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Algerin
2010-01-24, 03:43 PM
I just ordered the Call of Cthulhu Chasiom 6th edition on Amazon.I and my players are very excited to play it.

My first plan is to run them through the actual Call of Cthulhu story(With a little bit of Reanimator and some deep ones... just for fun). My question is, how well would this work? What encounters, clues etc would i need?

Note that none of my players have read any Lovecraft, just what they've heard from me. Basically, im going to have one character begin to have dreams(Ala, the beggining of CoC). He then tells the other players(Hopefully). They will then get rumours of a police raid on lousiana swamp folks, and a similar raid about to happen near their location. If they decide to investigate, they face a few tribal cultists, a deep one and gain a minor book(like the necronomican...just not as deadly) where they can learn a few spells or whatever.

after this though, I have no clue? I owuld like them to have some contact with Herbert West(The reanimator) and his experiments. Maybe a few more encounters with the Deep Ones. And a finale in R'yleh.

More information? I have 3 PC's, none of us having played before. I know the basic workings of the game, learned from the internet. ummm...thats about it really. W

Starshade
2010-01-24, 04:04 PM
I own that book, but have not had opportunity to try it out, but the book got some nice starter adventures too, set to different sites and times. with some minor adjustment they could be used practically in any time.

GolemsVoice
2010-01-24, 04:13 PM
The first problem is: They hear of some raids on some fish-like people. Now this surely sounds strange, but remember: They only had vague dreams, and suddenly somebody tells them of fishpeople. This sounds pretty far-fetched! Maybe have them dream of the idol of Cthulhu, and have them see an actual proof that the police found such a statue, like a photograph. That should make them nervous.

Than, have them capture a cultist or a Deep One. The creature than tells them of R'lyeh in terms that are blurred by the creatures religious fervor. Through research, they can link the terms that their captive used with an actual location. Now all they have to do is charter a ship and sail away! They can get attacked by Deep Ones or other horrors, or have a traitor on board that recognizes their destination. After they land on R'lyeh, well, they have to outrun an awaking god!

The problem, however, is how you link Herbert West with the whole thing. maybe spare him up for another encounter?

A few words of warning, since you apparently have never run a CoC game: Be careful with spells and books. Books and spells TEAR away people's sanity faster than you can say Iä! Iä! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. And with too much Mythos knowledge in the form of books, it quickly becomes boring. Books and spells should be VERY special rewards.

tarbrush
2010-01-24, 04:41 PM
That's OK. If he's got first time CoC players they'll all die horribly/go homicidally insane a few times before the question of Mythos knowledge and spellcasting comes up :)

Volkov
2010-01-24, 04:55 PM
Remember, kill your players at the campaign's conclusion, or do something bad. Happy endings kill the mood.

Algerin
2010-01-24, 05:44 PM
The problem is(I believe) that the Deep Ones are at war with Cthulhu... i believe. I was thinking Herbert West could be a wild card- Either he helps or fights them. Maybe i will leave him for another encounter though

Volkov
2010-01-24, 05:45 PM
The problem is(I believe) that the Deep Ones are at war with Cthulhu... i believe. I was thinking Herbert West could be a wild card- Either he helps or fights them. Maybe i will leave him for another encounter though

No, the deep ones worship cthulhu. They also worship Dagon and Hydra, who are Cthulhu's highest ranking lackeys. If Dagon, Hydra, and Cthulhu are the Deep one's trinity. Then Cthulhu would take the place of god in Christianity.

Algerin
2010-01-24, 05:52 PM
Awww...that makes sense. and it was the besties at the Mountains of Madness that that were at war with the Deep Ones/Cthulhu right?

Volkov
2010-01-24, 05:54 PM
Awww...that makes sense. and it was the besties at the Mountains of Madness that that were at war with the Deep Ones/Cthulhu right?
The Elder Things fight the deep ones and their masters. They also fight the great race of yith, who also fight the flying polyps, who war with the shuggoths, who attack humans. It's a great mess of war. Pretty much proto-warhammer 40,000.

chiasaur11
2010-01-24, 06:02 PM
Only without as many good guys.

Volkov
2010-01-24, 06:03 PM
Only without as many good guys.

You can have a negative amount of good guys?

Algerin
2010-01-24, 06:18 PM
Its funny because he thinks theres good guys in Warhammer 40K...there are no good guys, just less evil guys.

chiasaur11
2010-01-24, 06:32 PM
Its funny because he thinks theres good guys in Warhammer 40K...there are no good guys, just less evil guys.

Hey!

What about Cain?

And, um...

I did mention CIAPHAS CAIN, right?

And, ah.

Mentioned a certain HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, I think? If not, there's him.

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 06:41 PM
And a finale in R'yleh.


How are you planning on letting the P.C.s survive the finale ? Or are you just going to kill tham all, this is Cthulhu after all

GolemsVoice
2010-01-24, 06:50 PM
Sometimes, just escaping with whatever's left of your mind is all that you can hope for, barring Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Steamboat

EDIT:
The Elder Things fight the deep ones and their masters. They also fight the great race of yith, who also fight the flying polyps, who war with the shuggoths, who attack humans. It's a great mess of war. Pretty much proto-warhammer 40,000.

Wait, where are you getting that from? As a Lovecraft Nerd, I HAVE to ask. The Elder things, as far as they are concerned in "At the Mountains of Madness", did fight the Shoggoths, but lost, and now most of them are either dead or lie frozen somewhere in the ice of the Antarctis. The Great Race of Yith also did fight the Polyps, but imprisoned them, and fear the day of their return, knowing that for some reason they will not be able to fight them again. The Flying Polyps and the Shoggoths have, as far as I know, nothing to do with each other, aside from maybe happening upon each other in their subterran prisons. But Shoggoths are not all that clever, so they will basically attack anyone they come across, including of course, humans.

The Elder Things once did fight Cthulhu's Star-Spawn, but this war is long since over.

Algerin
2010-01-24, 06:52 PM
I was thinking that i let just one of them survive... possibly hopelessly insane...

Volkov
2010-01-24, 07:11 PM
Sometimes, just escaping with whatever's left of your mind is all that you can hope for, barring Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Steamboat

EDIT:

Wait, where are you getting that from? As a Lovecraft Nerd, I HAVE to ask. The Elder things, as far as they are concerned in "At the Mountains of Madness", did fight the Shoggoths, but lost, and now most of them are either dead or lie frozen somewhere in the ice of the Antarctis. The Great Race of Yith also did fight the Polyps, but imprisoned them, and fear the day of their return, knowing that for some reason they will not be able to fight them again. The Flying Polyps and the Shoggoths have, as far as I know, nothing to do with each other, aside from maybe happening upon each other in their subterran prisons. But Shoggoths are not all that clever, so they will basically attack anyone they come across, including of course, humans.

The Elder Things once did fight Cthulhu's Star-Spawn, but this war is long since over.
I do not think the Elder things are all dead. They were starfaring. And Flying polyps also attack everything on sight, besides other flying polyps.

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 07:14 PM
I was thinking that i let just one of them survive... possibly hopelessly insane...

Congratulations you have clealry already got into the spirit of running Call of Cthulhu

Algerin
2010-01-24, 07:17 PM
Congratulations you have clealry already got into the spirit of running Call of Cthulhu

Thank you =) Should the encounter in r'yleh just involve The Great one himself? Im thinking no... Maybe just a glimpse of him... what sort of mooks/guards whatever would r'yleuh have?

Volkov
2010-01-24, 07:19 PM
Thank you =) Should the encounter in r'yleh just involve The Great one himself? Im thinking no... Maybe just a glimpse of him... what sort of mooks/guards whatever would r'yleuh have?

All they need to see is a brief glimpse of him, and it's all over.

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 07:20 PM
what sort of mooks/guards whatever would r'yleuh have?

Well he doesn't really need gaurds as he is unkillable but Deep Ones could be there to welcome the return of their God, simalirly Father Dagon or Mother Hydra. Or some Star-Spawn of Cthulhu wopuld seem to be the things likely to be hanging around

Algerin
2010-01-24, 07:28 PM
All they need to see is a brief glimpse of him, and it's all over.

Maybe only one or two see them? While one is still on the ship? What are the odds of a single character taking on a single deep one on his own?

Volkov
2010-01-24, 07:29 PM
Maybe only one or two see them? While one is still on the ship? What are the odds of a single character taking on a single deep one on his own?

Cthulhu is a hundred feet tall at the least. They would see him. And unarmed, no human has a chance at taking on a deep one. They can punch their way through welded steel doors.

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 07:30 PM
If the character has a gun and is good with it, I'd say the odds were in his favour

Algerin
2010-01-24, 07:42 PM
alright...now what about Herbert West? where could he come in?

Volkov
2010-01-24, 07:43 PM
If the character has a gun and is good with it, I'd say the odds were in his favour

It takes a dozen tommy gun rounds to down a deep one.

Algerin
2010-01-24, 07:59 PM
would a beggining player have acess to a tommy gun?

Volkov
2010-01-24, 08:02 PM
would a beggining player have acess to a tommy gun?

No. That's high grade equipment. Some pistol shots should do it.

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 08:24 PM
It takes a dozen tommy gun rounds to down a deep one.

Are you sure ? That's not how I remember it although I don't I have my books to hand. I'm pretty sure Deep Ones were only marginally tougher than a human ( a few more HP a point of armour from tough skin)

Algerin
2010-01-24, 09:37 PM
So deep ones are pretty easy to take out? One on one should be fine then? What about researching them? Could the PC's do that?

comicshorse
2010-01-24, 09:49 PM
Research in CofC is tricky as it is dealing with supernatural and as such not exactly subject to strict fact-checking. As such most of the sources the PCs will have are going to be hard to find and usually with the truth mixed in with a healthy dose of superstition, lies and misapprehension.
They may find Polynesian myths of the fish gods who breed with men and the weird hybrids that were created, or water-front stories of the strange events in Innsmouth and the strange rites brought back their. Maybe even( with the right contacts and a lot of luck) the buried FBI reports on the raid on Innsmouth.
But all info. should be damn hard to fine and even harder to recognize when they actually find the truth

chiasaur11
2010-01-24, 09:52 PM
So deep ones are pretty easy to take out? One on one should be fine then? What about researching them? Could the PC's do that?

Yeah, they seem a bit tougher than humans, but nothing I've seen has indicated they'd take much more to finish off than Homo Sapien cultists.

GolemsVoice
2010-01-25, 01:49 AM
As far as Mythos creatures go, Deep Ones are hardly that tough. With STR 14 and an average of 13 HP and 1 point of armor, they are fully within the human norm. Nothing a few pistol rounds can't fix.
But remember: Combat in CoC IS deadly. A one on one situation can easily end with all your players dead, and considering what you hav ein store for them, that would be sad indeed. Maybe make it the player's number -2 or so, that should still be difficult.

MickJay
2010-01-25, 07:18 AM
Uncovering facts about Deep Ones (especially by means like dissection, but even by reading too much about them) would also, of course, involve the loss of a few extra SAN points. "Oh my God, it's got a splanch!" *gibber, gibber*

It's a setting that rewards ignorance more often than knowing stuff.

leon666
2010-01-25, 10:48 AM
Could have the only survivor be a blind guy... can't lose 1D100 san for seeing cthulhu if he can't see :)

Best character design in CoC is the blind marathon runner. :smallbiggrin:

KurtKatze
2010-01-25, 10:51 AM
MAy i suggest getting the "Insmouth" setting somewhere?

Note: This will only work if they haven't played the xbox 360 game. Because on of them is totally based on the other -.-'

But said insmouth setting is rich in detail has lots of Plot hooks you can use etc. I personally save the deep ones because theya are very famous and i want my players to face things they don't know. Also as there are quite some adventures and campaigns out there full of the fish-faces, I wouldn't use them in a self made campaign.

WalkingTarget
2010-01-25, 11:25 AM
MAy i suggest getting the "Insmouth" setting somewhere?

Note: This will only work if they haven't played the xbox 360 game. Because on of them is totally based on the other -.-'

But said insmouth setting is rich in detail has lots of Plot hooks you can use etc. I personally save the deep ones because theya are very famous and i want my players to face things they don't know. Also as there are quite some adventures and campaigns out there full of the fish-faces, I wouldn't use them in a self made campaign.

The Escape from Innsmouth (http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Innsmouth-Cthulhu-Horror-Roleplaying/dp/1568821158) scenario book has a lot of setting stuff for the town if you go there but don't want to make it up yourself, even if you don't choose to use the included adventures.

Volkov
2010-01-25, 11:33 AM
If the unending hordes of deep ones don't kill your pc's, the hordes of starspawns will. Either that or dagon, hydra, or cthulhu kills them theirselves.

Satyr
2010-01-25, 11:52 AM
A few tips for running Cthulluh in general:
Dont't try to make it a game focused on physical confrontation. These PCs of you are fragile, and if you use whatever creaure is going occur just another form of orcs, the players will only see them as another form of orcs as well, which leads you deep into wasting potential country.

Lovecraft wasn't the most stable person around, and according to his own annotations was scared by old farmhouses and such. Don't expect your 21st century digital boys to react the same way. If you want to scare them, do not just copy an eighty year old cocept, adapt and adjust it to more current ideas.

And when Lovecraft was already a bit unstable, the game designers of CoC exagerated the madness-inducng aspects of his tales to the point of ridiculousness and beyond. Remember in Lovecraft's novels most of the terrible books are publicly available in a university library, and Ctullhu himself was defeated when he tried to headbutt a sailboat (okay, that's slightly exagerated, but really, the game is greatly exagerating the invicibility of those old things).

If you are going to play in the 1920s or 1930s, have a good look on movies made in this time. Try to get an impression how the world should look like (e,g, everybody smokes. Nobody drinks, at least legally. You can buy white phosphorus or cocaine in a pharmacy. Racism and segregation are absolutely normal, and fully mainstream opinions.). Perhaps just try to make your setting black and white; if you try to describe something, ony use terms of light and dark, but no actual colors.

There is nothing wrong with using a plot or two which are completely mundane or is just based on some weird superstition (Blavastki for the win) but have no contact whatsoever to the Mythos. If you put the Mythos everywhere, it's not much if a Mythos and leads to a "Wait, what is the big secret about this?" moment.

Never show your rubber shark. No matter what you do, never use a real Great Elder in the game. It's usually overkill and if you are doing it right, you will have such a degree of expectations for those beasts that any revelation will feel like a disappointment.

Lovecraft was also a horrible racist and antisemite. Use this when you describe the setting and the mood, but don't try to copy that into the game's reality. Likewise, as far as I know there is no female character in any taler that is not something terrible, feeble or absolutely unimportant. That, too, might fit well for the popular opinion during the time of the setting, but should not be used as a matter of fact within the game.

Volkov
2010-01-25, 11:58 AM
Remember, this is a game that punishes stupidity very harshly. If your players act like idiots, feel no restraint in punishing them for it. Maybe by making them fight a flying polyp or making them solve a nightmarishly difficult puzzle for taking a wrong turn in a maze.

Algerin
2010-01-25, 11:24 PM
Remember, this is a game that punishes stupidity very harshly. If your players act like idiots, feel no restraint in punishing them for it. Maybe by making them fight a flying polyp or making them solve a nightmarishly difficult puzzle for taking a wrong turn in a maze.

Oh, I plan to push them very, very hard. Since now all we've played is D&D, and I've heard many, many good things about CoC. Not to mention I'm a huge Lovecraft fan, and this seems like a perfect oppurtunity to introduce them to Lovecrafts world.

Anyways, I have one player who constantly plays fighter/berserker types. Would having him torn apart the first time he blinds chargely into combat be suitable? The other two have heard more about Lovecraft, but have never read any of his stories. I have told them quite abit about them though.

Also-I would really, really love to get the Innsmouth book. However... my funds are very limited(School, Other Hobbies, Girlfriend, etc). and I cant seem to find it for under a hundred dollars. so it will probably be awhile before I can get it. I also heard Beyond the Mountains of Madness is good?

hamlet
2010-01-26, 09:27 AM
The best bit of advice I can give for a Call of Cthulhu game is "imply, don't show." Nothing is scarier and all that. Having your players confront even something as "lowly" as a Deep One directly and start shooting them up really spoils things. Most of the time, the monsters should be just off stage or even present only in indirect evidence. Big strange footprints, wet slimy leavings here and there. Get the PC's into a room or apartment (perhaps searching for clues about the strange death of somebody they saw in the papers) and then put the Deep One outside the door trying to get in.

On top of that, when and if an actual physical confrontation occurs with such a thing, it should be a tense thing. It's not "you see a Deep One, roll for initiative." Instead, describe how they see something with a vaguely humanoid shape, but with all the wrong proportions, smelling like fouled sea water and making noises no human throat could. Its strength (and they are quite powerful physically) should be apparant, perhaps by bashing through a door with relative ease, or carrying something extremely heavy on its shoulder. When the shooting starts, don't say "you missed" to the players, but instead "you fire at it, and there seems to be no effect." The moment they realize that what they're facing isn't normal (even before they see it really) they should start losing sanity and feel their grasp on reality slipping. Be sure to use key words like cyclopean, miscagenated, and so on. I also like "Oh God, it has a Splanch!" if they ever get a chance to examine it's corpse closely.

By the way, you have to examine just how easily fire arms and such get into the hands of your players. Why, precisely, should everybody have a weapon? Sure, maybe one or two (like a reporter or private investigator) might have a pistol for self defense, but there's no real reason that everybody in the group should be packing, or even realistically know how to operate such a weapon. Maybe one of them is nothing but an academecian who, upon realizing he's in danger, can do no better than arming himself with a kitchen knife.

I recommend against ending on R'lyeh (sp?) as the focus. It's been done, and besides, throwing in the big guys just really ends in an anti-climax since everybody knows Cthulhu. Besides, it's important to remember that he's not a deity, even if he is worshipped. He is, in fact, the high priest of things greater, more powerful, and more horrible than himself. Better, I think, to have the whole Call of Cthulhu episode as background. It happened, but to somebody else. Perhaps that's where their original dreams came from?

Herbert West is a different animal than Cthulhu and his groupies. Different thematically and different aspects of the Mythos. He's more of a guy who got hold of tech and science beyond the bounds of human comprehension and morality and started applying it without concern to ethics and morality. A different story. They shouldn't be mixed, IMO. Go with one or the other.

No spells. Seriously bad mojo, dude. If the players start actually considering using spells, then you should start slamming them with SAN loss immediately. If they actually cast a spell or perform a ritual, well, bad things will happen. It's your duty to make sure they do.

comicshorse
2010-01-26, 11:25 AM
Posted by Algerin

I also heard Beyond the Mountains of Madness is good?


It is great but be aware of several things. Firstly the authors have put a lot of background in and so it will require a long and thorough read. Secondly, it is bvery much a slow burn game, a lot will happen before the P.C.s get anything more than a sniff of the supernatural ( don't worry about them having it easy though just survivng an Anatartic expedition is tough enough) This also means that when the horror happens it isn't just 'random mook 2" who died horribly but a comrade you'be been through hell for.
Finally you might consider having the P.C.s roll up two characters, attrition will be high and there are very few replacements in Antartica

Volkov
2010-01-26, 11:49 AM
The best bit of advice I can give for a Call of Cthulhu game is "imply, don't show." Nothing is scarier and all that. Having your players confront even something as "lowly" as a Deep One directly and start shooting them up really spoils things. Most of the time, the monsters should be just off stage or even present only in indirect evidence. Big strange footprints, wet slimy leavings here and there. Get the PC's into a room or apartment (perhaps searching for clues about the strange death of somebody they saw in the papers) and then put the Deep One outside the door trying to get in.

On top of that, when and if an actual physical confrontation occurs with such a thing, it should be a tense thing. It's not "you see a Deep One, roll for initiative." Instead, describe how they see something with a vaguely humanoid shape, but with all the wrong proportions, smelling like fouled sea water and making noises no human throat could. Its strength (and they are quite powerful physically) should be apparant, perhaps by bashing through a door with relative ease, or carrying something extremely heavy on its shoulder. When the shooting starts, don't say "you missed" to the players, but instead "you fire at it, and there seems to be no effect." The moment they realize that what they're facing isn't normal (even before they see it really) they should start losing sanity and feel their grasp on reality slipping. Be sure to use key words like cyclopean, miscagenated, and so on. I also like "Oh God, it has a Splanch!" if they ever get a chance to examine it's corpse closely.

By the way, you have to examine just how easily fire arms and such get into the hands of your players. Why, precisely, should everybody have a weapon? Sure, maybe one or two (like a reporter or private investigator) might have a pistol for self defense, but there's no real reason that everybody in the group should be packing, or even realistically know how to operate such a weapon. Maybe one of them is nothing but an academecian who, upon realizing he's in danger, can do no better than arming himself with a kitchen knife.

I recommend against ending on R'lyeh (sp?) as the focus. It's been done, and besides, throwing in the big guys just really ends in an anti-climax since everybody knows Cthulhu. Besides, it's important to remember that he's not a deity, even if he is worshipped. He is, in fact, the high priest of things greater, more powerful, and more horrible than himself. Better, I think, to have the whole Call of Cthulhu episode as background. It happened, but to somebody else. Perhaps that's where their original dreams came from?

Herbert West is a different animal than Cthulhu and his groupies. Different thematically and different aspects of the Mythos. He's more of a guy who got hold of tech and science beyond the bounds of human comprehension and morality and started applying it without concern to ethics and morality. A different story. They shouldn't be mixed, IMO. Go with one or the other.

No spells. Seriously bad mojo, dude. If the players start actually considering using spells, then you should start slamming them with SAN loss immediately. If they actually cast a spell or perform a ritual, well, bad things will happen. It's your duty to make sure they do.
Lovecraft contradicts himself when discussing the subject of cthulhu's divinity. Sometimes he's a full blown great old one, sometimes he's just a distant cousin, other times he is a high priest. But I do consider dagon and hydra as gods, just ones that are less powerful than cthulhu himself, but still potent enough to defeat entire armies or navies of races such as yith or the polyps.

Generally, if you do have them fought, make it so that only a very powerful yith or elder thing weapon can do anything to them, and make it so that even that amounts to just tickling them.

hamlet
2010-01-26, 11:54 AM
Lovecraft contradicts himself when discussing the subject of cthulhu's divinity. Sometimes he's a full blown great old one, sometimes he's just a distant cousin, other times he is a high priest. But I do consider dagon and hydra as gods, just ones that are less powerful than cthulhu himself, but still potent enough to defeat entire armies or navies of races such as yith or the polyps.

Lovecraft contradicts himself all the time and, in the end, it comes down to how you interpret it and what you decide upon is "correct."

Besides that, you have to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that Cthulhu may, in fact, be all of those things, and none of them at the same time. These things, after all, defy what we understand as logic.

Volkov
2010-01-26, 11:57 AM
I wonder if the polyps have any animosity to the great old ones. Not that they would be much of a match for them, seeing as each one appears to have their own personal army of a entire species. Not to mention that they are all immensely powerful on their own.

hamlet
2010-01-26, 12:15 PM
Would it really matter? The Polyps pretty much hate everything that isn't a Polyp, so it becomes a moot point in the end.

Volkov
2010-01-26, 12:18 PM
Would it really matter? The Polyps pretty much hate everything that isn't a Polyp, so it becomes a moot point in the end.

Why do you ask? Because its fooking awesome.

Volkov
2010-01-26, 12:22 PM
Will cthulhu's family play any role? Such as his consort idh-yaa, his sons ghatanothoa, ythogtha, and zoth-ommog, and his only daughter, cthylla. The thought of cthulhu mating is an image more terrifying than the vast majority of lovecraft's work.

hamlet
2010-01-26, 12:25 PM
Why do you ask? Because its fooking awesome.

Whenever I've run Cthulhu, it's always been less on "awesome" and more on "oh my god what is that thing!?!?" I've actually been disallowed to run COC for a period of 1 year after the last time. The players (a bunch of 3.x D&Ders) did not take kindly to the fact that bullets didn't do much against vampires.

Serves them right for summoning it in the first place.

chiasaur11
2010-01-26, 12:51 PM
Lovecraft contradicts himself all the time and, in the end, it comes down to how you interpret it and what you decide upon is "correct."

Besides that, you have to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that Cthulhu may, in fact, be all of those things, and none of them at the same time. These things, after all, defy what we understand as logic.

Except "Steamboats to the head HURT."

hamlet
2010-01-26, 01:01 PM
Except "Steamboats to the head HURT."

He got over it.:smallbiggrin:

Satyr
2010-01-26, 04:18 PM
But that's a part of it - the game tends to increadibly overestimate the danger of old C. When a comparitvely slow moving merchant vessel is completely sufficient to put him back into torpor until the star align again, think what a nice artillery round would do.

And remember: there are just as many Mythos tales where the creatures are not really that scary, apart from the fact that they are alien, and complete usual humans have no problems whatsoever to get rid of them. I know that the Howard's parts of the Mythos are usually not that prominently featured as the Lovecraft parts (which is a pity; Howard was the vastly superior author, and the best classic Mythos tale is probably his Black Stone), but remember that Conan and Krull are just as much a part of the whole mythology as Dexter Ward and Abdul Al-Hazred.

And the best official Cthulhu campaign is probably the Orient Express Campaign, even though it is heavily railroaded.

Algerin
2010-01-26, 06:07 PM
But that's a part of it - the game tends to increadibly overestimate the danger of old C. When a comparitvely slow moving merchant vessel is completely sufficient to put him back into torpor until the star align again, think what a nice artillery round would do.

And remember: there are just as many Mythos tales where the creatures are not really that scary, apart from the fact that they are alien, and complete usual humans have no problems whatsoever to get rid of them. I know that the Howard's parts of the Mythos are usually not that prominently featured as the Lovecraft parts (which is a pity; Howard was the vastly superior author, and the best classic Mythos tale is probably his Black Stone), but remember that Conan and Krull are just as much a part of the whole mythology as Dexter Ward and Abdul Al-Hazred.

And the best official Cthulhu campaign is probably the Orient Express Campaign, even though it is heavily railroaded.

aww i se what you did there ;)

I do like alot of these suggestions... they really capture the feel of lovecrafts work... also keep in mind however, that they arent going to "Fight" Cthulhu. Theyre going to maybe catch a glimpse of him. maybe. However, the idea to not reveal him seems to be equally valid. Im also excited to play an RPG not focused on combat for once.

EDIT:I also heard that Masks of Nyarlathotep" is good? anyone wanna confirm this?

Algerin
2010-01-26, 08:43 PM
Also, does anyone know a good CoC forum? I cant seem to find any...

Algerin
2010-01-26, 11:03 PM
anybody? I really want the first session to go well, to hook them into the mythos and the game and for everyone to hvae fun.

Matthew
2010-01-27, 07:11 AM
Also, does anyone know a good CoC forum? I cant seem to find any...

Yog-Sothoth (http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=index) is quite good; Chaosium have their own forums, but I cannot seem to locate the right now.

WalkingTarget
2010-01-27, 09:29 AM
EDIT:I also heard that Masks of Nyarlathotep" is good? anyone wanna confirm this?

I ran it for my gaming group back in college and it went over well. It's one of the classic campaigns (think Tomb of Horrors level of fame, only among CoC players instead of D&D).

frogspawner
2010-01-27, 10:13 AM
I just ordered the Call of Cthulhu Chasiom 6th edition on Amazon.I and my players are very excited to play it.

My first plan is to run them through the actual Call of Cthulhu story(With a little bit of Reanimator and some deep ones... just for fun). My question is, how well would this work? What encounters, clues etc would i need?
I think you should pop over to Chaosium's site and download their CoC QuickStart (http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=87).
As well as the basic rules, to get you started, it's got the classic starting adventure in the back.

Any encounter with Cthulhu himself should probably be reserved for the climax of a long-running campaign...

I expect you'd find plenty of people willing to give you advice about CoC over at the BRP Central forum, CoC being a sub-set of BRP (see link in sig).

Volkov
2010-01-27, 12:22 PM
Remember, in lovecrafts stories children were either unimportant or evil, just like women or non anglo-saxon males. Says quite a lot about the racist, ageist, sexist, asexual guy. But his stories are still good. So no plot important children who aren't monsters or evil, or both.

hamlet
2010-01-27, 12:44 PM
Remember, in lovecrafts stories children were either unimportant or evil, just like women or non anglo-saxon males. Says quite a lot about the racist, ageist, sexist, asexual guy. But his stories are still good. So no plot important children who aren't monsters or evil, or both.

Well, to be entirely fair about the children thing, 99% of the story lines that would come out of the genre of Cosmic Horror wouldn't involve children unless they're evil anyway.

But the sexist, racist, and mostly asexual guy bits are mostly true.

frogspawner
2010-01-27, 12:56 PM
As far as Mythos creatures go, Deep Ones are hardly that tough. With STR 14 and an average of 13 HP and 1 point of armor, they are fully within the human norm. Nothing a few pistol rounds can't fix.

If the unending hordes of deep ones don't kill your pc's, the hordes of starspawns will. Either that or dagon, hydra, or cthulhu kills them theirselves.
Er, Call of Cthulhu isn't about combat. It's about atmosphere, suspense and... roleplaying.

Characters shouldn't even see such horrors until later on in a campaign. Suspecting their existence is bad enough! Most adventures would involve machinations of human cultists. Basically, in CoC, if you're fighting a monster something has gone wrong!

(Though personally, I prefer Fantasy. Give me combat every time!)