Going to church? Don't forget your sawed-off shotgun!

[Kidarcane]

ravings of a mad man

I apologize for misspelling Cthulhu, so often; you would think after 17 years of my affection for Lovcraftian goodness, I wouldn’t have such a “vowel movement”. There is no excuse.

I must say I have enjoyed the entire passel of posting going on this thread, I’ll be sure to throw more fits so we can have more discussions.

That one person played a PI with an army issue semi-auto handgun. That wasn't gaming the system? My diagnosis is that I'll give the professors player benefit of doubt, and the PI player’s beef is that he wanted to be the BIG MAN of the team, which isn't happening now since there's the Mafioso and the professor turned out to be more Indy and less Geek.

Ouch that wounds me you might think that about me. Many of your points are well taken, if I felt a need to be Big Man at the Table, with the biggest weapon, EGO, and importance, I would have taken the police officer, who came equipped with a Tommy Gun, hand cuffs, and police powers, allowing me arrested the lot of ‘em and Co-opt the game to my own ends. I chose the PI for his investigation skill set to help balance the party a bit. That’s how I gamed the system; I saw we had plenty of killers in the party; I wanted to add some ability to discover information from NPC’s.

The game was new and fresh, the characters were hand-outs. We all had 100 sanity. Our characters do not have any depth as presented., so my “flipping out” comes from a sense of, if I don’t know how the character would react in this situation, I default to sane and “normal”. My expectations are that my fellow players would react similarly.

He can be Indy all he wants; he can be rootin-tootin-sharp-shootin maniac as well. If the player came to me with a 5 page background that explained that he thought the shotgun carried his soul and to be without it would kill him, I would have accepted that. I am not telling him how to play; I was just loudly, exasperatedly, questioning his decision to bring his shotgun to a church without a good reason that could be articulated. One that did not include, I didn't want to be without it when, we got into the inevitable fight.

For the record, after I objected and hoped he’d reconsider and the Keeper let it go, we continued with the scenario, we encountered the walking dead, and I even gave the Archeologist an opportunity to cut the PI down with his weapon of short ranged destruction. I only raised my objection again during a break in the game. The less effected among us even asked “Indy” to provide a any reason, good or bad, as to why he’d have it other than it was on his sheet. My real desire was to have him think more about his character in general.

To go back to Indiana Jones we do find in the movie The Last Crusade, our hero was in a Templar church, and in that church he was attacked, and I don’t recall him shooting back when he was attacked.

How is playing a character that's paranoid enough to pack heat any more metagaming than playing a character that routinely packs heat as part of their job? And yet, nobody complains if you play a PI, ex-cop, or the like in CoC. Heck, the player that complained was playing a PI!

Ultimately, the characters don't just "exist", they are chosen by the players. Therefore, playing a character that has X ability as a matter of course is really no different than playing a character that has X ability by an unusual coincidence.

Also, he didn't really have the choice to use a smaller weapon, as he wasn't proficient with them. Non-proficiency isn't just a game term, it has quantifiable results in the game world. For instance, if I had to go fight in an arena, I'd pick a bo or baseball bat over a sword - they may not be as inherently deadly, but I know how to use them without cutting my own arm off. And I believe the characters were pre-gen, in which case he didn't pick what to be proficient with.

He did have a choice. We always have a choice. He could elect not to bring the dang gun to a church for a friendly meeting with a new contact. Do you habitually carry about your bat or bo, just in the off chace you're thrown into a kumite or arena? If all I had available was shotgun as a feat, but felt I needed to pack a gat, I might choose a pocket revolver and accept my –4 penalty. I’ll even concede that I ought to have left the ol .45 back in the office safe, and just use my two fists of justice, untrained and accepted the penalties, or even do what ever it took to avoid the confrontation.

 

[Numion]

I apologize for misspelling Cthulhu, so often; you would think after 17 years of my affection for Lovcraftian goodness, I wouldn’t have such a “vowel movement”. There is no excuse.

It's Lovecraft

He can be Indy all he wants; he can be rootin-tootin-sharp-shootin maniac as well. If the player came to me with a 5 page background that explained that he thought the shotgun carried his soul and to be without it would kill him, I would have accepted that. I am not telling him how to play; I was just loudly, exasperatedly, questioning his decision to bring his shotgun to a church without a good reason that could be articulated. One that did not include, I didn't want to be without it when, we got into the inevitable fight.

Sorry if I came out too snarky. But your statement above isn't right either, IMO. You would require the player of the archeologist to provide 5 page background to be able to carry firearms. For you to do same requires two words of background: "I'm PI". Who's gaming the system?

He did have a choice. We always have a choice. He could elect not to bring the dang gun to a church for a friendly meeting with a new contact. Do you habitually carry about your bat or bo, just in the off chace you're thrown into a kumite or arena? If all I had available was shotgun as a feat, but felt I needed to pack a gat, I might choose a pocket revolver and accept my –4 penalty. I’ll even concede that I ought to have left the ol .45 back in the office safe, and just use my two fists of justice, untrained and accepted the penalties, or even do what ever it took to avoid the confrontation.

Yes, we all have choices. That's the beauty of roleplaying. You're only mistaken in that you can make or force choices on other players' characters. Players only (usually) control one PC. Let them have 100% control of that one PC, without other players secondguessing what he would or would not do. The DM (or Keeper, in this instance) is there to provide consequences. Not you.

 

[William drake]

This thread is for discussing campaign verisimilitude and dealing with player suspension of disbelief.

We're playing in a Cthulu game last night and one of the players (not me) is an archeologist who happens to be proficient with a sawed-off shotgun. He lists the shotgun as his equipment. This is our first session and the DM (not me) sets us up in church. The archeologist is there to meet with another player who is playing a private investigator (not me).

The players hear a commotion in the back of the church and find a zombie priest eating another priest. First thing that happens? The archeologist takes out his shotgun and shoots the zombie.

The DM is OK with this. One of the other players (also not me) is up in arms though. "Why did you bring a sawed off shotgun to church?" The player had no good reason, other than "I have enemies", which was good enough for the DM. The other player spent several minutes ranting about how stupid that was.

Have you had any similar experiences when a player rants about unrealistic actions despite the DM and the rest of the group letting it slide for the sake of "moving on"?

(And FYI I played a quiet lumberjack who managed to survive the night with 100% of his sanity.)

Well, Cthulu, now there's a game where a shotgun is needed. Sorry, thats just funny.

To explain it...was the player nuts, did he have an opinion about what Cthulu was? was the creature already effecting him? was the Archeologist nuts...or atleast getting there to always be carryig around a loaded weapon?

All those reasons are fine for a horror game, but to just simply have it at the start of the game, with no reason, does make it a bit funny.
ON the other hand, what if his background story is what I've said...what if he and the DM knew he was the one who was going to tell the party about what Cthulu was (what if he was the player who was going to inform the party, the "yoda" of the group?) in that case, he wouldn't have to explain himself, that would open up parts of the plot that the DM didn't want out yet?

But, you're right, those are prob not the reasons.

And yes, I dont like it when players do things that dont make any sense, they just do them to do them.


LIke, in a D&D game I had one player who tried to tell me that he ALWAYS slept in his armor. His reasons, that if they were attacked, hed be ready, and he's a knight, so he has alot of foes. After laughing, I made him take off the armor, and always asked him at every inn, right before bed "now billy, did you get into your P.J's"

I had another player who was a knifemen..and he wore a mask, always...and when after people stoped wanting to talk to him "NPC's in the game" he asked "why dont they seem to like me, or talk to me?" and I said, " well, your always wearing that creepy mask...would u want to talk to the terrorist in the facewrap?" and he said "well, I kill people for a living, I cant let anyone know who I am." and I said "well, it wont be hard to track down the guy in the ski mask will it? No, and, what kind of a killer are you if you worry about being caught all the time? maybe you shouldn't play that guy...to much thinking involved and a mask isnt the bandaid for you to fix this prob."


What I'm saying, is players who RP as if they are always suspicious, or parrnoid, shouldn't be allowed. You can be crazy, but people who constatly think they are under watch, dont leave their houses, and dont make for good intergroup mixing.

Same thing "well, I have enemies" true, but "are they looking for you in the YMCA?" if the player says "yes" then they cant play.

 

[William drake]

THe first time the player who said it was retarded to bring the shotgun into the church, needs the quick action of the sawedoff steel...the archeologist should be "well, maybe it doesn't make sense that I have it now"

 

[Numion]

LIke, in a D&D game I had one player who tried to tell me that he ALWAYS slept in his armor. His reasons, that if they were attacked, hed be ready, and he's a knight, so he has alot of foes. After laughing, I made him take off the armor, and always asked him at every inn, right before bed "now billy, did you get into your P.J's"

Sleeping in full plate is not a good idea, don't you get penalties for that?

Anyway, I suspect Frodo always slept in his armor. Depends on the armor ..

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

Good thing my brother wasn't running that game. His way of dealing with arguing players is to have more bad guys show up. Repeat until players quit arguing and get on with the game.

Yeah sure it's a bit messed up some guy bringing a sawn-off to church. But in an RPG it's not the sinking of the Titanic, guys. Fairly pointless arguments during the first session are a good way to make a GM feel like jacking the whole thing in as a bad job.

Fairly pointless?

Yeah, fairly pointless. OK, the guy was metagaming, sure. But I'll tell you this much;

I don't know a single player who doesn't metagame their ass off as soon as someone mentions the word 'Call of Cthulu'.

Maybe that's because the CoC GM's I've known treat the game as 'Kill characters and try to seriously creep the players out'. It's unusual for any character to survive the session; these are not Investigators, they are roadkill.

But anyway.

C'mon, man. It's just a game.

 

[SSquirrel]

I find it sad that multiple people at the table thought it would be perfectly reasonable to bring a loaded weapon to church.

I live in Kentucky and open carry is legal. Unless the church banned weapons, you could totally wear your gun to church. We also have concealed carry permits, so if he had that he could do it too. I don't see an issue personally, altho even when people saw it was a zombie eating the other priest, I would expect someone to call the cops on the guy whipping out the gun.

 

[Saeviomagy]

So, we've established that:

There was not really any law against the archeologist carrying the weapon.

The DM, not the player put the weapon on the sheet.

The character was meeting with someone in a church (was it one of the other characters? Because then he's meeting with someone selected from "a group of tough nuts who carry guns" by the sounds of things) to help him solve a problem. Is the problem elaborated on any further?

I know that if I picked up my character sheet, and it had listed on it a deadly and concealable weapon that seemed not to fit the general description of the character that I would assume he has a reason to have it. And the only reason to have a deadly concealable weapon is to carry it on your person. Doubly so if you're going to a meeting with someone and that meeting needs to be on neutral ground...

 

[SSquirrel]

Relique du Madde>It was on the front page when I clicked on it. Someone must have posted and then deleted their post or something. I do enjoy some thread necromancy tho

 

[Relique du Madde]

Someone must have posted and then deleted their post or something.

Since user's don't have that functionality then it means it was spam-deleted.


For me what totally blows my mind about this thread is the notion of going against a mythos creature with sawed off shotgun at all. Seriously, using a sawed off shotgun forces you into close range against the beast and would only be likely to just piss it off when you hit it with standard shot or minimally damaged when hit with as standard gauged slug.

Your best bet against a mythos creature would be a round capable of downing an elephant (including those the size of the empire state's building.).