mrph | [RPG] Explaining Cthulhu to people who don't normally play it...

I'm sure that someone's already written this list, so I'll probably go google after I've posted this one, but I've been thinking about running some modern Call of Cthulhu.

In turn, that got me thinking about why Cthulhu isn't much like some other games - and what players need to be aware of...

So, without further ado, here's version 0.1 of my list. I'm trying to avoid mythos spoilers, so most of this is intentionally generic.

Humans are fragile. Combat is dangerous and guns are very good at killing people. Experienced characters don't suddenly become bulletproof, either.
If you're the only thing standing between the bad guys and victory, you're actually doing pretty well. It means you're successful and determined enough to have temporarily blocked their plans somehow. This isn't the default situation - until you know what they're planning, you're in no position to stop them, after all.
Investigators don't get to live long and peaceful lives. You get killed, you go mad... perhaps you even embrace the darkness, change sides and turn against your own kind. At best, you might retire to a troubled life filled with sedatives and horrific dreams. That's the deal. You fight, you die... but other people get to live a better life because you're putting yourself in the line of fire, letting them live a quiet life without knowing what's really going on...
Prevention is better than cure. If you don't let them do something truly awful, you don't have to worry about staying alive and sane long enough to confront and undo it.
Deadlines are not always flexible. The stars are not your friends. The calendar doesn't like you much, either. Bad things tend to be scheduled for particular dates, usually festivals or nights when the stars are properly aligned. If you're not ready before those dates arrive, the bad guys are going to start the party without you...
Your character is not mentally indestructible. Things out there can send them crazy. Knowledge can be a bad thing. Seeing... things... can be catastrophic. Cthulhu isn't a shoot-'em-up. As a player, you might be used to facing eldritch horrors in other games... but your character doesn't live in a world where that happens. At least not as far as they know. And every little piece of evidence that the world isn't what they think it is... well, that's one more spike hammered through the ragged remains of their sanity. Sometimes you can beat back the demons, but still... it's a little unsettling, isn't it?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

of which I only remember two atm: Do not split the party and do not read anything. The third might have been "don't go down the cellar".

Do not split the party

is a classic bit of advice, though secretly I always thought it was to make the life of the person running the adventure easier as that way you haev everyone is the same place. :-)

make the life of the person running the adventure easier

Well, yes, it helps that too, but also, some sub-rules:

Splitting the party is bad for you, the player, because:

You'll have less people to help when you cock it up.
You'll get less face-time with the GM.
Unless you're playing d20 Modern, Spycraft or one of the modern-day WoD variants, your character is highly unlikley to have useful/in-range telecommunications and any half-sane GM will pounce on information transmission to the other half of the party and forbid it, which renders most of the advantages of splitting the party pointless.
No really, people in the other half of the party cannot know what you're doing unless they're, like, only in the next room.
See points 3 and 4 above. And fucking pay attention this time. A correctly run party-split will invariably result in at least one of the party halves wasting their time because the other half finds some information that they cannot communicate.

All very true.

Of course a split party is better than one character going off on their own all the time. I had one player who liked to do this a lot. They didn't last long. :-)

Unless you're playing d20 Modern, Spycraft or one of the modern-day WoD variants, your character is highly unlikley to have useful/in-range telecommunications and any half-sane GM will pounce on information transmission to the other half of the party and forbid it, which renders most of the advantages of splitting the party pointless.

Amber is one of the few games where this works well. Give them the family trump deck, so they can contact each other and/or summon each other from the far ends of reality.

Then use it to mess with their heads at appropriate moments. :)

There is another way:

1) Split the party. The party may be large and diverse with players having multiple characters. Some academic based, others action based. Therefore academic based characters might not encounter cultists/combat.

2) Read some of the books you find. Many have clues that help keep you ahead of the plot. This is a good thing (TM).

3) Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Especially with a combat build character; Cellars may hold plot items/information. See point two about the plot.

May I suggest looking up Delta Green? Modern day CoC meets X-files. It is a fantastic resource (and it's companion "supplement" "Delta Green: Countdown" has huge amounts of UK-specific stuff).

The humour section on that website (Section 8) is definately worth a read, but make sure that your players read This article in particular, and then explain that it is only half tongue in cheek...

From a metagaming aspect your character has to want to investigate the mystery that appears. Lovecraft's work is generally about alienation and the search for meaning in a world where meaning is twisted from the sane to, shall we say, a different point of view.

Scenarios usually finish with players achieving some form of resolution/holding action or losing quite badly. Cthulhu is a game where if you don't find the plot, the plot finds you. By that time it may be all too late.

Ensuring that the characters have motivations to actually follow the plot is very important. When I GM, I usually follow character generation with the question "Tell me why your character would want to..." [investigate a horror | get a reward | assist a panicked community | rule an opposing land | win a fair maiden's hand] and let the players each come up with their own reason.

Otherwise a few smart-alec players' characters will just bugger off and fiddle about with bits of game mechanics that they find interesting (building a lab, getting a particular vehicle or weapon etc).

guns are very good at killing people

TBH, as someone who enjoys target shooting in real life, has a target range at the bottom of my garden, and encourages my friends to partake, I've always had a bit of a problem with this.

Guns at close range (1-2 metres) wielded by anyone are usually deadly, yes.

Guns at anything much further away wielded by anyone who doesn't practice for a couple of hours at least once a month, are pretty much always going to miss. There are only a few real instant-kill zones on a mammal, and unless you hit the upper head, throat or mid/upper chest, you are almost certainly NOT going to die immediately. In my experience it takes an untrained person most of an afternoon to be able to consistently hit a 20cm target at 5 metres with an air pistol (and I'm talking about just getting the pellet on the paper, not near the bullseye or anything), so it would be longer and less accurate with a proper firearm with proper recoil and such.

Unless actually declared by the player, a journalist (typical COC character) is not the type of person who naturally practices with firearms.

Now the problem with this for RPGs is twofold. Firstly, the mechanics of "called shots" are an utter pain in the arse (a leg shot is usually non-deadly for several days... unless you hit an artery). Secondly, the mechanics of "infected wounds" are an even bigger pain in the arse.

Hence most sane RPGs take a view of hit points, and when you're out, you're dead or unconcious. But be clear; this is fictional and solely for the purpose of keeping the pace of the game going. In real life you are highly unlikely to die within hours, let alone immediately, if someone keeps shooting you in the leg or shoulder. If you are firing a period firearm which is difficult to reload, you will most likely get walloped by your opponent long before the next projectile is in the chamber.

Ergo whilst COC is more life-like with regard to firearms than many other RPGs, I'd dispute that it is still quite a long way off anything that could be called "realistic". Guns in untrained hands at non-point-blank ranges rarely hit their target, let alone kill anything. If they're not firing a splash-damage weapon (eg. shotgun) then an untrained gunman at medium or long distance represents very little risk.

I once had a group who played Cthulhu in a completely daft fashion, so I switched to Paranoia, where they became sensible.

I preferred Paranoia. It's the RPG equivalent of ISIHAC, with the GM as Humph...

[RPG] Explaining Cthulhu to people who don't normally play it...

Three rules of CoC

Re: Three rules of CoC

Don't cross the streams- err... I mean split the party

Re: Don't cross the streams- err... I mean split the party

Re: Don't cross the streams- err... I mean split the party

Re: Three rules of CoC

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