DMing CoC

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, style wise CoC is very little like D&D, though I have run a horror fantasy game a long time ago using D&D. Atmosphere is everything, dim the lights, play creepy, but quiet, music. (I am fond of Saturn, Bringer of Old Age from Holsts the Planets.)

Movie wise Blair Witch Project was a lot like a low level CoC game, whether or not you liked the movie. (I did, but I know a lot of folks who hated it.)a lot of key elements for running the game are there, an ancient evil that is still remembered by the locals, research to find out about the maguffin, isolation, things just being wrong, and the feeling that someone, or something, is following the party... Lots of failed San rolls too! And best of all you never get to see the monster.

D&D is, perhaps, more like the recent remake of the Mummy, lots of action, NPCs dying all over the place, tombs, monsters, and things getting destroyed.

Running CoC as dark humour might be possible, but seems a bit of a waste. Examples of that might be Cast a Deadly Spell.

An animated CoC series, tad weak, but recognizable, is at Atom films, you can find it at http://search.shockwave.com/search/?sp-c=3000&site=af&sp-a=sp100190fc&sp-p=all&sp-q=investigators

The Auld Grump, who knows the question wasn't abot films, but felt they were good examples...

 

[gamecat]

Thanks a lot, all of you.

I think I'm going to run it as a one-shot, using the candlelight idyea. I'll respond with the results later.

 

[frankthedm]

Re: Re: DMing CoC

6. Show don't tell.

Keeper-"You see a Shoggoth." Lame. "You hear a high pitched keening, like the sound a Dolphin makes, coming closer. What do you do?"

Player(s)- "I unholster my Glock and chamber a round. I turn my mag light on and point it down the hallway."

Keeper- "The beam illuminates down the hallway approximately 50 feet and stops at what seems to be a boiling wall of greyish pink flesh. You are now getting a whiff of what seems to be a mixture of ammonia and boiled cabbage. Everone make san checks."

"From a Buick 8 was a fun read", wasn't it?.

 

[synecdoche]

Good for you for giving it a shot...

I haven't played CoC as much as I would have liked, but, like your players, I was going into it from a fairly light-hearted D&D background.

The first adventure our keeper ran was light-hearted... Just a one shot as a couple of us had never played before. I don't recall the title (the keeper may have come up with it himself) but basically it was a zombie movie. We didn't stand a chance. My character ended up hiding on top of a shelf in a Costco-like warehouse store, dropping whatever he could on whatever he saw.

Anyway, that was a light-hearted game too, but it still prepared us for Cthulhu-- unlike D&D, it probably isn't too wise to fight back.

Another thing that is useful is that you can have your characters witness what the Mythos powers can do-- just do it to an NPC first. Hopefully they'll realize that they might want to find an alternate course of action if their original plan was to hit that tentacled beast with a table leg.

-dave