time will come when their bullets will not harm a DR 20/+2 demon. I scared them last time by telling them, in their hotel room at that very second, each and every one of them had the possibility of losing d% Sanity if they started poking around with the stuff they'd found.

I'm reminded of another published scenario, Escape from Innsmouth, which actually has you hunting Dagon in a submarine. You're EXPECTED to knock his ass around!

I never played CoC in the original days. I have the 4th and 5th edition, and I play a blend of those, CoC d20, d20 Modern and Grim Tales. Bottom line is we're having a blast with the most well written campaign i've ever seen.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Stupid violence never solves anything in Cthulu; in my D&D campaigns it doesn't solve anything, either.

Violence is usually either the solution or part of the solution. The key is to find the precise point to apply the violence to. Not the front door of the compound in broad daylight, but the high priest and his three acolytes after sneaking into the compound via the sewers (killing some blasphemous but nonetheless failed summoning in the processes), avoiding the guards, carefully planting precision explosives, and leaving the facility before setting them off.

Of course, you've got to bug the sacrificial altar, too.

"Oh Great Lord Cthulu, we call you forth from the depths of - what is that ticking sound, anyway?"

Boom.

Special forces training for the entire team: $1,000,000
State-of-the-art guns, ammo and equipment: $500,000
Military-grade precision explosives: $100,000
Stopping Cthulu from invading our reality: Priceless.