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It's a mix of Tommyknockers, chronicle, another Stephen king book Desperation, and a few other ideas. It's not a ship thats buried in the earth, and people arent obsessed with digging it up, but it draws a large part off of it. I would eventually like the characters to gently caress stuff up psychically, so it would need to be pretty powerful. E: oh poo poo, nosebleeds were part of tommyknockers too? I thought I was just ripping off chronicle. Been a few years since ive read that Dr. Lunchables fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jan 20, 2013 |
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Jan 20, 2013 17:06
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Desperation is my second-favorite King book (next to The Regulators, which....I don't know if that even counts) and it would make one hell of an awesome game. Whatever system you end up going with, I hope you post about how the game goes.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:24
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I still think that you could very easily reskin the magic in CoC or d20 CoC to do what you want here. Just remove the stronger stuff, keep the lower-level stuff, think about what you want the price for each psionic act to be (moving something small will give you a nosebleed; changing someone's mind will leave you shaking and feverish for days; influencing more than one person at once might kill you, etc etc), and change the flavortext to match the effect you're going for. Ryoshi posted:Desperation is my second-favorite King book (next to The Regulators, which....I don't know if that even counts)...
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Jan 22, 2013 05:25
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I think I'll probably do that. But Hegel, you got me reading apocalypse world, and for that, I thank you. When I get around to running the game, ill post plotline updates and expand on the story quite a bit. Ill also be shamelessly ripping off The Thing while I'm at it. Should I post that stuff in here, or would it warrant a new thread?
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Jan 22, 2013 05:39
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HEGEL SMOKE A J posted:Say the Soviets were the first to make a successful moon landing, just...there's a reason they didn't tell anyone. What do they know? Sputnik Lost. 
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Jan 22, 2013 05:48
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Lord Frisk posted:I think I'll probably do that. But Hegel, you got me reading apocalypse world, and for that, I thank you.  quote:When I get around to running the game, ill post plotline updates and expand on the story quite a bit. Ill also be shamelessly ripping off The Thing while I'm at it. Should I post that stuff in here, or would it warrant a new thread? Traveller posted:Sputnik Lost.
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Jan 22, 2013 06:24
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Got done playing a game of Arkham Horror last night, and towards the end we just had one person sitting in Kingsport dealing with rift tokens rather than having fun. Does anyone have any house rules that might make the rift track more fun than "sit in Kingsport bars and jealously watch your friends killing all the monsters"? I'd like to keep the rifts around because they're fun and all, but the rift track is just really god drat tedious.
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Jan 22, 2013 23:50
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Well, I bit the bullet and ordered the Order of the Silver Twilight expansion to the LCG. I'm still not a huge fan of the game, to be honest, but more cards is never bad, right? It would probably be better if I had more people to play against to get a better feel for the metagame. I've had a bit more fun trying to run the cop faction with the Cthulhu faction, since the cops have a lot of cheap high-combat guys that can come out fast to get control and then serve as sacrifices for Cthulhu later.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:12
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I ran the Trail of Cthulhu scenario "Dance in the Blood" for my friends over Skype yesterday and they had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, they felt like they were riding the rails, which was partly my fault (though one of the players admitted that a little bit of railroading was necessary to keep things moving) and partly the system/scenario's fault (the characters have no real impact on the situation at large, which is intentional - as well as proper for a purist Cthulhu scenario - but can be frustrating from a player perspective). On the other hand, they did a great job getting into their characters, and they did like my voices for the NPCs: I was able to give each character a distinct voice that helped the players distinguish between each one - except for the twin girls, whom I didn't bother to make distinct from each other because they're functionally the same character.
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Jan 28, 2013 01:12
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Man, the LotR LCG makes me sad about the state of the CoC LCG. Cthulhu would've worked so well with a LotR-style cooperative game where the players try to cling to their sanity while battling the machinations of the outer gods. I think that's what's been putting me off the game - an adversarial mythos game just seems so bizarre to me.
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Jan 30, 2013 15:01
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So I bought pretty much all the CoC books location and scenario books set around Arkham when I was in high school, because I was psyched to run this expansive campaign set in the Miskatonic Valley in the '20s, what with being a native resident of rural Massachusetts and all. Unfortunately I was a loner Lovecraft nerd and didn't have a substantial group of Cthulhu-leaning friends for a long time, now I've decided to run the campaign for my circle at University. I've been listening to a lot of the Public Role-Playing Radio games, but I was wondering if you guys had any advice for starting out as a new Keeper, as in, rules I should really really know inside out before we begin play. I'm starting everyone out with The Edge of Darkness from the core book, since that puts us right in the middle of Arkham and potentially introduces the players to Armitage and the library. I was wondering, since being in Arkham and the detailed setting potentially offers some open-world options, how do you guys handle these threads in-game? Is there a way to let players explore the town without getting too off-track?
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Jan 31, 2013 21:44
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I generally try to make adventure hooks apply to an area rather than a specific spot. Lets be serious, not everything in Arkham is going to lead to an adventure, so don't be afraid to tell them, "this is a grocery store" or "after much searching, you don't find anything out of the ordinary". Consider making an outline or the adventures you would like to run in an approximate order. If you feel like one would be more appropriate later in the campaign, restrict access to the plot hooks. Don't feel the need to block them if they want to investigate something, but make it more difficult than than a quest you are prepared to run. A great idea in an open ended sandbox world is to put a hook for another adventure or two at the conclusion of the last adventure you had run. Also worth it to prepare materials for what you consider the "most likely" scenarios, and so on, with maybe a few paragraphs in the "least likely" category.
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Jan 31, 2013 22:02
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Vedius Pollio posted:So I bought pretty much all the CoC books location and scenario books set around Arkham when I was in high school, because I was psyched to run this expansive campaign set in the Miskatonic Valley in the '20s, what with being a native resident of rural Massachusetts and all. Unfortunately I was a loner Lovecraft nerd and didn't have a substantial group of Cthulhu-leaning friends for a long time, now I've decided to run the campaign for my circle at University. I've been listening to a lot of the Public Role-Playing Radio games, but I was wondering if you guys had any advice for starting out as a new Keeper, as in, rules I should really really know inside out before we begin play. I'm starting everyone out with The Edge of Darkness from the core book, since that puts us right in the middle of Arkham and potentially introduces the players to Armitage and the library. I was wondering, since being in Arkham and the detailed setting potentially offers some open-world options, how do you guys handle these threads in-game? Is there a way to let players explore the town without getting too off-track? Here's my AP of Edge of Darkness from the RPPR community podcast, dunno if that might be useful. As I recall the majority of the adventure happens on-scene and there's very little going on in Arkham proper. Sanity is a must, try and get a feel for the combat, and get used to providing the minimum details of stuff so your players fill in the blanks with fear - overly detailed descriptions can wreck Call of Cthulhu if you're trying to imbue a scene with fear. So I miiiight be doing a CoC Let's Play going through Masks of Nyarlathotep, still looking into logistics right now but it would be in the same sort of style as the current 4E, Rogue Trader and FATE threads. Any advice or tips (non-spoilery for my players who might read this) on running the campaign?
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Feb 1, 2013 20:58
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Anybody else annoyed that they put loving Slender Man into the next CoC LCG expansion?
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Feb 2, 2013 01:12
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Oh hell, did they really do that? And the LCG takes place in the 30s so good luck with all the found footage youtube clips, I guess.
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Feb 2, 2013 02:59
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moths posted:Oh hell, did they really do that? Yeah it was one of the cards shown in an advertisement in the new Game Trade Magazine.
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Feb 2, 2013 04:53
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The Slender Man is an avatar of Nyarlathotep, so I don't see the problem.
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Feb 2, 2013 19:16
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Pope Guilty posted:The Slender Man is an avatar of Nyarlathotep, so I don't see the problem. Isn't everything an avatar of Nyarlathotep?
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Feb 2, 2013 19:22
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It's kinda what he does.
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Feb 2, 2013 19:41
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Dennis Detwiller posted some tips for running Masks of Nyarlathotep this morning, if you can stand looking at his hipster mug staring at you while you read, it's kinda interesting.
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Feb 2, 2013 19:49
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Pope Guilty posted:The Slender Man is an avatar of Nyarlathotep, so I don't see the problem. Aside from it being a Shub card? I don't really feel like there should be a cast in stone Mythos that never changes. Some of the better gods and monsters are non-Lovecraft anyway. That said, slenderman just seems like something dumb and dated that'll stick out like a Gangnam Style joke in a few years. I'd be irritated to see it in the 7e core, but it's not like slenderman sullies the literary credibility of an LCG.
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Feb 2, 2013 22:54
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So whats the general consensus on the Cthulhu LCG from FFG? I just started getting into Netruner recently. But I love CoC and I've enjoyed all the Fantasy Flight Stuff, Elder Sign, Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror to a lesser extent, so I've been thinking about getting it. Also any news on 7th Edition? Also I don't really consider Slenderman being put in the game to be some kind of affront, or really dating a intellectual property that has its origins in 1920s pulp magazines. But that's just me.
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Feb 17, 2013 05:22
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KomradeX posted:So whats the general consensus on the Cthulhu LCG from FFG? I just started getting into Netruner recently. But I love CoC and I've enjoyed all the Fantasy Flight Stuff, Elder Sign, Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror to a lesser extent, so I've been thinking about getting it. Some friends and I just got into it as long time ccg players we were intrigued by the whole lcg distribution model. The game itself is an evolution/reprint of the mythos game from the 90's and it is pretty good as far as card games go. The strong point is probably the resource flex ability in comparison to a game like magic. You don't have dedicated resource cards taking up deck space you just turn any card into a resource from your hand once a turn. Other than that we find with a fairly limited card pool that the game has a similar tempo to magic in that you play threats and look for card advantage. With a better card pool we think making most of the magic archetype decks is possible, for example control, aggro, rush, even comboish decks. So it seems like there is good room for deck diversity and variety.
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Feb 17, 2013 16:42
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I never played Magic before, I hated the randomized distribution and every one around em that play was serious about the game. But then when I heard about FFG and the LCG distribution I was sold on the concept. Has anyone gotten Atomic Age Cthulhu yet? For somereason Amazon doesn't have it
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Feb 19, 2013 07:53
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KomradeX posted:Also any news on 7th Edition? As far as I am aware, NDA is still in effect and I haven't seen any announcements yet from Chaosium. I think they're still working through logistics from the Orient Express kickstarter, so no news yet on 7E.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:04
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The Miskatonic University podcast was doing a regular segment on 7e until recently. I don't think they actually read the NDA before they signed it.  It doesn't sound like there is anything in 7e that you couldn't house rule with a previous edition. The only thing I heard that made cringe was the new skill system, which sounds like they were trying to steamline but actually made more complicated.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:47
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Does anyone think a Skill Tree system would make sense in 7e? It's been partially done with technologies and combat, but what if all skills were treed? Maybe some would allow extra points to be spent on a branch if you put a certain amount in its parent branch.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:52
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moths posted:The only thing I heard that made cringe was the new skill system, which sounds like they were trying to steamline but actually made more complicated. I want so badly to comment. The NDA cannot end soon enough. Yeah, podcasting or any discussion with non-testers is pretty much verboten and they may be in some trouble with Chaosium if they have been.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:18
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I think you'd be ok commenting on what has already been announced, but the only publicly available thing I've found from Chaosium is that hour-long youtube 7e seminar. I think I linked it earlier, but I'll double check when I'm not posting from my phone.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:30
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moths posted:I think you'd be ok commenting on what has already been announced, but the only publicly available thing I've found from Chaosium is that hour-long youtube 7e seminar. There was a seminar at Continuum 2012 by Paul Fricker and Mike Mason, 2 of the writers, that was reasonably informative. I'm not sure how much information it has over the youtube video, i havent had time to watch it but here it is. CoC 7e seminar podcast. I couldnt find a link to the video in the thread so here it is as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvGzPqip-d0
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Feb 20, 2013 14:13
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Coming from CoC 5.5 a few years back, I really liked Trail of Cthulhu. I kind of wish somebody hit me in the head with ToC's "clue rule" when I was first running it. I'm pretty sure CoC at the time mentioned it in the GM section, but it wasn't made a central part of play (especially on the player side). That said, that's not the part I enjoyed about ToC. What I really liked in trail was the many different takes on the mythos. When they give you a list of gods, they'll give you 2-10 different versions of them, some of them pretty damned cool (they even put a new spin on elementalism and made it pretty cool). Also, they didn't try to make the mythos coherent. Sure, individual pieces are certainly coherent within themselves, but they didn't try to build this ... sorta self-consistent setting populated by 50 varieties of aliens and gods all living together. Call of Cthulhu was terrible about doing this back in the day, though I'll bet they've gotten better. Dedhed fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Feb 21, 2013 |
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Feb 21, 2013 00:56
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Blatant self promotion here but I have a piece in the new issue of The Unspeakable Oath - Message in a Bottle: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/111576/The-Unspeakable-Oath-22 I also playtested the Die High scenario, although I have no idea what's it like now - haven't had time to read it yet.
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Feb 21, 2013 02:47
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Trail seems like it's cool but I never got into it enough that I could say anything useful about it.  I was listening to the MU podcast in the car today, and they were discussing the Idea roll. One thing about this podcast is that they're not always the best at dealing with problem mechanics. Every time they bring something up that they have trouble with, I sit there having an answer like I'm watching an easy quiz show. Today's problem was the Idea roll, and how if the players are out of clues and blow their Ideas there's nowhere to go. The game is done, may as well wrap it up. This is an outcome nobody wants. They did mention fail forward, but couldn't think of a satisfactory way to incorporate it. So here's what I thought: The Keeper makes the Idea roll, hidden behind the screen. If someone passes, they get an Idea that puts back on the right track and the adventure continues without interruption. If they don't, they get a Bad Idea that puts them on a different path towards getting the adventure moving again. The important thing is that the players get a suggested course of action, and it's not like peeking at the answer key because there's a chance it'll turn out to be a dumb idea. But it gets things moving again. A Bad Idea shouldn't be something suicidal or that will wreck the game, but it should be dangerous or foolhardy enough to make for an interesting night.
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Feb 21, 2013 03:08
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moths posted:The Miskatonic University podcast was doing a regular segment on 7e until recently. I don't think they actually read the NDA before they signed it.
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Feb 21, 2013 03:21
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The skill system didn't function any differently, but they had this bizarre skill tree thing where you had sympathetic skills and specialties. So if you got better at shotguns you'd also get a little better at rifles. But they were mad about the FRACTURED VERSIMILITUDES of getting better at Intimidate and it also helping your Fast Talk and Seduction. The obvious fix is to make a blanket Manipulation skill with the option to specializes in Fast Talks or Seductions or whatever. And I think that might actually be how it works and they just didn't understand it right. I think there some weird things at key skill levels (50%, 90%) too. It's been a while since I listened, but it's in this episode starting at the 35 minute mark.
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Feb 21, 2013 04:10
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My group asked me to run Call of Cthulhu for them, and I was wondering if there were any modules that are good for the relatively inexperienced group/Keeper? I am looking for something with maybe a mad scientist, but I am not really sure where to start, what with the game having about 30 years of material to look through.
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Feb 21, 2013 07:45
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HorseBag posted:My group asked me to run Call of Cthulhu for them, and I was wondering if there were any modules that are good for the relatively inexperienced group/Keeper? I am looking for something with maybe a mad scientist, but I am not really sure where to start, what with the game having about 30 years of material to look through. A lot of CoC material is very dated and out of print and so hard to find and tends to come in compendium books of a few adventures, and the books i reccomend may be tricky to lay hands upon, dont worry too much about being inexperienced, its very easy to run from the book scenarios as long as you get to grips with them fully, and the CoC system isnt a complicated one, dont be afraid to toy around, some of the scenarios do show their age so some tweaking may well be neccessary. That said it depends on the length of what you want to do, the scenario that fits what you want to do best is i think a scenario that is included in the Miskatonic University sourcebook, the basic premise is that a (completely insane) student has rediscovered the notes of Herbert West and is engaged in reanimating the dead , the issue is that scenario is very short and its the only one in the book. For short introductions of a session or two i really enjoyed "Tell me, have you seen the yellow sign?" in the book "The Great Old Ones" its got a few other scenarios in it of worth, but a couple that are just a bit farcical, the premise is that the yellow sign is appearing around the Madri Gras festival in New Orleans and you are the only people aware of it to investigate it. My introduction to CoC was in the medium length campaign "The Escape from Innsmouth" which we did over 8 sessions or so with the entire playerbase being new to CoC and mostly new to RPG's in general but it is quite hard/expensive to find and requires a bit of tweaking.
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Feb 21, 2013 15:12
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I want to know how many people have actually gone through Beyond the Mountains of Madness. I also wonder if it's ever been done in PbP format, that seems like it would end up beating out Blackbird Dreaming.
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Feb 21, 2013 15:21
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There's also The Haunting from the back of the 6e book, which is apparently wildly popular despite being a relatively straight foreward ghost house instead of a Mythos parade.
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Feb 21, 2013 15:27
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Nessus posted:I want to know how many people have actually gone through Beyond the Mountains of Madness. I also wonder if it's ever been done in PbP format, that seems like it would end up beating out Blackbird Dreaming. The hardest thing about it from a keepers perspective was keeping all the secondary characters interesting and distinct and keeping that up throughout so I kept a balance between supporting and key characters, particularly characters who have specific roles/moments. The other main issue is that it's fairly lethal towards the climax and you have to come up with new PC characters from a rapidly dwindling stock of possibles, nothing insurmountable but you really do need to be on your game and thinking about the possible outcomes of stuff once you're on the shelf.
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Feb 21, 2013 18:18
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