What do I do with all this? (Ryan Dancey: D20 Call of Cthulhu)

[Wicht]

Right, but meta-gaming players who know they're in a horror game (and still fear character death) don't want to go in the haunted house, and true roleplayers honestly playing as themselves (or other normal people) will say, "I don't want to go in there; it's creepy!"

The real key to horror, IMO, is for it to be unexpected. While most normal people will not go into a haunted house if they fear it is really haunted, what about a local library, theatre, museum, etc. In other words, stay away from the obvious. Craft the adventure in such a way so as to make it natural for the characters to be doing what they are doing.

Then slowly involve their characters in a way to where, 1) they want to find out what is really going on (curiosity) and 2) they do not realize the extent of the danger before it is too late (false sense of security).

By the time they know enough to know what is going on, they should know too much to be able to share with others (aka. the police) or what they know should not be inherently illegal. The police doubtlessly will not waste time and manpower investigating mind eating slugs on the say so of some so and so off the street, especially when that so and so has no physical evidence to back up their claims.

 

[mmadsen]

There are a few reasons for the police not being involved:

1) They think the PC's are looney.
2) They have no resources to help out in busy precincts.
3) They are involved. (this lends itself to running from more than just the monsters)

Your first and third points are old standbys. I personally feel the second one is a bit of a copout (pardon the pun) -- unless it's a variant of your first point (or the larger idea that the PCs have no evidence).

The lack of evidence is an important issue. If there are gnawed corpses throughout the haunted mansion (or museum, or whatever), why wouldn't you call 911? As gamemaster, you need monsters that leave no physical evidence (or leave contradictory evidence).

Another good idea is to effectively frame the PCs. If they're the only ones there when someone dies, they're not in as big a hurry to call the police. If they're possessed and do the killing themselves, then they're really in no hurry to call the police.

 

[Wicht]

hehe - just a thought for a game. PCs get set up and report a corpse. They get subsequently arrested and locked up and then you reveal the real purpose of the story - a horror infesting the prison and the PCs are stuck there, like it or not. Not only will it rope them into an adventure but it will give them second thoughts about ever reporting anything else to the cops.

 

[mmadsen]

PCs get set up and report a corpse. They get subsequently arrested and locked up and then you reveal the real purpose of the story - a horror infesting the prison and the PCs are stuck there, like it or not.

Ooh, clever. Mean and clever. I like it!

 

[mmadsen]

The lack of evidence is an important issue. If there are gnawed corpses throughout the haunted mansion (or museum, or whatever), why wouldn't you call 911? As gamemaster, you need monsters that leave no physical evidence (or leave contradictory evidence).

What are some good monsters (or scenarios) that would leave no evidence (or contradictory evidence)?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The key to not leaving evidence is to always prepare two explanations for what the players encounter. The truth, and one that is rationally possible. Lets test this with a few old standby's.

Gnawed Corpses:
Truth: The Dead have arisin and they have a taste for human flesh.
Explanation: Wild dogs got to the corpse and dined on it.

Mind Control:
Truth: Your archeology professor has learned the secrets of ancient Antlantis and dominated you with his insidious mind control, and made you murder your girl friend.
Explanation: Your archeology professor has had concerns about you for some time now, and witnessed you arguing with your girl friend of cheating on you. He also found the knife you used to kill her.

Visitations:
Truth: You have been contacted by evil aliens from the past, who switched minds with you, which is why you cannot remember the past 5 years.
Explanation: You lost your mind.

As long as you have an explanation that sounds more reasonable when considered by the principle of Occams Razor, you can prevent the players from obtaining outside help. As long as your internally consistent within your campaign, you can keep a firm grip on what the players can and cannot do for outside help.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[mmadsen]

Gnawed Corpses:
Truth: The Dead have arisin and they have a taste for human flesh.
Explanation: Wild dogs got to the corpse and dined on it.

Except that modern forensic medicine -- even without complicated lab work -- could immediately tell the difference between wild-dog bites and (undead) human bites.

Now undead wild dogs...

Mind Control:
Truth: Your archeology professor has learned the secrets of ancient Antlantis and dominated you with his insidious mind control, and made you murder your girl friend.
Explanation: Your archeology professor has had concerns about you for some time now, and witnessed you arguing with your girl friend of cheating on you. He also found the knife you used to kill her.

Mind control works perfectly.

Visitations:
Truth: You have been contacted by evil aliens from the past, who switched minds with you, which is why you cannot remember the past 5 years.
Explanation: You lost your mind.

And "visitations" would work well too.

As long as you have an explanation that sounds more reasonable when considered by the principle of Occams Razor, you can prevent the players from obtaining outside help. As long as your internally consistent within your campaign, you can keep a firm grip on what the players can and cannot do for outside help.

This seems to limit the amount of "action" in a story though, and combat is the easiest thing to game.

 

[mmadsen]

I agreed with Mearls about Shadowrun. Simply reading the game, it was tough to get anything more than a vague impression that the PCs should do covert missions of some type. Sorta like a cross between a high-tech, magical Rockford Files and James Bond, but with more than one main character.

And how often did those covert missions end up being small-team assaults on a fortified position? I can remember my old Top Secret games devolving into dungeon crawls. My James Bond campaigns were a wee bit better, but not much.

 

[mmadsen]

In the CoC: Everyone is dead. thread on the d20 board (which only gets a fraction of the traffic of the main board), SpuneDagr said that he ran the sleep-clinic adventure from the back of the CoC rulebook, and everyone died.

This was greeted with plenty of kudos for a game well run.

An excerpt of the game summary:

Roth turned on the machine for the last time, summoning the terrors from beyond and, of course, all hell broke loose. Sam Brendel went ballistic and broke open the door on his first try. Diego, the security guard character, tried to subdue him and got the snot beaten out of him. Mark, the troubled psychic woke up with a start to find the Terrors were real - he failed his sanity check and went temporarily insane (I think I rolled something like 6 hours). So he was sitting up, blithering in his bed.

Having no one to stop them, the Terrors killed and consumed everyone in the clinic (I think Sam got off a couple shots with Diego's gun, but it doesn't really matter at this point).

The professor comes back the next morning to find police tape everywhere and everyone horribly slaughtered. He talks to the police (he was actually a suspect for a little while, but they let him go). He goes home that night - little does he know the machine is still on (unplugging it doesn't turn it off). He awakens in the middle of the night, noticing an intruder in his house. He manages to dial 911 and promptly die when the Terror eats him.

Given our discussion of a well-put-together CoC game, I ask, is there any way they could've reasonably survived? Is increased firepower the difference between life and death? We want them to win by being clever, but it looks like guns and dynamite really are the answer.