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

[Andor]

Modern Day? Depends who, where and when. I know a guy who made a point of packing during the high holy days at the local synagouge just in case. He does have a permit, and cleared it with the Rabbi before hand. For that matter I also have a permit and carry routinely when in practice. (Which I'm not, I need to get out to the range.) I carry a Kel-Tec P3AT .380. Exactly the same size as the one Wraith carries and for the same reasons.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Judging by your second post it look to me like some of your players are treating CoC like a horror-themed version of D&D. If everyone is happy with this then it's ok I guess but I don't think that is the way the writers of the game intended for it to be played.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Aaron L]

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.)

Ahhh, Call of Cthulhu, how I love it so!
But I think at that point I would have left that game of CoC. On that very instant. One should not make those kinds of allowances to expedite easy combat in (standard) CoC.

Half-crazy clinically paranoid Delta Green agents I'd envision carrying shotguns into a church with them. Anything short of that and I call shenanigans.

I guess I may be the person who would complain about unrealistic actions like that in our group, but then again, no one I've played with has done anything unrealistic enough (for the setting) for me to complain about. And if I happened to be running the game, then I would take the opportunity to complain all I wanted.


But then again (again!), I did once have a player in a standard CoC game (Non DG) I ran who wanted his antiquarian to carry a sword, like on his hip, without ever having experienced anything out of the ordinary and possessing his full allotment of Sanity. I explained to him that he was an ordinary man living on ordinary Earth, as far as he knew, and carrying a sword on his hip would attract all kinds of weird looks and police attention, and it only took about a week (before the game) to get him to understand. He settled for carrying one in in his trunk, which I said was OK (I reasoned that if I had several real swords, heck, I'd be sorely tempted to carry one around in my trunk, to show off to people if nothing else.)

I told him that after he saw some stuff, lost some Sanity, and then wanted to carry a sword on his hip, go for it, but be prepared to be stopped by police and asked why he was armed with a medieval weapon.



But carrying a shotgun into a church, because he "has enemies?" That's too much, and would totally blow my immersion/suspension of disbelief/whatever you wanna call it and completely destroy the game for me.



PS, this all assumes this was before he had encountered the Mythos. If it wasn't, then he should be allowed all due paranoia, but at the very least there should have been a response from the preacher/priest as to why he was armed in the House of the Lord.

This is why my characters, once they have the funds, have their mithral chain shirt nighties...

Brad

hehe, That's exactly what we call them, too!


And if people want to insist that they wear their armor to sleep, then the DM is obliged to enforce that they will be fatigued the next day, unless their armor is Light (and I can completely excuse professional adventurers for wearing Light armor to sleep in)

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

In 1925 there were no federal gun control laws, and the culture was much more pro gun than it is today if the people in question were white. Most gun control laws come from the south and were geared toward disarming blacks. If the laws were enforced at all it was only for minorities. Shotguns under 18 in length were common and sold for around 10 bucks. You could order firearms from sears catalogs even full autos. Less people carried as it was a different time; and marksmenship was looked upon very favorably. Gun companies hired exibition shooters to advertise their wares. You could bring guns to school no big deal. (I would bring a .22 to junior high in 86-88 or so with no problems - suburbs upstate NY not red neck central. ) Culture towards firearms was MUCH different then [1925] (it was not a political issue in anyway unless you were not white). Federal push did not come until after prohibition when treasury agents needed something to enforce, so they passed some federal "revenue raising laws" for them to enforce. [$200 tax on a $10 gun] It went to the Supreme Court on appeal [Defendent won on 2nd ammendment grounds] from prosecution Miller vs US 1939. There was no brief for the defense and neither counsel or defendents appeard. So the state won, Scotus hasn't heard a case since.

Not sure if there were any local laws in Ny Ny during 1925. It would be rare in the extreme to carry in church then; even rarer still for a sawed off shotgun, more of a holyweird gun than anything else, or a way to have a small gun (pistol) cheap. A shot gun would be around 10 but a good 1911 or S&W revolver would be at least $20 (about $500 in todays money) So a sawed off would be a red-neck pistol because they could not afford anything else. An archeologist with a tiny bit of intellegence would probably carry a S&W in .38 or one of those new fangled 1911's in .38 or .45. Most police if they carried had a S&W in .32 or .38. Shot shells were brass or paper. If paper useless when wet and the brass was heavy and would stick in the tubes, longer to reload.

You could buy a silencer for $3 in any hardware store and most corner stores would carry firearms of some sort. You could also get cheap surplus rifles from WWI for under $20. A thompson sub machine gun would run $150 new, ordered by mail through the sears catalog delivered to your door.

PS anything you see on TV or movies in regards to firearms is totally wrong. HEAT is about the only accurate gun movie. Most everthing else all they get right is you pull the trigger and it makes a loud noise.

PPS I like the Kel-Tec P3AT. I got the p-32 as it is less snappy to fire and I wanted something my wife could shoot easier. I'm waiting for their new single stack 9mm to come out. That will be my next carry gun. Too bad glock is not making one. I like the g36 but .45 is 2x's the cost for ammo, you can practice the most with 9mm.

 

[scourger]

Well, it is Call of Cthulhu, so players are probably likely to make characters with some combat skills and equipment. In our 1920's campaign set in Mexico City, my character was a Spaniard who was a fencer, which explained his carrying a sword cane. He had an heirloom LeMat revlover which an ancestor had from Dr. LeMat (the ancestor having been a doctor and the character was in medical school) that he carried at times in his medical bag. I thought it was plausible but a bit of a stretch. Another character was an Amercian academic who had a WWI trench gun that he brought back from The Big One. I found it much less plausible, but that shotgun came in handier than my sword or pistol ever did.

The least plausible character concept I think I've ever seen was in our old Deadlands Hell on Earth game. One player, who had run Deadlands and knew how to min/max the system, made a sword-fighting pacifist. He couldn't attack, but he could defend himself. He had a lot of skill with the sword, too. And, he picked a magic sword as an edge, which further maximized his attacks and defense values. With no other combat skills, he had skills in other areas. He also handily avoided the ammo shortages of guns in that setting. He even went so far as to argue his way out of being shot one encounter because he was unarmed and the rest of the party was armed and returning fire on our attackers. Somebody else took that bullet. And yes, we let it slide because it was easier than arguing.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

I even know 2 pastors who carry as well.

I find that funny.

 

[Land Outcast]

Judging by your second post it look to me like some of your players are treating CoC like a horror-themed version of D&D. If everyone is happy with this then it's ok I guess but I don't think that is the way the writers of the game intended for it to be played.

Olaf the Stout

Exact same thought. (And no, before he went foaming-mad in an empty room, my coupier who worked at Casino Royale hadn't ever touched a firearm)

 

[Sound of Azure]

Early in my current game, a party of low level adventurers were travelling by horseback, forced to leave the safety of the riverboat they'd been using to journey to their locale. They are sleeping in a local tinn when the Gnolls of the forest launch an assault on the area. They sneak into the hallway, and theHalf-Orc barbarian's room is the first htey break into....

Initiative is rolled, ACs are called for, and as the Half-Orc answers my girlfriend pipes up, "Hold up, your AC could only be.... are you wearing ARMOUR in bed?"

Now, because it was a Half-orc Barbarian, the player was able to argue that his behaviour wasn't entirely out of character: but my girlfriend brought it up a couple of other times when late-night antics took place and the party headed out in full battle gear with only a few seconds notice: a few late-night efforts where Longbows seemed to magically appear in hand. She, on the other hand, often mentions that her characters turns up in a nightie, or wearing rollers, or some other obvious "got out of bed" motif that makes her perhapos less combat-effective but more obvious fitting the scene.

I don't mind it too much myself, but I know it can bug her, so in future I'm going to make a point of holding PCs to believeable night-time situations. This may inclkude forcing an action or two to pick up stuff like spell components or certain magic items, depending on the character.

Yeah, when we were playing through the RttToEE, we had one guy who had his cleric (and later, fighter) always sleep in his armour. He had the Endurance feat, so he wouldn't get fatigued by it...and he used that as justification. It got to the point that other PCs hesitated to go anywhere near him, and was being unfavourably compared to the troglodytes we encountered earlier in the adventure.

The conversations about it were generally of this nature:

Me "Why doesn't your PC take his armour off? You must need to wash or something by now. We're camped right by a stream."

J "Naw, I'm fine. I can sleep in my armour because my PC has the Endurance feat. He won't get tired from resting in it."

Me " Yeah, that's cool and all, but your PC would be starting to stink by now, right? We've been down here for months..."

J " But he's got the Endurance feat, why should it matter?"

Me "I guess Kelemvor is becoming a god of pestilence as well as a death god. "

J "Ha, ha. Ok, ok. I'll do it, but don't blame me if my guy dies because he doesn't have armour on. "

DM " Everyone within 20 feet of Brother Troglodyte here make a Fortitute Save. DC 20, because he hasn't washed for 3 months. If you fail, you're nauseated for 5 minutes. "

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Everyone's overlooking the most important element here- shouldn't his proficiency cover all shotguns, and not just a sawed-off one?

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Yeah, when we were playing through the RttToEE, we had one guy who had his cleric (and later, fighter) always sleep in his armour. He had the Endurance feat, so he wouldn't get fatigued by it...and he used that as justification. It got to the point that other PCs hesitated to go anywhere near him, and was being unfavourably compared to the troglodytes we encountered earlier in the adventure.

In 2nd Edition I had a Dwarven Fighter/Cleric that slept in +5 Studded Leather Armor (The Heaviest Armor the DM would let me sleep in).

When the DM Objected I pointed out.

"When did that Fire Mage & his Minions attack?"

"Dead of night while you were sleeping."

"When did that Thief Sneak into my room & set off the Glyph of Warding-Fire?"

"Dead of night you were Sleeping. Didn't that burn down the whole inn?"

"Yep. As my character was running out of town with nothing but a Battle-Ax, Night Shirt & a Stolen Mule, didn't a bunch of trolls attack us?"

"Oh Yeah. I forgot about that. You fought them with a Produce Flame Spell & the mage had to center a Fireball on you to finish them all off."

"Did my Night-shirt survive that 8d6 Fireball?"

"Ummm. No."

"Now, do you wany my dwarf running around buck-bottom naked the NEXT TIME you pull a 3 AM Ambush or would prefer not to see his 'Hammer & Anvils'?"

"+5 Studded Leather it is!"


I also payed in a game where Kobolds/Goblins & other small Creatures would attack via coming out of the sewers.

Via the Outhouses.

They always were armed with Javelins of Lightning.

Always happend when 1 PC was on the pot.

After FOUR consecutive Characters got a Lightning Bolt Enema, the DM actually wondered why we wouldn't make Offering to the Otyugh Lords without a Resist Energy Lightning Spell.