D&D 5E (2024) Cthulhu Confirmed!

[Seramus]

If it has hit points, we can kill it.

 

[Remathilis]

I think it's a better question to ask what Cthulhu's domain will be like.

 

[Parmandur]

From what we see in the preview it seems likely that it doesn't live up to that title IMO. However, if there is something akin to the mythic trait hidden in there I may change my opinion.

Personally the best take I have seen so far for 5e was Sandy Peterson's version.

We don't see much of the block, and I'm sure it has some eldritch surprises.

 

[jdrakeh]

To be fair, the Cthulhu mythos was in one of the first AD&D books: Deities and Demigods. So if any RPG has some claim to it, it is kind of D&D.

I'm aware, but I still don't like it and D&D has done just fine without it for over 30 years.

 

[ersatzphil]

To be fair, the Cthulhu mythos was in one of the first AD&D books: Deities and Demigods. So if any RPG has some claim to it, it is kind of D&D.

 

[dave2008]

I'm aware, but I still don't like it and D&D has done just fine without it for over 30 years.

I mean I take the stance that D&D has never not had it. So it has done just fine with it since basically the beginning IMO.

Now, I don't think you need it to play the game. I have made stats for Mythos monsters I have never used them in my game or "aberrations" or cosmic horror elements really in 40+ years of playing. I have also never really used any "horror" themes in games either and I can only ever remember using undead in any significant way once. Heck, I have only ever run one "high magic" D&D gamed and I rarely use dragons (despite them being my favorite monster). The game does just fine without a whole lot of stuff that is available.

 

[mamba]

Yes, what is scary is very subjective. Back when it came out I can remember a friend telling my "The Blair Witch Project" was the scariest thing they had ever seen and it didn't really do anything for me.

the scariest thing about Blair Witch was the shaky camera, the rest was boring as hell

 

[dave2008]

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I'm familiar and I've played a little CoC too. I still have one of the 4e books (from the eighties) I think

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, what is scary is very subjective. Back when it came out I can remember a friend telling my "The Blair Witch Project" was the scariest thing they had ever seen and it didn't really do anything for me. We are all different. I too didn't find "The Witch" scary, but I will say the movie "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" hunted my nightmares when I was a child.

Blair Witch was kind of an unusual case, because it was one of the first really successful found footage horror movies, and one of the first movies to play with the ARG-style viral marketing campaign. As you say, horror is subjective, but a huge part of why Blair Witch had such a reputation for being so scary was because of the context surrounding it, not the movie itself. It’s very slow, meandering, and contains almost no actual scares. The scary part is meant to be in convincing you that it’s a real thing that happened, or at least getting you to believe it could have happened, even if you know it didn’t really. Plus between the shaky camera giving a lot of viewers motion sickness and the one crying scene being so gross, a lot of people to vomited in the theaters, the stories (and smell) of which contributed to the impression of it being so viscerally disturbing that people couldn’t handle it.

Watching it on the small screen, without the surrounding hype, and after the found footage horror trend has long since worn out its welcome, it just doesn’t work anymore.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The teleserie "Lovecraft Country" could be a good example of a domain of cosmic horror with enough space for different parallel stories not always directly linked to the dark lord or the main plot.