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Message: <blockquote data-quote="omnimpotent" data-source="post: 794553" data-attributes="member: 9162">I have some experience with CoC, and I'm pleased to hear you're looking into it.  I'm no master of the art, but I'm willing to let you know what I've learned.The adventure hook is always key.  Unless you really amp up the character creation, the characters tend to be fairly average joes.  If they are actually role-playing average joes, (rather than ninja assassins or special forces Rambos or something along those lines) they will be reluctant to leap into action without good reason.  Thus, the adventure has to come to them, and it should be clear that if they stay home, bad things will happen to them.  (Phone calls to their homes is good, but nothing beats the personal touch of hired goons)Also along those lines, you have to already know how the police will react.  (Because really, if cultists are calling/dropping by your home, or if dismembered bodies start cropping up, an average joe is calling 911.)  Disinterest/disbelief, combined with the "slow wheels of justice" are the typical responses, although I like to confiscate valuable clues and improperly carried/discharged firearms.  It's especially fun to arrest and lock up the guys who went nuts with their handguns, and then went to the cops THEMSELVES, although try not to lock up the whole party or the guy who has the adventure hook.  Sprinkle this liberally with the local sheriff is in with the baddies ("tell me what you know of this so-called cult --ka-klik") or really swell cops who buy your story, follow you to the haunted house, insist you wait outside while they check it out, and disappear leaving only a badge/service revolver/ puddle of urine.  Say, did you just send Officer Niceguy to his grisly death? San check, please.As to the horrors themselves, less is usually more.  If the players see a bug-eyed ape-slug running around in encounter 3, the game starts to look like a D&D style monster hunt.  If they keep encountering a slime trail, a bad smell, or a spectral residue that gives random party members spontaneous nosebleeds, they'll know there's a monster, and now they're really interested in finding it.  This also plays into Sanity, my next point.If you are hoping to run a campaign, rather than a one-shot, take it relatively easy with the Sanity loss.  Sanity rolls seem to have more effect when used sparingly.  Having been on the other side of the screen myself, a sanity roll behind every door gets old, fast.  So does your character.  Instead, try setting up scenes that bother the players more than the characters.  Items placed where they don't belong (kids stuff at a likely murder scene, etc) and off screen action (checking the guys answering machine, where the clue is somebody desperately pleading for help, which is cut short alarmingly - hell, anyone freaking out on the other end of anyone's phone is great stuff) work for me.  So do weird places with poor visibility an short sight lines.  (Lots of places for baddies to hide, ranged weapons less comforting)  I find the players are actually comforted to see a monster/grisly tableau/gang of bloody cultists after a bunch of suggestive nothing.I hope some of this helps, and your games will go well enough we get to read about them in story time!</blockquote>

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