Travern

What plans does Chaosium have for publishing shorter-length campaigns for 7th edition Call of Cthulhu? There appears to be significant demand for this category, but there's little to choose from. With the success of the Starter Set and the boost from Critical Role, new CoC Keepers are popping up on the web to ask for advice on which Chaosium title to choose as their first campaign. Unfortunately, the current selection isn't particularly beginner friendly. Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express are extremely demanding for a first outing, both in terms of their time commitment and their complexity. The newly announced Flotsam and Jetsam campaign for organized play may be what they're looking for, once it's out. The Two-Headed Serpent is better for pulp campaigns, and Ripples from Carcosa more suited for those who want the King in Yellow rather than the Cthulhu Mythos. Ideally, one would like to suggest campaigns along the lines of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Spawn of Azathoth, Unseen Masters, or the out-of-print The Brotherhood of the Beast. (Newcomers are wary about converting from previous editions, however, and the older campaigns don't necessarily mesh with contemporary play.) Would Chaosium consider publishing new campaigns along those lines or updating classic ones as they did with MoN?

This sounds like a Session 0 problem. Are your players creating their characters separately? It doesn't sound as though anyone discussed with one another exactly how this assortment of disparate PCs will band together to fight the Mythos. Are they relying on you to provide the inciting cause that brings them together? Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are too well known to count as minor historical figures. While I could see a one-shot/convention scenario of the Wild Bunch vs. Yig as a "Down Darker Trails" scenario, such notable PCs may add more complications than they're worth. For starters, how is a fugitive from the law like the Sundance Kid supposed to travel to NYC and then all over the globe?

I've got to say, I liked The Boys better when it was called Marshall Law. Either way, for that kind of over-the-top satire, I think that a more storytelling-focused RPG rules system would be better, like FATE or maybe the PBTA Masks: A New Generation. Psi-World was like that—an interesting premise held back by a cumbersome, overdetermined rules system. I could see a streamlined version translated to BRP working out very well, though.

Interesting—Howard the Duck was definitely the model for my duck, right down to the definite article for a middle name.

I agree that HQ could probably handle a better range of superheroics, particularly Golden Age and Silver Age comics, but the BRP-based Superworld has the better toolset to drill down deep into worldbuilding. As we've discussed in another thread, the big question is where to set it. I'd argue that it does a better job of adapting modern superheroes, such as the CW's "Arrowverse", Alan Moore's Watchmen, or, obviously, George R. R. Martin's Wildcards, than most competing systems. (I was also interested to find that @Fergo113 had adapted it for the MMORPG City of Heroes.) Moreover, a new edition of Superworld would need a serious expansion of lore to set it apart from its competitors, some of whom have had literally decades to work on their IP, and I suspect Chaosium would prefer to own its unique setting rather than license one.

Yes, Cthulhu Mythos IP is a tricky state of affairs. It's easy to underestimate the extent of August Derleth's creative DNA, for instance (especially since Sandy Petersen appreciated how much of it could in turn be worked into gaming material for CoC). The simplest course of action is to stick to HPL's stories and other weird tales in the public domain, building on them and adding new takes. Kenneth Hite's ENnie–nominated Hideous Creatures is a terrific resource for brainstorming ideas on how to de-familiarize Mythos creatures. One could always create one's own Great Old Ones and eldritch entities for work published through the Miskatonic Repository—but of course only after throughly reading the "Rights You Grant to OBS and Chaosium" section of the Miskatonic Repository Community Content Agreement.

Except you're asking for a completely different kind of document than a book's copyright acknowledgments, one that could potentially backfire on them. As you can see from the acknowledgments, the Frank Belknap Long's "The Hounds of Tindalos" is still under copyright in the US (which is 95 years from the date of publication for all works published between 1924 and 1963*), so no, not without the permission of Long's estate. * Edit: And if the copyright was renewed in that period; otherwise, it's only 28 years. This is why there are copyright researchers and lawyers.

The problem with such a published list is that it could put Chaosium on the hook if it should miss something IP element or another that's the property of a given author. "Your list didn't have so-and-so on it, so I assumed it would be OK to use!" (And there's also the issue of asking them to do free research.) The fact is, if you're not ready to invest in Daniel Harms's richly detailed Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, Wikipedia has accessible lists of Cthulhu Mythos Deities and Lesser Known Great Old Ones. Roll your Library Use skill!

Sure, I'd love to see it, along with more BRP rulebooks for other genres and settings. I suspect what held Superworld back originally was that it didn't have sufficiently evocative and distinctive background and lore, certainly not compared to the Marvel and D.C. superhero RPGs at the time, or even by the standards of Champions and Villains and Vigilantes. If BRP Superworld were to be released—or even a HeroQuest version—it would need more of an overhaul for its canon than its rules.

Basil Copper's The Great White Space (1974), where the concept originates, obviously, is still in print (and Amazon offers a Kindle version). Edit: Here's the plot summary from Amazon reviewer "Eclectic Reader"

I never had any conceptual trouble with it even though I moved over from D&D, though I find myself explaining the difference in CoC a lot lately. On the other hand, I'm more bothered by Delta Green's division between the Agent's Handbook (required for all the game rules not involving "The Unnatural") and the Handler's Guide (required for all the Unnatural-related game rules, plus a ton of lore that could have gone into a standalone volume).

Back on topic, it's impressive how well Jaffe's tactic paid off in the comments to the Youtube video, which have not been obsessing of HPL's character flaws but rather have concentrated on enjoying the actual play and asking for more Cthulhu-related Critical Role. Ordinarily I stay away from the font of verbal effluent that is YouTube's comment section, but this time, I took the plunge. Of the more than 2,800 remarks, observations, opinions, etc., only a few directly addressed that topic. When they did, they were generally quite evenhanded, e.g. "I appreciate that we can get past the typical arguments about Lovecraft being garbage and just enjoy some cosmic horror." That's considerably different from many mainstream discussions about HPL, which quickly ignite into flame wars between those who carry fandom's torch for him and those who want to break out the pitchforks. So kudos to Jaffe for preemptively defusing that UXB. The next question I have is, like so many Critical Role fans in the comments, what are the possibilities the group will stream another CoC session before Halloween?

Back in the day, horror fans' first impression of HPL was through his stories and the hero-worshipping that Arkham House encouraged. (Not that the self-styled "Granpa Cthulhu" wasn't a highly entertaining, congenial correspondent and a generous literary peer and mentor.) Thanks to the Internet, however, all his truly horrible opinions expressed in his letters, early political essays, and verse are now easily accessible. There's no way to sweep them under the rug, so the only recourse is to acknowledge them while still identifying what's worthwhile in his writing. Taliesin Jaffe was quite right in bringing this up from the start—not least since HPL had expressed appalling views that would have directly attacked Jaffe and Phil LaMarr if he had been there in person—and then proceeding to what's enjoyable about Call of Cthulhu.

The grittier, street-level series in the Wildstorm Universe such as Sleeper and Grifter may be a good match. The "widescreen" titles like The Authority and Planetary would be a harder fit, though. Alan Moore's Watchmen would of course be almost perfect, with only Dr. Manhattan unbalancing the superpowered game mechanics. The settings for his series 1963 and Terra Obscura would also be suitable. Grant Morrison's Zenith would likewise mesh well overall, with only a couple of overpowered exceptions. I wonder if Blizzard's Overwatch universe would be at all adaptable. Although the video game's frenetic fighting style obviously doesn't translate to pencil-and-dice roleplaying combat, its range of powers falls within Superworld's.

The planned 7th edition versions of Gaslight and Dreamlands haven't even been scheduled for publication yet, and the new Malleus Monstrorum is still being written. It's going to be a quite while before there's any pressure for a different edition of the basic rules. For gamers used to more frequent turnover of editions, especially those that require purchasing entirely new libraries, CoC will feel like a welcome change of pace.

This is interesting—CoC and Pathfinder switch positions depending on whether you're tallying the number of accounts or the number of campaigns (that is, more registered Pathfinder players play fewer games): Sure enough, this reflects a growing number of CoC players and declining interest in Pathfinder (while D&D's growth soared then dropped off): n.b. Roll20 has instituted a new method of counting, which could be throwing off the numbers to some degree.

This cover would be absolutely fine for a Pulp Cthulhu product. I liked the cover art to A Cold Fire Within well enough with regard to how it distinguished itself from the regular CoC product line, and similarly, the recent "Weird West" titles need a slightly different aesthetic approach. But if Gateways to Terror doesn't take a lighter approach to its Mythos adventures, then this cover is a poor fit. And to reiterate, I really like Chris Huth's art overall. You can see his work across multiple genres on his website, chrishuth.com, particularly his work on CoC 7th ed. and Night's Black Agents.

I'm only a longtime Chaosium customer, who finds this cover dissuading me from purchasing the book. Funnily enough, however, way back in sales & marketing for horror publishing, I have had to go toe-to-toe about art direction when it didn't embrace the genre. Pursuing new customers is a worthy goal, but not at the risk of turning off one's base. But if we're going to get into the details, Gateways to Terror has a uniformly bright color scheme presumably intended to "pop", with the dominant color of what you could call "Slimer green" contrasting against vivid violet-red of the artefact held by the figure on the left. This may help it stand out among recent arrivals on the FLGS shelves, but at the cost of clashing with other Chaosium titles. Lately, Chaosium's CoC titles have employed selectively bolder color design without sacrificing the overall dark tone. For instance, the new Berlin book's brighter hues are well balanced with its shadows to create the atmosphere of a decadent city of the 20s, and it still fits in with titles in the Secrets of… series. Breaking up the visual group character of a product line is bad idea, something that a lot of art directors need to be reminded of when they lose themselves in the designs of individual titles. Looking a cover mock-up in isolation is gravely limited compared with viewing it alongside other books on a shelf to see whether or not the design really works. Then there's issue of the somewhat cartoonish character design clashing with other Chaosium titles. The fleeing figures are arranged in a dynamic collective pose of "action", which draws the eye but works against setting a tone of fear. Their individual stances tumble out of the focal point of the cover design, and the portly detective-type mopping his brow is purely comic. This is reminiscent of Scooby-Doo, not Weird Tales. Compare this to the very well arranged figures on the Starter Set's cover, which convey fear while still drawing the eye with their poses—that's exactly the way to catch the attention of potentially new CoC buyers when it's placed among intro sets in other genres (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.), not by looking more like the competition. I must say, though, I really like the choice of type and title treatment. It recalls art deco design and plays off the art nouveau style of the traditional CoC logo much better than I would have imagined. It also looks like it will be legible at a distance, which is of key importance. I'll sign off with one lesson that took a long time to sink in with me: Lurid horror covers work. The kind of pre-code EC horror comics or Weird Tales covers pushing at the boundaries of good taste is the secret point of the horror genre. Yes, they get pushback from store buyers, along with the occasional tongue-clucking from parental groups, but once they're on the shelves, they're like magnets for their audience. Take a little risk, add a splash of blood.

That may work for players coming out of D&D or Mansions of Madness or for horror fans of Goosebumps rather than HPL. Otherwise, I find it to be too silly. The artist Chris Huth is quite capable of producing frightening Lovecraftian illustrations (check out his B&W work for Sentinel Hill Press), so I have to assume the responsibility lies with the art direction.

Back in the day, Sandy Petersen published a gruesome article in Different Worlds titled "Death Scenes: Aftermaths of Cthulhoid Kills". I can't remember if Chaosium ever reprinted it any of the supplements, but if not, then it would be a nice appendix to a new monster tome. It does indeed. Concocting these extensive lists for all of ToC's investigative skills drove Hite and the other authors half-mad, but the results are terrific.

Random tables hold less appeal for me. CoC has always taken a deliberate approach to the creation of its horrific creatures rather than an aleatory one (and Silent Legions and Nyarlathotep’s Printing Press already have that gaming style covered). I’d prefer more general advice and notes, with more lore à la Malleus Monstrorum, and especially reskinning/variant suggestions for the old standby creatures, such as ghouls and Deep Ones.

If Mongoose isn't willing to speak up at present, it sounds like they do not want to be a part of any public debate about Legend's OGL status. Incidentally, I note that although Mongoose continues to sell Legend and its supplements, they don't seem to have published anything in the line since 2015 (a French translation of Arms of Legend). Moreover, I recall buying a discount copy of their RQ-based Sláine RPG in late 2016 before it went out of print—which would have been some time before Mongoose removed the original RQ SRD download from their site (a zip of Word docs, not to be confused with the more extensive OGL PDFs). My guess is that some time after Stafford and the new management came on board at Chaosium, they approached Mongoose about Legend and came to some sort of compromise without going to court. While I have a copy of Legend and the RQII SRD, I'm beginning to think they're strictly collectors items.

@Jeff can answer questions only about Chaosium's intellectual property, and even then, there's going to be legalese involved. Opining about whether or not Mongoose's Legend is acceptably OGL could risk legal exposure to Chaosium if any of this—Lhankor Mhy forbid—winds up in court. Only Mongoose can publicly state that Legend is an original work and not derived from their RQII SRD (to which Chaosium then may, or may not, object).

Deepest condolences to Stafford's family, his friends, and Chaosium. This news is still sinking in with me, which is a sign of the breadth of his accomplishments and his interests and the reach of his influence and his inspiration. I vividly remember when I first picked up Cults of Terror how Stafford's Glorantha was working on a completely different plane than other fantasy RPGs at the time. With all due respect to Gygax* and Arneson, their RPG settings were a great goulash of Appendix N sources, but Stafford's original world felt like he was exploring an authentic but unknown mythology, one that merited serious consideration (inasmuch as one should take a game seriously). Add to that imagination, his talent for game design—Pendragon's adaptation of Arthurian cycle is the best of any literary topic out there —and his dedication to publishing made him an indispensable figure. Without his work, my interest in the hobby would have been stuck in the early stages and eventually dwindled away. Stafford's still accumulating interest on the debt I owe him. * As WoC's Mike Mearls puts it, "Gygax may have created the modern RPG, but Stafford defined it."