Heroic Cthulhu rules are up

logan9a · Sep 19, 2007

I'd also be grateful for comments on the rules themselves if anyone gets a chance to read them....

Sanguinemetaldawn · Sep 19, 2007

Yep

Thats right. I have thought for a long time that Chaosium's game is actually not "Lovecraftian".

I think its telling that Chaosium essentially went back and re-wrote the ending to Dunwich.

Over time I have progressed to liking Chaosium's Cthulhu less and less, and really, thinking that it is just stupid. A perfect example of this is the statement about what happens to Great Cthulhu if he is vaporized with a hydrogen bomb. The answer: "He materializes ten minutes later, except he is now radioactive."

That is one of the stupidest things I have heard in RPG-dom, and thats saying something. Pretty much destroyed any respect I had for the game. Those plush cthulhu parody dolls are perfect for a game like this.

This is why I have moved to liking d20 Cthulhu more and more, especially combined with some pieces of Dark Matter, so the players never know whats coming.

Baduin said:
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The necromancer was shot up by the local citizenry in the XVIII century, summoned something big and was eaten by it; managed to get raised and was put down by Dr Willet using his own spell.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
Randolph Carter massacres a lot of horrors and makes a fool of Nyarlathotep.

The Dunwich Horror
One of the sons of Yog-Sothoth is eaten by a dog, the other banished by a spell; no insanity to speak of.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Deep Ones are shot up, burned and dynamited by the Marines, with no losses.

The Shunned House
The psychic vampire? buried beneth the house is destroyed with sulphuric acid.

The Whisperer in Darkness
The terrible Mi-Go cannot get rid of an old man living alone - becaues he has bad dogs and a gun.

Barendd Nobeard · Sep 20, 2007

logan9a said:
I'd also be grateful for comments on the rules themselves if anyone gets a chance to read them....

File Front sucks.

Tried to download the rules, and keep getting incorrect "error" messages like
- This site only supports one download connection at a time. I'm just using IE, nothing fancy.
- This file has already been downloaded.

Uh, no, it hasn't already been downloaded (by me).

Sorry I can't look at the file to offer feedback.

Doug McCrae · Sep 20, 2007

In Sandy Petersen's original manuscript you couldn't gain SAN by any means. Descent into madness was inevitable. After playtesting this was changed because it was felt to be too depressing.

hexgrid · Sep 20, 2007

Baduin said:
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Deep Ones are shot up, burned and dynamited by the Marines, with no losses.

I don't know if I'd count this one, considering the fate of the actual protagonist of the story.

But yeah, I just stared reading Lovecraft recently, and overall the characters in the stories fare a lot better the reputation of RPG led me to expect.

logan9a · Sep 20, 2007

Barendd Nobeard said:
File Front sucks.

Tried to download the rules, and keep getting incorrect "error" messages like
- This site only supports one download connection at a time. I'm just using IE, nothing fancy.
- This file has already been downloaded.

Uh, no, it hasn't already been downloaded (by me).

Sorry I can't look at the file to offer feedback.

Try over here (scattered in thread but the folks there are also hosting it)

http://fouruglymonsters.com/community/showthread.php?t=1443

GreatLemur · Sep 20, 2007

Ah, cool! I listened to that Innsmouth adventure (mother of Christ, that was like an eight-hour gaming session!), and the whole time I was really wishing I could see your house rules. It's clearly a very different kind of Cthulhu you guys are playing, but it's obviously a lot of fun. ("Gooooooo ELECTROLUX!")

Vocenoctum · Sep 20, 2007

hexgrid said:
I don't know if I'd count this one, considering the fate of the actual protagonist of the story.

But yeah, I just stared reading Lovecraft recently, and overall the characters in the stories fare a lot better the reputation of RPG led me to expect.

Even published adventures tended to avoid that model. Sure there were "classics" that killed off PC's regularly, but that's like using Tomb of Horrors to show that D&D is all about killing PCs.

Most CoC adventures are about stopping things before the ancient evil is awakened/ summoned, so I never had an issue with it.

jdrakeh · Sep 21, 2007

Baduin said:
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The necromancer was shot up by the local citizenry in the XVIII century, summoned something big and was eaten by it; managed to get raised and was put down by Dr Willet using his own spell.

And from the climax of that very story -- "It was not merely a dissolution, but rather a transformation or recapitulation; and Willett shut his eyes lest he faint before the rest of the incantation could be pronounced." -- which clearly indicates mental trauma of some sort has befallen the protagonist.

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
Randolph Carter massacres a lot of horrors and makes a fool of Nyarlathotep.

Yeah, using the Ultimate Mary Sue as an example was a mistake on my part. Carter is Lovecraft, much as Elminster is Ed Greewood. They suffer from similar problems.

The Dunwich Horror
One of the sons of Yog-Sothoth is eaten by a dog, the other banished by a spell; no insanity to speak of.

The entire town of Dunwich is mortified by the Whately. . . thing. And, despite being able to vanquish it, the protagonists say several things during the course of the short story that suggest loss of sanity.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Deep Ones are shot up, burned and dynamited by the Marines, with no losses.

The protagonist of the story discovers that he is a Deep One. Nope no loss there

The Shunned House
The psychic vampire? buried beneth the house is destroyed with sulphuric acid.

After it claims the life of one protagonist and scars the other for life.

The Whisperer in Darkness
The terrible Mi-Go cannot get rid of an old man living alone - becaues he has bad dogs and a gun.

Akeley is, in fact, claimed by the Mi-Go before Wilmarth ever visits him. The protagonist Wilmarth flees from Akeley's house in abject terror and later realizes (with due horror) that he never spoke to Akeley, but one of the Mi-Go posing as Akeley.

---------------

Ultimately, I think that this may simply be one of those things that Lovercraft detractors and fans will never agree on. In retrospect, I think that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some of Lovecraft's stories have what can be considered 'happy endings' and several more don't.

logan9a · Sep 21, 2007

GreatLemur said:
Ah, cool! I listened to that Innsmouth adventure (mother of Christ, that was like an eight-hour gaming session!), and the whole time I was really wishing I could see your house rules. It's clearly a very different kind of Cthulhu you guys are playing, but it's obviously a lot of fun. ("Gooooooo ELECTROLUX!")

Glad on two fronts - first that you are now able to see the house rules and also that you enjoyed the session. If you want to comment on it or talk to the other players, the HC boards are at http://heroiccthulhu.proboards105.com/index.cgi

Edit: Also, to those people who are saying that HC isn't really in the Cthulhu spirit, that could be so. The rules cover pretty much any kind of game I care to run - whether it is medieval, cyberpunk, etc. (though the cyber stuff isn't in HC yet). In retrospect, calling it 'Heroic BRP' would have been more exact but it got dubbed 'heroic cthulhu' and there it stayed.

Be seeing you...