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Veritek83 posted:While it's not quite the meat-grinder it was, it's definitely still Call of Cthulhu, so that can happen and not just in NYC. My regular RPG group's campaign derailed when they went to break up the cult rituals in the English countryside and decided to try to shoot their way out of the 50+ cultists gathered at the mansion. One of them ended up executing the belly-dancer they were trying to rescue in order to prevent her from being re-captured. Another got eaten directly out of a speeding car by a hunting horror. It was great, though we ran out of steam at that point and it's going to take some work to talk them into picking up the campaign again. Then again not everyone was super on-board for CoC in the first place, so maybe I should just try it with a different group. That story is amazing and honestly would be a pretty great (if not heroic) end to the campaign. If you listen to recordings by the authors, part of the reason that Delta Green exists is because they went through so many investigators in the original Masks. By the end of the day they were just going, "oh it turns out the busboy has a degree in archaeology and knows how to fire a shotgun, and wants to give his life for this cause." I haven't read the 7E version, but you could still use the same idea of a secret organization working against the mythos. (This might already be in there in some form.) Maybe Henry Armitage or an investigator's patron is helping with efforts worldwide. You could also have the players come up with 1-2 people as personal connections. Besides giving the characters more connection to the world, these supplemental characters could be recruited if the original investigator runs into trouble.
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Apr 22, 2020 19:45
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Sionak posted:I haven't read the 7E version, but you could still use the same idea of a secret organization working against the mythos. (This might already be in there in some form.)
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Apr 22, 2020 19:52
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One of the things in the MoN Companion book is a big selection of fully statted out background characters for each chapter, so that you have ready-to-go substitutes to swap in for dead/maimed/insane PCs at every stage of the adventure.
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Apr 22, 2020 19:54
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FMguru posted:One of the things in the MoN Companion book is a big selection of fully statted out background characters for each chapter, so that you have ready-to-go substitutes to swap in for dead/maimed/insane PCs at every stage of the adventure. We're 5-6ish years out from our Masks campaign and Mahmoud, the urchin from Egypt, is now an adult, was one of the most critical figures in ending World War II, and now runs a magical school of teenagers in New York in the 60s in our game world. The background characters in Masks can be very fun.
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Apr 22, 2020 20:06
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I haven't bought the new Masks because a) it feels like the Cthulhu campaign everyone's tried to play or run, so running it as-is seems pointless and b) the whole "globetrotting adventure fighting cultists on several continents" thing feels like it would be much more suitable for Pulp Cthulhu than core Cthulhu, and I'm not so keen on Pulp. But this deep bench of NPC stats has me interested. How useful is the 2-book set as a general resource for CoC? (EDIT: Oh, wait I see the MoN companion isn't the second book in the slipcase, it's a third party supplement.)
Warthur fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Apr 22, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 20:35
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FMguru posted:One of the things in the MoN Companion book is a big selection of fully statted out background characters for each chapter, so that you have ready-to-go substitutes to swap in for dead/maimed/insane PCs at every stage of the adventure. That's a pretty great solution. I'll probably borrow it for my own games.
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Apr 22, 2020 21:58
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Warthur posted:I haven't bought the new Masks because a) it feels like the Cthulhu campaign everyone's tried to play or run, so running it as-is seems pointless and b) the whole "globetrotting adventure fighting cultists on several continents" thing feels like it would be much more suitable for Pulp Cthulhu than core Cthulhu, and I'm not so keen on Pulp. But this deep bench of NPC stats has me interested. How useful is the 2-book set as a general resource for CoC? (EDIT: Oh, wait I see the MoN companion isn't the second book in the slipcase, it's a third party supplement.) my bad folks! Johnny Truant fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Apr 23, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 22:18
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Johnny Truant posted:mod edit: no I think that's  but yes.
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Apr 22, 2020 23:37
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Warthur posted:I think that's You can find it by a Google search  Thanks for prompting me to find it, though, this is gonna be invaluable!
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Apr 22, 2020 23:46
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Yeah don't link to the Trove it's a real lovely site.
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Apr 23, 2020 00:22
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Elendil004 posted:Yeah don't link to the Trove it's a real lovely site.
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Apr 23, 2020 00:41
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Hostile V posted:Is it because of the 4chan connection or is there another reason besides the filehosting, legit question. I don't know about a 4chan connection, but the filehosting mainly. There would be one thing if they tried to keep a strict listing of only impossible to buy things but it's just basically everything pirated in rpg land which sucks.
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Apr 23, 2020 00:48
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Elendil004 posted:I don't know about a 4chan connection, but the filehosting mainly. There would be one thing if they tried to keep a strict listing of only impossible to buy things but it's just basically everything pirated in rpg land which sucks. Oh I definitely did not know that, my apologies! Gonna edit it out right now.
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Apr 23, 2020 02:01
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Elendil004 posted:I don't know about a 4chan connection, but the filehosting mainly. It's an outgrowth of the PDF Share threads on 4chan's /tg/, where people would aggregate links to filehosts hosting illegal tabletop gaming files. Beyond being a host, it's not really anything special, though.
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Apr 23, 2020 15:22
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re: continuing MoN or really any CoC campaign that's suffered catastrophic PC deaths- I did actually have a whole "anti-Mythos, but maybe just a different part of the Mythos" organization sketched out to come in and provide support for the PCs, but I think my group's issue was more just fatigue with system and a game that they weren't all that comfortable with. That said, I'm eventually going to find the right group for it. I have such fond memories of playing through most of it in HS as a PC.
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Apr 23, 2020 19:56
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Veritek83 posted:re: continuing MoN or really any CoC campaign that's suffered catastrophic PC deaths- I did actually have a whole "anti-Mythos, but maybe just a different part of the Mythos" organization sketched out to come in and provide support for the PCs, but I think my group's issue was more just fatigue with system and a game that they weren't all that comfortable with. I have a deep fondness for Call of Cthulhu but a lot of this is that it fits many of my own enjoyed aesthetic tastes like a glove and I find it really easy and fun to develop scenarios inside of it. I have also found it easy to teach, a rare virtue. However, if it does not meet the tastes of a group, hey - no foul. Are they still publishing Beyond The Mountains of Madness?
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Apr 23, 2020 22:38
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Scruff McGruff posted:It's handy if you want to use and are willing to put in the time to create maps (Dungeon Painter Studio is pretty good for creating Roll20 compatible maps) or if you have players who have suspiciously good rolls when left to their own devices but yeah, it's fairly clunky. My group tried it a while back and just ended up just using Discord with each person rolling their own dice. But I know people who swear by it for their games so YMMV. I think you can even get dice bots for Discord now, and when necessary our DM has just opened maps directly in Dungeon Painter and just shared his desktop and just threw down markers on that, so even there you have options. Yup okay I see what you're saying about the clunkiness! I'm creating tokens right now and kind of want to eat glass.
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Apr 24, 2020 21:48
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Nessus posted:What do you think was the discomfort point, or points? https://twitter.com/Chaosium_Inc/status/1012614312727212032 This is all I've heard on it - yes, they're going to. No, they won't say when. They did say on an episode of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias (about Masks) that they're leery of updating too many adventures too quickly. They really don't want people to feel like a new edition means that people have to re-buy all their scenarios, and feel that new ones are necessary. Nessus posted:What do you think was the discomfort point, or points? Same for me. There is no game that I can teach faster than Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu, which is terribly useful at cons. I also have no problem coming up with ideas or scenes for it - it really fits my aesthetic well. But it's a strong flavor and not one for everyone.
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Apr 24, 2020 22:19
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If you ever wanted to try Laird Barron's Lovecraftian horror short stories, his collection The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is only $2 on Kindle US https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Thing-That-Awaits-All-ebook/dp/B07H48PYJC I highly recommend it.
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Apr 26, 2020 19:57
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Helical Nightmares posted:I highly recommend it. Agreed! Laird Barron owns bones and does the best modern cosmic horror that makes you feel like an insignificant bug. He just mentioned on his Twitter that he wants to adapt his leechverse for role playing but he’s thinking about using D&D which I think is a terrible choice with all the systems available with sanity mechanics.
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Apr 26, 2020 23:26
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Secret Machine posted:Agreed! Laird Barron owns bones and does the best modern cosmic horror that makes you feel like an insignificant bug.
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Apr 26, 2020 23:38
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Secret Machine posted:Agreed! Laird Barron owns bones and does the best modern cosmic horror that makes you feel like an insignificant bug. I'd love to see a Delta Green adaptation of Barron's Carnivorous Cosmos.
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Apr 26, 2020 23:41
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I'm running Masks for the first time and I'm having issues establishing creepy spooky stuff when my players are like Indiana Jomes types. They even have a seaplane they're trotting around in. My question being: what materials are there to improve GMing for horror in general, also CoC
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Apr 27, 2020 02:03
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Phi230 posted:I'm running Masks for the first time and I'm having issues establishing creepy spooky stuff when my players are like Indiana Jomes types. They even have a seaplane they're trotting around in. I don't like horror in my games (ironic, yes) but this was suggested. Trajectory of fear
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Apr 27, 2020 02:24
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Phi230 posted:I'm running Masks for the first time and I'm having issues establishing creepy spooky stuff when my players are like Indiana Jomes types. They even have a seaplane they're trotting around in. This may not jive with how you want to run your campaign but we started our year-long campaign of Masks out in a similar way, but a few sessions in got kind of a wakeup call when investigators started getting brutally killed off for not taking threats seriously enough and trying a bunch of heroics. The overall arc of Masks, for us, ended up being a grueling, world-spanning quest where different people from parts of the world were getting pulled in due to the threats in their regions and realizing that the stuff they were fighting would certainly eventually destroy them but humanity would be doomed if they didn't step up. Dunno if this is what you're doing at all, but if you and your players have the D&D-esque expectation that their initial characters are all going to be together at the end of the campaign, you're going to lose a lot of the natural tension and horror in Masks. poo poo is extremely dangerous, mistakes can and should be punished harshly, and killing some of the more horrific villains throughout the campaign can and should require some pretty extreme sacrifices. I think of our original group of six only one character actually survived all the way until the end, and most of the rest of us went through 3-5 characters over the course of the year and once we got past the intro sessions there was a pretty high level of tension throughout the campaign.
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Apr 27, 2020 03:03
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We still haven't made it through the Peru prologue but I sense a few players are very much attached to their characters. Like I want to do what the rulebook says and "build tension and atmosphere" but its hard with a player group that is, well, taking this more like a traditional rpg and being murderhobos/extremely confident Phi230 fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Apr 27, 2020 |
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Apr 27, 2020 03:12
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Phi230 posted:We still haven't made it through the Peru prologue but I sense a few players are very much attached to their characters. Gotta punish em for that, then! 
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Apr 27, 2020 03:16
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Johnny Truant posted:Gotta punish em for that, then! See, I'm trying. They're just meeting Nayra and I had some Kharisiri attack, but the party is al strapped and they gunned down my Kharisiri. My plans for next session are to have the kharisiri they shot reappear since they didn't destroy the bodies. Also my other idea was a more pulp solution where they into a gunfight and/or chase. That would please my players but at the same time, they want to do CoC and not pulp cthulhu or delta green, so I wanna give them the CoC route of punishment for being too action hero I think I also naturally go easy on them, how do I take the gloves off
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Apr 27, 2020 03:19
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Phi230 posted:See, I'm trying. They're just meeting Nayra and I had some Kharisiri attack, but the party is al strapped and they gunned down my Kharisiri. If they intend to lean heavily on the use of firearms as a problem solving method, you should introduce complications relevant to that. If they all have Tommy guns, the local police may wonder what is going on. If they shoot their iron in a town or inhabited area, they will draw notice. You will also notice if you read up that most monster type entities in Call of Cthulhu are either completely immune to weapons fire or will be far harder to just gun down. That said I would not want to take away the characters' victory here or anything like that. Consider it as something to keep in mind going forwards. If the kharisiri are actually immortal then that would actually be a solid thing to do and might well increase unease. But there is also a very simple and straightforward way to introduce the topic, and possibly reduce character headcount: If it is so easy for the investigators to be heavily armed, why can't the cultists have guns, too?
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Apr 27, 2020 03:32
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Two pieces of advice: 1: you really don't have to do too much to put the boots to them due to how HP is low and how things do a lot of damage. If they're going into a moment where death is very likely, warn them up front that there's a chance their characters will die and then commit to the results. Don't be unfair and make the enemies stronger or them weaker, just be fair and warn them death is possible and then don't back down from the consequences of their action. It's very likely that they're going to want you to pull your punches because they're attached to their characters, and if they make that open and clear then you're going to have a discussion with them about the tone and feel of the game and try to come to a compromise. But definitely straight up tell them "I'll warn you if you're going into a possible death scene" and explain what that means. 2: occasionally just roll dice for no good reason or ask for awareness checks for no good reason. It doesn't matter if they pass or fail them, just any time the GM rolls dice or they're asked to roll dice is good for pumping up a little bit of extra tension and paranoia, even if it's artificial. There's enough times where it Will Matter that you've rolled dice or they've rolled for awareness that a little bit of artificial inflation keeps them on their toes. Seriously though talk to your players about expectations and tone and weight of consequences. Have a Come To Jesus moment about expectations and what everyone wants.
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Apr 27, 2020 03:37
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Yeah, it's good to keep #1 in mind. Like, literally just having two cultists pull out pistols and start firing will probably change the tone severely, even if you are generous with Dodge rolls. Keep in mind you are also still in the "establishing normality" phase of the horror movie to some extent...
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Apr 27, 2020 03:53
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The difficulty level ramps up as you progress through MoN, so them thinking they have this poo poo on lock because they handled some cultists in New York without too much fuss is just setting them up for a really rude surprise once they reach Kenya or Shanghai.
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Apr 27, 2020 04:03
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Have you had an out of character conversation with your players about your and their expectations for the game? If they're expecting Indiana Jones pulp and you're setting up for cosmic horror and grim sacrifice, things will break down and no one will be happy. Don't turn the screws if your players don't want it.
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Apr 27, 2020 10:01
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Also remember in Indiana Jones pulp, he's still terrified of snakes.
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Apr 27, 2020 13:56
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You can also punish them without killing their characters, but instead giving a couple major wounds to them, or maybe destroying their favourite lil plane? Have a kharisiri that's been 'smartened up' by Larkin stow away in it, so when they're taking off they get ambushed and it wrecks the plane, for example. Definitely have ~the talk~ with them about what everyone's expecting, but you don't have to do a TPK to get your message across that this isn't a "John Wick in the 1920s" adventure.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:04
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Oh we've had the talk, and I said there's real danger coming and they were absolutely fine with it. Problem is maybe I'm too lenient, I thought the turning point would be a kharisiri attack but like I said, blammo We've had 2 temporary insanity episodes trigger and I'm not sure how to manage that. Besides some Khairisiri starting a gun fight, I think a stowaway in their floatplane is a good way to go. I guess I'm too nice because destroying their plane seems harsh. I guess harsh is the way to go Phi230 fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Apr 27, 2020 |
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Apr 27, 2020 16:13
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A good thing to remember is that Masks has a large number of active cults, many of which have significant power/financial backing around them. A bunch of foreigners running around with a lot of wealth openly asking questions about things they shouldn’t be talking about in public is absolutely going to draw attention, and cult leaders aren’t going to just send in a couple unarmed cultists to deal with them - they will gently caress them up in many ways. While TPK is a last resort there’s a lot of things the cults can and will do to slow them down or put them in the wrong path. Blow up or sabotage their plane, bomb their hotel or light it on fire, turn the city/village against them, plant false information, etc. In our game a number of the cult leaders were shadowplayed by the DMs friend and they were engaged in their own war with each other, and we got tricked multiple times into helping strengthen cult 1 at the expense of cult 2 by not fully vetting our information sources and going off to play hero too often.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:27
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Phi230 posted:Oh we've had the talk, and I said there's real danger coming and they were absolutely fine with it. Just from the tone of your posts it sounds like they think they're physically invincible, and that should be punished pretty severely in CoC, imo. You definitely know the nuance better than us, but the "Indiana Jones type trotting in" comment really makes it sound like they need a wake-up call, especially if you've had the talk. Alternatively, let them feel completely safe and badass and on the ball, then at the prologue's climax, depending on previous events, have Larkin get possessed by Nyarlathotep and summon an evil loving monster that isn't affected by bullets! And have that fucker wreak havoc on the investigators until Larkin is murdered or some other trigger, but not before it does some permanent damage to one or more investigators. Oh, you need your CON to live, don't you? It'd be a shame is it got sucked out! That kinda thing.
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Apr 27, 2020 16:30
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Overall it seems like I need to take the gloves off more, stop revolving the world around the players, and figure out how to better do horror. Any tips for portraying insanity besides just rolling on the insanity table? That trajectory of fear article opens with "you'll end up with farce instead of terror" and that hits home. The players are laughing it up and having a good time, so no complaints, but in earlier CoC one shots with this same group they very, very greatly enjoyed horror and mystery of the scenarios (despite, again, overcoming obstacles with firearms) Also, I'm not sure how to deal with losing investigators or even a TPK? Is the campaign over if everyone dies? Phi230 fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Apr 27, 2020 |
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Apr 27, 2020 17:21
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Phi230 posted:Also, I'm not sure how to deal with losing investigators or even a TPK? Is the campaign over if everyone dies? Make good advantage of the huge number of NPCs in the Mask book -- give the PCs opportunities to encounter them early on and draw them into the plot. They make great replacement investigators and, assuming it's not a TPK, the party can easily recruit them and bring them along on the next adventure. In our campaign when you died you either took one of the named NPCs that the party had met and clued in on the mythos, or created a character from the current town you were in and gave them a backstory that tied them locally to the current mystery and gave them a reason to get involved. TPKs are harder but don't have to be the complete end of the line. Time can pass and family members/colleagues come looking for them after their mysterious disappearance, the local NPCs again vow to carry on the work -- maybe a small group of cultists even realize what's actually going on and decide to defect. You can also angle to try to let at least one party member escape mass death scenarios so that they can rally the troops and carry on.
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Apr 27, 2020 17:58
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