DMing CoC

[gamecat]

I bought Call of Cthulhu for the guns rules, never expecting that they (my players) would want to play it. Well, they do.

From my impression of it, CoC requires that the players take the DM seriously, (Which they dont), but what do you guys think?

Compare running CoC to running D&D.

 

[Henry]

Call of Cthulhu can be run in two ways:

As a dark grim and serious game, where death awaits around each corner, and the PC confront horrors where they go insane learning the truth;

Or

As a dark humor game, where the player characters are hopeless - but they have a good time with great death scenes. To borrow a quote from an old game called Lost Souls, Yes, now you, too, can mock death in the comfort of your own home!

If you want to run it seriously, tell the players before hand that you'd like to run it seriously, and just play it as a one-shot to see how it goes. Take after "serious toned" horror movies such as Mouth of Madness and Darkness Falls. Play up the unknown, and if you think the players would mock the drooly monster with large eyeballs, don't let it be seen. Offer hints, kill off an NPC or two gruesomely, and then if any players get separated, play their scene separate from the group, and if they don't survive, DON'T tell the players what happened! The unknown will scare far better than the known will.

Good Luck!

 

[Shapermc]

Compare running CoC to running D&D.

You cant it is that simple. Seriously.

EDIT: I thought of a good way! Ok it is like if you have been playing Final Fantasy all your life, and now you want to play Resident Evil or Silent Hill. You have a whole diffeent can of worms (mechanics, rules, skills) but in the end you realise that there is less to learn for the Survival Horror games. Over all they are similar because you use polygons, a soundtrack, and play it on your PlayStation. Well D&D would be like Final Fantasy (I know that D&D are effectivly nothing like FF but I wanted to use something Fantasy that involved RGP that everyone knew) and CoC would be the Resident Evil/Silent Hill (More Silent hill than Resident Evil.)

Basically you wanderaround in the dark in a scarry setting putting clues together and occasionally fighting (or running) from some nasty things.

Also dont think that all Investigators Will die. Not all will. In one shot games only occasionally (and usually from PC stupidity) do investigators die. In a Campeign more go insane than die.

 

[kengar]

I bought Call of Cthulhu for the guns rules, never expecting that they (my players) would want to play it. Well, they do.

From my impression of it, CoC requires that the players take the DM seriously, (Which they dont), but what do you guys think?

Compare running CoC to running D&D.

It's not so much that they have to take the DM seriously as that a horror/scary atmosphere is harder to maintain at the table than a joking/light one. It's like when one or two of your D&D players are really trying to roleplay and get into the game and one or two other players keep making "Seinfeld" references and meta-gaming. It breaks the mood.

In horror games, like in going to a scary movie, part of you has to want to be scared. If the players aren't into that, then CoC may not be the game for them.

YMMV

 

[Flyspeck23]

Re: Re: DMing CoC

In horror games, like in going to a scary movie, part of you has to want to be scared. If the players aren't into that, then CoC may not be the game for them.

Did you see "The Ring"? It scared the crap out of me - even though I didn't want to be scared (and usually take horror movies on the funny side).

And, as was pointed out by one guy named Monte Cook, there are certain techniques you could use to try to scare your players even if they think they can't be scared by a RPG.

Sorry, but I can't find Monte's article, but I know I've seen it

 

[Neowolf]

I think the place you play in can have a huge impact on the overall "feel" of the game. I've only played CoC twice: once in a comics shop in the middle of the day, and once late at night in a darkened room where the only light was candlelight. Guess what? The game played in the darkened room was much scarier. Also, to make combat quite a bit scarier, limit players to something like 30 seconds to make a decision about what they're doing on their turn. This speeds up combat considerably, and also adds to the tension of "oh man, I've gotta decide NOW!" You might rule that anyone who hasn't decided what to do within 30 seconds is panicking, and not give them a turn. It all depends on how into the game you want to get. Generally, I don't get into "high pressure" gaming, but it really makes CoC a lot better. Good luck!

 

[snak]

From my impression of it, CoC requires that the players take the DM seriously, (Which they dont), but what do you guys think?

Compare running CoC to running D&D.

A good question to ask is why don't your players take you seriously?

Roleplaying isn't just for the players. The DM, GM, Keeper etc... has their role(s) to play also.

If you take your job seriously then your players are more likely to take you seriously. I don't mean stern-faced-sourpuss-killjoy -type serious, but somewhat professional demeanor.

Few ideas:

1. Know your stuff. Know the rules backwards and forwards. As your players rely on your judgement calls to keep the game going they must have faith in your ability to make informed decisions within any systems mechanics.

2. Know your stuff ad nauseum. Know what the basic motivations and capabilites of your Npcs/baddies are. What do they want, what they will do to get it, and what happens when someone gets in their way. Imagine the layout of each scenario, not necessarily how it should go down, but the actual environment. How will you describe ambient sensual data. Touch, smell, sight, taste, sound.

3. Encourage your players to know their stuff about their characters. Ask players to describe their characters backgrounds, fears, hopes and desires. All this is fuel for their imagination and provides an interesting pattern to the carpet their character is standing on until you rip it out from underneath them.

4. Control your environment as much as possible. Is the T.V. or stero on? Turn it off. Bright and sunny? Make it dimmer. Ask players to mute cell phones or leave table if they get a call.

5. Be aware of your own body language and language in general. Are you slumped back in your chair or leaning forward engaged in what you are doing? Discourage meta talk. I love Monty Python, but it really isn't necessary to quote it at the table often.

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."


Here is a link to my friend Jeff Ibach's site. He has compiled a few great snippets on running games of all kinds. Also the Unknown Armies and Spaceship Zero games have awsome sections on how to run different genre's successfully.
http://www.dmshaven.freeservers.com/advice.html

Also this book specifically and this author in general has a bunch of great tips on running kick butt games in any genre.

GM Mastery: NPC Essentials {d20} by Johnn Four

Hope this helps

 

[Broken Fang]

Player who fails SAN check: "I vomit on the floor."

Player 1 who makes SAN check: "I start firing rounds into whatever the heck it is, while getting out the hand grenade, all while making sure I am standing behind my puking buddy."

Player 2 who makes SAN check: "I run like..."

The main problem I have seen with D&D players trying out CoC is they always want to charge into combat. In D&D the fantasy aspect (magic and monsters) are all part of the world. The PC's know about dragons and trolls, etc. In CoC it's all the secret behind the scenes world that nobody believes in (Lovecraft, X-Files, etc). It takes a different mindset to play in CoC. If you can get them to change that mindset CoC can be one of the best role-playing games out there (as combat often leaves you dead).

 

[snak]

The main problem I have seen with D&D players trying out CoC is they always want to charge into combat. In D&D the fantasy aspect (magic and monsters) are all part of the world. The PC's know about dragons and trolls, etc. In CoC it's all the secret behind the scenes world that nobody believes in (Lovecraft, X-Files, etc). It takes a different mindset to play in CoC. If you can get them to change that mindset CoC can be one of the best role-playing games out there (as combat often leaves you dead).

Excellent observation. I played a Coc scenario once where we all started as soldiers in Vietnam. We were all gung ho what with the M-16's and grenades. We played like D&D characters and within' 10 minutes we were all dead. The keeper just shook his head and smiled and then had one of the characters regain consciousness in the hospital. We were much more cautious with the second group to go in and investigate what happened to the first.

 

[Broken Fang]

Many years ago we actually played the old Chaosism version and had a long lasting campaign set in the 1920's. We played it like and Indiana Jones movie with a heavy duty amount oh horror and the supernatural added in. The good thing was that the entire group wanted to play and did set our minds to the setting (often when something with more than two legs and arms showed up we ran, dragging those who were puing with us). We had a role-playing group and wanted to role-play, combat wasn't as important.

Now you could gather materials from the X-Files, the Mummy, Matrix, etc.

If you can prevent them from charging everything with guns blazzing you will have half the battle won.