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Origomar
2010-08-04, 02:16 AM
im pretty sure its a book that was written a while ago but beyond that i have no clue.

Satyr
2010-08-04, 02:35 AM
It's an RPG based on the writings of H.P: Lovecraft and a few other authors - most importantly Howard (the guy who created Conan) and August Derleth (gah...). It's a horror game based on creatures from outside of reality and their complete and utter ignorance towards everything human. And a few other aliens and monsters which are mostly ... monstrous.
Thanks to Lovecraft and his fellow writers, the whole Mythos of Cthulhu has a very own and quite elaborate background with various "gods", monsters, symbols and so on. The best known of which is the Necronomicon.

The game is known for it's focus on the inability of the players to "win" in any way. In the strongly flanderized (or to be more exact derlethized) and hyperbolic form (which unfortunately is shared by some of the authors), player characters have only two real choices: going MAD about the revelations of a cruel and uncaring universe, or just die.

Call of Cthulhu is one of the more traditional games around, with a first edition printed in 1980 or '81 or so. And unfortunately, it shows its age.
Nowadays, there is a progenitor of the system, which in my opinion is way capturing the moot and feeling of the horror scenario, and has also the more elegant and appropriate rules. That's Trail of Cthulhu. It's like Call, only better.

If you are interested in a horror game and have no problem with the idea that "The cosmos does not about you, puny human" is supposed to be scary, it is a good background, but Trail is the overall more modern and better game. Content-wise, the two do not differ much (as they are both based on the same works by the same author).

Killer Angel
2010-08-04, 02:39 AM
The game is known for it's focus on the inability of the players to "win" in any way. In the strongly flanderized (or to be more exact derlethized) and hyperbolic form (which unfortunately is shared by some of the authors), player characters have only two real choices: going MAD about the revelations of a cruel and uncaring universe, or just die.


and this gives you the big advantage that you cannot became too attached to your character. :smalltongue:
...at least, in Paranoia, you can count on some clones...

Origomar
2010-08-04, 02:42 AM
It's an RPG based on the writings of H.P: Lovecraft and a few other authors - most importantly Howard (the guy who created Conan) and August Derleth (gah...). It's a horror game based on creatures from outside of reality and their complete and utter ignorance towards everything human. And a few other aliens and monsters which are mostly ... monstrous.
Thanks to Lovecraft and his fellow writers, the whole Mythos of Cthulhu has a very own and quite elaborate background with various "gods", monsters, symbols and so on. The best known of which is the Necronomicon.

The game is known for it's focus on the inability of the players to "win" in any way. In the strongly flanderized (or to be more exact derlethized) and hyperbolic form (which unfortunately is shared by some of the authors), player characters have only two real choices: going MAD about the revelations of a cruel and uncaring universe, or just die.

Call of Cthulhu is one of the more traditional games around, with a first edition printed in 1980 or '81 or so. And unfortunately, it shows its age.
Nowadays, there is a progenitor of the system, which in my opinion is way capturing the moot and feeling of the horror scenario, and has also the more elegant and appropriate rules. That's Trail of Cthulhu. It's like Call, only better.

If you are interested in a horror game and have no problem with the idea that "The cosmos does not about you, puny human" is supposed to be scary, it is a good background, but Trail is the overall more modern and better game. Content-wise, the two do not differ much (as they are both based on the same works by the same author).

cool, thanks. ill probably never get to play it cause i dont know anyone near me that is into rpgs but i might read the story atleast.

so the stereotype about it is your character either goes insane or you die lol? kinda funny.

hamishspence
2010-08-04, 02:43 AM
And for those that want to import Cthulhu-based content into D&D, there is D20 Call of Cthulhu.

Ossian
2010-08-04, 02:57 AM
Call of Chtulhu is a great setting which can be used in different contexts, provided you add gloom and horror. Cultists of long forgotten Gods who care not a fig about the lives of their worshipers, their minds too incomprehensible to be even described.

The classic Chtulhu sees the PCs as all sorts of figures from the heyday of pulp novels, from police investigator that realize that something weird is going on at the top levels of that industry, to a policeman who bumps into some kind of pre-indian graffiti as he chases a thief down the most forgotten levels of the tub.

Even Ghostbusters (if you have not seen it, do it. it 's a classic) is partially inspired by the myths of chtulhu. It can be modern, thus, or very very old, say the puritan new england in the XVII century, and its strength is precisely in the unsaid, in the untold, in the unwritten, in the unseen.

For a moder day example, enjoy the mystery that surrounds the "bloop", here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

People have pointed out that the location of the sound originated within 500 miles from the location of R'lyeh in the South Pacific, thus coincidentally linking the sound to the sleeping, Great Old One Cthulhu in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.

The location is the farthest known on from all emerged land on the maps. And thus the adventure of Chtulhu began for Origomar, one little line that appeared one day on the internet, while he was innocently browsing a message board on a D&D comic....:smallcool:

SurlySeraph
2010-08-04, 03:24 AM
cool, thanks. ill probably never get to play it cause i dont know anyone near me that is into rpgs but i might read the story atleast.

so the stereotype about it is your character either goes insane or you die lol? kinda funny.

Part of the idea of CoC is that there are no complete victories. Best case scenario is that you stop [insert horrible thing here] from happening at a terrible cost, likely the death and/or mutilation and/or psychological breakdown of at least half the party. Worst case scenario is that the world gets eaten and it's your fault.

Longtime players fall into two molds: the ones who don't even try to live long, and the ones who try to make characters as survivable as is remotely plausible within the constraints of the genre. I.e. college professors with great skill at dodging and throwing explosives, illiterate detectives - oh, did we not mention books? In Call of Cthulu, books are out to get you. Losing sanity is about the least bad thing that will come from reading a book that talks about the Mythos.

Origomar
2010-08-04, 03:32 AM
Part of the idea of CoC is that there are no complete victories. Best case scenario is that you stop [insert horrible thing here] from happening at a terrible cost, likely the death and/or mutilation and/or psychological breakdown of at least half the party. Worst case scenario is that the world gets eaten and it's your fault.

Longtime players fall into two molds: the ones who don't even try to live long, and the ones who try to make characters as survivable as is remotely plausible within the constraints of the genre. I.e. college professors with great skill at dodging and throwing explosives, illiterate detectives - oh, did we not mention books? In Call of Cthulu, books are out to get you. Losing sanity is about the least bad thing that will come from reading a book that talks about the Mythos.

out of curiosity what is this insanity deal is it something like

DM: you have found a book with mysterious markings on it
player: i read the book
DM: you go insane and shoot the nearest party member
player: ???
5. Profit

chiasaur11
2010-08-04, 03:43 AM
You really want to know? You want to know of the darkness inside the souls of men and the far worse things outside?

You're either a brave man or a fool. No. You are a fool only, for no man with the slightest understanding would seek to understand the terrible secrets hidden beneath the pitiful shroud we in our ignorance call reality, the things that once ruled our world, that will return when the stars are right. All of us unfortunate enough to know anything of the matter regret it. Those few bold and foolish enough to attempt to understand died in agony with men calling them mad.



Oh. Right. The RPG.

I think the other folks described it well enough. Continue with your life of blissful ignorance, sorry to intrude.

Satyr
2010-08-04, 03:45 AM
In Call of Cthulhu, Insanity works pretty much like Hitpoints. You have a pool of points and every time you experience something terrible or learn something humanity was not meant to know, you loose sanity points; if you reach 0, your are maaad! Maaaaad, I say.
I think the only way to get them back is go to Vienna and see Dr, Freud. to let him explain to you, that sleeping with the fishes doesn't have to be taken literally.
Yes, it's a stupid mechanism and one of the reason why Trail is the better system, while it treats the whole madness level a little bit more like mental illnesses and neuroses work in reality and has a few really mean ways to play it out:
If a characters suffers a hit to his mental stability, the player is sent out of the room. The group then counsels what kind of madness the character will develop and try their best to enforce it. For example, they constantly share shifty looks and little notes around the character to make sure the player gets the feeling of paranoia right. Or they "invent" a new family or rewrite another part of the character's back story. Just to see the look of his face when he comes home, and meets a total stranger who is married to him for the last ten years or so.

arrowhen
2010-08-04, 03:49 AM
out of curiosity what is this insanity deal is it something like

DM: you have found a book with mysterious markings on it
player: i read the book
DM: you go insane and shoot the nearest party member
player: ???
5. Profit

That's... pretty accurate, actually. Except for the profit part.

Sometimes there's a few steps between going insane and shooting the nearest party member, depending on what you roll on the random insanity table. And sometimes it's not reading a book that does it, but casting a spell, or emptying your clip into the shambling, eldritch, cyclopean horror from beyond time and space only to discover that your bullets have no effect.

But yeah, that's pretty much it. You investigate something weird, something even weirder happens, you try to do something about it and it either doesn't work or makes things horribly, unimaginably worse, and then you go insane and die.

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-04, 04:17 AM
As far as Insanity goes; it depends just as much on the GM, and the type of campaigns you play.

In the games I have played SAN checks / loss are rare enough that the only person having real trouble is our resident artist / drug user (it is 1890ies london after all, with all kind of drugs) who STARTED with a SAN of 35...

The whole SAN thing is a slippery slope, when you start loosing your SAN (sanity points) it goes quicker and quicker.

Our DM is very ambitious when it comes to the characters, so no over-the-top ones.

Last game I was co-DMing, but I used to play an Irish Ex-Catholic priest who quit and now worked as a preacher in the East End of London. No special skills except high scores in Latin and a few other academic skills.

The other characters is a retired army officer (with logical skills for that), A journalist thinking of quitting and starting a detective agency (He is very inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories) and a headmistress for a school for girls.
Edit: forgot one: A genuine American cowboy; part of Buffalo Bill's travelling circus that got stuck in London for some reason and dumped from the show when they moved on.

hamishspence
2010-08-04, 04:37 AM
Call of Chtulhu is a great setting which can be used in different contexts, provided you add gloom and horror. Cultists of long forgotten Gods who care not a fig about the lives of their worshipers, their minds too incomprehensible to be even described.

The classic Chtulhu sees the PCs as all sorts of figures from the heyday of pulp novels, from police investigator that realize that something weird is going on at the top levels of that industry, to a policeman who bumps into some kind of pre-indian graffiti as he chases a thief down the most forgotten levels of the tub.

Even Ghostbusters (if you have not seen it, do it. it 's a classic) is partially inspired by the myths of chtulhu. It can be modern, thus, or very very old, say the puritan new england in the XVII century, and its strength is precisely in the unsaid, in the untold, in the unwritten, in the unseen.


D20 Cthulhu has a big list of films, books, etc that fit in well to the setting- depending on the era. The X-Files was one of them.

Bayar
2010-08-04, 04:50 AM
Contrary to popular belief, reading the book will not make you go insane or lose sanity points.

arrowhen
2010-08-04, 04:54 AM
Contrary to popular belief, reading the book will not make you go insane or lose sanity points.

You obviously haven't read the right edition.

Psyx
2010-08-04, 05:01 AM
"And for those that want to import Cthulhu-based content into D&D, there is D20 Call of Cthulhu."

The most pointless and loathed d20 book ever.

The only d20 Cthulhu rules I need are: Cthulhu turns up and drives mad/kills d20 PCs per combat round.


Probably best to read some Cthulhu anthologies. They're good books.

hamishspence
2010-08-04, 05:10 AM
I got the impression it wasn't especially liked or disliked- I've seen a lot more dislike for various other D20 books, than that one.

Khatoblepas
2010-08-04, 05:32 AM
out of curiosity what is this insanity deal is it something like

DM: you have found a book with mysterious markings on it
player: i read the book
DM: you go insane and shoot the nearest party member
player: ???
5. Profit

Of course not. Books take months to read and digest, and the sanity loss never leads to an insanity* - but reading Mythos tomes makes the player lose sanity from both ends. Learning more about the Mythos (a skill represented at first by a 00% chance) lowers your maximum sanity from 99 to whatever's left you do not know about the Mythos. It may cost you sanity points to read, but after a particularily long stint in book reading and fighting eldritch horrors, you can check into an insane asylum and regain your sanity... but once you become a seasoned investigator, your sanity will slowly drain away from the bottom (reducing maximum sanity), not the top (current sanity). The highest Cthulhu Mythos skill I've ever attained was 45%, and that investigator is currently turning into a servitor to T'sathoggua because of a fumbled "Commune with T'sathoggua" spell learning (I got 100% on my roll. 96-100 is a fumble.)

The best kind of CoC game, in my opinion, is one where your investigator slowly goes mad. Going mad too quickly means your survival instinct doesn't kick in. Your characters do not learn. Couple that with the lethality of the system (Shotguns do 4d6 damage per barrel. You have 8-14 hit points. Lose half, and you risk falling unconscious) and you get something horrifying.

And sooner or later, you realise that trying to play your investigators like heroes or paranoid survivalists isn't always fun. Playing an ordinary guy that gets sucked into this is some of the most fun I've had - especially because some scenarios are so open ended, any skillset is useful.

*Actual behavioural changes. Losing sanity in and of itself just makes you suceptable to more sanity loss.

Eldan
2010-08-04, 05:44 AM
Aah, yes. We did a kind of semi-freeform game for that once, with very few dice rolled. IT was tun.

DM: "Roll Sanity."
Player A: "Roll is X"
DM: "That's failed... leave for a moment, please."
DM to the rest of the party: "Okay, everyone. From now on, player A's character's name is Jack and has always been jack. His passport says so. He has a very distinctive scar on his left cheek. Your character's name, player B, is Edward, and has always been Edward. Your's, player C, is Robert. You got your mission from Lady Johanna Clarke, not Lady Elizabeth Clarke, understood? Good."

Yes, the only thing he did was change the first names of all characters and a few important NPCs. The player was very confused.

Aotrs Commander
2010-08-04, 07:20 AM
If a characters suffers a hit to his mental stability, the player is sent out of the room. The group then counsels what kind of madness the character will develop and try their best to enforce it. For example, they constantly share shifty looks and little notes around the character to make sure the player gets the feeling of paranoia right. Or they "invent" a new family or rewrite another part of the character's back story. Just to see the look of his face when he comes home, and meets a total stranger who is married to him for the last ten years or so.


DM to the rest of the party: "Okay, everyone. From now on, player A's character's name is Jack and has always been jack. His passport says so. He has a very distinctive scar on his left cheek. Your character's name, player B, is Edward, and has always been Edward. Your's, player C, is Robert. You got your mission from Lady Johanna Clarke, not Lady Elizabeth Clarke, understood? Good."

Hmm... I'm not a CoC person myself, but that is an interesting method. I'm sure I can find a use for that someday, somewhere. That's really delightfully evil...

Aroka
2010-08-04, 07:24 AM
August Derleth (gah...)

This just made you more awesome, because August Derleth... gah!

The Lurker at the Threshold is a very interesting case study; apparently, Lovecraft wrote the first third and part of the second third, and Derleth finished the book after his death. The first third is great, the second third is so-so, and I just stopped reading when I got into the last third. :smallfurious:


The game is known for it's focus on the inability of the players to "win" in any way. In the strongly flanderized (or to be more exact derlethized) and hyperbolic form (which unfortunately is shared by some of the authors), player characters have only two real choices: going MAD about the revelations of a cruel and uncaring universe, or just die.

So true about the flanderization; every single published investigation I've read does assume the PCs win, even though it's not easy and it's always a "delaying victory" - the PCs defeated one horror, but the world is full of them. Mortality and insanity rates may be high (although, really, only badly designed or badly conducted investigations should involve the PCs actually being exposed to GOOs or OGs or even anything that can kill them or drive them insane automatically, like Star-Spawn), but the PCs are still supposed to persevere and make it through and close the dimensional rift or prevent the summoning or send the monster back where it came from.


And yes, Trail of Cthulhu is a way better system. It's stylistically incredibly similar, and all the differences are definite improvements - it deals with the two main campaign styles (pulp and purist), the sanity and stability mechanics are great,and it offers a ton more thoughts and discussions on the Titans (Great Old Ones and Outer Gods; there's up to a dozen interpretations for each Titan, including Azathoth as an abstract nihilistic ideal or a supermassive black hole, and Cthulhu as an Outer God incarnation of gravity or an Outer God extruding from its home dimension).


And for those that want to import Cthulhu-based content into D&D, there is D20 Call of Cthulhu.

A needlessly reviled system. It's nowhere near as good as Trail, but it's not bad; with a massive damage threshold of 10, no magic items, etc., it's basically impossible to fight 10 deep ones at 20th level and survive; going up against big monsters like star-spawn is completely inconceivable, since every attack they make will probably kill you with massive damage. And I much prefer the DC mechanic to the CoC "%, maybe -%" skill mechanic (which especially sucks for opposed checks; how does sneaking work, again?). And those stats for Cthulhu, etc.? They're D&D stats - they use a different format from the CoCd20 stats, and include a lot of things the d20 ones wouldn't.

And if you want to talk pointless d20 conversions, try Fading Suns d20. It makes me so mad.

Gnaeus
2010-08-04, 07:53 AM
This just made you more awesome, because August Derleth... gah!

The Lurker at the Threshold is a very interesting case study; apparently, Lovecraft wrote the first third and part of the second third, and Derleth finished the book after his death. The first third is great, the second third is so-so, and I just stopped reading when I got into the last third. :smallfurious:

Be nice to Mr. Derleth. If he hadn't created Arkham House publishing, none of us would probably know who HP Lovecraft was. He just couldn't write good horror fiction.

hamlet
2010-08-04, 07:59 AM
im pretty sure its a book that was written a while ago but beyond that i have no clue.

Call of Cthulhu was also a novella by HP Lovecraft. It was HP's stories that served as the basis for the RPG and most of his writing are available for free in the internet nowadays.

Very good reads for cold, dark nights on your own in a poorly lit room.

hamishspence
2010-08-04, 08:05 AM
it's basically impossible to fight 10 deep ones at 20th level and survive; going up against big monsters like star-spawn is completely inconceivable, since every attack they make will probably kill you with massive damage. And I much prefer the DC mechanic to the CoC "%, maybe -%" skill mechanic (which especially sucks for opposed checks; how does sneaking work, again?). And those stats for Cthulhu, etc.? They're D&D stats - they use a different format from the CoCd20 stats, and include a lot of things the d20 ones wouldn't.[/B]

I couldn't find stats for Star Spawn of Cthulhu in the D20 book- though there is a recommendation for making Spawn of Hastur (just take Hastur's stats and downgrade them a bit).

The standard monster stats don't really require that much adjusting to make them D&D-compatible, though since some are Beasts (dholes) they need changing to Magical Beasts in a 3.5 game.

Psyx
2010-08-04, 08:20 AM
"A needlessly reviled system."

I disagree. It's a system that need never had existed. It adds nothing. It also gives players the impression that they might make it to level 5...


CoC is about skillchecks, not combat. And d20 has the worst skill-system ever created, outside of 1st/2nd edition D&D.

d20 CoC can go to hell and die.

Aroka
2010-08-04, 08:28 AM
I couldn't find stats for Star Spawn of Cthulhu in the D20 book- though there is a recommendation for making Spawn of Hastur (just take Hastur's stats and downgrade them a bit).

The standard monster stats don't really require that much adjusting to make them D&D-compatible, though since some are Beasts (dholes) they need changing to Magical Beasts in a 3.5 game.

I just went with star-spawn because I couldn't remember what the name of the hooting, stomping "children" of Shub-Niggurath is. :smallredface:

And yes, conversion is easy; my point was merely that the stats for Cthulhu, etc. aren't intended for CoCd20 itself (I think the main difference might actually be whether they use a single number space, like "X ft.", or "X by Y ft." ?).


Call of Cthulhu was also a novella by HP Lovecraft. It was HP's stories that served as the basis for the RPG and most of his writing are available for free in the internet nowadays.

Very good reads for cold, dark nights on your own in a poorly lit room.

I think the free status of Lovecraft's stories is kinda disputed, although it may have been resolved since I last read on the subject; anyway, The Call of Cthulhu isn't actually one of the best stories. I'd rather recommend, in order of preference:
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (the very best)
The Shadow Over Innsmouth (greatly flawed but effective)
Pickman's Model
The Dreams in the Witch House
And then the following (can't really put them in any order): At the Mountains of Madness, The Rats in the Walls, The Shadow Out of Time, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Lurking Fear, The Dunwich Horror, The Haunter in the Dark, and The Call of Cthulhu.

That's your basic Mythos curriculum.

For extra credit, read The Colour out of Space, The Doom That Came to Sarnath, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, Herbert West - Reanimator, The Horror at Red Hook, The Statement of Randolph Carter, and The Strange High House in the Mist.

Also, it's a crime to mention Howard and Derleth but to neglect Clark Ashton Smith. His effect on both Howard and the much later (and decidedly non-Lovecraftian) Michael Moorcock is clear, and his material is awesomely fantastic, even if it is rarely "proper" horror. Tsathoggua for president (of Saturn)!


I disagree. It's a system that need never had existed. It adds nothing. It also gives players the impression that they might make it to level 5...

Can't account for taste, so I'll address the actual argument:


CoC is about skillchecks, not combat. And d20 has the worst skill-system ever created, outside of 1st/2nd edition D&D.

d20 CoC can go to hell and die.

d20's skill system is serviceable, and definitely superior to the BRP one (CoC, RQ, Stormbringer, Elric!, Corum, Hawkmoon, etc.).

How does an opposed skill check work in CoC? If I have Sneak 90% and the other guy has Spot 90%, how is this resolved?

According to the book (CoC 5.5, '98), I have to roll to hide successfully. Then the other guy gets to roll to notice me, a "hidden intruder". That means my odds of actually successfully hiding are 9%. When my skill is 90%. With equal skills, shouldn't that be more a 50/50 deal?

I'm not aware of a fix to this in any Chaosium game, although Mongoose's RuneQuest does resolve the issue quite adequately (if in a slightly complicated way, when comparing "die roll plus bonus" would be easier).

And skill checks in CoC can basically do one of two things, outside of combat: stop the investigation or let it progress. It's an awful way to run a horror mystery game. Trail of Cthulhu's clever clue mechanic handily solves this. Really, if you want to rank the games by skill mechanic, ToC comes miles ahead of both d20 and CoC BRP.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-04, 08:35 AM
I seem to recall there are also plenty of freely available radio-plays based on the books. Might be worth scratching around for.

Earthwalker
2010-08-04, 09:13 AM
My one complaint about playing CoC is the back drop that is usualy used to draw people into campaigns or adventures.

This may be more a GM thing then published material I am not sure.

I have always ended up playing a student or car machanic or some such. You get involved in some mystery you have no idea about and have no real way to find out.

Some where along the way you have to start making choices that make no sense in order to keep the game going.

I aren't phrasing this right, I will compare it to Chill.

Both are horror games, in chill you at least start as a character that knows that the bad things are there and have a reason to look into the mysteries. In CoC I have never lived long enough to know about the horrors or what even temperary victory I can claim other then running and not stopping.

Again this could just be a GM style thing

Aroka
2010-08-04, 09:27 AM
Again this could just be a GM style thing

It very much is. Compare to CoC's modern-day setting, Delta Green; or to the numerous campaign setting ideas in Trail of Cthulhu, which include being government agents in a cross-agency task force set up after the Innsmouth raid to investigate the Mythos, or the part of the London underworld that acquires and fences Mythos tomes, etc. Bad GMing/writing is not dependent on the game or the setting, it's dependent on the GM/writing.

My personal favorite way is to start slow. You take a bunch of people who are linked (friendship, blood, work), and you give them a brief adventure with personal motivations (dead relative, etc.) that ever so shallowly introduces them to some tiny facet of the Mythos, but creates in them a curiosity. You foster this and develop it into a desire to fight against these madmen, monsters (easy ones, like deep ones, migo, star vampires), and alien menaces, and eventually investigating and fighting the Mythos becomes their main purpose and drive.

This is why the "everyone dies and goes crazy" thing is a bad cliche - it's anathema to actual campaigns, which make way more sense than one-offs. One-offs can work fine, though - you just need the right motivation. (Trapped, loved ones in danger, etc.)

This is also where Trail of Cthulhu shines bright again: motivations. It has mechanics for motivations (both pulp and purist Lovecraftian) that explain why the PCs go down into that nighted crypt from which issue foul odors, etc. And anyway, why would you play a character who doesn't have some reason to do it? That's just missing the point of the game.

I myself currently have two main campaign ideas: one would follow the gradual introduction (see The Dunwich Horror and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward for how to do those well), turning the PCs into real investigators bit by bit; the other is my two-fisted-Pulp-style Fighting Nazi Sorcerers Around the World campaign, where the PCs would start at least vaguely aware of Mythos (like many, if not most, of Lovecraft's protagonists are!), and would be adventurers or would-be adventurers ready to risk life and limb for science, curiosity, or mom and apple pie. Think Indiana Jones with eldritch horrors.

Lysander
2010-08-04, 09:42 AM
Lovecraft's work is mostly if not all in the public domain and can be read for free online here as well as many other places: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

They're well worth reading. What's fascinating is that you'll recognize many of his plots, they've been reused and adapted by countless books and films. Many standard tropes of fantasy and horror were developed by him.

Emmerask
2010-08-04, 09:46 AM
cool, thanks. ill probably never get to play it cause i dont know anyone near me that is into rpgs but i might read the story atleast.

so the stereotype about it is your character either goes insane or you die lol? kinda funny.

Most of the short stories are under free license and can be read @ wikipedia (no copyright infringement involved here)
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:H._P._Lovecraft
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu

Also Der Hexer von Salem (The Witch of Salem) which is based of the cthulhu mythos and characters by Wolfgang Hohlbein is a good read.

Earthwalker
2010-08-04, 10:00 AM
It very much is. Compare to CoC's modern-day setting, Delta Green; or to the numerous campaign setting ideas in Trail of Cthulhu, which include being government agents in a cross-agency task force set up after the Innsmouth raid to investigate the Mythos, or the part of the London underworld that acquires and fences Mythos tomes, etc. Bad GMing/writing is not dependent on the game or the setting, it's dependent on the GM/writing.


I did like the idea of delta green as this did indeed cure the problem I was having. I think it may be more a problem player thing, namly me. If I am playing a student and I encounter world ending horrors I generally think it should be someone elses problem.

I am so wanting to try Trail of Cthulhu as it lookds and sounds really good.

Satyr
2010-08-04, 12:42 PM
So true about the flanderization; every single published investigation I've read does assume the PCs win, even though it's not easy and it's always a "delaying victory" - the PCs defeated one horror, but the world is full of them. Mortality and insanity rates may be high (although, really, only badly designed or badly conducted investigations should involve the PCs actually being exposed to GOOs or OGs or even anything that can kill them or drive them insane automatically, like Star-Spawn), but the PCs are still supposed to persevere and make it through and close the dimensional rift or prevent the summoning or send the monster back where it came from.

I am not very familiar with the English products for CoC, and generally speaking, the German version is at least more beautiful, and has a few own adventures (some of which are awesome); otherwise I only know the Orient Express and that one is heavily railroaded.

Besides, does anybody The Armitage Files? It sounds pretty awesome...

Mnemnosyne
2010-08-04, 01:35 PM
Lovecraft's work is mostly if not all in the public domain and can be read for free online here as well as many other places: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

They're well worth reading. What's fascinating is that you'll recognize many of his plots, they've been reused and adapted by countless books and films. Many standard tropes of fantasy and horror were developed by him.

Yeah, the vast majority of what he wrote is well worth reading. I would particularly recommend At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, as they're some of my favorites from what I've read. Of course read Call of Cthulhu as well, but it's quite short and easily read quickly.

Mountains of Madness is easily my favorite though.

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-04, 02:22 PM
I am not very familiar with the English products for CoC, and generally speaking, the German version is at least more beautiful, and has a few own adventures (some of which are awesome); otherwise I only know the Orient Express and that one is heavily railroaded.

There is a pun in there somewhere... :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, I think there is a big difference between a long campaign, and one-shots or two-shots. Basically if you run a story where the investigators are normal people, instead of say FBI X-Files guys, they really have no reason to come across weirdness more than once. So then, that particular group of investigators would indeed be able to win.

DragonsAion
2010-08-04, 04:10 PM
so what are the thoughts on Cthulu tech?

Comet
2010-08-04, 04:19 PM
so what are the thoughts on Cthulu tech?

Awesome, in a word. It combines some of my favourite fictions ever (the Cthulhu mythos, Macross/Robotech, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira etc. etc.) and makes it actually work, from what I've seen.
I haven't gotten to play it, but the themes of the game are deliciously dark and gritty while maintaining an atmosphere of heroic determination and meaningful struggle.

Heroes fighting against the apocalypse and its swarms of aberrant horrors, their only hope of survival being giant robots, psychic powers, determination and blind luck. And then they proceed to go insane from all the stress as they learn what the war they wage is really about. Awesome.

Edit @V: Yeah, much of the appeal does rest on the notion that giant fighting robots make everything awesome. There is a fair bit more to it than that, but the inspiration from classic anime is still there.

Satyr
2010-08-04, 04:20 PM
so what are the thoughts on Cthulu tech?

Not nearly as cool as Cthulhupunk, but I have to admit that I am not much into Anime in the first place, so I might be the wrong audience.

DragonsAion
2010-08-04, 05:08 PM
Really?

The books are in my local comic shop and other then the fact that my favorite anime (guyver) inspired one of the races I don't know much about it.

I wonder if I could find a game to give it a try but the chance of that happening are not to good as the local comic people prefer magic and Magic JR.

chiasaur11
2010-08-04, 05:37 PM
So, anyone played Delta Green?

Been curious about it for a while.

Aroka
2010-08-04, 06:11 PM
Lovecraft's work is mostly if not all in the public domain and can be read for free online here as well as many other places: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

They're well worth reading. What's fascinating is that you'll recognize many of his plots, they've been reused and adapted by countless books and films. Many standard tropes of fantasy and horror were developed by him.

In fact, a lot of modern horror and fantasy can be traced back to Lovecraft, usually through his "disciples", like Clark Ashton Smith (ghouls, evil temples, walking skeletons with points of light in their eye-sockets, etc.) and, obviously. Robert E. Howard.

JaronK
2010-08-04, 06:32 PM
The one problem I've always had with Lovecraft's work is that he was always very racist and very afraid of the universe not caring about humanity. As such, most of his horror themes trace back to "things that look different from us are inhearently scary" and "realizing the world doesn't care about you will drive you mad." For those of us who aren't terrified by difference or indifference, a lot of the monsters just become "something big that might try to hurt you... or not. But you're crazy because you found that out." Hence those plots don't work so good.

As for CoC itself, it's showing its age (mostly due to the random stat generation with no point buy option). It's also a game that doesn't care about balance at all (mercenaries are WAY better than most other professions, for example), and tries to make that less important by saying you're going to die anyway. That's not so good for game design. But the setting is interesting, and the skill system/level up system is a decent one. It's certainly still playable. Annoyingly, the whole point of the game is that your characters don't know the mythos at all (knowing would drive them nuts) but to really enjoy the game you have to as a player know it a bit (otherwise the idea that reading a book drives you nuts feels very bizarre).

Though it can be fun to make characters that suck in the system but should logically be good. My current character is a B&E sneak thief with a penchant for reading obscure books...

JaronK

Aroka
2010-08-04, 06:46 PM
The one problem I've always had with Lovecraft's work is that he was always very racist and very afraid of the universe not caring about humanity. As such, most of his horror themes trace back to "things that look different from us are inhearently scary" and "realizing the world doesn't care about you will drive you mad." For those of us who aren't terrified by difference or indifference, a lot of the monsters just become "something big that might try to hurt you... or not. But you're crazy because you found that out." Hence those plots don't work so good.

One cannot dispute the racism (The Horror at Red Hook is probably the most explicit, and actually draws on his experiences living in the area as a frightened bigot among immigrants, and The Haunter in the Dark is pretty bad - both basically do the "swarthy eastern europeans are monstrous subhumans with evil in their hearts!"), and Lovecraft was a proponent of eugenics (then again, so was the US government in his lifetime), but your characterisation seems a bit odd. Mostly, the monsters are very much outright dangerous, inhumanly hostile, and alien; cf. The Whisperer in Darkness, Herbert West - Reanimator, The Dunwich Horror, and so on... and a lot of the time, the evil is human, or human turned inhuman.

He basically treads a few major themes:
1. Human becomes inhuman, regression, de-evolution, grotesque. This is prominent in a ton of the "lesser stories" (in fact, those are pretty much all this one or 3.; see The Beast in the Cave, The Transition of Juan Romero, etc.). He repeats the same story, and it's done best in The Lurking Fear. The ghouls of Pickman's Model are all about this. It's an interesting theme, IMO, especially since it hints that even you could degenerate so.
2. The universe is vast, incomprehensible, and inhospitable. This is the cosmic horror. It will either work for you or it won't, but it isn't so much about not understanding something as it is about the precise opposite: it's the realization of the fact that the universe is uncaring at best and usually hostile that leads to madness.
3. HE HAD LIVED TOO LONG BLEEAAH! This is another one from the lesser stories (Cool Air, The Alchemist, etc.). These stories literally all end up with some form of "HE HAD LIVED TOO LONG BLEEAAH!" They're pretty much from his "I want to be E. A. Poe" phase, and suck. Not a very interesting theme.

So, yeah, no, your reduction really doesn't apply to most of his stories.


(mercenaries are WAY better than most other professions, for example)

Mercenaries get Dodge, Library Use, Occult, and Spot? :smallamused:

Comet
2010-08-05, 06:44 AM
So, anyone played Delta Green?

Been curious about it for a while.

Again, haven't gotten to actually play it (I haven't gotten to play much of anything in a while, come to think of it), but I've read it through and it might be my favourite game in the cthulhu mythos.

This handy quote that TvTropes reminded me of sums up the game pretty neatly, for me.
"We travel light, we probe deep, and we strike hard. We're Delta Green, and we may be outlaws and cowboys and fools, but we've kept this green ball of **** safe and sound for longer than most people have been alive."

So, mythos investigation in the modern world, with the added bonus that the characters aren't regular blokes that just happen to stumble upon these amazing adventures. Much more fun and engaging to be part of a group that actually kind of knows what they are doing. It makes the risks they take feel a bit more meaningful.

Healthy dose of the X-Files, with some fun commando fighting and high-tech gadgets available. Lots of ancient conspiracies, shady cults and evil corporations mucking about, making life difficult for everybody. And of course classic modern myths (flying saucers and that sort of stuff) weaved into the original mythos without too much fuss. One of those games I really need to play one day.

hamishspence
2010-08-05, 06:48 AM
Quite a few of the Cthulhu creatures come from elsewhere in the universe- so a bit of X-Files would not be out of place.

Aroka
2010-08-05, 09:20 AM
Quite a few of the Cthulhu creatures come from elsewhere in the universe- so a bit of X-Files would not be out of place.

Definitely a decent inspiration. Indeed, there's basically three types of monster in the Mythos: aliens (creatures from Saturn, Pluto, and other stars; like the migo and shan), extradimensionals (creatures from outside our physical reality; like the Outer Gods and Hounds of Tindalos), and ancients (things that are of Earth, but are billions of years old, and maybe have originated on other planets; like the serpentfolk, deep ones, and shoggoths). The migo pretty explicitly get up to the classic alien abduction stuff.

Great, now I kind of want to do Mythos X-Files...

MickJay
2010-08-05, 11:26 AM
As for CoC itself, it's showing its age (mostly due to the random stat generation with no point buy option). It's also a game that doesn't care about balance at all (mercenaries are WAY better than most other professions, for example), and tries to make that less important by saying you're going to die anyway. That's not so good for game design. But the setting is interesting, and the skill system/level up system is a decent one. It's certainly still playable. Annoyingly, the whole point of the game is that your characters don't know the mythos at all (knowing would drive them nuts) but to really enjoy the game you have to as a player know it a bit (otherwise the idea that reading a book drives you nuts feels very bizarre).

This game's point was never "balance", since regardless of your build, if you go against something too big, you'll die. Explosives might help against some of the weaker enemies, but almost always, if you're against anything more than a bunch of cultists, you're screwed. The best campaign I played in lasted for well over a dozen sessions, and we had two combat scenes, one of which was due to a player being paranoid and others trying to restrain him. The most efficient weapon available was an improvised staff

I don't find starting with a character who doesn't know about Mythos annoying at all, it might work even better if the player is relatively fresh to the game himself and not able to identify the creatures he sees by description (even better if the GM just made a creature up). If you simply explain that people are "sane" because they don't know much about the world, then losing sanity by reading obscure books that contain shards of the Truth is perfectly acceptable. You become insane by having your mental defenses (sanity) brutally shattered by experiencing, or learning about, the "supernatural".

Curmudgeon
2010-08-05, 01:36 PM
So, anyone played Delta Green?

Been curious about it for a while.
I've played a bunch of Delta Green CoC games. Its really the same, just that the PCs are working for the government rather than being independent investigators getting sucked into the creepy stuff. Lots of Delta Green games use World War II as their era, because Hitler's love of occult bric-a-brac easily sets up a scenario of Nazi cultists needing to be opposed by Delta Green forces.

Aroka
2010-08-05, 02:03 PM
This game's point was never "balance", since regardless of your build, if you go against something too big, you'll die. Explosives might help against some of the weaker enemies, but almost always, if you're against anything more than a bunch of cultists, you're screwed. The best campaign I played in lasted for well over a dozen sessions, and we had two combat scenes, one of which was due to a player being paranoid and others trying to restrain him. The most efficient weapon available was an improvised staff

You're spot on about the importance of combat - i.e. nil - in CoC, but not quite right about the rest. Many, many Mythos monsters can be fought, either with bare hands, melee weapons, or firearms - serpentfolk, deep ones, ghouls, ghasts, and migo spring to mind first. Many others can actually pose interesting "combat puzzle" challenges where you have to electrocute them, set them on fire (or preferrably set the building they're in on fire then collapse it on them). Some monsters can definitely be defeated physically.

But then there's all the monsters that either regenerate relentlessly, are immune to conventional damage, or aren't really corporeal at all...

That's when you get your already Sanity-blasted ritualist and let her cast some spells that further reduce her Sanity, and hope for the best.

Generally, letting a monster get away (unless we're talking Dreamlands) is the bad ending - you're supposed to find some way to defeat the threat. Obviously, using something you can just walk up to and shoot as the main threat isn't going to create any believable tension, so that's not going to work; that's why most of the man-sized, killable monsters have some twist (deep ones outnumber you and have shoggoths, ghouls outnumber you or out-stealth you, serpentfolk out-sorcery you, migo out-tech you, etc.).

I've actually had some great combat scenes - the best one involved exactly two attacks (the ghoul's bite attack on the PC, and the PC's lucky critical with a pocket knife that killed the ghoul). That scene was great because of the build-up: a very simple set-up (alone in the park at night, slowly and cautiously approaching a hunched figure making odd noises under a tree, suddenly being attacked by it), very harrowing execution (I started the build-up very quietly, calmly, but steadily raised my voice more urgently, until I was basically shouting at the players as the ghoul attacked), and definite danger (the ghoul's single bite attack and the subsequent worrying almost killed the PC) combined to leave everyone's heart racing (including mine!). We had to take a few minutes to calm down before we could continue.

The key is to always remember that combat isn't scary. Combat - or any kind of action, really - is where the tension that you must create in a horror game is unwound (not necessarily all of it, depending on the amount of tension and the nature of the scene; you can build up more tension during an action scene). After this unwinding, you have to build up more tension to get your players scared again.

JaronK
2010-08-05, 02:20 PM
One cannot dispute the racism (The Horror at Red Hook is probably the most explicit, and actually draws on his experiences living in the area as a frightened bigot among immigrants, and The Haunter in the Dark is pretty bad - both basically do the "swarthy eastern europeans are monstrous subhumans with evil in their hearts!"), and Lovecraft was a proponent of eugenics (then again, so was the US government in his lifetime), but your characterisation seems a bit odd. Mostly, the monsters are very much outright dangerous, inhumanly hostile, and alien; cf. The Whisperer in Darkness, Herbert West - Reanimator, The Dunwich Horror, and so on... and a lot of the time, the evil is human, or human turned inhuman.

I'm thinking of The Shadow over Insmuth as a great example. The entire story is "there were strange ugly things from Africa. So the people tried to kill them, and they fought back. Now everybody has strange genetics from Africa! But don't worry, then we nuked them." Seriously, that's the plot line. The main character is only afraid because they're weird... at no point do the "villians" do anything hostile (they knock on his door, but he assumes that's an attack... they don't actually do anything. He's just freaking out).

But of your three trends, I think #1 is what I react to the most: it tends to be "they're like human, but they're devolved and weird!" That's very much like a racist way of describing other races. Note how many of his "devolved" critters are based in Africa or something like that. Yet #2 is an issue if you're an atheist already... oh no, the universe wasn't looking out for you. In fact, it doesn't care about you and there's stuff out there that could kill you. Nothing is a surprise there, you know? And stuff living too long is just... not scary. So yeah, if you're not afraid of the other and you don't live under the assumption that the universe cared about you to begin with, and you're not afraid of people living a long time, then a lot of his work becomes really un scary. And then the idea of going mad when you find out that there are people not like you and there's no great caring thing in the sky or something? That's just weird.


Mercenaries get Dodge, Library Use, Occult, and Spot? :smallamused:

They get 100 free skill points (in weapons), and those other things can be gotten using a decent Int score. They don't have an Int penalty so that's not a problem. In a game where skills are everything, having a huge amount of free skills means a lot. Compare that to many professions that take an EDU penalty and get no bonus skills... ouch. Heck, some just start out insane.

JaronK

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-05, 02:22 PM
so what are the thoughts on Cthulu tech?

Absolutely not. To me the idea is just bad and doesn't make sense.

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-05, 02:28 PM
2. The universe is vast, incomprehensible, and inhospitable. This is the cosmic horror. It will either work for you or it won't, but it isn't so much about not understanding something as it is about the precise opposite: it's the realization of the fact that the universe is uncaring at best and usually hostile that leads to madness

And that is what I don't understand. Of course the knowledge of the universe now has basically proven him right on a lot of things and we still aren't crazy (or are we...? Dun Dun DUN). We are living on a speck on a hair in a dustbunny flying around neverending emptiness for eternity and the best result we can dream of as a world is to go out with a bang eventually when either the sun swallows us or the solar system collides with another solar system.

...So what?

Aroka
2010-08-05, 02:46 PM
I'm thinking of The Shadow over Insmuth as a great example. The entire story is "there were strange ugly things from Africa. So the people tried to kill them, and they fought back. Now everybody has strange genetics from Africa! But don't worry, then we nuked them." Seriously, that's the plot line. The main character is only afraid because they're weird... at no point do the "villians" do anything hostile (they knock on his door, but he assumes that's an attack... they don't actually do anything. He's just freaking out).

What?

The spells that were used to contact the Deep Ones (who already had an ancient giant city just off the coast by Innsmouth) came from stone tablets used by an island tribe in the South Pacific to contact the Deep Ones (who predate human life on Earth by eons, and may in fact have been the progenitors of humanity). The Deep Ones then explicitly breed with humans to create hybrids who mature into Deep Ones. The Deep Ones are horrifying, evil monsters who kill people as a matter of course, use shoggoths as tools, and worship Dagon and Cthulhu, and the villagers of Innsmouth are horrifying mutants who worship Dagon and will one day become Deep Ones themselves and go into the sea.

After the protagonist finds this out (in a really bad over-exposition speech from the town drunk), the drunk is murdered by the Deep Ones/villagers. Then they come to kill the protagonist, and hunt him in huge parties composed of inhuman Deep Ones with shoggoths in tow. When the protagonist actually seems them hopping by while hiding in a ditch or somesuch, he passes out from the sheer terror.

He gets the feds to raid the place with the military; they capture the locals and put them in internment camps, and fire torpedoes into Devil's Reef (to destroy the Deep One city, or some part of it).

And then (this was heavily foreshadowed early on) the protagonist realizes he is changing into a Deep One, because his family came from Innsmouth.

The story is mainly about the whole "humans de-evolve into something horrible" theme.


But of your three trends, I think #1 is what I react to the most: it tends to be "they're like human, but they're devolved and weird!" That's very much like a racist way of describing other races. Note how many of his "devolved" critters are based in Africa or something like that.

There's Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, with the ancient city overrun by great white apes implied to be de-evolved humans, and Arthur de-evolves into one because he inherited it from his mother.

Then there's The Transition of Juan Romero (Mexican man), The Lurking Fear (set in the Catskills, the monsters were American whites who inbred), The Beast in the Cave (indeterminate ethnicity), all the ghoul stuff (no relation to any ethnicity, set in New England)... can you cite some stories with actual African connections? I've got all the stories that weren't published under someone else's name, so I can look them up.

Criticising the racism (and misogyny) in Lovecraft's writing is perfectly valid, but at least get the right racism. It's very blatant in the characterisation of eastern europeans as subhumans (which was a prevalent trend in the US at the time, and in part defined immigration policy), with some innate relationship to witchcraft and horrible practices (The Horror at Red Hook, The Haunter in the Dark), and possibly in characterisations like "a loathsome black woman" (nothing explicitly indicates her being black was the cause of the loathsomeness, but there's no suggestion as to other causes), but you're just reaching when you claim the proto-body-horror de-evolution theme is racist.


And that is what I don't understand. Of course the knowledge of the universe now has basically proven him right on a lot of things and we still aren't crazy (or are we...? Dun Dun DUN). We are living on a speck on a hair in a dustbunny flying around neverending emptiness for eternity and the best result we can dream of as a world is to go out with a bang eventually when either the sun swallows us or the solar system collides with another solar system.

...So what?

Well, there's the fact that the Mythos universe is full of alien things that are actively and casually hostile, capable of destroying all life on Earth, and that occasionally pay attention to it with horrible results.

Bharg
2010-08-05, 02:49 PM
Stop discussing and SPOILING cthulhu here.

lisiecki
2010-08-05, 02:49 PM
One cannot dispute the racism (The Horror at Red Hook

Its not Cthulhu related but his pome, "on the creation of Ni word I'm not going to finish typing" is really pretty horrible

Aroka
2010-08-05, 02:51 PM
Stop discussing and SPOILING cthulhu here.

... stop reading a thread about Cthulhu?

Lapak
2010-08-05, 02:57 PM
And that is what I don't understand. Of course the knowledge of the universe now has basically proven him right on a lot of things and we still aren't crazy (or are we...? Dun Dun DUN). We are living on a speck on a hair in a dustbunny flying around neverending emptiness for eternity and the best result we can dream of as a world is to go out with a bang eventually when either the sun swallows us or the solar system collides with another solar system.

...So what?Your reaction is exactly the difference between knowing what he's saying in an intellectual sense and internalizing it as the protagonists of these stories do. It's the difference between knowing you're going to die someday and finding out you have an inoperable, malignant brain tumor that will kill you. Most people know they're going to die, in a sense, for a long time. Then they get hit by some revelation and they really get their own mortality at a gut-deep level. The Lovecraftian stuff is that moment of shock applied to the human race as a whole - you and I are both aware that at some point in the future, humanity will be no more. But the protagonists of these stories have it shoved in their face that it WILL happen. Not maybe, not with a hope of an afterlife or a reversal of entropy or a 'well, not in my lifetime' feeling of detachment, but with a thump of Reality Undeniable.

Bharg
2010-08-05, 02:57 PM
... stop reading a thread about Cthulhu?

I didn't. :smalltongue: At least not entirely.

All one needs to know is Cthulhu is a storytelling system based loosely on some of Lovecraft's works. There are some brilliant adventures out there you purchase and if you're not all entirely horrified at the end of a session your DM did something wrong...

JaronK
2010-08-05, 03:05 PM
I dunno, I still feel that Shadow over Insmouth just sounds like "ahh, creepy [people from over the sea]." You've got rituals and weird artifacts, but for the most part the monsters are just different and get attacked as a result, then fight back a bit. You could easily swap out the actual inhuman characteristics given in the story for just a different race characteristics (fitting the South Pacific thing) and the whole thing sounds like a standard race riot scenario. It's much like District 9... yeah, they're aliens, but it's pretty obvious what the basic thing they're talking about here is, and it's much closer to home. But District 9 did it intentionally, while Lovecraft didn't.

And I'm definitely with Avilan on the "so what." I long ago internalized the idea that humanity will someday die out (though not in my lifetime). The universe doesn't care about us. We could all be slapped off the face of the earth by a gamma ray burst or something and no one would ever care. There's no after life to go to.

I never went crazy as a result. I just sorta said "that sucks."

JaronK

Aroka
2010-08-05, 03:05 PM
Your reaction is exactly the difference between knowing what he's saying in an intellectual sense and internalizing it as the protagonists of these stories do. It's the difference between knowing you're going to die someday and finding out you have an inoperable, malignant brain tumor that will kill you. Most people know they're going to die, in a sense, for a long time. Then they get hit by some revelation and they really get their own mortality at a gut-deep level. The Lovecraftian stuff is that moment of shock applied to the human race as a whole - you and I are both aware that at some point in the future, humanity will be no more. But the protagonists of these stories have it shoved in their face that it WILL happen. Not maybe, not with a hope of an afterlife or a reversal of entropy or a 'well, not in my lifetime' feeling of detachment, but with a thump of Reality Undeniable.

Brilliant analogy. I could have struggled all day and not come up with something that good.


I didn't. :smalltongue: At least not entirely.

All one needs to know is Cthulhu is a storytelling system based loosely on some of Lovecraft's works. There are some brilliant adventures out there you purchase and if you're not all entirely horrified at the end of a session your DM did something wrong...

This is an apparent non-sequitur. Also, "Cthulhu" is not a game system; your apparently loose use of terminology is giving me serious difficulty understanding what you're trying to communicate. Can you expalin what you don't want people to discuss, and why? The Call of Cthulhu game, the Chaosium-published adventures, or the stories Lovecraft wrote?

chiasaur11
2010-08-05, 03:05 PM
I've played a bunch of Delta Green CoC games. Its really the same, just that the PCs are working for the government rather than being independent investigators getting sucked into the creepy stuff. Lots of Delta Green games use World War II as their era, because Hitler's love of occult bric-a-brac easily sets up a scenario of Nazi cultists needing to be opposed by Delta Green forces.

Well, you aren't government in the present day setting, from what I've read.

You're a conspiracy within the government. No funding, minimal backup, and no extra protection if you get caught.

I mean, there is WWII stuff, but what little I've seen indicates it's less central.

Aroka
2010-08-05, 03:09 PM
I dunno, I still feel that Shadow over Insmouth just sounds like "ahh, creepy [people from over the sea]." You've got rituals and weird artifacts, but for the most part the monsters are just different and get attacked as a result, then fight back a bit.

No, they didn't get attacked. The protagonist learned their secret, and they responded with murder and attempted murder. The government found out they were not human, and rounded them up and put them in camps (and presumably exterminated them). The racial implications may be there, but seriously, that story is one of the worst examples of racism Lovecraft wrote. You're probably correct in the broad sense about this being othering, but othering isn't automatically racism - in fantasy and horror, the Other can in fact be a ravening beast from [the depths of the ocean|beyond the stars|past the veil of time] that you can't co-exist with.

JaronK
2010-08-05, 03:35 PM
No, they didn't get attacked. The protagonist learned their secret, and they responded with murder and attempted murder. The government found out they were not human, and rounded them up and put them in camps (and presumably exterminated them).

Go back further in the story, and I believe the Drunk indeed states the townsfolk attacked first, which resulted in the riot that killed a lot of townsfolk. Then the drunk, from the same side as the ones who first attacked the foreigners, tries to recruit outside help to attack them again, and they respond (they didn't attack until he did that). But the outsider gets out, so the government destroys them thus proving their actions were entirely reasonable self defense.


The racial implications may be there, but seriously, that story is one of the worst examples of racism Lovecraft wrote. You're probably correct in the broad sense about this being othering, but othering isn't automatically racism - in fantasy and horror, the Other can in fact be a ravening beast from [the depths of the ocean|beyond the stars|past the veil of time] that you can't co-exist with.

Like I said, it's like District 9. Just swap "strange horrible fish people" for "Pacific Islanders" and swap around a few racial traits and look how the story reads. You have a white sea captain finding a unique tribe in the South Pacific, adopting their religion, and his crew sleeping with their women. Then rival tribes attack them so they flee back to Insmouth, where they try to live by themselves while bringing back beautiful works of art, but when the townsfolk find out they too attack. Not wanting to be slaughtered again the refugees fight back this time, killing many of the townsfolk and making sure nobody gets out to bring in reenforcements. Then an outsider comes in, clearly hates them, and talks to one of the original attackers, possibly planning to go alert others of their presence. They try to knock on his door (possibly just to ascertain his motives, we don't know) but he flees out a window instead of talking to them and escapes, so they realize they're in trouble... but it's too late, and he goes to the government. Said government questions nothing and kills them.

Never in the story do they make a hostile move without both being provoked and being in a reasonable self defense situation. In fact, the fish people are represented as being extremely kind if you think about it... their first act is to provide free food and gold to starving people, and then they try to mingle with (and yes, mate with) those people, who are now thriving. They're perfectly happy to feed and give gifts to anyone who treats them well.

JaronK

Curmudgeon
2010-08-05, 04:34 PM
Well, you aren't government in the present day setting, from what I've read.

You're a conspiracy within the government. No funding, minimal backup, and no extra protection if you get caught.
I didn't say you were on government missions; merely that you work for the government. That's usually how you get the information about strange events going on, even if the only other benefit of government employment is the steady paycheck. Admittedly, WWII Delta Green is more straightforward with you undertaking actual government missions where there's an occult aspect.

Satyr
2010-08-05, 05:06 PM
The story is mainly about the whole "humans de-evolve into something horrible" theme.

I was under the impression that the Shadow over Insmouth was Lovecraft's dire warning of the dangers of miscegenation - and this whole degeneration issue has often a very similar tone.
Yes, this was not that unusual for its time, even though Lovecraft's racism was even then quite expressive, but not limited to non-whites; see the hilarious depiction of the German KaLeun in The Temple.

Yes, the racism and class stereotypes (remember all the times he mentions that someone seems capable and smart even though he is only a policeman/worker/craftsman etc.? Or the fact that the only women who ever appear are either hysteric, helpless or evil witches?), are quite prevalent, but I actually find them amusing in a way because they are so over the top- or the idea that a house built before 1700 is old and therefore scary (to put it in perspective: I worked at a school which was supposedly founded by Charlemaine in 804, but is more likely to originate in the 11th century. The original building does only exist partially, but the nice big church next to it was built in the 9th century after the older church was burnt down by Vikings.) I mean it is nigh impossible to take it serious due to the extreme positions. I remember that when I read the first stories I thought they were supposed the racist remarks to be parodies.

From the point of the RPG the important question is how do you deal with the racism in Lovecraft's works. Do you completely ignore it? Do you use it as a color for the times you play in and put them in the mouth of NPCs? Do you include it in the game as a form of irony?
It doesn't matter much to argue about the racism of a pretty bad author who died almost 80 years ago, especially when it is so obvious and well known; the comtemporary approach to it is much more relevant and interesting.

Aroka
2010-08-05, 05:10 PM
I was under the impression that the Shadow over Insmouth was Lovecraft's dire warning of the dangers of miscegenation - and this whole degeneration issue has often a very similar tone.
Yes, this was not that unusual for its time, even though Lovecraft's racism was even then quite expressive, but not limited to non-whites; see the hilarious depiction of the German KaLeun in The Temple.

Yes, the racism and class stereotypes (remember all the times he mentions that someone seems capable and smart even though he is only a policeman/worker/craftsman etc.? Or the fact that the only women who ever appear are either hysteric, helpless or evil witches?), are quite prevalent, but I actually find them amusing in a way because they are so over the top- or the idea that a house built before 1700 is old and therefore scary (to put it in perspective: I worked at a school which was supposedly founded by Charlemaine in 804, but is more likely to originate in the 11th century. The original building does only exist partially, but the nice big church next to it was built in the 9th century after the older church was burnt down by Vikings.) I mean it is nigh impossible to take it serious due to the extreme positions. I remember that when I read the first stories I thought they were supposed the racist remarks to be parodies.

From the point of the RPG the important question is how do you deal with the racism in Lovecraft's works. Do you completely ignore it? Do you use it as a color for the times you play in and put them in the mouth of NPCs? Do you include it in the game as a form of irony?
It doesn't matter much to argue about the racism of a pretty bad author who died almost 80 years ago, especially when it is so obvious and well known; the comtemporary approach to it is much more relevant and interesting.

As usual, you write words I agree with most thoroughly. I can see the miscegenation point, too, and I think JaronK has convinced me that there is a definite element of Othering central to a lot of Lovecraft's horror.

And yes, those colonials have the funniest ideas about what is "old"...

Eldan
2010-08-05, 05:21 PM
Yup... our house is four hundred years old, and one of the newest ones around here in the old town.

Also funny are those inscriptions you sometimes find on houses in Zurich... "Dedicated to our Mayor Hans Something who died in the battle of somewhere in 14XY" or "Built in 12XX by Rich Merchant as a gift for John Nobleman in exchange for exclusive trading rights". Yes, that last one is real. Why hide your blatant bribes?

Satyr
2010-08-05, 05:25 PM
Lovecraft seems to have a generally rather weak feeling of appropriate chronology; sometimes the things he describes are way too young to be scary (the houses from the 1650s in Pickman's Model) or way too old to create any relation to it (the elder beings from the Mountains of Madness for example).

As a sidenote: Lovecraft is missing (http://lovecraftismissing.com/) is probably the most cthulhuesk webcomic around and an entertaining read.

SuperCracker
2010-08-05, 05:30 PM
I think others have mentioned it, but a way to have a complete blast with CoC (granted, while being stupid about it) is to try your hardest to ignore the mystery.

I played a moonshiner who thought that book learnin' was for "the Devil!" So I burned every book I came across, broke every mirror I saw, and absolutely refused to learn Chthulhu Mythos (by the way, it's a skill that kills you or makes you go insane).

If you play it straight-faced, then you're inevitably headed for a TPK. Every time.

Particularly if you try to find Chthulhu.

Especially if you find Cthulhu.

Mnemnosyne
2010-08-05, 05:32 PM
The time disparity thing is probably a difference between American and European conditions back then. Since most of these stories were written between 1915 and 1935, and as far as I know the man never left the New England area, things two or three hundred years old were about as old as he ever had personal experience with.

...and some of those old New England houses are pretty creepy.

On the other hand, I think the sense of absurd amounts of time, as in the Old Ones, is entirely intentional. I believe that part, at least, evoked the desired feelings in me when I read it.

Satyr
2010-08-05, 05:52 PM
Particularly if you try to find Chthulhu.

Especially if you find Cthulhu.

You mean that cosmic entity which was beaten the last time when it tried to headbutt a sailboat? Yes, that's a scary one. Honestly, Cthulhu might be scary but the fact that a sailboat to the brainpan was enough to let Cthulhu slumber again indicates that it is not that tough. With a better plan and equipment you can do much worse to it than ram it with a boat.
Cthulhu is also probably the least interesting of the great old ones. I'm more a fan of Hastur...

...and when everybody sees The King in Yellow movie adaptation on youtube next year, you will agree with me.

comicshorse
2010-08-05, 05:53 PM
Have you seen the Yellow Sign ?

Satyr
2010-08-05, 06:26 PM
The problem is not to see it; the problem is to unsee it and not see the whole time. The problem is that the yellow sign is anywhere. And it is a fnord (yay for obscure reference).


:smallsmile:<- The yellow sign?

Aroka
2010-08-05, 07:13 PM
You mean that cosmic entity which was beaten the last time when it tried to headbutt a sailboat? Yes, that's a scary one. Honestly, Cthulhu might be scary but the fact that a sailboat to the brainpan was enough to let Cthulhu slumber again indicates that it is not that tough. With a better plan and equipment you can do much worse to it than ram it with a boat.

Actually, I think he re-formed and was just unable to catch up to the ship? Not sure why he went back to sleep there... either you're right or it's a plothole, I guess. His CoC stats would indicate he'd reform after anything, possibly including a nuclear bomb going off.


I think others have mentioned it, but a way to have a complete blast with CoC (granted, while being stupid about it) is to try your hardest to ignore the mystery.

I played a moonshiner who thought that book learnin' was for "the Devil!" So I burned every book I came across, broke every mirror I saw, and absolutely refused to learn Chthulhu Mythos (by the way, it's a skill that kills you or makes you go insane).

If you play it straight-faced, then you're inevitably headed for a TPK. Every time.

I would hate to have players like you. Do you insist in playing peaceful, uninteresting shopkeepers in D&D, too?

Bharg
2010-08-05, 07:17 PM
Yap, the sailboat didn't actually hurt him in any way.

And it's not like a PK is a bad thing in Cthulhu. It advances the story. Character creation is also very quick! :>

Mnemnosyne
2010-08-05, 07:21 PM
Actually, I think he re-formed and was just unable to catch up to the ship? Not sure why he went back to sleep there... either you're right or it's a plothole, I guess. His CoC stats would indicate he'd reform after anything, possibly including a nuclear bomb going off.
Yeah, this is basically what the story suggested. He wasn't awakened 'properly' and was pulled back under when the 'storm' sank R'lyeh again because the stars were no longer 'right'.

His apparent destruction, then horrible reformation was also (I think) meant to make him seem more powerful, not less, illustrating Cthulhu's invulnerability in a manner distinctly different from simply being impregnable.

Aroka
2010-08-05, 07:33 PM
That's what I thought, yeah. Even most "terrestrial" monstrosities in the Mythos are of some unreal make-up that makes them resistant to most physical attacks.

Incidentally, who else loves Malleus Monstrorum? Cthulhu's id and Nyarlathotep being all Egyptian gods are just too awesome not to use.

hamishspence
2010-08-06, 03:41 AM
Go back further in the story, and I believe the Drunk indeed states the townsfolk attacked first, which resulted in the riot that killed a lot of townsfolk. Then the drunk, from the same side as the ones who first attacked the foreigners, tries to recruit outside help to attack them again, and they respond (they didn't attack until he did that). But the outsider gets out, so the government destroys them thus proving their actions were entirely reasonable self defense.


Theres an interesting collection of Innsmouth/Deep One related stories, which discusses it. It suggests that the townfolk coming after the protagonist, is actually part of an initiation ceremony- they mean him no harm, and are aware he's one of them. Of course, he isn't aware of this, flees, and brings down the government on them.

The Order of Dagon is suggested to be transitional- a "Sunday-school version" of the real devotion of the deep ones to Cthulhu.

In one of the short stories- the heroes find out the Shadow over Innsmouth protagonist was accepted into the society of the deep ones- but he was flayed first as punishment for bringing down the government on them.

JaronK
2010-08-06, 04:29 AM
Theres an interesting collection of Innsmouth/Deep One related stories, which discusses it. It suggests that the townfolk coming after the protagonist, is actually part of an initiation ceremony- they mean him no harm, and are aware he's one of them. Of course, he isn't aware of this, flees, and brings down the government on them.

I actually got that impression from the original story too. They don't like strangers, but allow him there just fine... and they don't make a hostile move. They just knock on his door.

If you're coming to kill someone in the night, you don't knock. They actually did want to talk to him for one reason or another. It sure sounded more like "welcome brother" and less like "we want to eat your blood."

JaronK

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-06, 04:29 AM
And yes, those colonials have the funniest ideas about what is "old"...

Mandatory Eddie Izzard reference: On tour in San Fransisco -"And we have restored this building so that it looks exactly like it did fifty years ago!" and his response is "No! That's impossible! No-one was alive back then!". :smallbiggrin:
On the other hand he starts that concert by pointing out that he is from Europe, where all history comes from :smallwink:

hamishspence
2010-08-06, 04:33 AM
Never in the story do they make a hostile move without both being provoked and being in a reasonable self defense situation. In fact, the fish people are represented as being extremely kind if you think about it... their first act is to provide free food and gold to starving people, and then they try to mingle with (and yes, mate with) those people, who are now thriving. They're perfectly happy to feed and give gifts to anyone who treats them well.


There are references to people being sacrificed as well- but they all come from Zadok Allen.

What's interesting is that the far more alien Elder Things are treated much more sympathetically by the protagonists in At the Mountains of Madness.

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-06, 04:37 AM
Your reaction is exactly the difference between knowing what he's saying in an intellectual sense and internalizing it as the protagonists of these stories do. It's the difference between knowing you're going to die someday and finding out you have an inoperable, malignant brain tumor that will kill you. Most people know they're going to die, in a sense, for a long time. Then they get hit by some revelation and they really get their own mortality at a gut-deep level. The Lovecraftian stuff is that moment of shock applied to the human race as a whole - you and I are both aware that at some point in the future, humanity will be no more. But the protagonists of these stories have it shoved in their face that it WILL happen. Not maybe, not with a hope of an afterlife or a reversal of entropy or a 'well, not in my lifetime' feeling of detachment, but with a thump of Reality Undeniable.

However I don't see the difference between learning about the wast uncaring space one way or the other. Most of the stories I have read or heard of, are just low-level evilness. It is the equivalent (although slimier, with more tentacles) of having a meteor land on a house, and thereby be reminded that there is, somewhere out there, a meteor that will kill us all.
I just think that a lot of what is considered so incredibly scary is not scary anymore. Other things, however, are. The whole "We are alone and small in a cold and uncaring universe" is not.*

*Of course this is also why I laugh at the opposite: Cthulu Tech. Let's fight horrors from beyond the stars with GIANT MECHA!. And WIN.

Satyr
2010-08-06, 05:04 AM
Actually, I think he re-formed and was just unable to catch up to the ship? Not sure why he went back to sleep there... either you're right or it's a plothole, I guess. His CoC stats would indicate he'd reform after anything, possibly including a nuclear bomb going off.

Yes, but still... sailboat headbutt was enough to make Cthulhu stop and retreat. That's not that impressive.

And the whole "muhaha... indestructable" stuff in the CoC books is one of the reasons why I really dislike the system from time to time... it's just unecessary hyperbole, and basically a form of flanderisation (or, in the case of anything related to the Yog-Shogotheries, a derlethisation).


Yeah, this is basically what the story suggested. He wasn't awakened 'properly' and was pulled back under when the 'storm' sank R'lyeh again because the stars were no longer 'right'.


Huh. I always thought that the storm was not the reason of the sinking of R'lyeh but the result - island disappears again, creates a storm.


What's interesting is that the far more alien Elder Things are treated much more sympathetically by the protagonists in At the Mountains of Madness.

Probably a different scope; if Insmouth is about the dread that is miscegenation, the Mountains of Madness is basically a story of a culture who grows decadent and is then beaten and eaten by its former slaves. The plot wouldn't be as intense when the slave owners elder tings weren't a bit sympathetic and the terrible servitors weren't as scary.

hamishspence
2010-08-06, 05:09 AM
Probably a different scope; if Insmouth is about the dread that is miscegenation, the Mountains of Madness is basically a story of a culture who grows decadent and is then beaten and eaten by its former slaves.

I like the last words of Innsmouth "And we will dwell amidst the wonder and the glory, forever"

Might be why it gets a lot of short stories playing with the concept of the Deep Ones.

SaintRidley
2010-08-06, 07:10 PM
The thing about H.P. Lovecraft's brand of cosmic horror is that Lovecraft wrote for his time.

His time was a time of great scientific discovery and disruption of the established view of the universe. The universe was becoming significantly larger, far more so than any human could comprehend and far more than any had ever imagined. The prevailing view that people were special and everything in existence was there for humanity's whims was being thrown out. In its place this empty, uncaring void came.

Lovecraft understood that people don't like change. They also like to think that everything that happens is important. Furthermore, they like to think of themselves as special. We're alive and think and dream and so we must be important. We can't just be these simpering little apes with no significance whatsoever. It offends our very humanity.

These ideas and attitudes still exist, but they were certainly more common in Lovecraft's day. Horror, as it has always been, has been most successful when playing off society's fears or playing the antithesis to society's beliefs. Lovecraft made one of his most effective decisions in choosing the uncaring nature of the universe as a theme in his horror. People like to hope, to succeed, to think that what they did mattered. Lovecraft believed hope was worthless, failure inevitable, and that nothing we would ever do would register as more than a portion of a piece of a blip on the cosmic radar scale.

His own autobiography attests to this. He wrote a short essay, barely more than pamphlet length, and called it "Some Notes on a Nonentity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography%3A_Some_Notes_on_a_Nonentity)." That's his autobiography.

SuperCracker
2010-08-06, 08:23 PM
I would hate to have players like you. Do you insist in playing peaceful, uninteresting shopkeepers in D&D, too?

The whole party was in on it. We had no problems confronting the terrible horrors, we just did not want to learn the "ultimate truth" that is guaranteed doom.

Besides, it was a hastily put-together game at 11 at night back in college.

elonin
2010-08-06, 08:36 PM
You obviously haven't read the right edition.

Correct. If you read the right books you gain cthulu mythos. You loose sanity for each point of Cthulu mythos you gain. As a matter of fact we had a party member who we would consult from time to time who stayed in an asylum. We made sure that he was treated better than most in mates by bribing the orderlies. Also helped that he wasn't particularly dangerous as he spent most of his time curled up in a fetal curl.

JonestheSpy
2010-08-07, 12:52 AM
Yes, but still... sailboat headbutt was enough to make Cthulhu stop and retreat. That's not that impressive.


Actually, it was a steamship. yeah, tat doesn't compare to a railgun or something, just saying. Anyhow, I always figured Cthulu's main power was psychic, not physical. Yeah, you might escape, but your brain will never recover...and the cultists will gt you eventually anyway.

And yeah, Lovecraft absorbed and expressed the racism of his period, b ut at certainly didn't hurt Innsmouth for me - it's one of my favorite stories of his. You just have to take it at face value - if the Deep Ones are actually an evil alien race that serves he Elder Evils, than you can't really condemn the government for some kind of attempt to dislodge them, can you? It's horror fantasy, not science fiction.