Hot answers tagged call-of-cthulhu
31
I think the best advice comes from Burning Wheel...
A failed roll doesn't mean a failure to perform, merely a failure to perform well enough.
A failed drive in that example chase should be merely that he opened up the range. Only a fumble should be a crash.
In your opposed drive rolls, it should be:
Both make, range stays the same
Both fail, range ...
27
Two reasons.
First, the various horrors and Things Man is Not Meant to Know that populate the universe in a Lovecraft Mythos game are not organised enough (against us, at least) to pull this kind of thing off as a regular tactic—if they were, the world would already be consumed, enslaved, or worse. Since we're playing a game where we investigate and try to ...
21
I'd like to see it work by creating some kind of link between the character who goes mad, and the one that follows. If you want a simple mechanical solution, get the player to select one mundane skill (i.e. not Mythos), preferably knowledge-based, from the first character's sheet. The next character then gets this skill at the old character's level for free.
...
16
I have tried this in two ways in the past. I think of the two, only one will be of use for your objective.
PC Villain in the Group
Create the villain with its player and discuss what their villainous goal actually is. Ensure the player can and will commit to being a villain. Their goal should require the villain to need to be close to or involved with the ...
16
You may be thinking of End Time, a Call of Cthulhu supplement.
In 1993 Pagan Publishing's End Time product came to an unceremonious end.Contained herein is the material I wrote for the project. While the project was never completed, you will find here the results of many hours of work.
The End Time grew out of my Blood Moon adventure, published in ...
13
Yes, these GMs are undoubtedly doing it wrong, as others have said.
But if you want more predictability and less failure, just roll percentiles but allow the player to choose which die to take as tens, and which as units.
This would give your character with 60% Drive only a 16% chance of failure or thereabouts.
A relative beginner with 30% skill would ...
12
I've just found this Q&A, and seen that it's rather outdated, so, FYI:
Dustin [Wright, of Chaosium] said Chaosium expects Call of Cthulhu 7th
Edition to be published in 2013, but there’s no firm date yet.
Source and (quite a lot of) further details: Inside Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, July 24, 2012
11
Well, that's a good question. Back in the day, Chaosium cranked out a new version every 3 years whether it needed to or not - and usually it didn't; the actual changes from version 1 to version 6 are only noticable to experts. One answer is "who cares, get the current version, because the next one won't be much different."
Now, the versions started getting ...
11
The core book is pretty complete in its own right, although I find that BRP works better the less of it you use, and plenty of it can be ignored once you've got the basics down (very easy). Nothing else is really essential: it even has some short scenarios, although which ones depend on the edition. By the way, I don't think it matters at all which edition ...
10
The Laundry setting by Charles Stross has deep ones (BLUE HADES). They are known about and the occult community has contact with them. Some organisation recruit BLUE HADES hybrids to work alongside human minders. They are signatories of the Benthic treaty which govern the human/muthos interactions with other sentient races on Earth. Of course, I do not ...
10
Call of Cthulhu is being given its first real overhaul in decades. The system is d100, and the emphasis is on immersion in the game world. The default setting is the 1920s, but there are expansion materials available for other eras. Chaosium has created an extensive body of well-regarded CoC adventures over many years. Here's co-creator Sandy Peterson ...
10
Here's why these kinds of attacks don't happen more often:
Unless they are specific to the plot and you're interested in investigating this kind of attack, they are incredibly uninteresting and often don't suit the kinds of villains we tend to use in RPGs.
Let's handle the second one. Most RPG villains (hell most villains in general) are egoists and enjoy ...
9
My go-to solution for this is to dig up scans or reproductions of old catalogs. I like the Sears catalogs quite a bit, as you get a nice cross-section of what people would have been buying at the time. There's several sites online, but here's one with the 1937 Christmas catalog. It's toy-focused, but there's some early electronics and kitchen appliances and ...
9
I have played "PCs as villains" in various ways. The more you want a long, traditional campaign play with all the PCs "in the group," the more constrained you will be in options - a one shot or a planned several session adventure, you can accomplish this all sorts of wild ways.
Covert Bad Guy In The Group
In a long Night Below campaign (AD&D 2e), I had ...
8
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 ...
8
Basic Mechanics
The mechanical difference of these systems is spelled out in the first paragraphs of each in the BRP core book. Magic is on page 89 and Sorcery is on page 122. In a very generalized nutshell, Magic represents characters being able to learn the very basics of how spell casting works in general, and that knowledge enables them to learn ...
7
Just a Call of Cthulhu rulebook and the Delta Green basic book.
My favorite version of the Delta Green book is the bi-system BRP/D20 one (now out of print). I think the D20 rules for Call of Cthulhu (also out of print, but easily available via Amazon) offer a nice format for playing a more action/adventure themed Delta Green game than might be suggested by ...
7
The "Forbidden Lore" system from World of Darkness: Mirrors (p.28-32) is cognate to the Sanity system; characters garner Insanity points and lose rating in their Reason score. Along the way, they acquire Mental and Social penalties and gain bonuses to Occult endeavors — including the ability to use supernatural powers without gaining the associated template. ...
7
The 1930s section of the (rather old looking :)) The People History site (found via google) appears to have somewhat brief yet interesting, relevant info on the era.
Note (and check) the links to the individual years in the middle of the right column too.
There are quite a number of other (imo poorly designed, yet quite) informative-looking, minor sites ...
7
In Call of Cthulhu, for straight stat checks you usually have someone roll percentage vs 5 times the relevant stat. If you are pitting a stat against another stat, you use the Resistance Table (read the CoC rules for that) but it's basically 50% + 5x acting stat - 5x opposing stat.
In this case assign the crank a STR or SIZ and they'd roll against it on ...
7
There is one great explanation for why it doesn't happen in Call of Cthulhu in particular and one great explanation for narratively why it doesn't happen that often.
But you asked the question regarding any game system where teleporting is feasible, and seem to want an in universe answer. That is a bit hard since each universe is a bit different, but I can ...
6
This is basically why systems like GURPS go for randomization mechanics that approximate a normal distribution.
You could mimic GURPS and rescale the skill numbers from the 1-100 scale to 3-18, and then roll 3d6 against them. Or perhaps it might be interesting to try keeping the skill numbers the same and rolling 5d20 instead of d100. (Super bonus points ...
6
Assuming you want the pulp era as your epoch of choice, the essentials:
Call of Cthulhu main rulebook
1920s Investigators Companion (assuming you get an edition that has the host of extra professions described)
A book of adventures (I recommend Mortal Coils from Pagan Publishing, or The Great Old Ones from Chaosium, now sadly out of print, I think)
A ...
6
As noted above, the present defining text of the Mythos in the present day is Stross' Laundry series, and the associated RPG.
Delta Green has already been noted, though excellent as it is, it's definitely a product of its time.
Also a product of its time is SJGames'GURPS Cthulhupunk, a mashup of the GURPS Cyberworld setting+Cthulhu. I forget the details ...
6
Another unofficial take on the Cthulhu Mythos would be CthulhuTech. It's set in 2085 and here's the blurb from the product:
Humanity faces extinction. Alien insects from the edge of our solar
system, long hidden behind the façade of reality, descend to enslave
us. Hordes of unspeakable horrors roll out from Central Asia, laying
waste to anything in ...
5
To my mind, CoC Sanity rules are quite easy to use as is. For instance you can use the sum of the mental characteristics as a base and multiply by 5 or 6 (depending on how crazy your world is) to get the starting sanity and then use the typical CoC Sanity rules.
I think something like that may work.
5
The base skill in Speak Own Language is 30%. That doesn't mean that you fail to come up with words to say what you want to say 70% of the time in routine conversation (though there is a special mechanic here, see below). Instead, a 30% skill means that you are competent but unarticulate in conversation, and will perform better in conversation than most ...
5
This interview with Robin D. Laws might clarify some of the differences.
Basically, your investigators won't be denied essential clues throughout the course of the game. GUMSHOE prevents the awkward "Oh, you really missed that investigation roll. Your seasoned detective manages to completely miss any clues in the well-stocked library with a post-it note on ...
5
The game's very lethal by default - remind the players to set up wards and defensive bindings. If they're tooled up, they've tougher than Call of Cthulhu characters.
"Going Down To Dunwich", in the core rulebook, is explicitly designed as an intro, and runs the players through the basics of the setting. I'd run that before jumping onto Black Bag Jobs.
4
The classic Call of Cthulhu campaign "Shadows of Yog-Sothoth" prominently features Cthulhu in the last scenario...R'Lyeh rises and the characters can actually face off against the Big C himself (and die horribly, of course). This was first released in the early 80s but has been reprinted since then.
It's been a long time since I ran/read this campaign, but ...
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