Call of Cthulhu without Cthulhu

[Rakmakallan]

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR UPCOMING GAME. MY GAMING GROUP STAY OUT.

Recently I've been pondering the idea of running a mythos-based game as an RPG (with Cthulhu Dark or a homebrew system) or even better as an ARG. However, I've been regarding the "supernatural" elements of the mythos with increasing contempt. So I need your help, playground. How would it be possible to run a game taking place at the present date, with HP Lovecraft and his successors having developed the mythos? The Great Old Ones, the deep ones, the shoggoths, the mi-go, none of them exist, although I would be willing to allow room for cults and obscure manuscripts and discoveries as long as they adhere to realism (and not verisimilitude). My first thought was to use the mythos as an allegory for elements of human depravity, but even this seems difficult to pull off in rpg form.

[Grinner]

I'd say that's downright contradictory. Cthulhu Dark is reliant upon the usage of an insanity die. If there's nothing to drive the characters mad, then the game loses its primary source of tension.

Edit: I guess you could try casting the party as a bunch of jaded social service workers, if you wish to reflect human depravity.

[Rakmakallan]

I'd say that's downright contradictory. Cthulhu Dark is reliant upon the usage of an insanity die. If there's nothing to drive the characters mad, then the game loses its primary source of tension.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that using insanity will be optional for the player or non-existent. It would be hard to envision it for contemporary real world cynics, except maybe as post-traumatic stress disorder. Wouldn't death in a faceless urban environment and delving into human non-supernatural madness be enough of a narrative tension?

[Grinner]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that using insanity will be optional for the player or non-existent. It would be hard to envision it for contemporary real world cynics, except maybe as post-traumatic stress disorder. Wouldn't death in a faceless urban environment and delving into human non-supernatural madness be enough of a narrative tension?

Most people, those deemed "sane", just don't care. It seems like you're trying to force a theme that just isn't there, because the thing about insanity is that it's relevant primarily to the insane. Why do you think we institutionalize such people?

If you want to do a game about mundane insanity, might I recommend the Asylum RPG?

[Bogardan_Mage]

I'd say that's downright contradictory. Cthulhu Dark is reliant upon the usage of an insanity die. If there's nothing to drive the characters mad, then the game loses its primary source of tension.

Edit: I guess you could try casting the party as a bunch of jaded social service workers, if you wish to reflect human depravity.

There are plenty of opportunities to lose sanity without seeing things man was not meant to know.

Rakmakallan, what you want is a horror setting without the supernatural? That's not too difficult, but it won't be tremendously Lovecraftian. I suppose what you could do is present it to your players as standard CoC, but have the cultists be simply deluded (I mean, in a different way) and none of the magic works. I know there's a few CoC adventures kicking around where the twist is that the strange events have absolutely nothing to do with the Mythos, it's just mundane serial killers or something. So kind of that, but for the entire campaign?

[Grinner]

There are plenty of opportunities to lose sanity without seeing things man was not meant to know.

These things take time though. Some emotional neglect here, some physical abuse there, add just a pinch of brain damage, and let bake for eighteen to thirty years.

[Bogardan_Mage]

These things take time though. Some emotional neglect here, some physical abuse there, add just a pinch of brain damage, and let bake for eighteen to thirty years.

Are you talking about reality or the game mechanics? Because a few brutal crime scenes will shave quite a bit off your SAN score in the game.

[Grinner]

Are you talking about reality or the game mechanics? Because a few brutal crime scenes will shave quite a bit off your SAN score in the game.

He said he wanted realism.

[Bogardan_Mage]

He said he wanted realism.

I took that to mean that he didn't want supernatural elements, not that he was going to homebrew a new system that is completely unlike CoC on the grounds that game mechanics like SAN are "unrealistic" (which is arguable in itself, I'd say that SAN checks are just BRP's way of representing overwhelming shocks) yet for some reason still call it Call of Cthulhu.

Some clarification on what you actually want would be much appreciated, Rakmakallan.

[Rakmakallan]

Rakmakallan, what you want is a horror setting without the supernatural? That's not too difficult, but it won't be tremendously Lovecraftian. I suppose what you could do is present it to your players as standard CoC, but have the cultists be simply deluded (I mean, in a different way) and none of the magic works. I know there's a few CoC adventures kicking around where the twist is that the strange events have absolutely nothing to do with the Mythos, it's just mundane serial killers or something. So kind of that, but for the entire campaign?

More or less, yes. The game is intended to take place in the current date and semi-real time in cities all over Europe with players piecing together a greater conspiracy from scattered clues, inspired from actual newspaper articles, blog posts, urban legends of large cities and so on. However, the whole thing will -at least vaguely- contain lovecraftian elements, mixed with apathy, nihilism, and technology. For instance, on the apartment walls in Belgrade, a murder victim scribes an elder sign before dying. In a small underground theatre in Amsterdam, an amateur group plans to adapt the King in Yellow in a play. A Norwegian oceanographer commits suicide only days after reporting the discovery of an immense skeleton of an as yet unknown species. Police raids in Istanbul end up in the arrest of a babbling and screaming man claiming to be a messiah, come to cull the weak and bring about the evolution of mankind, for the end times prophesied in the Necronomicon are nigh. Probably all these are just mundane events, or maybe they are part of a greater conspiracy, or the worst, HP Lovecraft was far from a simple novelist. My main problem is reconciling ideas from the mythos with the real world, while creating horror in the terrestrial sense.

Most people, those deemed "sane", just don't care. It seems like you're trying to force a theme that just isn't there, because the thing about insanity is that it's relevant primarily to the insane. Why do you think we institutionalize such people?

If you want to do a game about mundane insanity, might I recommend the Asylum RPG?

I am not trying to force traditional CoC insanity in the game, rather than adapt it as a progressive decent into numbness and amorality coming from overexposure to the darker side of humans. As for the Asylum RPG, I already have intentions of running a homebrew game with similar themes

[Grinner]

*snip*

Probably all these are just mundane events, or maybe they are part of a greater conspiracy, or the worst, HP Lovecraft was far from a simple novelist. My main problem is reconciling ideas from the mythos with the real world, while creating horror in the terrestrial sense.

You may find this interesting.

The irony here is that Lovecraft himself attempted something very similar, if not the same. By disallowing the "supernatural" elements, you're casting humans in a more positive light. Without the existence of magic (technology beyond human comprehension), humanity is in a better position to comprehend the mysteries of the universe.

Food for thought.

[Slipperychicken]

The irony here is that Lovecraft himself attempted something very similar, if not the same. By disallowing the "supernatural" elements, you're casting humans in a more positive light. Without the existence of magic (technology beyond human comprehension), humanity is in a better position to comprehend the mysteries of the universe.

It's not so much that they're in a better position to understand things. It's just that Cthulhu and company were just the allegory through which the incomprehensible/amoral/uncaring universe could ruin the minds of mortals trying to comprehend it. Without them, it's easier for mankind to maintain its illusion of knowledge and control.

[faustin]

Videogames like Condemned or Nightmare House play with that kind of horror: the monsters are more the product of the protagonist´s demented perception than any supernatural intervention.
On the more magical side of the scale, in paper rpgs like Kingdom of Nothing the hidden monsters are born directly from the city´s darkness.

[Jack of Spades]

This may sound a bit harsh, but I don't mean to be.

That idea sounds boring as hell.

Seriously, everything points to Mythos being involved, and your characters do all this investigation, and the players are tense and waiting for their first encounter with that which men were not meant to see, and then... It's nothing. That dead guy drew an elder sign with his blood for kicks. That insane guy ranting about the coming of the Elder Gods is just insane. Those massive bones belong to a whale, nothing more. That is one hell of an anticlimax. We play RPGs to live in a world we could never make real, and having the world be completely mundane (especially when you've been telling your players that they're playing Call of Cthulhu) is a huge buzzkill.

Especially if you go the ARG route. Being driven by the assumption that none of the things the game is implying are true will just undermine the entire endeavor. Great ARGs come up with a way that the world is more strange and deep than we ever imagined, and then they commit to that idea, dropping clues that seem completely viable to lead to conclusions that are completely real-- at least in an in-character sense. Betraying clues that the premise is false flies in the face of the very reason that ARGs exist.

Seriously, it sounds like you want to write a book, not an RPG. A boring book.

[mjlush]

Sorry this is bit off topic but I can't resist:-

I've contemplated doing a CoC game with two small modifications

1) there are no mythos or supernatural elements

2) the characters are all escaped lunatics who believe in mythos and supernatural are that they are behind everything

Play would consist of the players reading the days newspapers 'finding' the cold tentacle of Evil.... then dealing with in the manner that only players can

[EccentricCircle]

Very interesting idea.
I'd run it using the standard Call of Cthulhu rules. And not tell the players that anything is different. Let them find Cthulhu cults (based on the works of Lovecraft and others). Let them find facimile copies of the Necronomicon, maybe several contradictory versions, so that they don't know which is the real or original one. Let them make San checks as they learn more (especially encourage the sort of situation where a player says "I guess I need to make a San check now don't I?"
Throw in clues that the mythos is fiction, you can bet that the players won't worry to much about that, after all they have evidence.

And then the big twist is that its fictional. I guess the trick is getting them to believe you.

[Rakmakallan]

You may find this interesting.

The irony here is that Lovecraft himself attempted something very similar, if not the same. By disallowing the "supernatural" elements, you're casting humans in a more positive light. Without the existence of magic (technology beyond human comprehension), humanity is in a better position to It's not so much that they're in a better position to understand things. It's just that Cthulhu and company were just the allegory through which the incomprehensible/amoral/uncaring universe could ruin the minds of mortals trying to comprehend it. Without them, it's easier for mankind to maintain its illusion of knowledge and control. comprehend the mysteries of the universe.

Food for thought.

I totally agree with the concept of cosmic indifference. The universe is a hostile and inhospitable place. But when we reach this

It's not so much that they're in a better position to understand things. It's just that Cthulhu and company were just the allegory through which the incomprehensible/amoral/uncaring universe could ruin the minds of mortals trying to comprehend it. Without them, it's easier for mankind to maintain its illusion of knowledge and control.

I am in complete disagreement. Humans are much hardier than given credit in the mythos. If horror is downgraded from supernatural, Cthulhu and co. remain sufficiently advanced aliens, which opens up a new series of questions of why we would be unable to communicate with them, what is their means of operation and so on, given they are from the same universe as us and therefore bound by the same natural laws. Including them in the game in this manner essentially transforms the whole endeavour into an ancient astronauts ufology plot.

Videogames like Condemned or Nightmare House play with that kind of horror: the monsters are more the product of the protagonist´s demented perception than any supernatural intervention.
On the more magical side of the scale, in paper rpgs like Kingdom of Nothing the hidden monsters are born directly from the city´s darkness.

Strangely enough, I've been considering a game similar to Kingdom of Nothing for a while now. After having watched a few gameplay videos of Nightmare House, I admit I love the atmosphere and will probably steal a few elements.

This may sound a bit harsh, but I don't mean to be.

That idea sounds boring as hell.

Seriously, everything points to Mythos being involved, and your characters do all this investigation, and the players are tense and waiting for their first encounter with that which men were not meant to see, and then... It's nothing. That dead guy drew an elder sign with his blood for kicks. That insane guy ranting about the coming of the Elder Gods is just insane. Those massive bones belong to a whale, nothing more. That is one hell of an anticlimax. We play RPGs to live in a world we could never make real, and having the world be completely mundane (especially when you've been telling your players that they're playing Call of Cthulhu) is a huge buzzkill.

Especially if you go the ARG route. Being driven by the assumption that none of the things the game is implying are true will just undermine the entire endeavor. Great ARGs come up with a way that the world is more strange and deep than we ever imagined, and then they commit to that idea, dropping clues that seem completely viable to lead to conclusions that are completely real-- at least in an in-character sense. Betraying clues that the premise is false flies in the face of the very reason that ARGs exist.

Seriously, it sounds like you want to write a book, not an RPG. A boring book.

I came asking for help here, because I realised that with a simple bunch of red herrings to chase around, the game would be a buzzkill, an exercise in pointlessness. Being an all-around skeptic, I dislike the idea both of a quasi-supernatural mythos and conspiracies, and probably some of my players would find any and all plot and loopholes involved. What is left, would probably amount to a series of murder mysteries and tales of urban horror drawing from movies such as Se7en and novels such as Misery. A murky journey with gradual loss of lucidity and humanity, where the mythos is only a loose thematic.

Sorry this is bit off topic but I can't resist:-

I've contemplated doing a CoC game with two small modifications

1) there are no mythos or supernatural elements

2) the characters are all escaped lunatics who believe in mythos and supernatural are that they are behind everything

Play would consist of the players reading the days newspapers 'finding' the cold tentacle of Evil.... then dealing with in the manner that only players can

YES! This is actually brilliant and might use it as is with your permission.

[Grinner]

@Rakmakallan: Did you just mix my post with Slipperychicken's?

[Rakmakallan]

@Rakmakallan: Did you just mix my post with Slipperychicken's?

I tried to answer both posts in succession as part of one train of thought, but is must have come across the wrong way.

[mjlush]

Very interesting idea.
I'd run it using the standard Call of Cthulhu rules. And not tell the players that anything is different. Let them find Cthulhu cults (based on the works of Lovecraft and others). Let them find facimile copies of the Necronomicon, maybe several contradictory versions, so that they don't know which is the real or original one. Let them make San checks as they learn more (especially encourage the sort of situation where a player says "I guess I need to make a San check now don't I?"
Throw in clues that the mythos is fiction, you can bet that the players won't worry to much about that, after all they have evidence.

And then the big twist is that its fictional. I guess the trick is getting them to believe you.

I've never really considered this as more than a one off with the players in on the joke... it
could work as a more serious campaign. You could invert San checks when on zero the character realize that mythos is all a delusion.

You could play that for poignancy the character wakes up to the truth, goes into rehab starts to rebuild his life.... then the Party 'rescue' him from the Evil Cult of Rehaaib and 'deprogram' him right back to square one.

If you like twisted stuff like this I have another one:-

Hand each player a note that says 'You have been replaced by a doppelganger, play just a little bit out of character and see how long it takes the others to notice. Bear in mind that you don't have all the characters ability's or powers'

or perhaps

'You have been replaced by a doppelganger, try and kill and eat the others before they catch on'

[Grinner]

If you like twisted stuff like this I have another one:-

Hand each player a note that says 'You have been replaced by a doppelganger, play just a little bit out of character and see how long it takes the others to notice. Bear in mind that you don't have all the characters ability's or powers'

or perhaps

'You have been replaced by a doppelganger, try and kill and eat the others before they catch on'

There's a game for that.

[Bhu]

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR UPCOMING GAME. MY GAMING GROUP STAY OUT.

Recently I've been pondering the idea of running a mythos-based game as an RPG (with Cthulhu Dark or a homebrew system) or even better as an ARG. However, I've been regarding the "supernatural" elements of the mythos with increasing contempt. So I need your help, playground. How would it be possible to run a game taking place at the present date, with HP Lovecraft and his successors having developed the mythos? The Great Old Ones, the deep ones, the shoggoths, the mi-go, none of them exist, although I would be willing to allow room for cults and obscure manuscripts and discoveries as long as they adhere to realism (and not verisimilitude). My first thought was to use the mythos as an allegory for elements of human depravity, but even this seems difficult to pull off in rpg form.

With the exception of the Outer Gods, the Mythos isn't supernatural (and usually stories with the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones dont overlap, at least the ones written by HPL). The whole point of the mythos is that the Old Ones are simply powerful aliens who evolved one way while we evolved another. The Old Ones know how reality actually works but for whatever reason (usually wars among themselves) have limitations. We evolved to be blind to reality. As a result that mental blindness allows us the belief that we are safe, in control of our own destiny, etc. But all that is an illusion. All our science and all out civilization is a comfortable illusion hiding the truth.

You'll notice in the stories most of the protagonists don't just snap overnight, it's over long periods of time. It's from the cognitive dissonance of realizing everything they know and believe is a lie, and there's no way to find the truth without effectively leaving humanity behind and joining the other side. You could argue it's not about them losing their sanity so much as finally gaining it when they reject everything they've been taught and go seeking the truth (aka the Shadow over Innsmouth) or dying because they can't give up the false beliefs they've been brainwashed with their whole lives to understand the rules that reality actually work by. They cant accept that their beliefs are false, even when given evidence that they've been complete fools. They find that their ignorance was comforting and don't wish to give it up.

Rejecting the aliens in the stories to increase realism misses the point of the stories. In them humans have already rejected reality to avoid coping with it to the extent we manufacture comfortable illusions. Once we encounter the real world through whatever means, those illusions start to break down, and since we notice reality it begins to notice us. Therefore to survive we need to reject illusion however comforting, and study the truth. Most of Lovecraft's protagonists reject that route, and thus they pay a price for it. The assumption could be stated that we are as a race born almost incurably insane, and only truly cathartic events allow us to see through the psychosis enough to realize whats going on around us. It's then up to the individual to remain strong enough to deal with that, and most don't.