Goodman Games

Hi,

Do you plan to have a CoC index for the boards, so we can giggle and squeal like little girls and gossip about the books before you've even released a product?

OK, thanks, bye.

- Pee-to-the-Ogre

Ogrepuppy, suck it up man! You're embarrassing us he-men, women haters!

(If Coc gets a forum before Castles & Crusades I'll pout like a two-year old. )

Seriously, what makes CoC more enjoyable than an old-fashioned dungeon crawl?

* spluttering *

Have--have you played Call of Cthulhu...?

It took all of 3 BRP dice rolls (and, as I recall, a dimensional shambler) for me to fall in love with CoC, lo that fateful spring afternoon in the glorious year 1994, just myself and a close friend who was the Keeper...and although I'll dally with another trollopy game system here and there, none has my heartstrings like my beloved CoC.

Dunno.....the combination of Houdini, the flappers, Prohibition, rum-runners...hideous things from another dimension...conspiracies and monsters-of-the-week before the X-Files really took hold...it was a magical and terrifying time....

Ogrepuppy said it better than I would.

Yeah. I love DCCs. I love writing them, running them, and playing them.
But Call of Cthulhu is just about perfection in a bucket. A very scary bucket. Full of win.

...and if we can't have a special section of the boards (fair enough), can we at least have a hot-link somewhere on page one to all of Ogrepuppy's posts, which will effectively be the same thing.


And what makes CoC more enjoyable to me, is that there are no umpteen differenct senses that different player races may or may not have, or a kajillion feats/spells/powers & options with which the players can muck up* a simple scene (a paladin's detect good springs to mind)...

You've got normal folks, armed with not-nearly-enough, facing weird and alien threats and human treachery. As a GM, I love being able to focus on setting a scene for the players to explore, and focusing on what is perceived (and, significantly, not perceived) which is usually what hooks my players. If I describe something odd as cloaked in deep shadow, it challenges the players to decide to get closer or not... simply that. And that moment in the right context, gets players fired up, whereas the dwarf responding with "Hey, I have Darkvision" kills any mood.

Maybe it's just my shortcomings showing, but I can never quite get a mysterious or unsettling or creepy mood going in D&D, where the attitude boils down to "I'm sure we can deal with it; lemme check my bag of holding..." CoC has a more relatable emotional and physical experience to it.

Don't get me wrong: D&D is great. It's a party, with swords and magic.

CoC is just that much greater.... It's a hair's breadth away from what you know.

__________
* I use the term 'muck up' with affection. The best games are often the ones where the players inadvertantly drop-kick the plot into terra incognita. But sometimes, that same suite of abilities can squash suspence like a bug.

Ouch.

Point taken.

I'd say I feel besmirched, sir, if only I knew what a smirch was...

Ogrepuppy, no, I've never played CoC. I have read a handfull of Lovecraft's tales as well as Clark Ashton Smith's. I like them and have rolled some of that creepiness into C&C game play, i.e. -- DCC #2 comes to mind.

Gnomeboy, you mentioned that the rules of the game (dwarf's darkvision for example) can ruin this creepy mood. Nah, don't ever let the game's rules get in the way of the gamer's fun. I suppose that is one of the main reason I dropped 3.X rule set and dived head long into Castles & Crusades.

You're joking, right? I have a t-shirt that says 'WWOPD?' And another that says 'WWOPP?'



I hear you, man, but the problem predates 3.x and, well, the whole group would have to make the dive... y'know what I mean? I like to play 'fast-and-lose' with how things work to make a scene better. I've tried to monkey around with infra/dark-vision and I catch flack. I had a game where in the first session, I introduced a bunch of NPC's (like a whole village, basically) and the one dude that walked up out of the shadows on a moonless night (with a good reason for being in those shadows, I'll point out) was the villain of the piece. The only NPC the paladin decided to use Detect Evil on? That guy. Atmospheric, not as intended... Totally squashed any sense of surprise? Yes.

But Call of Cthulhu is so striped down, in terms of rules and setting, that I can build something up, without interference. I can move the pieces on the board so much more elegantly.

So, Jedi, if I ever find myself in your neck of the woods, as it were, maybe you can show me some of this C&C stuff first hand. I think I'd love it.

Ask and ye shall receive...

Not long ago Jeff sent me a copy of HPLHS' song "Harley Got Devoured by the Undead." Fearfully prescient, that man.

//H

I think you'd have fun. Try Castles & Crusades if you ever get to a conference. I'm told folks run this product at such. I've not been to a Con yet so I'm going on what others say. C&C is, to me, what AD&D should have become in the late 80’s. It has the old school blood coursing through a more streamlined game mechanic.

I do understand the "rules" problem goes back before 3rd edition. In the case of the paladin you mention, when I have ran a game that is not a dungeon crawl, but is to have intrigue in it I make the paladin’s "detect evil" ability switch over to something akin to the Jedi's ability to detect danger before it happens. This allows the paladin to retain a vital ability, but instead of hunting for every evil NPC, it gives the paladin the ability to never be surprised since he automatically "knows" an attack is about to occur. I'll also allow the paladin to sense evil automatically when he enters a forbidden temple to an evil god even if the party is unaware of where they are.

I'll inform the player before we pick a new adventure that the paladin would not be able to detect evil, but instead has that Jedi sense (or I suppose one could say Spiderman's senses too) due to the nature of the module. My players have been a fairly even lot. We are trying to have fun and if an ability or a spell that is normally used will ruin the module, they will forbear using it as long as I replace the stricken ability with something else for that module.

[Edit: I've toyed with making this the standard paladin ability as a house rule. It really adds to the flavor of the game and keeps the players guessing or attempting to have their spellcasters use up spell slots for detect spells. Also, trying to cast a spell in the presence of others is not a way to "impress friends and win allies."]

Thems are some good house rule idears. Consider those nicked.

And this is all totally off-topic. Which just justifies my new +1 ability...

[We now return you to your regularly scheduled Call of Cthulhu discussion, already in progress]