What I learned from Call of Cthulhu (for D&D)

[mmadsen]

The recent release of d20 Call of Cthulhu demonstrates that the d20 mechanics can handle a genre beyond high fantasy (or its cousin, space opera). There are still some mechanics that don't quite carry over well (e.g. one hit die per level), but the workarounds aren't too ugly.

Anyway, it seems we can learn a lot about D&D, or how to vary our D&D games, from d20 Call of Cthulhu:

• Finding out that something is out there, learning what it is, and learning how to defeat it can be as much fun as (or more fun than) just killing it.
• Not all encounters have to be combat encounters, and the combat encounters don't have to match the party perfectly. In CoC, this can get taken to an extreme (1st-level Investigators vs. Cthulhu), but I suspect it works better (and creates more tension) if the PCs have a chance. Maybe a single Troll is stalking the party (or the party's "red shirt" spear-carriers), eating them one by one.
• Power is fun, but Power at a Price is more interesting. Again, CoC seems to take this to something of an extreme, with Mythos Tomes blasting the Sanity of any who dare to read them, but offering the party power that they're not quite sure they want to use adds drama. For instance, the party might ally themselves with neutral monsters against a terrible foe, but their allies demand something of them.
• Secrets make great "treasure". Learning what the heck is going on can be a reward in itself.
• Normal folk make fun adventurers. It's easy to identify with a guy who isn't Conan -- and if he later evolves into Conan, that transformation can be quite fulfilling.

 

[mmadsen]

Has anyone implemented any of these ideas in their own campaign (whether or not CoC was your influence)? Have you run a campaign with Commoner PCs? Have you put the PCs up against a monster that should destroy them in a straight fight, but had a "puzzle" solution to the encounter? Have you made a mystery work in your D&D campaign?

 

[mmadsen]

A few more lessons:

• Never call a spell by its game-mechanic name. Give it an evocative name with some history. Many of the "old school" spells already follow the example of Vance's Dying Earth: Tenser's Floating Disk, Nystul's Magic Aura, Leomund's Tiny Hut. Make similar names in place of "Magic Missile" and the like.
• Similarly, don't call it "a spellbook". Have a wizard's spellbook actually be a collection of scrolls, quartos, and human-skin-bound texts with descriptive names.

 

[nopantsyet]

I could be missing something sublime, and I hope so because the alternative is depressing, but here's what I've learned.

I haven't played CoC yet, but having read tons of HPL, I can honestly say that despite my ambitious attempts to be a killer DM, I do not have what it must take to be a mediocre CoC GM.

Man! You've got to be HPL reincarnated to come up with a good adventure, then figure out how to GM it well. Way out of my league!

 

[Voobaha]

I could be missing something sublime, and I hope so because the alternative is depressing, but here's what I've learned.

I haven't played CoC yet, but having read tons of HPL, I can honestly say that despite my ambitious attempts to be a killer DM, I do not have what it must take to be a mediocre CoC GM.

Man! You've got to be HPL reincarnated to come up with a good adventure, then figure out how to GM it well. Way out of my league!

Just buy one of the dozens of Chaosium produced adventures for the game. Some of them are top notch, written better than HPL. The game mechanics are for Chaosium's version of CoC, but with the d20 CoC book it shouldn't be too hard to convert them over. Seriously, Chaosium's adventures are some of the best every written for RPGs in general.

 

[trancejeremy]

Seriously, Chaosium's adventures are some of the best every written for RPGs in general.

Their Call of Cthulhu adventures are like that. Their adventures for other games tend to vary in quality.


Anyway, it's fairly easy to convert from BRP to d20 as you said (I've done it with some of their Stormbringer/Elric adventures).

Basically, the stats are the same and are on the same scale (3-18). Some of the names are different, but sort of obvious or related. Appearance = Charisma, Power = Wisdom.

For skills, just divide by 5 to get the skill ranks in d20 terms. Again, the names are a bit off, but it's not too hard. (Though Chaosium seems to divide by 10 when they converted the NPCs in Elric! to DLOM)

Level is a bit trickier. Might be easier in CoC's case, but in Elric, I subtract 50% from the best combat ability, then divided by ten. For instance, a character with 180% in broad sword would have a BAB of 13, then I assume he probably has weapon focus, so he's around 10th level or so (as a fighter) or maybe higher if he's multi-class (if he has a lot of other skills)

Combat skills in Elric! are a bit insane compared to CoC, so you might drop the -50% part.

 

[Mordax_sighs]

I actually learned about CoC, not D&D.

- Attacks of Opportunity are a wonderful mechanic in a horror game. They make a horde of zombies or a tentacled horror *much* more threatening.

- CoC sanity rules port well to other systems just as they are. GURPS Mythos stuff didn't work out, IMO (although their default horror rules are quite good). I see now that they should've just kept the BRP mechanics intact, like WotC did.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Here's what I learnt

It is WAY easier to get people to play a d20 game than the BRP game!

It's NICE having other systems ported to d20. You can read stat blocks and have a clue what's going on, and despite what anyone else says, even escalating Hit points can be used to model relatively fragile characters well.

Genre-crossing is fun!

And conversions are hard. In fact, because d20 Call of Cthulhu is so skill-oriented, the skill point computations for NPCs as well as feat choices, etc, can drive you crazy.

 

[mmadsen]

Attacks of Opportunity are a wonderful mechanic in a horror game. They make a horde of zombies or a tentacled horror *much* more threatening.

I actually like the way they work in the opposite direction. I have Zombies grapple -- I really don't like the whole "slam" attack thing -- so the heroes get to hack them down with Attacks of Opportunity...and still get overwhelmed.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

What has always struck me about HPL's work is that it's all about mood - very little of his work depends on plot. Mood is tough to evoke with game mechanics, so that's why it's always been surprising to me how artistically successful Call of Cthulhu, the RPG, has been. HPL's work is, most of the time, focused on one lone person caught up in events beyond his control, a mere spectator of cosmic terror. Even the original RPG had to come up with a way to accomodate more characters than HPL's stories, and characters who are uniformly more active and proactive than any of HPL's character's ever were. So it's an amazing success, when you think about it, for any version of the RPG to still be able to conjure a mood so similar to HPL's writing.

Regarding Chaosium's adventures - I know it's tangential, but most Pendragon adventures are top-notch.