Cthuhlutech

[The Reverend]

OMFG why hasn't someone told me about this sooner!!! What the hell?


Seriously as both a fan of hightech awesome and Call of Cthuhlu I can't wait to play this......now to convince my gaming group to throw out or current 4E campaign for this.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Cthulhutech player and one-time attempted GM here.

I love the setting and concepts to death, but actually sitting down to play the game can be way too cumbersome if you use all the rules as written. I mean, it's not exactly Exalted-level bad, but some aspects of the combat system really irritate me, to say nothing of the not-even-attempted game balance.

That said, if you remember to stick to one "tier" of game (in order of ascending combat power levels, it goes approximately civilian/government investigators and sorcerers, military combatants and psychics, tagers, mecha and engels) and ignore all the movement rules, it can be quite fun. Especially if you aren't one of those people who expects party balance.

[TroubleBrewing]

Yeah, my group just started a Cthulhutech game.

Don't mix Tagers with anything else. Seriously. Mayyybe parapsychics, but that's stretching it.

[mabriss lethe]

The easy sell for getting your players interested "Dude! It's tentacle monsters vs. Big FU..riendly robots. What more do you want?"

[hiryuu]

OMFG why hasn't someone told me about this sooner!!! What the hell?


Seriously as both a fan of hightech awesome and Call of Cthuhlu I can't wait to play this......now to convince my gaming group to throw out or current 4E campaign for this.

You will get disappointed HARD once you start reading the in-depth setting fluff. Seriously, giant corporation that sells the super paranoid uber fascist global government its military technology and is "secretly" run by Nyarlathotep and shapeshifting monsters that can't pass a biometric scan? Shenanigans.

The Dreamlands, among the coolest, most unique features of the entire setting and an opportunity to send strike teams into a surreal landscape to fight the Aeon War on an even more bizarre, superawesome front, nonexistent because it was eaten by a giant worm? Garbage.

On the other hand, the setting has so much amazing potential.

[The Reverend]

Yes I figure I would just make the world according to my own image and keep individual elements that I liked.

[Trekkin]

You will get disappointed HARD once you start reading the in-depth setting fluff. Seriously, giant corporation that sells the super paranoid uber fascist global government its military technology and is "secretly" run by Nyarlathotep and shapeshifting monsters that can't pass a biometric scan? Shenanigans.

The Dreamlands, among the coolest, most unique features of the entire setting and an opportunity to send strike teams into a surreal landscape to fight the Aeon War on an even more bizarre, superawesome front, nonexistent because it was eaten by a giant worm? Garbage.

On the other hand, the setting has so much amazing potential.

I can only second this, and add that in my opinion it makes the mythos a little too prevalent. It may well be the specific way in which I was introduced to it, but it always seemed to take those parts of the mythos that work best as eldritch, only barely comprehensible things and try to neatly package them for in-world consumption. Magic technology, in particular, grated on me as just too easy a use of what people should break down at witnessing. The war aspect is nice, the Migou showing up is cool, and the elements are all there, but I kept expecting to find Cthulhu kibble in the gear section.

And, of course, the rules just leave me dazedly trying to comprehend under what circumstances they'd be the best option for the setting.

[hiryuu]

Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I have the books. I have all the books. I love the concept, it just turns out to be a little too gonzo and blatantly contradictory in several locations. The Migou I also find a little too human (but then, I think the first thing the hive ships on their way from Pluto are going to do is declare war on the Migou already on-planet for being mentally ill and corrupted by monkeys).

And I'm with you on the Pokerdice thing. I've played and run a few games, and it provides some really weird, unpredictable success curves.

[TroubleBrewing]

I'm not really sure why they decided to incorporate the Drama Die system with Pokerdice. Rather than adding 1-10 to your roll, you end up needing one or two specific numbers.

I'm not a fan of Pokerdice at ALL.

[The Reverend]

The MAIN complaint about it in every review I read was the dice system. I also thought about strictly approaching it as a SciFi "alien invasion" game and working hints and eldritch madness into the game as it went along. Kind of leading the players down a rabbit hole so to speak.

[Trekkin]

The MAIN complaint about it in every review I read was the dice system. I also thought about strictly approaching it as a SciFi "alien invasion" game and working hints and eldritch madness into the game as it went along. Kind of leading the players down a rabbit hole so to speak.

That's an accepted way to run Call of Cthulhu, certainly, and running Cthulhutech as future CoC is probably one of the better ways to preserve the mythos. I'd also get rid of Tagers and Engels and the playable aliens, too.

One thing you might want to consider is paring down the skill and perk list. I've heard complaints it's not focused enough.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I can only second this, and add that in my opinion it makes the mythos a little too prevalent. It may well be the specific way in which I was introduced to it, but it always seemed to take those parts of the mythos that work best as eldritch, only barely comprehensible things and try to neatly package them for in-world consumption. Magic technology, in particular, grated on me as just too easy a use of what people should break down at witnessing. The war aspect is nice, the Migou showing up is cool, and the elements are all there, but I kept expecting to find Cthulhu kibble in the gear section.

I think the idea is that the Mythos is no longer mysterious - largely still incomprehensible, but goddammit, humanity is trying. That's one of the main things that separates it from Call of Cthulhu. It still (can) be a game of creeping mystery, but things like magic and the existence of horrible things is present as both a constant hope and a constant fear in general society, rather than something hidden.

That said, the story gets really damn stupid the more splatbooks you read. I stopped after Vade Mecum, frankly, which was really just the other half of the core book.

[hiryuu]

I think the idea is that the Mythos is no longer mysterious - largely still incomprehensible, but goddammit, humanity is trying. That's one of the main things that separates it from Call of Cthulhu. It still (can) be a game of creeping mystery, but things like magic and the existence of horrible things is present as both a constant hope and a constant fear in general society, rather than something hidden.

That said, the story gets really damn stupid the more splatbooks you read. I stopped after Vade Mecum, frankly, which was really just the other half of the core book.

Yeah, the strain on society as the mythos becomes laid bare and the humans and Nazzadi drift toward one race, a mythos race, is one of the major driving conflicts of the setting. It's what drew me toward it in the first place, since an easy mistake to make about Lovecraft's work is that humans can't comprehend the true nature of reality, which is totally and utterly wrong. It's that humans can't comprehend the true depths of reality, command, and control its functions without becoming something we would consider nonhuman, and that worst part about it is that we'd just go on thinking we're human the whole time, changing our own personal definition. Bit by bit. Suddenly we're equals with the Elder Things and can empathize with them on a basic level and still consider ourselves human.

But no. We have become the Elder Things. Basically, Delta Green has won. This is the best possible outcome.

I ran this thing once before in Mutants & Masterminds using Mecha & Manga's rules just fine, replacing the d20 roll with 3d6 with very little changes needed on my part. I think for my next campaign I'll use the CoC system. The plan is to run one 1920s game, then a 1990s/Delta Green game, then a Cthulhutech game, and thread several stories through the generations.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I ran this thing once before in Mutants & Masterminds using Mecha & Manga's rules just fine, replacing the d20 roll with 3d6 with very little changes needed on my part. I think for my next campaign I'll use the CoC system. The plan is to run one 1920s game, then a 1990s/Delta Green game, then a Cthulhutech game, and thread several stories through the generations.

Mutants & Masterminds: is there anything it can't do?

That later idea is also quite brilliant. There's also certainly no reason you can't run a game in CTech's setting with the CoC d% system, though I would probably shy away from mecha or tager combat if I did so, personally.

[Arcane_Snowman]

I'm pretty much reiterating at this point, Cthulhutech is an interesting system, and although I think the Tagers are really damn cool, the fact that they've included them with everything else just makes the game too schizophrenic. The developers should have chosen one aspect and stuck to it.

Don't have a problem with the dice, although I do agree that they make the success curve a bit wonky, but that's one of the games nice little quirks.