I fully understand CoC, being a Chaosium property, will likely never make landfall on Beyond on the basis that (please correct if wrong) Curse has an exclusivity contract with WoTC. However, it would be awesome and great if they did, as I've been wanting to check that system out. Plus, I love utilizing all the tools that Beyond gives me for running a campaign.
That said, has anyone ran CoC here? If so, what did you think? Lastly, does a digital platform exist for it? I really don't like Roll20, so I'm sure they have it, but that would be a last resort for me.
Public Mod Note
(Davyd):
Moved to Off-Topic > Adohand's Kitchen
I have run Call of Cthulhu since the 80s. Yes, it's a solid, award winning, wonderful game system and with the right "crypt keeper", a really horrifying game. It's so fun!
As far as I know, there's no digital. It's all pencil and paper. And frankly, it should be. Keep the timeline in the 1920s. That's where the game really shines. Well, the shine from the slimy things that arise from the water to invoke cosmic horror and cause insanity in men! ;p
Yes. If you like a more intellectual, investigative, game, this is it!
I haven't run or played in it since 5th ed, so I don't know if my knowledge of the rules is current. I think in the right hands, with the right group, it's as good as RPGs get. Chaosium's engine has always been a bit more crunchy than D&D, going back to Runequest, so it takes a bit more work on the front end to get a character up and running, and CoC being CoC, you might want to have a backup already made.
I played older editions and remember it being crunchy too. I want to say the most current edition runs a bit lighter but haven't played.
I have played one offs of Delta Green (game world allows playing anytime from the 1920s to present day, mixing the mythos with government conspiracies) via ARC' PUblishing's free quick start rules. I liked it enough that I'm intending to check out some of its supplements, particularly the ones that provides a more diverse or nuanced set of careers (for example the capacities of a FBI, ATF, or U.S. Marshal operational employee have some overlap but there are critical differences, and "special operator" in the military could mean a whole slough of things) and guidance for sustained campaigns.
The rules are fast and loose, I believe a loosening of the current CoC rules and GUMSHOE, but they really work as mechanics that don't get in the way of atmosphere/narrative work, and the most important mechanic (stability/sanity) is really well thought out but also really simple, truly elegant (and I'd say more in tune with how the brain addresses trauma than the more pulpy "gibbering madness" of Call of Cthulhu ... I think they're Cthulhu now tried to go this way but got bogged down in hyper violence and more 80s takes on trauma). I'm thinking of adapting the mechanic into my D&D campaign (if only DDB would let me customize the Bond field...).
I think you could even chuck all the government speak and just run a regular mythos type campaign with the rules, you just wouldn't have much use for a lot of the supporting material (but even those could likely be adopted from deep state personnel to traditional investigators). Anyway, as I said, the quick start rules are free through the usual outlets that provide their digital editions.
Oh, I'd say the game is so simple, I don't think you'd really need a VTT or any Beyond type support. Easily Zoomed, or just played over the phone, and share screen or text for maps/handouts, and just let the GM do the rolling if the players don't want to. Actually I think playing the game over phone including a few different messaging apps, might actually make it more immersive than any VTT could make possible.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I’ve never read a Lovecraft story or actually played Call of Cthulhu, so I can’t comment on the racism and sexism stuff, but I do like his ideas about the Mythos in general. I also know other girls and people of color who do play CoC and have no problem with it.
Anyway, idk enough about the subject to agree or disagree with the writer, but one of the RPGs I play is Onyx Path’s Scion, and I’m looking forward to the Mythos sourcebook for Scion.
I'm surprised this thread hasn't been moved elsewhere to the "not D&D section" yet; but cool this discussion is here as we move to American Halloween season.
I won't refight Lovecraft's legacy regarding race, though I think it's good that new readers or people curious about "the lore" of the mythos are made aware that it's a thing. I will say one of the cooler consequences of that re-appraisal is you have some pretty fun fiction that re-engages the mythos through contemporary sensibilities and understandings of cultural history. "David Wong"'s (quotes because pseudonym) John Dies at the End books, while not explicitly evocative of the mythos, definitely updates the "cosmic horror" "weird fiction" genre to late capitalism present day America, a world Lovecraft would probably find horrific even without threats from beyond. And they're funny. Think Evil Dead meets Clerks, with a little Bill and Ted heart, do the right thing motivation. The bulk of Nick Mamatas's fiction output is present day or late twentieth century engagement with Lovecraft legacy, including the political critiques. He's also a great literary mimic, so if you want to see a rewrite of Call of Cthulhu where the only people standing between humanity's fragile place in the cosmos and entropic destruction is the Beat Generation as chronicled by Jack Kerouac, there's Move Underground. If you want to move up a decade and see Hunter S. Thompson see the connection between the mythos and the Nixon Presidential campaign, there's The Damned Highway. If you want to see the horror of a fiction writer with mythos sensibilities after getting churned through the meat grinder of an academic MFA fiction writing program, see the work of Brian Evenson. Lastly, of course there's HBO's Lovecraft Country, which probably wouldn't exist had the racial politics question never been put out there. It was a novel prior to the TV series (neither to be confused with the Chaoism Lovecraft Country supplement to their CoC).
Delta Green does a admirable job mapping the mythos from the Raid on Innsmouth through twentieth century history to present day America in its world building, though you need an almost professional link analysis skillset to really grok the entirety, so it might be a bit niche.
And while I agree with Lyxan that it's more in sync with the design to play D&D games aspiring to epic ness and horror is difficult for D&D, I think horror can be addressed in 5e through the tiers of play. Lvl 1-4 monster of the week style or challenges stemming from comporably powered humanoids in league with bigger horrific forces. 5-10 cult conspiracies and bigger monster hunts, as the fight begins to have more consequences. 11-16 Big Bads revealed and contended. 17-20, the characters have been staring into the abyss so long it's time for the reflective moment to pivot to really break the characters' world. I think you'd have to have a table agree to adopt some fear and panic mechanics (what does happen when you soil oneself in full plate?), and also stylistically move to a mindset where "run away" may be the best option (regardless of how uncomfortable you may be in your disadvantaged full plate), until running no longer an option and you're just stuck having to confront the void for the reckoning or the deliverance. Like I said, I like how DG's CoC "lite" approach to stability draws on bond mechanics. There's already a space for bonds on a character sheet, and that could be developed, you'd need house rules to allow the bond draws. (in DG, you have bonds like family, employment, etc. to basically "hold it together" in the face of either violent or cosmic trauma, you spend bonds, once they're out, you approach your breaking point faster ... assuming you survive, you're encouraged to role play "rebuilding" your bonds and establishing new bonds to grow your resiliency. I haven't played with it too much on the adaptation, but I think it speaks to some of the psychologizing you see in Critical Role etc. on the role playing end. ... it definitely highlights D&D as a team sport, or allows more enforcement of that fact.
Sandy Peterson, the designer of Call of Cthulhu made a 5e supplement. Has anyone played it, and is it worth buying? The book is more expensive than a typical 5e book, but it is four hundred pages long. I am a fan of Lovecraft's work and ideas, even if he was a terrible person.
And while I agree with Lyxan that it's more in sync with the design to play D&D games aspiring to epic ness and horror is difficult for D&D, I think horror can be addressed in 5e through the tiers of play.
The thing is that, for horror to work, you must be powerless. So I'm not arguing that you cannot fight Cthulhu monsters in D&D, I did that 40 years ago or so already. What you can't do is emulate what is in the Lovecraft stories and emulated in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, i.e. stories of horror and of powerlessness in face of a malevolent universe that gives you no chance at hope.
I disagree. Have you ever read IT, or Salem's Lot? Kinda light spoilers ahead, so I put them in a spoiler. If you haven't read those books, give them a try. They are excellent at crossing the streams of horror and adventure.
IT is certainly a horror novel. It is pretty scary, but the characters aren't exactly powerless in it. The story is about them discovering their power so that they can fight IT, which is certainly up there with Lovecraftian entities. Salem's Lot is less scary, but is still sorta a horror story and yet the characters definitely have power. Stranger Things is another example of a well done suspense/adventure story where the protagonists don't feel powerless.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Haven't played it. Reviews seem mostly positive, but mostly written from a Sandy Petersen fan or early kickstarter backer perspective. Did see one review on reddit that went into as much depth as some of the better positive reviews, same writing qualities, but their take was more ambivalent/bordering on problematic. Everyone says the books are gorgeous products, but how well they play, it seemed the most critical was that the material is really all high CR, and some of the character options read very over powered. That writer was also disappointed with the SAN and dread mechanics, where others were really hyping them as an improvement over the DMG.
What I don't know is whether this is simply porting the same book he wrote for Pathfinder or a new take with lessons learned from that edition.
Haven't played it. Reviews seem mostly positive, but mostly written from a Sandy Petersen fan or early kickstarter backer perspective. Did see one review on reddit that went into as much depth as some of the better positive reviews, same writing qualities, but their take was more ambivalent/bordering on problematic. Everyone says the books are gorgeous products, but how well they play, it seemed the most critical was that the material is really all high CR, and some of the character options read very over powered. That writer was also disappointed with the SAN and dread mechanics, where others were really hyping them as an improvement over the DMG.
What I don't know is whether this is simply porting the same book he wrote for Pathfinder or a new take with lessons learned from that edition.
Helpful, thanks.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I like Gothic stuff like World of Darkness but I don’t think I’d like real horror. I don’t mind if my character dies tragically or even loses one of her loved ones (or both), but I want her sacrifice to mean something.
Based on what you just told me I don’t think I’d like Lovecraft’s stories. My friend plays CoC but from what she says her campaign sounds kind of like D&D in the 1920s with Mythos creatures instead of dragons.
I had a CoC character who caught a glimpse of the monster once. I said he turned around and left, abandoning the party. Then I said he walked back to the train station with a white-knuckle grip on the revolver in his pocket. Then, I said, if no-one impeded him, he took the milk train back to New York and caught the next steamer to Shanghai, where he developed an opium habit and died of an overdose in an alley two years later.
After they finished the rest of the adventure, everyone else agreed that that character basically won Call of Cthulhu.
And while I agree with Lyxan that it's more in sync with the design to play D&D games aspiring to epic ness and horror is difficult for D&D, I think horror can be addressed in 5e through the tiers of play.
The thing is that, for horror to work, you must be powerless. So I'm not arguing that you cannot fight Cthulhu monsters in D&D, I did that 40 years ago or so already. What you can't do is emulate what is in the Lovecraft stories and emulated in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, i.e. stories of horror and of powerlessness in face of a malevolent universe that gives you no chance at hope.
I disagree. Have you ever read IT, or Salem's Lot? Kinda light spoilers ahead, so I put them in a spoiler. If you haven't read those books, give them a try. They are excellent at crossing the streams of horror and adventure.
First, Stephen King is not Lovecraft. And even Stephen King is a very varied author, but most of his novels end well. Real horror stories do not, in particular Lovecraft's (I don't think that even one of them ends well, thinking about it). This is what makes CoC a fundamentally different game than D&D, it does not simulate the same thing at all.
So yes, you can powergame through a horror setting using D&D and blast cthonians and deep ones right and left, and have fun, but you will certainly not emulate Lovecraft, that's all.
I'm not saying that it's bad, by the way, I've done my share of it in particular when playing Chill, or D&D with Cthulhu, but as you mention it's more a crossover between horror and adventure.
Interesting. I don't think that any of Lovecrafts stories end well, but I have his complete works and if I have spare time I can check. I think a well done D&D horror game is doable, you would have to involve more discovery and exploration than blasting. (Though a light hearted D&D vs Cthulhu sounds fun, but not very horrorish.) Think At the Mountains of Madness. I think that you could do a lower leveled Lovecraftian campaign, with the combat sections fighting mostly cultists and such, and restricting access to magic. I think that Lovecraftian horror in D&D is difficult, but doable and would require player buy in.
Sandy Peterson, the designer of Call of Cthulhu made a 5e supplement. Has anyone played it, and is it worth buying? The book is more expensive than a typical 5e book, but it is four hundred pages long. I am a fan of Lovecraft's work and ideas, even if he was a terrible person.
Alright, this got me interested and I splurged on the .pdf (always loved Lovecraft, CoC, and Sandy, in particular for his early associations with Greg Stafford - much more my hero than I thing anyone else in the RPG world apart perhaps for Robin Laws - but also because he is a true genius in his own right) and I found something interesting right at the start about the three Basic Rules of Horrors, from the words of Sandy Petersen himself, with my added comments:
The first rule: Don’tuse Jargon
Although this is not specific to D&D, I think that it is actually the second big barrier. D&D is technical (in particular compared to CoC), and you will get jargon around any table. Yes, as Sandy says, a DM (or even the players, although it is more rare, I do it sometimes but not always) can use nice description, but there will be a vast layer of underlying jargon for every action in the game, and in particular combat.
The second rule: Make The eneMy Malign
No problem about this, this has nothing to do with D&D and all with the plot.
The Third rule: use a Mundane Setting
And this is where the problem is really critical with D&D. All the classes, all the spells, all the game mechanics are everything but mundane. Even at level 1, the character have abilities that are heroic ones, totally out of the ordinary. And not only that, but they are expected to use them all the time, against adversaries which are tailored for this, and have corresponding not mundane at all abilities. And they are not mundane even in the setting. If you play CoS, there are random encounters which include werewolves, revenants, wereravens, etc. Even if you apply the second rule above, nothing will be mundane after the first few encounters, it will be jargon all over the place again and even if you ignore random ones, the planned ones will have that effect very quickly.
The reason for which CoC works for horror is that, in a given adventure - which are almost always in very mundane settings - the heroes have no means that are not mundane in general, and there are one, maybe two adversaries that will definitively be horrific. That's all.
For me this is why maybe horror+adventure can work with D&D, but certainly not horror in itself and in particular not real lovecraftian horror. Again, I've bought the .pdf and I think I look to a future campaign that will have adventurers smiting Chthonians, but this is a very different genre. :D
So by all means, play Ravenloft if you like the setting, but do not pretend it's horror, it is horror like in the Mummy (the excellent one with Brendan Fraser not the poor Tom Cruise thing), but the Mummy is tongue in cheek second degree, and with lots of very big guns and dynamite. :D
Again, this is not dispararing, if I could play a game like the Mummy, I would sign in immediately, alright ? :D
Thanks for the review of the book. From what I've heard, the player options are pretty bad, but the monsters and other stuff are good.
I had a CoC character who caught a glimpse of the monster once. I said he turned around and left, abandoning the party. Then I said he walked back to the train station with a white-knuckle grip on the revolver in his pocket. Then, I said, if no-one impeded him, he took the milk train back to New York and caught the next steamer to Shanghai, where he developed an opium habit and died of an overdose in an alley two years later.
After they finished the rest of the adventure, everyone else agreed that that character basically won Call of Cthulhu.
I like Gothic stuff like World of Darkness but I don’t think I’d like real horror. I don’t mind if my character dies tragically or even loses one of her loved ones (or both), but I want her sacrifice to mean something.
It is not that bad, usually there is some sort of victory, but only if you don't look too much in dark places afterwards. :)
That being said, my two most memorable CoC moments are... Well, let's see what you think:
In character, as a GM I managed to have a character being so stressed that he killed another character himself genuinely believing that he had been turned to evil or at least to something of a zombie status.
Out of character, the very first time I ran a game, one of the character died in a rather horrible manner killed by a monster with the face of a baby. The player was stressed out and decided to go to bed. This was back in engineering school, so it was a few minutes walk across the campus. He left, but then came back and asked if one of us was willing to accompany him back because he was afraid of the dark campus...
Both rather pointless deaths in the end, and they are truly memorable to every one now.
Based on what you just told me I don’t think I’d like Lovecraft’s stories. My friend plays CoC but from what she says her campaign sounds kind of like D&D in the 1920s with Mythos creatures instead of dragons.
And it is certainly a way to play it. For sure, the twenties themselves were an amazing time. ON top of that, most of the scenarios are really good mysteries, and the investigation is really cool.
Finally, I have played that way as well, in particular with Chill, but we had some cases with CoC. In particular one evening, I was softly describing an abandoned estate at night, circling around the table, until I got to the player whose character was the closest to the fence. and I barked very loudly close to him: "BARK, BARK, two huge hounds bound out of the shadow and rush you."
But the player wasn't phased at all, he replied "BLAM, BLAM, I have a two-barreled shotgun right here." :)
Those are all awesome stories, and I feel the urge to learn how to play a new rpg system.....
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I fully understand CoC, being a Chaosium property, will likely never make landfall on Beyond on the basis that (please correct if wrong) Curse has an exclusivity contract with WoTC. However, it would be awesome and great if they did, as I've been wanting to check that system out. Plus, I love utilizing all the tools that Beyond gives me for running a campaign.
That said, has anyone ran CoC here? If so, what did you think? Lastly, does a digital platform exist for it? I really don't like Roll20, so I'm sure they have it, but that would be a last resort for me.
I have run Call of Cthulhu since the 80s. Yes, it's a solid, award winning, wonderful game system and with the right "crypt keeper", a really horrifying game. It's so fun!
As far as I know, there's no digital. It's all pencil and paper. And frankly, it should be. Keep the timeline in the 1920s. That's where the game really shines. Well, the shine from the slimy things that arise from the water to invoke cosmic horror and cause insanity in men! ;p
Yes. If you like a more intellectual, investigative, game, this is it!
I haven't run or played in it since 5th ed, so I don't know if my knowledge of the rules is current. I think in the right hands, with the right group, it's as good as RPGs get. Chaosium's engine has always been a bit more crunchy than D&D, going back to Runequest, so it takes a bit more work on the front end to get a character up and running, and CoC being CoC, you might want to have a backup already made.
I played older editions and remember it being crunchy too. I want to say the most current edition runs a bit lighter but haven't played.
I have played one offs of Delta Green (game world allows playing anytime from the 1920s to present day, mixing the mythos with government conspiracies) via ARC' PUblishing's free quick start rules. I liked it enough that I'm intending to check out some of its supplements, particularly the ones that provides a more diverse or nuanced set of careers (for example the capacities of a FBI, ATF, or U.S. Marshal operational employee have some overlap but there are critical differences, and "special operator" in the military could mean a whole slough of things) and guidance for sustained campaigns.
The rules are fast and loose, I believe a loosening of the current CoC rules and GUMSHOE, but they really work as mechanics that don't get in the way of atmosphere/narrative work, and the most important mechanic (stability/sanity) is really well thought out but also really simple, truly elegant (and I'd say more in tune with how the brain addresses trauma than the more pulpy "gibbering madness" of Call of Cthulhu ... I think they're Cthulhu now tried to go this way but got bogged down in hyper violence and more 80s takes on trauma). I'm thinking of adapting the mechanic into my D&D campaign (if only DDB would let me customize the Bond field...).
I think you could even chuck all the government speak and just run a regular mythos type campaign with the rules, you just wouldn't have much use for a lot of the supporting material (but even those could likely be adopted from deep state personnel to traditional investigators). Anyway, as I said, the quick start rules are free through the usual outlets that provide their digital editions.
Oh, I'd say the game is so simple, I don't think you'd really need a VTT or any Beyond type support. Easily Zoomed, or just played over the phone, and share screen or text for maps/handouts, and just let the GM do the rolling if the players don't want to. Actually I think playing the game over phone including a few different messaging apps, might actually make it more immersive than any VTT could make possible.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If one wants an in depth look at the game, and it's models, there's no better fellow than Seth Skorkowsky.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQs8-UJ7IHsrzhQ-OQOYBmg
I’ve never read a Lovecraft story or actually played Call of Cthulhu, so I can’t comment on the racism and sexism stuff, but I do like his ideas about the Mythos in general. I also know other girls and people of color who do play CoC and have no problem with it.
Do you know what the word parochialism means? I can look it up, but I learn better when people tell me stuff.
Thank you. I was thinking Catholic school but I knew that wasn’t what the writer meant.
Oh cool
Anyway, idk enough about the subject to agree or disagree with the writer, but one of the RPGs I play is Onyx Path’s Scion, and I’m looking forward to the Mythos sourcebook for Scion.
I'm surprised this thread hasn't been moved elsewhere to the "not D&D section" yet; but cool this discussion is here as we move to American Halloween season.
I won't refight Lovecraft's legacy regarding race, though I think it's good that new readers or people curious about "the lore" of the mythos are made aware that it's a thing. I will say one of the cooler consequences of that re-appraisal is you have some pretty fun fiction that re-engages the mythos through contemporary sensibilities and understandings of cultural history. "David Wong"'s (quotes because pseudonym) John Dies at the End books, while not explicitly evocative of the mythos, definitely updates the "cosmic horror" "weird fiction" genre to late capitalism present day America, a world Lovecraft would probably find horrific even without threats from beyond. And they're funny. Think Evil Dead meets Clerks, with a little Bill and Ted heart, do the right thing motivation. The bulk of Nick Mamatas's fiction output is present day or late twentieth century engagement with Lovecraft legacy, including the political critiques. He's also a great literary mimic, so if you want to see a rewrite of Call of Cthulhu where the only people standing between humanity's fragile place in the cosmos and entropic destruction is the Beat Generation as chronicled by Jack Kerouac, there's Move Underground. If you want to move up a decade and see Hunter S. Thompson see the connection between the mythos and the Nixon Presidential campaign, there's The Damned Highway. If you want to see the horror of a fiction writer with mythos sensibilities after getting churned through the meat grinder of an academic MFA fiction writing program, see the work of Brian Evenson. Lastly, of course there's HBO's Lovecraft Country, which probably wouldn't exist had the racial politics question never been put out there. It was a novel prior to the TV series (neither to be confused with the Chaoism Lovecraft Country supplement to their CoC).
Delta Green does a admirable job mapping the mythos from the Raid on Innsmouth through twentieth century history to present day America in its world building, though you need an almost professional link analysis skillset to really grok the entirety, so it might be a bit niche.
And while I agree with Lyxan that it's more in sync with the design to play D&D games aspiring to epic ness and horror is difficult for D&D, I think horror can be addressed in 5e through the tiers of play. Lvl 1-4 monster of the week style or challenges stemming from comporably powered humanoids in league with bigger horrific forces. 5-10 cult conspiracies and bigger monster hunts, as the fight begins to have more consequences. 11-16 Big Bads revealed and contended. 17-20, the characters have been staring into the abyss so long it's time for the reflective moment to pivot to really break the characters' world. I think you'd have to have a table agree to adopt some fear and panic mechanics (what does happen when you soil oneself in full plate?), and also stylistically move to a mindset where "run away" may be the best option (regardless of how uncomfortable you may be in your disadvantaged full plate), until running no longer an option and you're just stuck having to confront the void for the reckoning or the deliverance. Like I said, I like how DG's CoC "lite" approach to stability draws on bond mechanics. There's already a space for bonds on a character sheet, and that could be developed, you'd need house rules to allow the bond draws. (in DG, you have bonds like family, employment, etc. to basically "hold it together" in the face of either violent or cosmic trauma, you spend bonds, once they're out, you approach your breaking point faster ... assuming you survive, you're encouraged to role play "rebuilding" your bonds and establishing new bonds to grow your resiliency. I haven't played with it too much on the adaptation, but I think it speaks to some of the psychologizing you see in Critical Role etc. on the role playing end. ... it definitely highlights D&D as a team sport, or allows more enforcement of that fact.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Sandy Peterson, the designer of Call of Cthulhu made a 5e supplement. Has anyone played it, and is it worth buying? The book is more expensive than a typical 5e book, but it is four hundred pages long. I am a fan of Lovecraft's work and ideas, even if he was a terrible person.
https://petersengames.com/the-games-shop/cthulhu-mythos-for-5e/
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I disagree. Have you ever read IT, or Salem's Lot? Kinda light spoilers ahead, so I put them in a spoiler. If you haven't read those books, give them a try. They are excellent at crossing the streams of horror and adventure.
IT is certainly a horror novel. It is pretty scary, but the characters aren't exactly powerless in it. The story is about them discovering their power so that they can fight IT, which is certainly up there with Lovecraftian entities. Salem's Lot is less scary, but is still sorta a horror story and yet the characters definitely have power. Stranger Things is another example of a well done suspense/adventure story where the protagonists don't feel powerless.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Haven't played it. Reviews seem mostly positive, but mostly written from a Sandy Petersen fan or early kickstarter backer perspective. Did see one review on reddit that went into as much depth as some of the better positive reviews, same writing qualities, but their take was more ambivalent/bordering on problematic. Everyone says the books are gorgeous products, but how well they play, it seemed the most critical was that the material is really all high CR, and some of the character options read very over powered. That writer was also disappointed with the SAN and dread mechanics, where others were really hyping them as an improvement over the DMG.
What I don't know is whether this is simply porting the same book he wrote for Pathfinder or a new take with lessons learned from that edition.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Helpful, thanks.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I like Gothic stuff like World of Darkness but I don’t think I’d like real horror. I don’t mind if my character dies tragically or even loses one of her loved ones (or both), but I want her sacrifice to mean something.
Based on what you just told me I don’t think I’d like Lovecraft’s stories. My friend plays CoC but from what she says her campaign sounds kind of like D&D in the 1920s with Mythos creatures instead of dragons.
I had a CoC character who caught a glimpse of the monster once. I said he turned around and left, abandoning the party. Then I said he walked back to the train station with a white-knuckle grip on the revolver in his pocket. Then, I said, if no-one impeded him, he took the milk train back to New York and caught the next steamer to Shanghai, where he developed an opium habit and died of an overdose in an alley two years later.
After they finished the rest of the adventure, everyone else agreed that that character basically won Call of Cthulhu.
It's an acquired taste.
Interesting. I don't think that any of Lovecrafts stories end well, but I have his complete works and if I have spare time I can check. I think a well done D&D horror game is doable, you would have to involve more discovery and exploration than blasting. (Though a light hearted D&D vs Cthulhu sounds fun, but not very horrorish.) Think At the Mountains of Madness. I think that you could do a lower leveled Lovecraftian campaign, with the combat sections fighting mostly cultists and such, and restricting access to magic. I think that Lovecraftian horror in D&D is difficult, but doable and would require player buy in.
Thanks for the review of the book. From what I've heard, the player options are pretty bad, but the monsters and other stuff are good.
Those are all awesome stories, and I feel the urge to learn how to play a new rpg system.....
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
If you guys like Cthulhu stuff you should defo check out the Mythos sourcebook for Onyx Path’s Scion when it comes out.
I like the dedication to H.P. Lovecraft, a true master of SPaG.
Chilling kinda vibe.