TG Chat Thread 2017

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LuiCypher: Apr 24, 2010; Today I'm... amped up!

Lightning Lord posted:

What's a good intro adventure for Pendragon?

Disclaimer - I don't have any King Arthur Pendragon materials so I'm not too sure which version of the legend it hews towards, whether that's T.H. White's The Once and Future King or more traditional Arthurian literature. My takes are based entirely on T.H. White's work.

Anyways, I wish I knew, too. The best I can come up with off the top of my head is to have people playing the tournament where Arthur goes to retrieve a sword for Sir Kay and have Kay be the penultimate fight, only for the whole drat thing to get interrupted by Arthur coming back with freakin' Excalibur, and the player who makes it to Kay winning by default.

It's either that or the party gets caught up in Pellinore's pursuit of the Questing Beast, and while they help him take down a mighty beast - alas, it is not the Questing Beast.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 16:26

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# ? May 31, 2024 18:12

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Lightning Lord posted:

Truly, fitting that into four hours will be the greatest test of my GMing abilities imaginable...

You should be able to spend almost one second per season.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 17:17

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I feel like Call of Cthulhu is less of a Lovecraft game and more of a Petersen game anyway.

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

It's also been around for so long that it's built up its own version of the Lovecraft mythos that people confuse as being the same as the original source material.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Pretty much. It deliberately excises material Petersen didn't like - not a judgement on his taste, mind, he states it pretty clearly in the older editions. But the idea of a serial monster-of-the-week where everyday people become warriors fighting against the dying of the light doesn't have a lot of actual basis in Lovecraft.

Yeah, Call of Cthulhu points out that Derleth didn't quite "get" Lovecraft's themes, but CoC is in many ways a Derlethian take on the Lovecraftian mythos. First, simply by assuming all of Lovecraft's creations, and those of his correspondents and followers, are part of the same universe. Second, by organizing and classifying entities according to a Chain of Being that goes from Azathoth to the Outer Gods to the Great Old Ones and their servitor races.

And that's fine. That works well for a roleplaying game. You can't really do a Lovecraft roleplaying game without loving with his style and structure, because most fiction doesn't start with a group of 3-6 characters who share protagonism more or less equally. That's an issue for almost every game inspired by genre media, which is most of them. (Bear in mind that Petersen's original concept for a Lovecraftian RPG was a dark fantasy RuneQuest spin-off based on the "Dream Cycle" stories.)

That said, when I read the Lovecraftian anthologies put out by Chaosium, I can immediately recognize which stories are part of a tradition ranging from pastiche to homage to literary influence, and which are Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying franchise fiction.

ST Joshi and Peter Cannon probably have more authoritative answers to this question, but when I read Lovecraft I don't think of a guy creating an Official Yog-Sothothery Canon Universe. Even when he and Smith, Howard, Long, Kuttner, et al. borrowed and referenced each other's work, that's how I read it: references, rather than a "shared universe." I think they enjoyed the idea of contributing to a shared mythology, but a mythology is fluid and inconsistent and nonchronological, as opposed to a fandom wikia.

LuiCypher posted:

Why would anyone want to track separate skills like that, especially in the context of a game where the end result of trying to do either to Cthulhu is 'he kills you'?

Ken Hite's logic is that when you have to struggle through dangerous situations in play to raise a bunch of individual combat skills, it's more of an accomplishment when someone actually manages to become a combat monster. Except that personal arms are hardly effective against most CoC monsters, and CoC PCs tend to be short-lived...

hyphz posted:

Obviously, so that you can create Doctor Headbutt, who headbutted everything because it was his only combat skill. I think his story is still an archives somewhere..

Subjunctive posted:

Wait are those real skills? I was certain they were hyperbole.

Yes, there absolutely were separate skills for Punch, Kick, and Head Butt in earlier editions of CoC. The Example of Play in the first edition I bought (5.something) has an investigator scuffling with a cultist in the dark, beaten him with a table leg, and thus raising his % skill with Small Club at the end of the adventure.

Behold the exploits of Dr. Headbutt. In addition to being a great AP story, it's an example of how these rules tend to produce unintentional and largely unwanted comedy instead of horror.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:01

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

What was that terrible future Cthulu game with all the rape cults?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:40

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

You're probably thinking of Carcosa.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:43

Serf: May 5, 2011

FactsAreUseless posted:

What was that terrible future Cthulu game with all the rape cults?

Cthulhutech?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:43

Cease to Hope: Dec 12, 2011

Halloween Jack posted:

Yes, there absolutely were separate skills for Punch, Kick, and Head Butt in earlier editions of CoC. The Example of Play in the first edition I bought (5.something) has an investigator scuffling with a cultist in the dark, beaten him with a table leg, and thus raising his % skill with Small Club at the end of the adventure.

Seems legit.

FactsAreUseless posted:

What was that terrible future Cthulu game with all the rape cults?

Cthulhutech.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:44

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

FactsAreUseless posted:

What was that terrible future Cthulu game with all the rape cults?

Breakfast Cult

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:44

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Serf posted:

Cthulhutech?

Yeah, that's the one. What a trainwreck.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 19:45

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Halloween Jack posted:

ST Joshi and Peter Cannon probably have more authoritative answers to this question, but when I read Lovecraft I don't think of a guy creating an Official Yog-Sothothery Canon Universe. Even when he and Smith, Howard, Long, Kuttner, et al. borrowed and referenced each other's work, that's how I read it: references, rather than a "shared universe." I think they enjoyed the idea of contributing to a shared mythology, but a mythology is fluid and inconsistent and nonchronological, as opposed to a fandom wikia.

Yeah. One might wonder why I ran Breakfast Cult when I sigh at Call of Cthulhu for the most part, and it's because I generally took the piss with actual Lovecraft elements (moreso than Breakfast Cult itself does, particularly). Wilbur Whateley betrayed his family and became a secret agent, the King in Yellow was gunned down by a student in a background plot, the Deep Ones that showed up were peaceful refugees that had been converted to Christianity, etc. The only thing I played fairly straight was the Dreamlands, because those are probably my favorite Lovecraft stories out of any of them. Also, because you can have moon pirates from the moon.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 20:12

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

CoC was groundbreaking and influential to the point that it's a go-to in discussions of the greatest roleplaying games of all time. But no game is perfect and it probably helped cement some ideas that I'd like to see go away, namely that you can establish effective horror by Killer GM shenanigans.

Yeesh, how did I forget Cthulhutech? I was criticizing it just a few days ago. But the thing is, Cthulhutech is first and foremost a thinly-veiled pastiche of a few "classic" anime, creepy poo poo second, and Lovecraft third. It makes remarkably poor use of its Lovecraftian inspiration, and I surmise that they used Lovecraft because it's an all-too-trendy intellectual property that's conveniently in the public domain, for the most part. I commented in the F&F thread that it could just as well have been Wonderlandtech or Barsoomtech.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 20:24

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

The main problem with lovecraft plots, at least to me, is that they've gone stale. Just having Cosmic Horror be a vague present really isn't enough. It's not novel anymore. It also suffers from the times, like a lot of horror or conspiracy-based stuff does. Like, to be frank, when your plot is "look out, these people are going to awaken this ancient monster who can and will just casually destroy the whole world on whim without even knowing humanity ever existed," like hey, bad news my friendo, but that's not scary anymore when you casually live in that. Fear of aimless and idiotic things with way more power then they should have who will probably one day end the entirety of humanity? That's daily life. Stories of sinister conspiracy and malignant secrecy work a lot less when the modern world is just openly stupid and evil.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 20:25

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Yeah, I wouldn't deny Call of Cthulhu's historical importance and an important work as one of the first RPGs to attempt genre emulation. It's also a great inspirational read. I just don't like it as a game all that much.

Cthulhutech just took home the nihilism of cosmic horror but accidentally left the cosmic and the horror elements behind.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 20:28

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

I've said a few times how Darkseid and the whole New Gods thing is better "cosmic horror" than Lovecraft. I have a whole Thing I could get into, but the short form is that it's because Darkseid isn't some mind-blasting unfathomable horror; he's understandable. He looks like a person (ish), he talks to you, he communicates clearly. He knows we exist, and he doesn't really hate us. He just wants to destroy humanity. Not the species, mind you, but the concept of humanity, the things that make us human. Like compassion, empathy, free will, little quirks like that. What's more, he's very capable of getting humans to do this work for him.

To me, that's a hell of a lot scarier than some ancient whatever that just sees us as ants beneath its notice.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:31

Serf: May 5, 2011

Evil Mastermind posted:

I've said a few times how Darkseid and the whole New Gods thing is better "cosmic horror" than Lovecraft. I have a whole Thing I could get into, but the short form is that it's because Darkseid isn't some mind-blasting unfathomable horror; he's understandable. He looks like a person (ish), he talks to you, he communicates clearly. He knows we exist, and he doesn't really hate us. He just wants to destroy humanity. Not the species, mind you, but the concept of humanity, the things that make us human. Like compassion, empathy, free will, little quirks like that. What's more, he's very capable of getting humans to do this work for him.

To me, that's a hell of a lot scarier than some ancient whatever that just sees us as ants beneath its notice.

Well that's sort of the anti-cosmic horror. Lovecraftian entities are supposed to be alien and completely without any sort of moral or ethical component. They don't hate us, and may not even understand the concept of hate. The horror is derived from how utterly unlike us they are. It was way ahead of its time in its depiction of what something alien would be like, and probably more accurate too.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:35

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

I always thought there was a huge disconnect in the Lovercratian mythos. If us humans are so insignificant on the cosmic scale, as far below these titanic entities as we are above amoeba and as capable of understanding or even comprehending them about as well as that amoeba is capable of comprehending us, then why do they bother messing with us at all. If we are but gnats to them, then why does Nyarlathotep deign to gently caress with us, grant power in exchange for sacrifices, and trick power-hungry sorcerors into corrupt bargains? I mean, even cruel schoolkids have better things to do than torture gnats. Furthermore, if they're so powerful, why can simple human spells bind them or dispel them or invoke them? Why should Hastur care that a tiny insect has sacrificed its child to it with a curvy dagger and dolorous chanting? Why does Yog-Sothoth bother trying to breed an avatar on the Whately family? Why can reading some words from an old book and wiggling your fingers in a pattern interfere with their plans? Why do these cosmic entities need priesthoods and sacrifices and ceremonies?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:49

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

didn't someone do a "clean" version of Cthulhutech? Nyarlathotech was it?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:53

Serf: May 5, 2011

FMguru posted:

I always thought there was a huge disconnect in the Lovercratian mythos. If us humans are so insignificant on the cosmic scale, as far below these titanic entities as we are above amoeba and as capable of understanding or even comprehending them about as well as that amoeba is capable of comprehending us, then why do they bother messing with us at all. If we are but gnats to them, then why does Nyarlathotep deign to gently caress with us, grant power in exchange for sacrifices, and trick power-hungry sorcerors into corrupt bargains? I mean, even cruel schoolkids have better things to do than torture gnats. Furthermore, if they're so powerful, why can simple human spells bind them or dispel them or invoke them? Why should Hastur care that a tiny insect has sacrificed its child to it with a curvy dagger and dolorous chanting? Why does Yog-Sothoth bother trying to breed an avatar on the Whately family? Why can reading some words from an old book and wiggling your fingers in a pattern interfere with their plans? Why do these cosmic entities need priesthoods and sacrifices and ceremonies?

Well, Nyarlathotep is somewhat unique in that it is the only god that actually takes notice of humanity and no one knows why. All the others don't seem to care too much about what we do, and the broad view of the stories is that the cults and their practices don't matter to the beings they serve. Humans believe that it does something (probably from having their minds blasted by glimpsing the truth), but in all likelihood they don't do anything. Now all the various monsters, who are more prevalent as actual entities in the stories, they do seem to interact with humanity on a very direct level that usually involves violence.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 21:54

Lichtenstein: May 31, 2012; It'll make sense, eventually.

Yeah, Nyarlathotep's whole gimmick is that he's the one that takes interest in humans in the way humans might find it fun to set up cockroach fights or find it funny to gently caress with cats using laser pointers.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:02

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

That Old Tree posted:

Are you dense motherfuckers tired of roll-playing!?!?

The seven races are two kinds of halflings, two kinds of elves, two kinds of dwarves, and humans. The 19 classes are Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, Wizard and then 12 more versions of those same classes with a dose of Thesaurus™ applied.

Instead of 1-20, stats go from 1-199. There are 8 of them, and 15 "normal" skills, plus weapon proficiencies, plus what appears to be potentially infinite crafting skills.

Uh, okay. Such exciting new takes on gaming!

PS Did you know you can layer your armor!?

Hey so this was a while ago, but some thread on RPGnet brought it up again. Here's something "interesting":

quote:

As someone who has played Lore and has been involved in the ongoing development of LORE since day one, I have a few things to say.

First, while the core rules are definitely finished (but far from perfect - I find spelling errors here and there because the game doesn't have an editor), the rest of the content to support those core rules have yet to be released. However, that does not mean they aren't being worked on. I have played a number of modules written by the creators of LORE that tell an engaging (if not at least entertaining) story about Castborough, a region of the world of Candlewood where the game canonically takes place. These modules have yet to be published and released to the general public, but that shouldn't stop you as a player from creating your own modules if you want to, or perhaps adapting existing ones from other systems, though that would take some effort. LORE has a Creature Codex, a Plant Codex, and a series of quests I personally like to call call the Applewood Saga all waiting to be finalized and released.

Second, a large amount of the content in LORE's core rules is the numerous combat abilities each class can learn. While traditional RPGs rely on systems such as Feats or simply having a limited number of spells a magic user can use at a time, LORE uses a system based on what are called Combat Maneuvers. Each class has about eighty different Combat Maneuvers available to them, with a wide variety of uses both in and out of combat. While the concept itself may not sound revolutionary, what I personally love about the system is the fact that you can spend Encounter Points to increase the power of these abilities in various ways, giving the combat some flexibility by allowing players to approach combat however they please. You could use all of your Encounter Points on the first round of combat in order to wipe out a cluster of enemies, or maybe spend them all on immediately killing a single, high-priority target. You could use them more sparingly, perhaps saving them for two or three different targets with equal amounts of health. Et cetera, et cetera. I personally love the Encounter Points system because it's simple, effective, and adds a tactical layer to the game beyond flanking an enemy, rolling your D20, and hoping you hit.

Third, LORE is a very simple game to play. There aren't many rules that either the player or the GM has to worry about. In fact, I might go as far as to say there aren't any rules beyond character creation and the combat system. It allows for gameplay to flow smoothly because the GM doesn't have to refer to a rulebook in order to answer every single question their players ask. Maybe I'm just naive, and that's not a quality unique to LORE. I've honestly forgotten how other systems play because I've spent so much time with this game, helping its development. Of course, some of you aren't looking for simple rules and gameplay. One of my personal friends enjoys the various systems of Pathfinder and thus isn't interested in LORE. That's perfectly okay. Can't cater to everyone.

Finally, the core rules aren't actually all that expensive. The PDF is $6.99 USD when not on sale. That's less than I make in an hour working minimum wage at Arby's. Yes, the hardcover is much more expensive at nearly $40 USD, but that's for the people who really want to have the book in their hands to take around and show to their friends. It's also nice to have to pass around the table on the off-chance someone in the party needs to look up some information. It's only slightly less expensive than the other results I found after a cursory glance on Google Shopping and Amazon, but the point is that if you're not willing to drop $40 on a game you've likely heard next to nothing about, you don't have to. $7 is much less of an investment, and if you end up liking the game, you've got hundreds of hours of gameplay ahead of you for much, much less than other systems will cost you.

TL;DR: Lore will soon have the supplementary content that you need to play games designed for the system. Its gameplay is fun and simple. The Combat Maneuvers system is great. If you don't like it, it doesn't have to put a huge dent in your wallet.

And yes, I'm most definitely biased towards this game because I'm involved with the active development of the system. It's difficult to understand at first. All systems are. I've played this game at conventions (and GM'd LORE at conventions), and every time the players get past that initial road-bump in learning how the game works, I hear them say it was one of the best gaming experiences they've ever had. If you're still skeptical, please, go find someone who's played the game. LORE has an active Facebook page where you are sure to find people who are players. Ask for their opinion on the game.

This game that desperately needs to be fleshed out is 480 pages.

Did someone say "heartbreaker?"

A guy who created Lore posted:

Trying to wrap my head around the “fantasy heartbreaker” paroxysm, and that it resonates somehow. Help me understand this label please. I would sincerely like to grasp how Lore fails to provide players a heightened gaming experience that renews their love of RPGs.

quote:

I almost feel like I need to do a "where I read" thread for this, there are definitely some weird corners. Like practically random crafting results or side effects for every potion you drink. Object hit points being called "tensile strength". Archers are "bowyers" (huh?), Barbarians are "Dankrifes", which sounds like an insult from reddit. There's a "Heart Eclipse" spell. Elves speak Welsh. Humans are 6'6" on average.

Well gently caress I'm sold.

Edit: holy shiiiiit

quote:

quote:
"Bookmarks" is the colloquial term for an item that it's the "Outline dictionary" of the PDF file. And as the name implies, this is meant for the outline of the document, i.e. the Table of Contents. And as far as I can remember, that's the way it's been in PDFs. Some PDF viewers call the pane "bookmarks", some "Table of contents" or some variant thereof.

Customers embedding structure is really rare, as opposed to annotations. End-users conception of a bookmark is closer to "read 'til here" and not "I consider this section 42".

As noted, I am piecing this together. 20 years in book publishing and 10 in digital, and this is the first I've encountered this, which is a stand-alone to the standard publishing world, where readers would cringe at a publisher telling them what should be bookmarked. Thanks for the heads up.

"Tell me more of this human 'PDF bookmarks' of which you speak."

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Sep 18, 2017

# ? Sep 18, 2017 22:57

The Lore Bear: Jan 21, 2014; I don't know what to put here. Guys? GUYS?!

I'm having a heightened gaming experience right now.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:04

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Jesus, that sounds like the perfect "AD&D plus 500 pages of house rules that I've written and rewritten and re-rewritten over the course of the last 20 years" heartbreaker. 80 combat maneuvers per class! Can I multiclass so I'll have 160 combat maneuvers to choose from each round?

There's also this line

quote:

The PDF is $6.99 USD when not on sale. That's less than I make in an hour working minimum wage at Arby's

20 years of claimed experience in publishing, and he's working at Arby's.

:smith:

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:16

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

FMguru posted:

20 years of claimed experience in publishing, and he's working at Arby's.

Nah, that's his friend who has had some experience with other games but forgot it because Lore is so good.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:18

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

I guess the system is meaty at least

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:23

Cascade Jones: Jun 6, 2015

FMguru posted:

Jesus, that sounds like the perfect "AD&D plus 500 pages of house rules that I've written and rewritten and re-rewritten over the course of the last 20 years" heartbreaker. 80 combat maneuvers per class! Can I multiclass so I'll have 160 combat maneuvers to choose from each round?

There's also this line

20 years of claimed experience in publishing, and he's working at Arby's.

I'm hoping they're just using working at Arby's as an example of poo poo wages.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:26

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I don't understand. Can someone explain to me why my game is not a peerless masterpiece?

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:30

occamsnailfile: Nov 4, 2007; zamtrios so lonely; Grimey Drawer

FMguru posted:

I always thought there was a huge disconnect in the Lovercratian mythos. If us humans are so insignificant on the cosmic scale, as far below these titanic entities as we are above amoeba and as capable of understanding or even comprehending them about as well as that amoeba is capable of comprehending us, then why do they bother messing with us at all. If we are but gnats to them, then why does Nyarlathotep deign to gently caress with us, grant power in exchange for sacrifices, and trick power-hungry sorcerors into corrupt bargains? I mean, even cruel schoolkids have better things to do than torture gnats. Furthermore, if they're so powerful, why can simple human spells bind them or dispel them or invoke them? Why should Hastur care that a tiny insect has sacrificed its child to it with a curvy dagger and dolorous chanting? Why does Yog-Sothoth bother trying to breed an avatar on the Whately family? Why can reading some words from an old book and wiggling your fingers in a pattern interfere with their plans? Why do these cosmic entities need priesthoods and sacrifices and ceremonies?

I think generally speaking that there's too much focus on the "big guns" in the mythos sometimes--yes, sometimes, you can summon Cthulhu, but it's specifically when the stars are right and you have to perform a horrible ritual. A lot of the larger entities create insanity just from reading about them, thus the mysterious texts that characters read or have heard about somewhere and speak of in hushed tones. Still you don't even have to run into those--they're just the most popular. Flying Polyps can really wreck your day with sourceless windstorms, star vampires can...suck, and maybe you'll buy a new house in a valley that's housing a predatory shade of the color mauve. A lot of the tales themselves just feature smaller servitors, nightgaunts and ghouls, and shoggoths and maybe the big guys get name-dropped but don't participate.

Also stuff like Yithians where the horror isn't any particular thing that they do (to humans), but how insignificant they make humanity with their agelessness. To some degree that particular existential terror has faded, but there was a widespread belief in the past (it has if not a Christian origin, a strong link to that faith in the West) that the world was made for people, that we are at the center of it, and we are loved by the power which made this world. Lovecraft was suggesting the cold, horrible, opposite--it's why so many of the deities are described as being some version of entropy or chaos incarnate. Bad things happen to good people, and absolutely nothing out there gives a poo poo. The same strain of thought leads to opposition towards evolution, because again humanity is supposed to be at the center, not just the product of a million years of random monkey loving.

Also there's the human sacrifice and stuff, your more standard horror tropes, but gore horror takes a lot more art than it used to to crack most of our hard modern candy shells.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:31

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

One of the many campaign concepts I'd like to run someday and probably never will due to a combination of laziness and the difficulty of finding players is one where the Elder Gods are aggressively benevolent and helpful towards mankind, just for reasons that we can't really understand and in forms that most people would find uncomfortable at best.

You could take this in a bunch of directions; one is a sort of "colonial capitalism with humanity as the natives" narrative where the eldritch manifestations of Plenty, Peace, and Joy push themselves on humanity, erasing our own customs, languages, and social structures in favor of their own, with the players taking the part of guerilla resistance fighters trying to stop the process and drive the colonizers off, in a sort of X-Com meets Childhood's End mashup.

Or you could go for a comedy version where the Elder Gods really are just the nicest, most misunderstood beings in the universe and the players are their cultists and work towards summoning them while everyone assumes that that would be bad and the end of the world. (I love this concept but it definitely needs more development -- I don't know what the players would actually be doing mechanically in this game, and the tension between "no, they're really just that friendly!" and them not looking that way at all could be difficult to maintain for longer than a one-shot.)

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:43

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Or you could go for a comedy version where the Elder Gods really are just the nicest, most misunderstood beings in the universe and the players are their cultists and work towards summoning them while everyone assumes that that would be bad and the end of the world. (I love this concept but it definitely needs more development -- I don't know what the players would actually be doing mechanically in this game, and the tension between "no, they're really just that friendly!" and them not looking that way at all could be difficult to maintain for longer than a one-shot.)

You make the players the horror. The Elder Gods are so good, so benevolent, so wonderful, that any action, any sacrifice, any atrocity is justified. These beings will usher in an era of such ceaseless joy that nothing else matters. So they're a cult of the Elder Gods, not because "if we do this they'll kill us before the real horrors start" but because they truly know, in their hearts, that they are doing good.

Start them out doing genuinely good deeds, but soon people start opposing them. Those people just don't understand. But that's okay! We'll make them understand.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:50

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

"My goodness, all these orphans are suffering under their cruel keepers. We must take the children and lead them to our beautiful and bountiful god Azathoth The Extremely Nice. Oh ho, what's this? You would stop us from taking your orphans? Have at thee, villain!"

# ? Sep 18, 2017 23:52

Antivehicular: Dec 30, 2011; I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

FactsAreUseless posted:

You make the players the horror. The Elder Gods are so good, so benevolent, so wonderful, that any action, any sacrifice, any atrocity is justified. These beings will usher in an era of such ceaseless joy that nothing else matters. So they're a cult of the Elder Gods, not because "if we do this they'll kill us before the real horrors start" but because they truly know, in their hearts, that they are doing good.

Start them out doing genuinely good deeds, but soon people start opposing them. Those people just don't understand. But that's okay! We'll make them understand.

The Great Gods of Joy and Mercy are infinitely kind, you see, but they're also infinitely busy. The cosmos are huge, and Earth is so tiny in the grand scheme of things that the ordinary suffering of the planet's citizens just don't even register for the Great Gods; they would help us if they knew we were here, but they don't, and if we don't take action, they never will. How do we get their attention?

Suffering. Enough suffering to register across the vast cosmos, occurring when the stars are right for it to be broadcast to the Gods. If enough of us scream at once, scream loud enough, transmit our agony... they will hear, and they will come, and they will help. One last great sacrifice will end the long dark age of human suffering forever.

How are we doing this, friends?

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:00

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I mean, there are a lot of people aggressively trying to prevent the world from becoming a better place. I don't think you need a really high concept to answer the question of "who would want to stop us from summoning the Elder Gods of Peace and Love?".

Really, you just need a group who have the politics of the average group of paladins but who have the aesthetic of the average cult of Nyarlathotep.

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:06

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Rand Brittain posted:

I mean, there are a lot of people aggressively trying to prevent the world from becoming a better place. I don't think you need a really high concept to answer the question of "who would want to stop us from summoning the Elder Gods of Peace and Love?".

Really, you just need a group who have the politics of the average group of paladins but who have the aesthetic of the average cult of Nyarlathotep.

This is more what I was thinking, yeah. The alternative FactsAreUseless proposes sounds like it'd make a great movie or maybe a comic series but as a game it sounds like it'd be a little uncomfortable to play or run, at least for me.

"I have these tentacle arms so I can serve more people at once at the soup kitchen!"

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:12

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

The religious material in Silent Hill 3 struck me as one of my favorite depictions of an sinister cult. This is because their teachings, other than the vaguely Lovecraftian names of some of their "gods", seems innocuous until you witness that the actual beings they deal with seem pointedly inimical and violent in regards to most of humanity. It seems like the kind of thing you could be brought up in without questioning or quite understanding the truth of, as opposed to the only slightly veiled malevolence of most evil cults in fiction. (Of course, even then it brings up the fact that our heroine might be an unreliable narrator and others may interpret or see the creatures differently.)

Mind, that's ignoring some of the extended lore that gets stupid with the same cult, but Silent Hill 3 manages it very well, I thought.

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:18

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

Maid Shoggoth

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:18

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

I'm reminded of a comic I read once where Satan reveals that he does volunteer work and actively works to improve the world and thus human lifespan, because it's easier to get people to drat themselves through sin if they live longer

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:19

Strom Cuzewon: Jul 1, 2010

I would be all over a game that encourages you to play as literal Utility Monsters. Fun and educational.

Lichtenstein posted:

Yeah, Nyarlathotep's whole gimmick is that he's the one that takes interest in humans in the way humans might find it fun to set up cockroach fights or find it funny to gently caress with cats using laser pointers.

I always found the alien races the really horrifying part of Lovecraft for just this reason. They're just relatable enough that their alienness becomes more apparant, and humanity becomes even less important. To the Yith we're just an object of study, to the Old Ones an upstart science experiment. If I remember Whisperer in Darkness correctly the only reason the Fungi from Yuggoth haven't wiped us out is because they can't be bothered - there's no real gain in it for them.

# ? Sep 19, 2017 00:21

Nuns with Guns: Jul 23, 2010; It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Halloween Jack posted:

CoC was groundbreaking and influential to the point that it's a go-to in discussions of the greatest roleplaying games of all time. But no game is perfect and it probably helped cement some ideas that I'd like to see go away, namely that you can establish effective horror by Killer GM shenanigans.

Yeesh, how did I forget Cthulhutech? I was criticizing it just a few days ago. But the thing is, Cthulhutech is first and foremost a thinly-veiled pastiche of a few "classic" anime, creepy poo poo second, and Lovecraft third. It makes remarkably poor use of its Lovecraftian inspiration, and I surmise that they used Lovecraft because it's an all-too-trendy intellectual property that's conveniently in the public domain, for the most part. I commented in the F&F thread that it could just as well have been Wonderlandtech or Barsoomtech.

CTech came off to me like the original pitch focused entirely on not-Evas vs the Mythos, because hey, that makes some sense with how Evangelion turned out. Then they started getting ideas and shoving other anime references in there until it lost all focus.

# ? Sep 19, 2017 01:36

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

There's a poo poo-ton of ants living under your backyard. Mostly you don't notice them, unless they come inside and get all over something and you kill them without even an instant's hesitation, because they're ants. If they did some kind of neat trick, like for example arranging themselves into an interesting pattern, you'd probably pay attention to them, but the instant you got bored it'd be back to the ant spray and diatomaceous earth.

# ? Sep 19, 2017 04:08

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# ? May 31, 2024 18:12

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Pope Guilty posted:

There's a poo poo-ton of ants living under your backyard. Mostly you don't notice them, unless they come inside and get all over something and you kill them without even an instant's hesitation, because they're ants. If they did some kind of neat trick, like for example arranging themselves into an interesting pattern, you'd probably pay attention to them, but the instant you got bored it'd be back to the ant spray and diatomaceous earth.

Wasn't that an 80's Twilight Zone episode?

e: I was close, it was an episode of the mid-90's Outer Limits, although it wasn't exactly that idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandkings

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Sep 19, 2017

# ? Sep 19, 2017 04:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2017

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