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Thanks for making this thread. I basically just want to play or run Cthulhu games 24/7, so, you know, this will suffice for now. I am surprised that the starter post does not mention the mid-1990s Cthulhu collectible card game Mythos. (That I totally thought would take off huge and from which I would one day reap a whirlwind of cash for having gotten in so early.) It was the only such game I ever played (though I realize there were others, and it may not have even been the first) where the point was to tell an interesting story rather than kill your opponent or win or anything, likely because, as we all know, there is no way to win. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythos_(card_game) Though here is where someone tells me that now those cards actually ARE worth something now that the rest of the world has gone Cthulhu-crazy and I should in fact not have angrily thrown them all away.
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Sep 3, 2012 01:37
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Thank you for talking about the Laundry here; I keep seeing it at Gen-Con but never remember to look into it. Now I must.JDCorley posted:I know this is TradGames, but there've been some good Cthulhu themed video games too: Hound of Shadow, which looked drat stylish and fine on the Amiga. A Cthulhu text adventure with beautiful black-and-white graphics actually sounds like it would be amazing and actually the MOST likely to be terrifying of all Cthulhu computer games. Also thanks to the probably long-dead previous owner who gloriously transferred the low-density 5 1/4" floppy originals to a blessed high-density 3 1/2" disk.
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Sep 4, 2012 01:35
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How do you keep Cthulhu elements relevant in a game where the setting is decidedly non-traditional and the players are beginning to have actual power? Now, they do not have really anything in the way of supernatural toughness, so it is not like I think they are invincible, but most of the fun-terror of Cthulhu comes from knowing you are basically helpless and that nobody will believe you even if you try to explain to the world how much danger they are in. WELL ... I ran a Cthulhu(ish) campaign for about six months, and it culminated in the cultists essentially winning; specifically Gary Gygax faked his own death and led a global network of gaming elite in their efforts to elevate Tsathoggua to ruler of the Earth to usher in a glorious era of sloth and decadence and real-life gaming scenarios. So, the party is now in what is essentially post-apocalyptic Earth, though the planet is divided into various regions treated as personal fiefdoms by the leaders of the cabal (though the party did very dramatically kill Gary Gygax using the scepter and crown from the Tomb of Horrors that served as a proving ground for new recruits into his army), and sort of ala Torg each area has significant practical differences from the others, though unlike Torg it is not a guarantee that each area will have its own issues with physics/technology/magic not working/working better/et cetera. The point is, now much of the world is abundantly aware of supernatural things, and indeed many are now accepted as normal (shambling dead people are killed by cooking and eating them, for example), how do you keep things remotely scary? There are plenty of more powerful things out there, and always will be, but the unknown element is harder to work with once so much is just known. I can only pull so many "but HERE they worship AN EVEN SCARIER THING and IT IS STILL ALL REALLY HAPPENING!" scenarios before any amount of depravity becomes mundane. I dunno. It is possible no-one will have any suggestions for me since everyone knows Cthulhu campaigns are supposed to end when the world ends, and I appreciate that. But, you know. People in this subforum are endlessly creative geniuses, too.
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Nov 26, 2012 03:31
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Huh, thanks, Pope Guilty/JDCorley/Ack. That is great, as I sort of wondered if something from this thread that I was unfamiliar with was going to end up being a great thing to look into. Esoterrorists does sound like a much catchier name for my campaign idea than anything I came up with in the first place. Also funny because I apparently have a bookmark to the Apocalypse Machine, so obviously I wanted to buy that book at some point, and forgot all about it. Apparently I also thought Night's Black Agents looked promising, though looking into it now it definitely would have been more appropriate for the pre-apocalypse section of the game (which was only supposed to go like three-four games, but they got so into it that it went twelve).
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Nov 30, 2012 03:13
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I had not looked at the Malleus Monstrorum, and that does look legitimately awesome, certainly. But as someone who usually rolls his eyes at gamemaster aids and yet loves the Keeper's Compendium (volume 1 at least), I certainly would recommend it as well. It really does a great job of giving brief but useful examples of all the Cthulhu-plot-buttons, from cults to tomes to profane languages!
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Mar 18, 2013 05:22
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And despite this, I imagine at this rate it will be funded by the end of its first day. Though I suppose we should root for it to succeed in order to get the books up to decent quality, as you point out. Hmm ... only $350 to play a game of Call of Cthulhu ... Edit: Here is a link to the 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu Kickstarter for the top of this page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/448333182/call-of-cthulhu-7th-edition Dr. Quarex fucked around with this message at 05:35 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 03:15
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I wonder what would happen if someone posted the links to those two collector's editions in the comments and nonchalantly said "awesome, are they going to look like this?!?"
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May 29, 2013 05:42
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Thanks for reminding me that I need to get that Keeper's Screen back from my friend's house. That is one Call of Cthulhu product I have no regrets in purchasing (despite the unlikelihood of me ever actually playing Cthulhu using the system on the other side of the screen). I remember trying to figure out the source for the screen before and being unsuccessful--is it actually just really well-done purpose-created art? Or did they find the weirdest old-timey panoramic photograph ever?
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Jun 2, 2013 18:51
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It definitely says something about the product they are making when I feel like it would be a better use of my time to learn rudimentary French in order to buy and use that French collector's edition than to support their Kickstarter. Edit: Hold everything, at the next stretch goal they also include a #2 pencil with the set. I am back on board. (I want to give them the benefit of the doubt for the $125,000 goal "Big-Big Art Boost" and hope that it is somehow related to making the book actually even close to the quality of the other editions) Dr. Quarex fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Jun 3, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 00:02
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It is true that the Basic Role-Playing system is pretty great given how old its fundamental mechanics are, and I do recommend using it if possible--but I also would point out that since your group is already seemingly quite experienced with D20, you could certainly run a one-shot "what... means... 'Cthulhu'?" game for them to get the feel for it using rules they are already familiar with, which would then give them a better understanding of why it is that some of those incredibly-useless-sounding(-to-new-players) skills in the original system are actually profoundly useful. Yes, or you could just tell them "this is useful because monsters," but I am a firm advocate of running a set-up one-shot before embarking on any campaign to get people invested in the world (or "era" in this case) before making characters.
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Jun 17, 2013 22:43
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Yeah, the Kickstarter is looking very tempting now, for sure. It has come a long way, and that is great. I am kind of confused, though. The Abominable Abhoth level seems basically amazing, and I definitely want it ... except that they are apparently saving money on that tier by not giving you any of the .pdfs? Do I have to also get the Dank Deep-One tier reward on another account to actually get all of the good stuff or something?
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Jun 28, 2013 19:49
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From what I have seen of the Armitage Files that really is the best possible suggestion, but generally speaking the best way to avoid both combat and Investigation rolls is to give players real-life things to play with, ala the Armitage Files' copious handouts. My Savage Worlds Cthulhu campaign has accumulated probably 100 various props over the years, from cryptic drawings and manifestos to enigmatically-marked maps and scraps of fabric, and up until a point players almost always seem to have more fun actually examining things than making rolls to examine things. There is definitely a way to go too far, though. When I realized that my players had started just adding new props to the pile and making a note of their existence I decided I had overdone it, haha. But they have also survived far longer than you would in a regular Cthulhu game.
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Apr 20, 2014 06:20
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Hey neat, Jolly Roger Games is still around! I recently bought a random "essays on roleplaying" book they put out in 2000 and I assumed they had long since folded. OK so this is a real company making a Cthulhu game! That makes it slightly less common.
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Apr 27, 2014 18:44
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I trust everyone received the "mass e-mail to everyone who ever bought anything from us because we changed web providers and lost all our user preferences in the process" e-mail about the new Chaosium page? http://www.chaosium.com/ I mean ... it looks nice! But of course I have forgotten if the old one looked nice.
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Jul 1, 2014 01:08
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The only combat I think I ever successfully had feel tense like campaign surrounding it was the one where the party encountered their fairly obviously undead former friend (obviously because they had to kill him earlier in the campaign) who took damage from attacks in the sense that his body was shredded, but not in the sense that it mattered, and even where they would take off a limb or something he would continue moving per usual, slowly killing those nearby with a touch. You could have gone a few ways with that, but one of the players had previously jury-rigged a "miniature Sun" by duct-taping dozens of UV flashlights together, and he correctly guessed that this would drive off what seemed to be a ghost of some sort animating a body. But everyone was losing their poo poo up until that point, with the damage coming just slowly but steadily enough to be worrying, and I thought they might resort to jumping out the third-story windows to escape.
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Oct 8, 2014 20:05
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I did think of this thread and the general complaints 'round these parts about how Chaosium should really be a real company since they have one of the most beloved games, and it looks like they might actually be trying now???
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Feb 25, 2016 00:05
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Sionak posted:Sounds really fun and I quite like the monster. The murder mystery set up is a good one, though in general it's difficult to run a scary game with that many players.
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Mar 2, 2016 20:35
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LuiCypher posted:Picked up CoC 7th at GenCon. Impressions: Of course I am trying to remember why I pledged from two different Kickstarter accounts; I want to say you could not get both the Keeper Rulebook and a leather-bound Investigator Handbook in the same pledge as they originally had it set up? I know it made perfect sense at the time. I am sure they later added the ability to add-on either of those things to your pledge though. Also omg I miss playing Cthulhu
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Sep 7, 2016 21:39
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