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Nohwl
2008-04-16, 07:26 PM
I am going to be playing a one shot adventure of Call of Cthulhu soon (its going to be next Thursday). It is going to be my first time with Call of Cthulhu, so what kind of game is it? Does anyone have any general advice, anything i should know before playing? What are Cthulhu adventures generally like?

I know Cthulhu is a mind flayer and thats about it. Anything would be appreciated.

MeklorIlavator
2008-04-16, 07:40 PM
Cthulhu is a mindflayer as a shock lizard is a blue dragon. Looking upon Cthulhu's form generally causes insanity in the most grounded of men. I've never played a game, but I've heard stories of the game and I know the background. The bes I can say is that you're characters are extremely fragile and will likely die without extreme amounts of planing and inventiveness.

Nebo_
2008-04-16, 07:43 PM
Don't read any books, don't touch anything, don't look at anything for too long, don't ask any questions, make sure you have an escape route at all times... in fact, try not to think about anything either.

Play a blind man with a dog. When there's evil about, the dog will bark. That's your cue to leave and never come back.

Solo
2008-04-16, 07:44 PM
I am going to be playing a one shot adventure of Call of Cthulhu soon (its going to be next Thursday). It is going to be my first time with Call of Cthulhu, so what kind of game is it? Does anyone have any general advice, anything i should know before playing? What are Cthulhu adventures generally like?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Venerable
2008-04-16, 07:51 PM
From my scant experience (two sessions into a new campaign), it's less action-oriented, and has more stuff to puzzle out. There are no character classes, but you can skew your skill points to favor a particular role. Don't expect to encounter the BBEG in the first session. Avoid combat if possible; characters are normal people, who can and will die when shot or stabbed. Expect to eventually go insane.

And pray you never encounter Cthulhu. You will not destroy it, nor will you survive.

SilverClawShift
2008-04-16, 08:15 PM
Call of Cthulhu is (usually) a 1920s-1960s "Private Detective" kind of thing. You're a normal person, your friends (party members) are normal people, and you live in a normal world.

Except in this normal world, Something Is Lurking Just Behind The Scenes, something supernatural, evil, and not grounded in the same rules of reality the rest of you have to follow.
It's generally a thinkers roleplaying experience, not necessarily puzzles, but don't expect to be stabbing everything that comes up. In fact, stabbing the wrong things will probably just get you Gakked, or at least crack your mind like a china plate.

The gist of it is this. Your character has to learn more to keep up what they're doing (wether that's just surviving, exploring, fighting, whatever), but the more you learn, the more likely your brain will simply unhinge and you'll wind up in a padded room from learning that everything you thought was real is a lie and oh god no one understands why aren't they listening to you for the love of god if they could only see the shadows behind time the coppery taste is me chewing off my own tongue.

Ect.

Also, cultists.

*EDIT*

Oh yeah, and cthulhu isn't a mindflayer. Mindflayers were loosely based on Cthulhu. Cthulhu is just a name. A name for the END OF DAYS. With tentacles.

TehJhu
2008-04-16, 08:43 PM
1- Why does everyone think Cthulhu is the absolute worst thing in the Mythos world? He's the Old One's BITCH!

2- You're all going to die. Don't get attached to your characters. if you want to win, say you stay home and read when they ask you to investiage something fishy.

SilverClawShift
2008-04-16, 08:49 PM
1- Why does everyone think Cthulhu is the absolute worst thing in the Mythos world? He's the Old One's BITCH!

That's the point. Cthulhu is nothing but a herald (if you want to call him that) BUT YOU STILL DON'T STAND A GHOST OF A CHANCE AGAINST CTHULHU, and he's not the worst thing out there.

So go insane. It's easier than your mind trying to understand the unrealities behind the scenes.

Nohwl
2008-04-16, 09:52 PM
So if its a normal world, that means no elfs and no spellcasters?

How do you win if you are going to go insane? Do you have to kill someone, or figure something out, or what?

comicshorse
2008-04-16, 10:01 PM
Fundamentally in Cthulhu our reality is a fragile soap bubble that the unimaginable forces that lurk just out of sight will one day crush. The earth and the human race is DOOMED !
BUT the Stars are not yet Right, the gods still slumber or wait to return. Madmen and cults seek to advance that time, they can be stopped by brave investigators who strive to hold back the outer horrors.
They will eventually lose but mankind can be preserved from day to day, from year to year IF you can halt the plans of the creatures and mad-men who would hurl our world into blind oblivion

Venerable
2008-04-16, 10:02 PM
No elfs, no spellcasters, no classes, no feats. Humans only, people you could meet. Only skills humans can actually do (research, use guns, chemistry, tumble, etc -- no bullet time stuff).

How do you win? Well, you don't. Not in the long run. But you might be able to postpone armageddon for a while. Isn't saving the world for at least a few years enough?

allonym
2008-04-16, 10:10 PM
Sometimes, just surviving is enough. There's a reason Call of Cthulhu characters are called 'investigators', as that's generally what you do, but the best one-shots I've run are those where the characters are thrust into a terrifying horror situation and have to desperately work to survive.

Don't go all gooey-eyed at guns; while putting a hole in a cultist or even a gibbering ghoul might be all well and good, the big nasties aren't there for you to battle epically; either you run away, you work out or use some means of combatting or banishing the beast that the plot calls for, or you die, because you're facing it because you screwed up.

Adequate research and a methodical approach to problems are often the best tools you have, but when the chips are down, you do NOT want to be blasting away. If (and it's very unlikely) you encounter any of the hundreds of Gods or unique and horrifying entities, or indeed any of the tougher and more gruesome enemies, you pray that your SAN roll is good, that you don't faint or go nuts from the sight of it, and that you can run away fast enough. Cthulhu alone could easily take down an army; he is prophesised to be the end of human civilisation. The only reason stats are given in the book are to give a relative idea of flavour and strengths compared to other great and powerful entities, not to enable the players to battle them.

Being blind with a guide dog won't help; you lose sanity from 'experiencing' monsters, not just from seeing them, though there are examples of blind characters having reduced sanity loss.

You playing D20 Cthulhu or BRP?

Bleen
2008-04-16, 10:13 PM
1) Don't look at anything
2) Don't listen to anything
3) Run away as soon as the opportunity provides itself.

Cuddly
2008-04-16, 10:18 PM
If you want to deal damage, explosives, chemistry, and throwing are typically the way to go (and rolling crit fails with those are spectacular!). Guns usually won't do enough damage, attract the wrong sort of attention, and can be hard to take places. You can make a molotov cocktail out of just about anything, anywhere.

Getting in hand-to-hand combat with anything besides cultists is pretty much a guaranteed way to die. Spec yourself for survival as much as possible, unless you know someone you can trust, in which case, have the two of you make characters that complement each other (one drives good, the other throws bombs, one can pick locks, the other can fast talk, etc).

Don't use magic. You will die. Running away is usually the better thing to do. This is the sort of game where cowering under a table is the best way to make it through combat. Try not to ever split up. Don't go check out what that noise was all by yourself. Don't stop to turn around and look.

Basically, you're in a B-horror movie. Don't be dumb, and you won't die. Just accept that you can't win, and figure out the best way to escape. Make sure you know a good psychiatrist.

Nohwl
2008-04-16, 10:34 PM
I don't know what version it is. I was just told that it was a game sorta like Dungeons and Dragons, and asked if I wanted to play.

Bleen
2008-04-16, 10:40 PM
It's dungeons and dragons if the system had ten times the mortality rate, lovecraftian horrors, and everyone slowly going insane. And less gridmaps, I think.

Nohwl
2008-04-16, 10:46 PM
Are most things immune to fire and burning to death?

Cuddly
2008-04-16, 10:49 PM
Are most things immune to fire and burning to death?

Resistant, but not totally immune. Depends on what you're fighting, really. But in my experience, throwing bottles of flaming liquid is usually ftw.

Nohwl
2008-04-16, 10:56 PM
I was thinking large amounts of napalm because gasoline was cheap back then and because styrofoam shouldn't be too hard to find.

Venerable
2008-04-16, 11:01 PM
Depends on when the game's set. Styrofoam wasn't invented until 1941 (sayeth Wikipedia and Dow Chemical). Molotov cocktails should do, though.

Cuddly
2008-04-16, 11:04 PM
Fire is typically the classic way to combat monsters. However, there is lots of precedent for the fire... backfiring. Be careful where you use it.

comicshorse
2008-04-16, 11:33 PM
Fire is also good for obscuring evidence. Very few police take 'Officer he was trying to summon a Great Old One to eat the city' as a good reason for you wastinmg Old Man Jones and his creepy friends

Mewtarthio
2008-04-16, 11:46 PM
Cthulhu is a mindflayer as a shock lizard is a blue dragon.

Methinks you have that backwards.

---

I once saw an article on powergaming in Call of Cthulhu. It concluded that the best possible munchkin build for the game is a really strong guy with lots of nasty weapons and explosives but horribly low sanity scores. Once you show everyone else your character, the rest of the party will chip in to sequester you away in a decent hotel before you inevitably snap and kill them all. It's still not a guaranteed victory, as the world could simply end, but it's the closest you can get.

Jerthanis
2008-04-17, 03:09 AM
Here's my advice: Get Weapon Focus: Steamboat. You're just going to have to trust me on this.

Liliedhe
2008-04-17, 05:45 AM
It can be incredibly atmospheric and a lot of fun. (If you like pain) Don't play hero. Don't try to save anyone or anything, because it always gets you hurt. Don't play with unknown objects... It helps if you don't have a sense of justice, a wish to better your fellow man's lot oder a conscience.

Yes, it was fun :smallbiggrin: . But I made the mistake of playing a police woman and in the end she lost a leg and almost drowned, while the innocents got sacrificed, her friends stayed at home and did nothing, the villains got away with murder and she was swept out into the sea. Yeah, playing hero is suicidal, definitely.

new1965
2008-04-17, 07:12 AM
I played D100 Chuthulu. Boths 1920's and 1990's and while there are differences in the newer D20 system, its the same flavor at its core.
here are the QuickStart rules..
http://www.chaosium.com/forms/coc_quick_start_bw.pdf

There are character classes: They are called occupations and your choice makes it easier to go up in that profession's primary skills.

There is spell casting but you wont be using it as it will make you character go insane. The cultist however WILL occasionally because the are already insane to one level or another.

Cuddly pretty much has it right, Remember that your characters are not "supermen" and you cant just wade into combat. This may have changed in the D20 rules but, you cant really meta game your character but YOU can go into combat if you go in as a group and do it tactically. By the end of the campaign (we played our core group of characters until retirement), we were working together like a SWAT team . I had 5 characters and only one died in combat (if getting crushed by a giant tentacle while you are insanely firing a machine gun and refusing to run away is considered combat). ... running away IS a good tactic sometimes

IF your DM will allow it, have 2 characters in play at the same time. Concentrate on one character's researching skills and the others combat skills.
This will let you be successfully involved in all aspects of the investigation and split the sanity loss

With a good DM, it can be huge amounts of fun and your character can visit other worlds and planes of reality. DONT GET TOO ATTACHED TO YOUR CHARACTER THOUGH. Sooner or later, you WILL miss a sanity check at the wrong time from just seeing something and then things can go bad to worse FAST.

Iku Rex
2008-04-17, 08:00 AM
http://i5.tinypic.com/6wxrfqd.jpg

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 10:11 AM
Call of Cthulhu from what I understand is a very different experience from Dungeons and Dragons. My understanding is that it's one of the first roleplaying games that came after D&D, and this was back in the days of very high death tolls.

If the person running the game is fairly new, expect to get in a lot of encounters you really aren't prepared for, and die a lot. But if they're reasonably good, death will be less guaranteed. You might be able to cause a building to collapse on that thing that you can't possible win against. Or you'll have an orphan no one cares about that it can eat while you run. Fun stuff like that.

You might even get really lucky, and end up with someone who'll provide ways of defeating some of the things horrible beyond description. Like a sonic cannon left by an ancient alien race. Or a beaker full of some glowing goo that defies science, which you can throw in somethings face which then makes it grow a bunch of mouths on it's skin, which spread, and consume itself.

Oh, and expect lots of things even more disturbing than what I just suggested there. If you don't, you should probably complain ^_^.

Danzaver
2008-04-17, 10:49 AM
My best advice for anyone wanting to understand the Cthulhu mythos is to go straight to the source and read some of the works of the grandfather of horror, H.P. Lovecraft.

As it happens, you can read every one of his short stories online here:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600031h.html#14

I recommend "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Rats in the Walls", "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs", "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and maybe "Pickman's Model" and "The Call of Cthulhu" for some ideas of what the genre is all about.

If it excites you like I did, and you have finished them all and still hunger for more, I recommend you move on to one of the many other artists who have followed in his footsteps. Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" are a wonderful source, as is Ramsay Campbell's "Cold Print", though I cannot recommend Brian Lumley's "The House of Cthulhu", unless you enjoy the fantasy world-building element of Lovecraft's work without the same imaginative impact of the horror. For the true Lovecraftian scholar, Chris Jarocha-Ernst's "A Cthulhu Mythos: Bibliography and Concordance" will instantly link you to every piece the mythos ever printed and Michel Houllebecq's "H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" will paint a no-punches-pulled picture of the man behind it all.

Because don't get me wrong, the Cthulhu horror is not just a mythos, it is a genre of its own - a departure from the horror tale being used to teach lessons and impart morals, like the age-old ghost stories. It is a step sideways into revelation and the imprehensible. It speaks to age-old forgotten fears, and gives not monsters but mere shadows while the imagination speaks volumes of our terror. Is that not why the artists and the insane are always the first to be affected by his dread call?

Sorry, this is quite a bit more than you asked for. I encourage, no, impel you to try to read some of his stories at the least. Give ample time to digest each one, and then make your own mind up. Like I said, the only way to learn what to expect from the Lovecraftian style is to immerse yourself in it.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-17, 11:46 AM
As a game, original Call of Cthulhu (BRP, not d20) it's a simple system (which doesn't handle complexity very well, either; that's why it's best to keep games rules-light). The default periods are 1890, 1920, and 1990. It's an alternate reality, the change being that beyond what science and men know, the world is a horrible, fundamentally incomprehensible place, and magic is real. PCs are called investigators, because the basic adventure is investigating some odd event or crime and finding out that it is incomprehensibly terrible.


All the "don't do X" advice leads to nothing but an amazingly boring game.

Explore. Examine. Make sure to remember to disbelieve anything extraordinary, unnatural, or supernatural. Display intellectual curiosity, a healthy arrogance and confidence in the superiority of Man and Science.

Then RP the hell out of all of that getting shattered. That's the fun.

Think twice, act once. Research everything - in any proper CoC scenario, there's a ton of background waiting to be dug up, and most of it is significant. Don't be afraid to make tough choices and big sacrifices, because the shadow of success isn't easy to catch.

Also, depending on whether your Ref prefers continuity or not, you may want to create a stack of ready-to-run characters for when you get horribly killed. (As a GM, I do prefer story and continuity, so I don't arbitrarily kill PCs off with awful monsters. Kinda ruins all the work you've put into making sure they care about their characteres enough to be actually worried about jumping into the unknown.)


I also recommend reading something (I'd say The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, as the single best and most RPG-adventure-like Lovecraft story) to get an idea about the mood and style. Pickman's Model and Rats in the Walls are also good. Shadow Over Innsmouth is probably the most powerful, with the amazing chase scene.

Be warned, Lovecraft was an awful writer, and all of his early works were bad Poe knock-offs, with literally only two different endings: "HE/IT WAS INCREDIBLY OLD!" and "IT USED TO BE A HUMAN, MAYBE!" There is a good example of the latter: The Lurking Fear. Even Shadow Over Innsmouth is packed with awful, awful over-revealing and the like, and most of his lampshading is enough to block out the sun - it's hamfisted and over-heavy.

And yet, somehow, some of his stuff is among the most powerful horror in the world. (Even if it's real signifigance was influencing writers in literally half a dozen generations.)

Bleen
2008-04-17, 12:00 PM
All the "don't do X" advice leads to nothing but an amazingly boring game.
Psht, that was a joke. At least when I posted it. :smalltongue: Everyone knows that dying horribly or going insane is half the fun, anyway.

wormwood
2008-04-17, 02:41 PM
I am going to be playing a one shot adventure of Call of Cthulhu soon (its going to be next Thursday). It is going to be my first time with Call of Cthulhu, so what kind of game is it? Does anyone have any general advice, anything i should know before playing? What are Cthulhu adventures generally like?

I know Cthulhu is a mind flayer and thats about it. Anything would be appreciated.

I haven't read the other posts here... I don't think I need to. Here is what you need to know to survive a CoC game:

1) Run! Don't fight it. Even if you win, you're probably insane. Just Run!
2) Don't listen. If you hear something odd, cover your ears!
3) Never go first. If you have to go somewhere, let the other guys go in first.
4) Don't look. When you go into a new area and the guy in front of you screams, just back away with your eyes closed.
5) For god's sake, don't READ anything!
6) Why are you not still running? RUN!

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 02:51 PM
The thing is, don't you want to know what sort of horrible thing it is that's going to happen? I can imagine that half the fun is finding out exactly what awful fate it is your character suffers.

WalkingTarget
2008-04-17, 02:54 PM
Some of this is a rehash of other's posts, but here goes...

You are playing an investigator. That's the default "class" of the game (regardless of your character's profession). I usually told my players (only one of whom had actually read any Lovecraft before) that they should behave as if they had the Curious flaw from other systems. Your character might get the idea that something strange/wrong is going on, and several people's suggestions here indicate that they use that as an excuse to run or not do anything interesting, but that's antithetical to the Lovecraftian investigator.

What is causing that miasma and strange discolouration in the basement? Why does that farmer's herd of cattle look so sickly and why has he boarded up the house? What's making that weird piping noise? Why do these superstitious rubes think that this big old house is haunted?

Your character needs to know the answers to these questions. Keep this in mind.

Other than that. If it comes to combat, the good news is that if a gun can hurt something, it can probably kill it. The bad news is that a lot of stuff isn't particularly vulnerable to mundane weapons of any kind. If you're only playing in a one-shot adventure, don't be afraid of insanity. If there aren't plans on running these characters for a long time, it can be fun to roleplay craziness.

Brauron
2008-04-17, 03:20 PM
I ran a Call of Cthulhu campaign that lasted almost 20 sessions. The shortest-lived character lasted two sessions, dying after going insane at the sight of a nine foot tall, tentacled "baby" in an attic. The longest-lived character survived all 20 sessions -- though by the end her hands permanently shook and the smell of seawater made her scream uncontrollably.

Nohwl
2008-04-17, 03:43 PM
Do the characters go insane because everything they are finding out is so horribly different than what they are used to? If this is the case, wouldn't playing a character who does not yet fully understand how the world works solve this problem?

Kyeudo
2008-04-17, 03:52 PM
The whole point of Call of Cthulhu, as far as I have been able to determine with out actualy playing a game, is for your character to go crazy and die in as cool and horrifying a manner as is imaginatively possible. As far as I can tell, with CoC "as is imaginatively possible" is a lot broader a term than for, say, D&D.

WalkingTarget
2008-04-17, 04:04 PM
Do the characters go insane because everything they are finding out is so horribly different than what they are used to? If this is the case, wouldn't playing a character who does not yet fully understand how the world works solve this problem?

My reading based primarily on reading Lovecraft: It's not even so much because it's not "what they are used to", it's closer that the human mind isn't capable of dealing with it. Our brains just aren't wired right to be able to cope (at least with the big "truths"). There are examples of "primitive" groups that seem to handle the badness ok, but they are "insane" by the rules of the game (insanity doesn't mean debilitated automatically; I had one player whose character was a linguist and read just about every book they ran across, she wound up with a Cthulhu Mythos score of over 70 and I told the player to not reveal to the group if the character went insane, she'd just have decided to work for the Mythos, pity the character never snapped).

Myshlaevsky
2008-04-17, 04:13 PM
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned "The Colour Out of Space" - It was one of Lovecraft's own favourite pieces, and it's one of the few horror stories I've ever read which have been genuinely creepy, if not frightening.

As an aside, many of these stories are available through wikisource for free. Bear in mind he gets very wordy - "I am grown phthisical from this cursed river air" is a short and direct sentence in Lovecraft.

Regarding the game, always plan carefully and avoid risks until absolutely necessary. Avoid anything not made by MAN or SCIENCE (and recently) and even then, be careful. Don't worry too much about dying, because you probably will.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-17, 04:29 PM
Do the characters go insane because everything they are finding out is so horribly different than what they are used to? If this is the case, wouldn't playing a character who does not yet fully understand how the world works solve this problem?

I don't get the question. Nobody fully understands how the world works, anyway.

The crux of Lovecraftian insanity is that really understanding how the universe works, knowing that the laws of science are illusion, knowing that there is no god as understood by religions (as opposed to insane cults), and generally getting a glimpse of just how incomprehensible, alien, and casually hostile the universe is is what drives you crazy.

The Truth Will Make Ye Crazy.

Danzaver
2008-04-17, 04:40 PM
Call of Cthulhu is an interesting game because it really sorts the roleplayers from the gamers.

It's interesting to see that some people are actually incapable of playing it the way it was meant to be played, as a number of people have described here: to play a curious, oft-ignorant character who will most likely be destroyed at the story's conclusion.

Yes, many people just try to 'beat the system', maximise their chances, and trying to justify it by making their character a ghost-hunter, vietnam vet, paranoid, or other excuses which take them away from the core theme of the game. Basically, it's just an excuse to behave with totally OOC knowledge. All of the advice about running, not listening to anything, and so on (though it is very true and correct, and probably good advice), it is against the spirit of the game.

Yet others are very good roleplayers but get no enjoyment from it because they get attached to their characters, or like to get into the heads of their characters and can't do so when they expect death around every turn (I had the same complaint from my sister recently when I ran the Tomb of Horrors for her and my party).

Personally, I think that the Call of Cthulhu is a mature game, full of very mature content, and intended only for mature, flexible players who can immerse themselves in, and detach themselves from their characters as is required. Dungeons and Dragons is kindergarden by comparison. I also believe it takes a very talented DM who knows his Lovecraft and DM-craft.

FYI, I also think that d20 was the worst thing to ever happen to the game. To go from a system that was renown for making characters vulnerable, and encouraged roleplaying, to a system known for its invincible heroes, experience points, and reducing roleplaying down to min-maxing character builds and encounter levels. When I heard they had d20ed Cthulhu, I instantly imagined how some of HP lovecraft's stories would have played out with a d20-style gaming group.
"what do you mean we meet Cthulhu? He is way above our encounter level. This is BS."
"So I have found the Nameless City? Sweet. I look for any magic swords or spellbooks."
"I waste the guy in the robes with my hidden crossbow as soon as he starts acting suspiciously, or acting like he might be casting a spell."
"As soon as he stops screaming and clawing out his eyes and yelling about the old ones I loot the body."

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 04:41 PM
I think that sometimes the theme isn't so much that the person has "gone insane", but that they have experienced something that the rest of society has deemed can't exist, and therefore this person must be insane.

There's a lot of variation in the stories though.

But, things being different than they imagine them to be is one of the ways in which they lose Sanity.

Handling open mindedness is a bit problematic. It's safe to say that such a character should be ridiculed, ignored, and even considered to have a diseased mind. But the question becomes, "are they right or wrong?"

My own opinion is that someone with a strong will shouldn't need to cling to lies, even when faced with a horrible reality. But, part of the theme is that reality is something that humanity can't handle. Thus it may not be appropriate.


Honestly though? I think Lovecraft was really underestimating humanity. And quite likely the power of those considered "Mentally Ill". The Insane are well equipped for fighting insanity. If I was working on a mythos inspired setting, I'd either have some kind of a beneficial trait where a character's sanity is very resilient, or it would be a by product of some other statistics.

I've had some thought into doing a Shadowrun adaptation. The idea is that either all the Mythos stuff can be in addition to what's already there, or running a Cthulhu campaign with Shadowrun's rules. There's the advantage that I'm actually familiar with the rules, they're pretty adaptable, and it's at a good lethality level (which can be adjusted reasonably easy). I want to actually read some more of the stories, and probably play a bit of the other systems before I commit to something like that though.

Xan
2008-04-17, 04:43 PM
Sharikov is completely right,The Color out of Space is one of the greatest stories I have ever read. It wasn't written amazingly well but it is one of the few horror stories that had me shaking and curling up in the corner of the room by the time I finished it. It was just so creepily frightening.

Nohwl
2008-04-17, 04:47 PM
Some children think that monsters are real. Like if there is a noise outside, a child might say there is a monster outside, an adult would say its just the wind, or something to that effect. The child will believe that a monster exists and is causing something to happen(the noise outside), the adult will pass it off as a common occurance(the wind) that can be easily explained. A child would not understand that there are no monsters(does not yet understand what causes what) and would be able to deal with the fact that they exist because that is what they have thought all along. On the other hand, an adult would have preconcieved ideas and explanations that would be shattered when they saw a monster doing something.

Another example, the power went out. A child might say that a monster is feeding on the electricity, (or something like that) an adult would say that a power line fell down.

My question is asking, is the cause of the person going insane based primarily on these ideas of what causes what shattering (everything i know and have come to believe is a lie), or is it based on something else?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-04-17, 04:55 PM
FYI, I also think that d20 was the worst thing to ever happen to the game. To go from a system that was renown for making characters vulnerable, and encouraged roleplaying, to a system known for its invincible heroes, experience points, and reducing roleplaying down to min-maxing character builds and encounter levels. When I heard they had d20ed Cthulhu, I instantly imagined how some of HP lovecraft's stories would have played out with a d20-style gaming group.

You might want to actually check out the CoC d20 rules. A deep one or ghoul will often kill a 20th-level investigator with one attack, since 10+ damage forces a Fort save to avoid instant death. (Rifles, incidentally, do an average of 11 points.)

CoC d20 works out wonderfully, because the PCs are vulnerable, there's no builds to speak of (you're either Offensive or you're Defensive), and progress is left pretty abstract.

It's not Call of Cthulhu: D&D Edition, any more than Mutants & Masterminds 2E is Superheroes: D&D Edition.


My question is asking, is the cause of the person going insane based primarily on these ideas of what causes what shattering (everything i know and have come to believe is a lie), or is it based on something else?

No matter how much you believe in monsters, seeing things that exist in more or less than the three visual dimensions (Hounds of Tindalos!) you're used to is going to be disturbing. Experiencing things that you have no actual capability to process (dimensional travel, etc.) is going to be disturbing.

It's something you just have to accept as a cornerstone of the genre, just like you have to accept the whole X-gene BS if you want to play a game about Marvel superhero mutants.

Of course, Randolph Carter did pretty well in the Dreamlands, unfazed by talking with ghouls, seeing dholes, or being carried off by nightgaunts, and he wasn't exactly insane. CoC itself kind of neglects this; there should be a mechanic for becoming inured to these things by knowledge of them, rather than simply going more and more insane when you learn more about the Mythos.

Xan
2008-04-17, 05:03 PM
My question is asking, is the cause of the person going insane based primarily on these ideas of what causes what shattering (everything i know and have come to believe is a lie), or is it based on something else?

I think your going to ruin all the adventure to CoC if you try and learn everything about it. Half of the fun is just going for it and experiencing it for yourself.

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 05:13 PM
I think (again, most of my knowledge is second hand) that there are several causes of insanity.

Most of it I think can be attributed to shock. It's not just the unnatural that causes sanity damage, but ordinary, though traumatic scenes. If you were to find the bodies of a bunch of cultists who ritually murdered each other, that could cause some loss of sanity. Same for finding someone who committed suicide.

I think, that having ones perceptions challenged may be related to "shock" as well. Forcibly finding out that something you've taken for granted as truth may be too much for you to adjust too. To use an analogy, you're gripping on something so tightly that when it gets taken away you lose your hand.

Finally, there's being forcibly exposed to things we just are incapable of understanding. It's not even just that we don't understand them. It's that it's drilling into as you try, but fail to comprehend it. Cthulhu isn't just some weird looking creature, he's extra dimensional. Looking at him makes the mind stretch in ways it can't stretch.

Myshlaevsky
2008-04-17, 05:29 PM
I'd say it's a combination of both factors. There is a degree of 'normal' insanity (to the extent insanity can be normal) gained from witnessing scenes of ritual suicide or bizarre mutilations. There's also something else - things that your mind can't ever possibly comprehend and that break it, like that, if you even see them. Sorry to direct you to the mythos writing again, but "Hypnos" might be a good example of this sort of thing. Hell, even the geometry can drive you mad.



Of course, Randolph Carter did pretty well in the Dreamlands, unfazed by talking with ghouls, seeing dholes, or being carried off by nightgaunts, and he wasn't exactly insane. CoC itself kind of neglects this; there should be a mechanic for becoming inured to these things by knowledge of them, rather than simply going more and more insane when you learn more about the Mythos.

I agree with this, though. The heroes in mythos stories are far less vunerable to the punishing effects of insanity than your characters in the game. They typically have vast experience of the eldritch and magical("The Dunwich Horror", "The Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath") or wierd familial ties or connections ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth"), however. By contrast, the hero of "The Call of Cthulhu" is quite clearly insane by the end of the adventure. Again, sorry to list so many stories, but I'll second whoever said that immersion in the Cthulhu mythos is one of the best ways to appreciate it.

Nohwl
2008-04-17, 06:05 PM
I like to read, and would like to complete most of the stuff suggested over the weekend. I've started reading Beyond The Wall of Sleep already.

comicshorse
2008-04-17, 07:04 PM
Of course, Randolph Carter did pretty well in the Dreamlands, unfazed by talking with ghouls, seeing dholes, or being carried off by nightgaunts, and he wasn't exactly insane. CoC itself kind of neglects this; there should be a mechanic for becoming inured to these things by knowledge of them, rather than simply going more and more insane when you learn more about the Mythos.

I think there were rules for Investigators to be able through constant exposure to no longer suffer SAN loss from viewing some of the less godly monsters ( Deep ones, Ghouls, etc). I think it was in the 'Fragments of Fear' book but I no longer own it so I can't check

Mewtarthio
2008-04-17, 07:21 PM
My question is asking, is the cause of the person going insane based primarily on these ideas of what causes what shattering (everything i know and have come to believe is a lie), or is it based on something else?

I thought it was based on the undeniable realization that the Old Ones will someday wake up and slaughter us all in a horrific orgy of death and violence and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. That, and exposure to certain sensations that the human mind just wasn't built to sense.

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 07:33 PM
Off topic, but in the tomb of horror's music (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78059) thread someone suggested this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grQkblTqSMs) which seems like a creature that would fit(it might be based on Azathoth.

And this (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6P_BvrtuxAI), which is a remix of the above, and is an example of Sanity Damage. (It's a clean image, but I'm hesitant to call it work "safe". Do watch it though ^_^ )

Ascension
2008-04-17, 07:53 PM
I'm going to second the suggestion of "The Rats in the Walls." It's amazing.

The thing about Lovecraft is that he was pretty formulaic, but it takes quite a while for the formula to get old. Sure, it's pretty much a given that the character of the moment starts out far too curious for their own good, ends up running smack dab into something horrific, and ends up dead and/or insane, but you keep reading to see all the myriad ways he can get from point a to point b.

He retreads the same vocabulary over and over again far too often, though. Only takes you a couple of stories to figure out what his favorite words were.

Still, he's not bad. A bit of a guilty pleasure, perhaps, but fun to read and hard to stop in the middle of. To use a very rough analogy, he is to horror what Clancy is to action.

Nohwl
2008-04-17, 10:50 PM
That second video was awesome. It also tells me that some people have way too much time on their hands.

Xuincherguixe
2008-04-17, 11:40 PM
Looking at Cthulhu is kind of like that second video.

Danzaver
2008-04-18, 05:01 AM
I thought that Randolph Carter was mad. The most dangerous kind: the self-deluded, apparently rational mad.

It's not a matter of 'having resistance'. It's matter of being permanently changed against your will. You can either be torn apart by refusing to accept the change in order to keep a fragment of your identity, or you can embrace it and leap in head-first like Randolph Carter and so many raving mad cultists. Though that is the point where the DM takes away your character and you have to make a new one, because the person you rolled up is dead. Isn't that just as horrible a fate?