Ronin84
Traveler
Playing Shelby Lockwood: Rimward Traveller Group
Posts: 119
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Post by Ronin84 on Nov 18, 2016 6:23:04 GMT -5
I've played Call of Cthulhu. To be honest, I'm not much of a fan. The stats and skills seem to belong to different systems. The questionable statting up and canonising of everything slightly Mythos by every author who's ever namechecked Lovecraft would, I think, be better off scrapped and replaced with technical advice on how to evoke cosmic horror in play. Finally, most of the published material expresses an awkward tension between the (sorry) implied narrative arc of the role playing game (we sneer, but you don't put experience points and sanity erosion mechanics in without expecting a protracted game, and you don't include combat rules without expecting people to fight) and the rather more passive and ill-fated lot of the Lovecraftian protagonist, who is not a 'hero' in any sense of the word I recognise. Call of Cthulhu often feels like a Lovecraftian palette swap of some fairly generic RPG - all the monsters and suchlike are there but it doesn't feel like being in or recreating a Lovecraft story. Fun can be had with it but to achieve the proper Lovecraftian 'feel' the players must engage to lose, and I feel that's at odds with the 'game' part of 'role playing game'. My best moments in the form have been with diceless or dice light 'community theatre wannabe' non-gameplay, not with CoC. Heard that same complaint over the years, especially the experience and sanity part. With the later editions the sanity loss has been downplayed and mechanics for recovery have been made much easier. I'm not trying to argue with you in any way...it's like Coconut Cream Pie...no matter how much you might like it...I never will.  I have really found that once the player's know what we are playing, they do a pretty good job imagining the horrors that are around every corner with only a little help from me, the friendly and frightening GM. Happy Gaming! |
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Post by Von on Nov 18, 2016 7:52:12 GMT -5
I actually really like the way CoC deals with experience (did you use it? you may get better at it) and the counterweighted Sanity/Mythos stats... but the mere PRESENCE of an experience mechanic leads into a kind of teleology - "this character will survive, become more capable, overcome greater horrors..." This is par for the course with the RPG but it is fundamentally at odds with the Lovecraftian narrative arc and I think that's where CoC really falls down.
I know what you mean in ref. player imaginations though.
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Ronin84
Traveler
Playing Shelby Lockwood: Rimward Traveller Group
Posts: 119
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Post by Ronin84 on Nov 18, 2016 8:40:02 GMT -5
I actually really like the way CoC deals with experience (did you use it? you may get better at it) and the counterweighted Sanity/Mythos stats... but the mere PRESENCE of an experience mechanic leads into a kind of teleology - "this character will survive, become more capable, overcome greater horrors..." This is par for the course with the RPG but it is fundamentally at odds with the Lovecraftian narrative arc and I think that's where CoC really falls down. I know what you mean in ref. player imaginations though. Ah...I see what you are getting at, I have never looked at it through that lens. I never worried about scale of horrors and honestly a lot of what I did over the years was man v man with whatever horror I wanted to pulling the strings. Sure you had your occasional ghoul etc... IF we got to the point of one of the really major fellas showing up I feel those parties would have known it was going to be over soon. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2016 8:49:25 GMT -5
This is kinda what I was getting at in my last post ... I know the RPG rules for Chaosium's COC are not a perfect fit for Lovecraftian Horror and I was wondering out loud if the Cthulhu Hack might be a better fit ... I haven't tried it yet, but I think I will.
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Ronin84
Traveler
Playing Shelby Lockwood: Rimward Traveller Group
Posts: 119
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Post by Ronin84 on Nov 18, 2016 8:56:27 GMT -5
This is kinda what I was getting at in my last post ... I know the RPG rules for Chaosium's COC are not a perfect fit for Lovecraftian Horror and I was wondering out loud if the Cthulhu Hack might be a better fit ... I haven't tried it yet, but I think I will. Let us know...I have avoided the "Hack" stuff so far...I would love to hear a review... |
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Nov 27, 2016 20:57:44 GMT -5
I have very little experience with the Chaosium games but I've always been interested in them; the opportunity just never came about. I remember buying a used copy of SuperWorld at a friends garage sale. It was interesting because his older brother had written in many house rules - mainly powers and disadvantages obviously taken from Champions - but our group was into V&V and FASERIP Marvel so we never played it. Somewhere around here I have a yellow paper in a big Ziploc bag version of RuneQuest; again, a missed opportunity...
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Post by flightcommander on Jan 16, 2017 0:40:52 GMT -5
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Post by flightcommander on Jan 18, 2017 23:41:30 GMT -5
I'm bumping this so that people download copies of Pendragon so that when the world ends there are still copies floating around.
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Post by Mighty Darci on Jan 27, 2017 11:44:14 GMT -5
Thank you for the heads up! I almost missed it! |
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I have really found that once the player's know what we are playing, they do a pretty good job imagining the horrors that are around every corner with only a little help from me, the friendly and frightening GM. 
