What do I need to change about Call of Cthulhu to set it in the 60s?

Question

I am in the process of planning a CoC game (or Trail of... I've not picked up a copy but it looks interesting) set a long time after the events of the Whisperer in the Darkness. To do so, I wanted to set the game in the 60s, but I'm not sure how the game will run with cars, social movement, widespread telephones, better weaponry and the like.

I want to keep the dark, mysterious feel from the Cthulhu mythos. What can I keep that will enhance the game, in this setting?

I want to make the era relevant. What can I use from the era to emphasis the Cthulhu mythos?

And finally, is setting the game this much later than the original era (~1920-1930) a good idea at all?

Answer 1

I'm writing this from an American perspective, but I'm sure the experience of the 1960s varied wildly depending on where and how you lived.

As my father used to say, "If you remember the 60s, you weren't there." His point was that there was so much going on, so much exploration, so much tumult, that even keeping track of it all was difficult as it was happening, much less in the rear view mirror. It's important to note that he was in his early 20s as the decade hit full swing.

To him the decade was about exploration, about trying new things and pushing boundaries. To his parents (and to more conservative younger people), it was a time of unravelling, a time when the American status quo that held sway from the end of WWII was under direct assault. Those competing themes of discovery and unravelling could be tied to the mythos in a variety of ways.

Space Exploration: The Mercury program, the goal of which was to get a man into orbit, ran from '59 to '63. The Gemini program, which put men into space in '65 and '66, explored techniques that were later used in the Apollo program. Apollo manned flights were carried out from '68 through '72. Imagine what sort of weirdness American (or Soviet) astronauts could encounter in the cold dark of space, and how mysterious, horrible events broadcast live on TV would affect viewers down on earth.

Drug Use & Communal Living Exploration: The two didn't necessarily go hand in hand, but frequently you'd find the former if you found the latter. Hallucinogenic drugs as a vehicle for exposure to the mythos could be interesting, for example mythos-driven insanity manifesting as acid trip flashbacks. Communal living gave rise to all sorts of reinterpretations of social structure and family environments. The more isolated the commune, the more possibility that mythos elements could gain hold. Add a strong charismatic leader with a spiritual/religious bent and all kinds of nasty things could ensue.

The Vietnam War & the Unravelling of American Politics: I get the impression that from Gen X on, it has become increasingly difficult for Americans to understand what it was like to live through the Vietnam War era. The threat of being drafted was quite real to American men in their 20s, and it cut deeply into the social fabric. We're still saddled with the effects this war had on the Baby Boomers, as they re-fight the domestic battles of the 60s over and over again. What if the John Birch Society were really a front for cultists bent on promulgating war and carnage? What if Jane Fonda's trip to Hanoi was really the most visible effect of a cultist-driven effort to get popular entertainers to sow dissent? What if cultists in the highest levels of government, business, and cultural circles were playing both sides, with the goal of bringing the most powerful nation-state on earth to its knees?

The Unravelling of Race Barriers: To Jadasc's point, the fight in the 60s to make America truly a land for all people was seen by many who were involved as the high point of their lives. To others it was the beginning of the end, the end of an old order that kept some people in control and others in check. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to conjure up images of the KKK being controlled by mythos forces, again with the goal of keeping humanity from moving forward, from gaining strength.

My interpretation has always been that mythos cultists feed on discord and strife, and this decade was chock full of both. I'll bet you could put together a great campaign set in the 1960s.

Answer 2

Ah, the Cold War is in full swing: the communists are fighting revolutions kill thousands in South America, Africa and Asia while America gets dirty by helping dictators. Nuclear holocaust looms on the horizon in Cuba and Germany. Freedom is squashed in Eastern Europe by tanks while hippies trip on LSD. The space race leads to two men walking on the Moon...

Just from the above, I can come up with a dozen games. LSD is a tool of Nyarlathotep to stop Americans caring for their government while Nyarlathotep uses Che Guevara in Cuba to win the revolution, convince the Soviet to give him control of the Nuclear missiles and fire them at America thus summoning Azathoth to Earth. Can the PCs stop him?

The trick is to pick elements that made you run a game in that time period and overlay a "What horrible things could I do to make this more boogly?".

Have you read Declare by Tim Powers? If not, you should. It's all about the Cold War and ... Well, that would be spoiling it, but it fits. Ditto with The Laundry series by Charles Stross.

Answer 3

I think it's a great idea; I kind of want to do it now.

The advent of drug use in popular culture/birth of a drug culture is a really obvious avenue to connect the period to the Cthulu mythos. The sudden importation and popularization of a somewhat mangled ‘eastern’ philosophy and mysticism into American pop culture also complements very well the idea that Cthonian influences are spreading out into wider society. The theme that runs through so much of Lovecraft’s work, of great civilizations falling into decadence and decay could quite nicely be tailored to fit the 1960s—say the US (where I’m assuming you’re setting this) is just another empire entering the downward part of that arc.

The Cold War paranoia and nuclear threat work well there too—it’s apocalyptic enough on its own, Oppenheimer’s ‘I am become death, destroyer of worlds’ comes to mind. Certainly the scientific advances of the time can be mysticised to provide the dark atmosphere you’re looking for. Nyarlathotep’s intro story has him gathering a cult of followers by demonstrating weird scientific advances related to electricity; that kind of eerie flavor could easily be transferred to atomic power and the space race (the existence of the space race is itself good fodder, given the things that lurk in the stars or live on the moon in Lovecraft-verse). If anything the better weaponry and technological advances you’re talking about can be cast as part of the horror, things that are inexplicable or unnatural, that spread corrupting influences or could only have occurred through eldritch influence. Lovecraft was pretty into magic!science himself. On a practical gameplay level, you could borrow ideas about how to hobble technology so that it doesn’t help the PCs much from modern horror movies pretty easily, and the technology can present a new set of threats.

Answer 4

The 1960s were a time of spiritual exploration and social awakening. In the world of the Cthulhu mythos, these things could represent the sort of knowledge that leads to understanding things that should never be learned. Inside every commune lurks a dangerous cult (artists and sensitives were particularly susceptible to Cthulhu's dreams); "free love" is a mask for Shub-Niggurath and Y'Golonac; and Transcendental Meditation opens the mind to the Dreamlands and the mad piping of Azathoth.