Running games with unintended systems. . .

[Slife]

From here : http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=184352&page=2&pp=30

One time my friend who regularly ran Call of Cthulhu for us, ran another Cthulhu game with characters that he premade. He let us chose our characters by description alone, describing them as a "boyfriend and girlfriend" (the boyfriend being "an skilled at driving"), a genius "knowledge expert", a "useless guy" and "the useless guy's friend". I picked the useless guy and my roommate chose the useless guy's friend. It turns out we were the Scooby-Doo gang in the middle of a real Cthulhu adventure (with Mr. T as a guest star). By the end of the mystery Fred and Daphne had been killed by the zombie thing we were investigating, Shaggy and Scooby accidentally killed Mr. T with the halberd of the suit of armor they were hiding in and Velma turned catatonic after summoning a spawn of Cthulhu. With nothing left to do as the 100 foot tall being began to advancing, Shaggy and Scooby downed some Scooby snacks, ran into the T van and emerged donning gold chains, blue jean vests, feather earrings and totting two M-60s and a rocketlauncher. The shots from the M-60s and missle from the rocketlauncher all miraculously rolled a 1 for impaled shots and the spawn was reduced to gallons of green goo!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Yes, yes, it does.



Ooo. . . any notes on this? I've recently picked up the DMG II specifically for Saltmarsh and my love of CoC (well, CoC 3rd Edition) knows no bounds (I own four copies of the rule book in NM condition).

Been a few years, but... [sblock]Essentially replace the smugglers, gnolls, and skeletons with gangsters - running booze in from Canada. If you feel like dressing some of the gangsters up in skeleton costumes you can trick the party into opening fire first. (It is amazing just how gullible hardened CoC investigators can be. ) Ned can be used pretty much as is. Once the team has twigged to them being rum runners the gangsters are likely to try to 'get rid of the loose ends'. Arm most of them with pistols, but give one or two of them the classic 'Tommy gun. I had a shotgun that Ned had stashed away, the players managed to get to it before he did - it was nearly the only weapon that they had on hand.

Another shotgun is rigged as a booby trap, only a 20% chance to hit though, most likely firing over the victim's head rather than through it.

Recordings on wax cylinders replace some of the magical effects that 'haunt' the house. An Aeolian harp can also add creepiness where needed, a bit of radium soaked gauze (Mmmm, radium.... a little radiation is good for you, ya know?) whisking past windows on fishing lines lines, and various devices to make groans and bumps. Considering that the house is built over a cave 'cold spots' are almost a given. [/sblock]

Good luck with it!

The Auld Grump

 

[jdrakeh]

Been a few years, but... Good luck with it!

Thanks for the pointers! I had actually envisioned something completely different, though that looks like fun, too. . . I actually had it in my mind that you used the primitve weapons rules from CoC to run the adventure more or less as-is, a kind of Cthuloid Fantasy trek (ah, I wish I hadn't lost all of my working files for Strange Aeons).

 

[Claudius Gaius]

I let one group of four who all wanted to play different games - Clan Mech Battletech, Shadowrun, high-level AD&D 1'st edition, and Continium II (a very obscure system) - so I simply set up a few translation notes and let them each play in the system they were used to. Battletech guy was a bit unhappy when the barbarian took the leg off his assault mech, but things workd out nicely. Three out of four managed to achieve their victory conditions for the scenario after they started bargaining and allying in various combinations.

On the simple mix side, werewolf the apocolypse/superheroes, vampire the masquerade/lovecraftian monster attacks, AD&D/Computer Hacking, AD&D/Shadowrun, Exalted/Low-Powered Human adventures, Marvel Superheroes/Soap Opera. Tals of the Floating Vagabond/Espionage, It Came from the Late Late Show/Dungeon Adventures.

 

[Epidiah Ravachol]

I've just started Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, reset to a Victorian Age "Dr. Whoniverse", using Dread.

Your words make love to my eyeballs. I must know more. Any chance we can get a peak at the questionnaires?

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I've wanted to run Midnight using Palladium rules (EEEEK!!!). Say what you will but as yet Palladium is the only system I've run across which has a combat system where characters can get away without wearing armor (I like the Attack/Parry/Dodge/Roll rules). Also, the fact that armor and shields take damage and have to be repaired/replaced seems to work well for the setting.

A no-brainer is running Midnight with MERP (or Rolemaster for that matter). The work is already done for you if you use MERP. No conversion is really needed.

 

[Pbartender]

Your words make love to my eyeballs. I must know more. Any chance we can get a peak at the questionnaires?

I used a slightly different process than usual for Dread, as follows...

A character's initial questionnaire will consist of 13 questions. the first 7 questions were the same for all characters, as follows:

1. What is your name?
2. Why did the Torchwood Institute recruit you?
3. What do you miss most about the life you led before you came to work for Torchwood?
4. Though you prefer to travel light these days, what do you make sure you always have with you?
5. What was it like to meet the Queen for the first time?
6. How did you react when you first learned that there were alien creatures living on planets in outer space, far from Earth.
7. You've encountered a great deal of strange circumstances in your travels. What is the oddest thing you've ever witnessed, and how come no one ever entirely believes the story when you tell it?

The remaining six questions were specific questions created by the host (myself) and the other players as a group, and tailored to each individual character based on the answers to the first seven questions. Players had the right to veto questions that fall too far outside their character concepts. As well, the host had the right veto any question that does not suit the style or setting of the game.

I need to dig up the character specific questions, but I'll post them as soon as I collect them.

 

[Epidiah Ravachol]

The remaining six questions were specific questions created by the host (myself) and the other players as a group, and tailored to each individual character based on the answers to the first seven questions. Players had the right to veto questions that fall too far outside their character concepts. As well, the host had the right veto any question that does not suit the style or setting of the game.

I need to dig up the character specific questions, but I'll post them as soon as I collect them.

Excellent. I've been toying with letting the other players contribute questions myself, largely as a misguided attempt to see if Dread can work without a GM. But I think in general it is a great way to alleviate some of the pre-game pressure on the GM.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Running a Quest For Fire game, using Shadowrun rules.

I actually ran Mage 1st ed under Shadowrun 2nd ed. Why would I do such a thing? A) the WW rules sucked at combat and the party was violent. B) the Mage 1st ed mechanics were in many cases direct contradictions of the flavor text. C) I went temporarily insane.

Ironically enough, my SR implementation from ~'98 is almost identical to the newMage mechanics. Given that my house rules for the SR2 Matrix and physads were also almost identical to the SR3, I kick myself for not having gone into game design.

 

[Pbartender]

Excellent. I've been toying with letting the other players contribute questions myself, largely as a misguided attempt to see if Dread can work without a GM. But I think in general it is a great way to alleviate some of the pre-game pressure on the GM.

I did it primarily as a "team-building" exercise. I like giving everybody a hand in shaping all the characters and the adventures themselves.

Here's the remaining six questions for each character:

The Circus Acrobat

1. What do you spend your spare money on?
2. Despite all outward appearances, you have never been an exceptionally brave person. What do you do to prepare yourself for the stresses of a dangerous situation?
3. Before you joined the circus, you had been a Catholic Priest. What made you forsake the Church?
4. Who taught you how to be an acrobat?
5. Why is it necessary for you to always be the center of attention?
6. What was the single occasion when your personal morals outweighed your need to please others?

The Police Inspector

1. Your training as a police inspector has given you a wide range of skills. What wasn’t covered?
2. You always carry a tintype photograph of someone of someone you never met. Who is it and why do keep it?
3. In all your years as a police officer and inspector, you've only ever fired your gun at a man once, and when you did you killed him. Who was he and why did you shoot him?
4. Why can't you ever go back to your favorite pub?
5. As a child, what did you want to be be when you grew up, and why aren't you?
6. When did you first learn that you could perfectly predict the outcome of horse races?

The Stage Magician's Assistant

1. What is the worst side effect that occurs every time you try to contact the shades of the past.
2. The very first time you began to understand what the voices were saying was terrifying. What happened?
3. What do you do to relax?
4. What injury do have that never healed quite right?
5. The stage magician you traveled with had one trick that you always wanted to learn, but he never showed you the secret. What was the trick, and do you think he did it?
6. In the end, your mentor was murdered, but you never felt the need to avenge his untimely death. Why?

The Canadian Frontiersman

1. What were you doing in the Dakotas?
2. What did you do to get promoted to Sargeant?
3. How did your painstaking attention to detail once save your life?
4. Whose opinion matters most to you?
5. Who was the woman you left behind?
6. Are you really as good a shot as people say you are?

The World-Traveling Dilettente

1. How did the love of your life, the man you were engaged to marry, die?
2. You have a habit that you try very hard to control because it is so annoying. What is it?
3. Throughout your worldwide travels, you and your father occassionally had to resort to shady pastimes in order to survive, leading to the acquisiton of some useful skills. What did you do and what did you learn?
4. What do you fear the most?
5. Having never truly had a place to call home, in all your travels where were you the happiest?
6. You and your father once watched a colleage die because of a quarantine. What did you do to trick everyone into believing that you weren’t contaminated?

Most of the them are "original" questions, though some of them came from the list of suggestions in the rulebook. About half of them are came from the other players.