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Elendil004 posted:It even got a Shane Ivey reply I'm just going to sit here geeking out for a bit. This is proper enough motivation to get these rules into a Google Doc to share with the list.
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Oct 11, 2017 16:53
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for people wanting to see what the Delta Green jacket looks like, mine came in today: This is the distressed ink version
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Oct 27, 2017 18:02
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I can't even tell what's supposed to be wrong with it at a glance. Can't wait to get that handsome two-volume slipcase in my hands.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:04
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gradenko_2000 posted:for people wanting to see what the Delta Green jacket looks like, mine came in today: Hardly looks distressed to be honest. How's the front symbol?
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Oct 27, 2017 18:24
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Elendil004 posted:Hardly looks distressed to be honest. How's the front symbol? 
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Oct 27, 2017 19:05
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Elendil004 posted:Hardly looks distressed to be honest. How's the front symbol? I had the chance to look over both at GenCon (I eventually ended up buying the regular one and a challenge coin because I have no impulse control), and the distressed ink on the jacket I saw is a lot less vibrant than on the regular jackets and not quite as even.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:15
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I got mine at a solid discount so I am glad I bought a regular one. How's the challenge coin look?
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Oct 27, 2017 19:26
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Elendil004 posted:I got mine at a solid discount so I am glad I bought a regular one. How's the challenge coin look? Fuckin' kickass.  
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Oct 27, 2017 19:29
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"Knowledge is death" is a perfect slogan for a Cthulhu group.
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Oct 28, 2017 02:06
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So I played a homebrew one shot with 4 new players and me, the new GM. The plot was that a girl in her early 20s had gone missing and the players wanted to find her. I let the players decide why they cared enough for this poor street rat that they would want to find her. They go through the game, follow the clues and get to the back of an old cathedral to find the girl eviscerated on the altar with crazy fbi man waiting for the players. Nope, she's dead, you never could've saved her. Crazy fbi man casts a spell, turning her into an abomination boss fight. Afterward the players all said they had a good time and enjoyed the game, but they wished they could've saved the girl. The dead girl was the only real complaint. I dunno, I thought it was fitting. Before the game, I told them to expect an R rated horror movie and that lovecraft's horror has a lot to do with helplessness. What say you guys? Should I make a condition where they can save the girl? Or keep her dead but hint strongly through the story so it isn't a surprise? I want to run this story with some different players, and I think it's a good scenario, but I dont want it to end on a disappointment :/
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Oct 31, 2017 19:24
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WHY BONER NOW posted:So I played a homebrew one shot with 4 new players and me, the new GM. The plot was that a girl in her early 20s had gone missing and the players wanted to find her. I let the players decide why they cared enough for this poor street rat that they would want to find her. I'd make them think they could have saved her. Maybe they show up and the crazy FBI man begins eviscerating her, and have him complete the action no matter what they do? So make her die, but make it seem like it was their fault somehow. That's one of the things I like to go for in CoC horror, especially if there's an emotional connection to a character involved - let it seem like the reason the innocent died is that they hosed up. That being said, be prepared for them to do something miraculous to save her, and if it's truly inspired, let them have it, at least temporarily. Maybe the girl lives but she's been brainwashed / has Stockholm syndrome, or driven insane, and she actually commits suicide in front of the players, then your crazed FBI guy completes his spell?
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Oct 31, 2017 19:29
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Personally, I'd make it possible but very difficult to get to her "in time,; that way you're actually driving home the helplessness, because the players can know on a metagame level that they screwed up. MISTER POLICE YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER I GAVE YOU ALL THE CLUES  If you're dead set on starting the timeline so it's impossible to save her, I'd give them some other clear "win." (IE: They find a cache of photos on his laptop where he's been surveiling young women who fit the same profile, to snatch for future rituals-- implying that you preventing the horror from repeating itself over and over.) Don't mistake helplessness and isolation for futility. Yes in the face of the mythos all of human endeavor amounts to dust-- but drive that home too hard and what's the point of playing?
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Oct 31, 2017 19:32
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WHY BONER NOW posted:So I played a homebrew one shot with 4 new players and me, the new GM. The plot was that a girl in her early 20s had gone missing and the players wanted to find her. I let the players decide why they cared enough for this poor street rat that they would want to find her. Dead girl plays into the trope of "women in refrigerators". Maybe it just felt to contrived? But definitely have the FBI guy imply or say outright that if they'd tracked her down earlier, she'd still be alive (even if it was never possible - they don't know that unless you tell them). I'd say don't hint at all that she's already dead. In fact, hint the opposite so they get a bigger burn when they find her. Always make it look like they just missed her.
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Oct 31, 2017 19:56
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Probably a more insidious direction would be to rescue her, but now she's different somehow. Maybe it's ptsd, maybe she's been cosmically compromised, or maybe just her eyes are a different color and she has a slight accent now. Having an NPC that the players actually like is a rarity, and a GM should always think hard before breaking their tools. That said, it is Call of Cthulhu. She could show up days after everyone saw her brutally murdered, acting like nothing happened and without memory. It might be a good way to kick off a follow-up arc.
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Oct 31, 2017 20:38
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I enjoyed playing a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game with some friends last year, but it was quite hard for me as a first-time GM. The issue was that the crux of the adventure didn't NEED any preparation - a haunted house, if they go into the basement and use the phantom knife to kill the mummified body then they 'win'. The entire adventure could have been a few minutes if they'd randomly picked that course of action instead of going to the hall of records, library, police station, etc. first - and even then there weren't any clues or hidden information that would have had a meaningful impact. It's fairly simple to connect 'floating dagger' with 'thing clearly controlling the floating dagger'. So, I'm looking for a way to bring this to both the modern era, and to involve higher stakes so that individual successes and failures matter less than the overall progression.
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Oct 31, 2017 20:59
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WHY BONER NOW posted:I dunno, I thought it was fitting. Before the game, I told them to expect an R rated horror movie and that lovecraft's horror has a lot to do with helplessness. What say you guys? Should I make a condition where they can save the girl? Or keep her dead but hint strongly through the story so it isn't a surprise? I want to run this story with some different players, and I think it's a good scenario, but I dont want it to end on a disappointment :/ Either of those could work. The central contention essentially stems from how you're making them invested in finding and saving the girl, then telling them there was no point to it and offering a climax with no emotional investment. Absolute powerlessness is boring, and not something the archetypal CoC module is about. It's more about tiny victories in the face of the unstoppable. You can ram your yatch into Cthulhu, but he'll rise again when the stars are right and cultists can awaken him again at any time. You can save the girl, but you also found the corpses of two children you didn't save. The FBI guy had an accomplice and he'll kill again and you can't really stop it.
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Oct 31, 2017 22:43
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Thanks for the fantastic advice guys, there are some really intriguing suggestions here...now I have the dilemma of choice  Lucky for me I have a few months to hammer out the new ending before I run it again. Good calls on the helplessness vs futility, and the minor victories being the best you can hope for. And having her reappear after dying would work perfectly with a scenario I was tinkering with, where I get a player isolated in a cabin in the woods or something and have an NPC pounding on the door. "Let me in! Let me in the monster is going to eat me!!" Street rat girl? But...but she's dead??? Southern Heel posted:I enjoyed playing a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game with some friends last year, but it was quite hard for me as a first-time GM. The issue was that the crux of the adventure didn't NEED any preparation - a haunted house, if they go into the basement and use the phantom knife to kill the mummified body then they 'win'. The entire adventure could have been a few minutes if they'd randomly picked that course of action instead of going to the hall of records, library, police station, etc. first - and even then there weren't any clues or hidden information that would have had a meaningful impact. It's fairly simple to connect 'floating dagger' with 'thing clearly controlling the floating dagger'. If I'm understanding this properly, you want to create smaller obstacles between the players and the final challenge. In my scenario, the players had to figure out where the girl went, so the abandoned mansion (with attached cathedral) was one of the later pieces of the puzzle. It came down to a number of clues they had to put together and figure out before knowing where to go. There were more clues in the game than they needed, so they didn't have to find them all. If they managed to miss an important clue, I found a way to stick it in the story and give them another chance to find it. If they ever get truly stuck, there's always an Idea roll to get them back on track.
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Nov 1, 2017 03:03
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The final version of the Handler's Guide for Delta Green is out and it's pretty awesome. The text has been out for a while but the final product turned out nice.
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Nov 1, 2017 16:30
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Southern Heel posted:I enjoyed playing a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game with some friends last year, but it was quite hard for me as a first-time GM. The issue was that the crux of the adventure didn't NEED any preparation - a haunted house, if they go into the basement and use the phantom knife to kill the mummified body then they 'win'. The entire adventure could have been a few minutes if they'd randomly picked that course of action instead of going to the hall of records, library, police station, etc. first - and even then there weren't any clues or hidden information that would have had a meaningful impact. It's fairly simple to connect 'floating dagger' with 'thing clearly controlling the floating dagger'. That's the interesting part about CoC/Delta Green - yes, the crux of the scenario needs little preparation and they could very well stumble into it. But it's the knowledge that players gain through preparation that enables them to survive or avoid devastating consequences. To use a modern example - in Delta Green, overwhelming force is often a good answer to most of your problems. One scenario (which is still in revisions) even flat out says that violence is an extremely effective solution - pulping the entire compound of faux-cultists prevents the threat from materializing for quite some time. But the nuance comes from the fact that they're faux-cultists, and not actually indoctrinated into the otherworldly being's cult. Therefore, they are innocents - any character who isn't accustomed to violence is likely going to lose a ton of sanity, go temporarily insane, pass a breaking point, deteriorate their bonds, and gain a mental disorder from the experience. To avoid those consequences, PCs need to prepare and learn which people in the cult are actually under the sway of an ineffable god, how it knows what is going on, how it controls people, where it lay sessile, and what it needs to either stay awake or start moving. With this information, players are able to realize the 'best' solution to the scenario - subdue the cultists with non-violent methods, prevent them from offering the god what it needs to start moving, and maybe realize what it takes to destroy it while it can't move (or call in backup from Delta Green to take it into custody - for research purposes, of course). Without any of this, the god is likely to get the materials it needs to start moving, and once it can move the PCs aren't really able to threaten it as much as it can threaten them. It can also escape easily and become a long-term antagonist throughout the characters' careers. Finally, it will probably be a bit of a black mark on their personnel files if it gets free under their watch.
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Nov 1, 2017 16:57
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That is an excellent point, thank you so much. Is Delta Green a separate book or just a thematic skin?
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Nov 3, 2017 22:42
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Southern Heel posted:That is an excellent point, thank you so much. Is Delta Green a separate book or just a thematic skin? Delta Green is now a separate series of books and scenarios, released under Arc Dream Publishing. The Agent's Handbook (Player's guide) came out last year, and the Handler's Guide (GM's book) was just released as a PDF. There's also a bunch of DG-specific scenarios that have been released, many of which are available for free on their site.
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Nov 3, 2017 22:46
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I'm happy they fixed the thing I complained to them about in the final version. Also the shotgun scenario contest is up.
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Nov 5, 2017 02:59
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So I've started running some 7e and a few sessions in I'm having fun but there's still some things I can't grasp. It's probably basic but I am reading the rules on FG instead of a physical book so might be hiding in plain sight. Firstly is it right that if someone who's entirely academic picks up a pistol and uses it it's entirely impossible for them to hit anything ever because 0% skill? Or am I doing something wrong there. Secondly. Maneuvers, I can pretty much encourage people to do whatever they like right? If it's something fighty I make them use brawl. What of its something abstract or athletic instead? What would be the best way to handle that? Also I've straight up stolen gumshoe mechanics from cthulhu confidential like not hiding clues they need etc, but in doing so am having trouble making some research skills meaningful. Any suggestions for a fledgling cthulhu dm? Edit: also, if anyone wants to join my discord for pickup cthulhu games (among others) PM me for a link. Spiteski fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 03:11
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Regarding the first question, yes and no. In a typical combat round, a professor with a gun isn't gonna be able to hit the broad side of a barn from within the barn, which makes sense when you consider that a 0% firearms skill represents someone who's effectively never picked up a gun in their life. With that said, however, there are combat modifiers such as aim actions and close range bonuses that can boost their skill up to... well, still pretty terrible levels, but enough that they might actually stand a chance of hitting something instead of nothing.
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Nov 6, 2017 03:28
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I think combat modifiers like aiming and close range just give you bonus dice, which won't help if you have 0% skill. So technically you're doing nothing wrong, you could let them do a luck roll instead or something, you're the DM. If your professor holds the gun to a tied-up guys head, I wouldn't treat it like a combat roll. Regarding clues, it's tricky, you have to find a balance. I'm pretty new myself and my second session specifically went pretty bad because of missed / missing clues. What worked better in my third session was to figure out which clues are vital and come up with various ways to get them. Two that require skillchecks and one failsafe event I can just throw in. Or, if they fail a skillcheck, give them the clue, but at a cost. They hurt themselves searching for the hidden diary, or dropped an item. If a skillcheck is really important, don't forget about luck and forced rerolls. What scenarios have you run so far? I'll start my first campaign at the weekend, a heavily modified Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Pretty excited but it's also a massive endeavour.
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Nov 6, 2017 07:16
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They'd still have the chance to roll a 01, wouldn't they?
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Nov 6, 2017 07:27
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sicDaniel posted:I think combat modifiers like aiming and close range just give you bonus dice, which won't help if you have 0% skill. So technically you're doing nothing wrong, you could let them do a luck roll instead or something, you're the DM. If your professor holds the gun to a tied-up guys head, I wouldn't treat it like a combat roll. Yea if it was something like a point blank shot out of combat or whatever, I wouldn't even ask for a roll. But in combat one of the characters picked up a discarded weapon when another investigator was indisposed and then tried to shoot at the monster. I just gave him 20% chance instead of the zero for firearms just because to guarantee a miss seemed boring and unfun. Using a luck check seems like a good idea that I didn't think of at the time so I'll try that next time something like this happens. Regarding clues yea, I had run one adventure before and had pretty much the same experience. It stalled and I ended up having to get them to go back and try again (I was VERY fresh to GMing in general). Now I just have clues that have tiers of reward, basically. A guarantee of something as a base. A success gives them a little bit more, a hard/extreme might give them a bit of insight beyond just finding the clue. Allows me to keep a hand on the tap of information as well so works well for me. The adventure I ran was The Edge of Darkness from the 6th edition rulebook, but converted to 7th edition. I've also run a couple of the Doors to Darkness adventures from the 7e kickstarter and hope to start Horror on the Orient in the new year when my Zeitgeist wraps up (I can't really handle two long running campaigns at once) Spiteski fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 07:40
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Spiteski posted:Yea if it was something like a point blank shot out of combat or whatever, I wouldn't even ask for a roll. But in combat one of the characters picked up a discarded weapon when another investigator was indisposed and then tried to shoot at the monster. I just gave him 20% chance instead of the zero for firearms just because to guarantee a miss seemed boring and unfun. Firearms (Handgun) always starts at 20% and Firearms (Rifle/Shotgun) starts at 25%.
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Nov 6, 2017 08:26
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Spiteski posted:
Steal from Delta Green instead! Basically, some clues should require a minimum rating a relevant skill to find automatically (usually only like 30-40%). You can also make the basic clue automatic to find, but have them roll for additional useful (but not vital) information.
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Nov 6, 2017 08:38
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thefakenews posted:Steal from Delta Green instead! Basically, some clues should require a minimum rating a relevant skill to find automatically (usually only like 30-40%). You can also make the basic clue automatic to find, but have them roll for additional useful (but not vital) information. Yeah this. Having a certain amount of skill in an investigative skill means they automatically get some basic clue. If you still want to call for a roll, then a successful roll means they get something extra, as in a GUMSHOE-type "spend". Alternatively, investigative skills only ever cost time. The more hours they spend, the more information they get ... but the plot moves forward in the background. Even more alternatively, a roll equals time lost. A single attempt at Library Use means one hour in the library - failure means nothing significant is turned up, success means something is. In both those two cases, it's only applicable if there's something to be lost by wasting time to begin with.
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Nov 6, 2017 09:02
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Delta Green is now a separate series of books and scenarios, released under Arc Dream Publishing. The Agent's Handbook (Player's guide) came out last year, and the Handler's Guide (GM's book) was just released as a PDF. There's also a bunch of DG-specific scenarios that have been released, many of which are available for free on their site. OK, checking this out and I'm not sure if just re-basing CoC into the modern era wouldn't be better. I've no interest in special agents or the paranormal particularly, and I'm not clear as to why I couldn't just superimpose modern settings?
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Nov 6, 2017 10:45
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Nice, I also want to do Edge of Darkness as an intro scenario and have that lead to the players joining the secret order, then put in 2-3 other oneshots as kind of quests they need to do in order to ascend the ranks. How did you deal with the chanting ritual? I love the idea of printing out some latin nonsense and have them actually read it out loud for 5 minutes or so.
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Nov 6, 2017 10:49
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Southern Heel posted:OK, checking this out and I'm not sure if just re-basing CoC into the modern era wouldn't be better. I've no interest in special agents or the paranormal particularly, and I'm not clear as to why I couldn't just superimpose modern settings? The original Delta Green really was just the setting material, with some mechanical conversion guidelines for use with 6th Ed CoC (and CoC d20). The new Delta Green is its own CoC-based system. There are a bunch of mechanical/gameplay improvements that I personally consider to be worth examining in their own right, but if you're not interested in DG's internal lore, and you already own CoC, and you don't mind doing some conversion work yourself to make the game fit a modern setting, then arguably yes there's no need to get DG.
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Nov 6, 2017 10:50
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Chaosium had a long line of supplements, campaigns, and scenarios set in the 1990s, and CoC's system is not particularly tied to any one time period. The 6e book came with a default setup of 1890, 1920, and 1990 as supported settings. So there's no particular reason you couldn't just use CoC to play in the modern era. I think the only real differences between eras in 6e was the availability of some skills (Drive (Auto), computers, etc.) and some notes about how modern psychiatry is soooo much better. CoC as a system doesn't get very deep into the details of things, so little needs to be done to swap from one era to the next.
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Nov 6, 2017 12:52
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As per my post in the DW thread I'm not sure whether to go with CoC or DW as the mechanics behind the game I'm running this week, but one of the things I definitely want to do is something that I can build on. This would be my first "DIY" and as such would like to hear any feedback at all around the story, pacing. Set in the present era, PCs are the only passengers en route on a night bus. It stops off at a bus garage and the driver goes in - after an hour he still hasn't come back, and people are getting antsy. When the street lights start to flicker and dim, our PCs spring into action.... The service station turns out to be deserted and the whole area is much colder than is seasonal. There is fuel for burning to keep warm, but the fires keep guttering out. When the PCs investigate the area, by the time they get back to the coach the battery is drained. The idea for this is that someone has summoned an Angel of the Mons (the Angels that helped the BEF in WW1). In reality, the angel is a minor elder God who absorbs raw energy hence battery draining, cold, etc. The issue I'm finding is that I'm not sure how to connect the ideas. I don't want my PCs to be fighting a corridor of monsters (be they cultists, occult secret agents, ice beings or whatever), but I'm not sure there could be any actual ADVENTURE in there. My initial thought would be to have a pagan/occult ritual site under the area, or a church/mansion-house/secret service site opposite and have it occur there - but tonally that ends up very different to the X-files type investigation (wherein the investigators are free to move from place to place until they arbitrarily decide to go up against the Big Bad).
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Nov 6, 2017 15:01
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Edit: I misread what the question was about so this is all irrelevant OH WELL Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 16:33
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LatwPIAT posted:Firearms (Handgun) always starts at 20% and Firearms (Rifle/Shotgun) starts at 25%. That... well, I certainly missed that. Thank you! gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah this. Having a certain amount of skill in an investigative skill means they automatically get some basic clue. If you still want to call for a roll, then a successful roll means they get something extra, as in a GUMSHOE-type "spend". Man, always Gradenko with the good advice. Is there a system you don't have a pocket of wisdom to reach into? Thanks though. This and the other replies are all very good. I actually did just buy Delta Green core PDF too so I'll have a read through that and hopefully I'll have a more polished game next week. Thanks thread
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Nov 6, 2017 18:24
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Hounds of Tindalos sound like cool monsters, any published scenarios I can draw inspiration from? I think a luxury liner or passenger train would be a cool location, so anything in that realm would be cool too.
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Nov 7, 2017 06:56
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You're describing Ars Mathematica. I bought it recently, but it's only available in German afaik. It's on a train and there's a mathematician who found a way to look into the future... If you'd like the inspiration I can post a summary later.
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Nov 7, 2017 07:25
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Have you read the story(s) with the Hounds of Tindalos? The fact that they're essentially cross-dimensional border patrol might work for you. If there's a construct where the leylines and drywall meet at the right angles... Or if someone opens a dimensional gate, they could just come through. Either way, if the investigators gently caress up, they could be added to an existing case.
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Nov 7, 2017 08:26
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