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

[mrph]

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.

1. Humans are fragile. Combat is dangerous and guns are very good at killing people. Experienced characters don't suddenly become bulletproof, either.
2. 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.
3. 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...
4. 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.
5. 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...
6. 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?

Comments

Re: Three rules of CoC

[sadaprilsky.livejournal.com]

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. :-)

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

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

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:

1. You'll have less people to help when you cock it up.
   
2. You'll get less face-time with the GM.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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.

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

[sadaprilsky.livejournal.com]

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. :-)

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

[mrph.livejournal.com]

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. :)