Spence

I will be getting a rulebook regardless of whether I decide to play/run the game.  I am a RPG'aholic and just have to buy the new shiny RPG's

Thanks for all the inputs everyone, it has given me a lot to think on.

7 minutes ago, hkokko said:

heh - probably not. Too much detailed stuff now available - too many grognards to argue about it :-)  What you can do is what I mostly do - ignore it in the my campaign's and players context :-) YGWV. I read it, am influenced by it but do not feel strait jacketed by it (I may be in strait jacket for other things) - I read (some of /most of ) it for inspiration and collect it for fun. Glorantha is a world - these histories are like others - they are viewpoints and many times written for specific readers by the victors and the writer's cannot be omniscient - they have been usually been paid by somebody (the victor's field marshal) and are working in tight deadline with limited and unreliable sources. 

Oh, I understand it is an extensive world.  But there are old worlds written with the idea that there are people that want to be able to retool to their own world and there are games that go out of their way to throw up road blocks. "What? Giggle-man is mentioned 2947 times?  Gah."   I seem to remember (though I may be wrong, it has been a long time) that even the included gods were close enough to myth to be easily compared.  It made it easy to bring in new players and have a sense of what was happening. 

So I have been reading the forum threads on and off and have a could questions about it that I either haven’t found specifically answered or if they were my forum’fu has failed me.

As I understand it the new RQG is reaching back to the old game before AH.   The game where magic was mostly Rune Magic.  For my group, we pretty much envisioned the old classical world when we played RQ.  Hoplites, galleys, bronze weapons, the Gods were accessible and instead of the mobile artillery team wizards of other games, magic was inscribed on the item or onto the PC themselves via runes.  Taking inspiration from the old movies.  It has been way too many years for me to remember exactly. 

I also liked the vagueness of the world and history since that allowed the GM maximum freedom.  Our last vestiges of interest died with the concrete straitjacket of the later years “histories” and “events”.  Great for the authors personal campaign, but death on everyone else.  

So a couple questions:

Is magic going to return the old concepts of Rune Magic?

Will the “known history” throttle back to be less stifling and specific.  Far vaguer to allow for the players to actually explore the great unknown and the GM to actually be creative?

I'm hoping that RQG will give us plenty of world information without going too far. 

I like to run in worlds that give us a decently detailed framework, but leave things vague enough that player can actually do things and affect the world.   We left old RQ when the world story got far too detailed.  

Leave the edges fuzzy so the PC's can have an unknown and the GM's can fill in the blanks.

Leave some wonder and discovery out there....

@Cosmic55.  Refined?  A great way to put it.  Yes, 7th edition is more of a refinement than an actual update even if it does add/change a few items.

For myself I really like the overall changes.   For the last few years earlier CoC seemed to have a few indefinable quirks that made it not fun.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but found myself using Trail of Cthulhu (and other GUMSHOE variants) more than any other horror system. 

CoC 7th however "feels" much better in game-play, at least to me.  For some reason new scenario ideas are just leaping out of out of the books and into my prep notes.  I had run an intro for my gaming group and they really loved it.  We prefer CoC 7th for the traditional one shot horror and I cannot express how wonderful Pulp Cthulhu (PC) is for those times you want to have a longer lasting game.   They are very different games, but really showcase the flexibility of the base system.

As for Luck.  In CoC 7th it really doesn't impact things too much if you use it.  At least it hasn't for us. 

The combat tweaks are not having that big of an impact either.   In CoC if the investigators land themselves in an actual fight, they have usually made a bad mistake and are not long for the world.  For a game where we actually want to live (or stay sane enough) to have follow on stories, PC looks like the way to go. 

One thing I always wondered about CoC in general was why they bothered with a Character Development system at all.   Personally as a Keeper or a Player, I've never really seen characters that last long term.  It just isn't CoC'ish.  But for the new Pulp, it will be handy. 

The two biggest changes, treating Characteristics in the same format as everything else and the addition of degrees of success/failure makes a Keepers job just that little bit easier.   It adds a small injection of degree.

All in all, 7th really isn't that different from the previous versions I've played/run.  Mostly cosmetic or normalizing "house rules" we had used anyway, a few actual changes plus a very nice presentation.   With the big bonus of it being extremely easy to use materiel from other editions.

For me, CoC 7th and Pulp Cthulhu are both big wins. 

It's in the Cult of Chaos Chaos Library.

You could up the ante by making the PC have to cooperate and ally with NAZI's.   Just the dynamic of having to work with what you thought was the most detestable evil would be an intense game.

Index cards and notes.  Secret notes. 

I like to use index cards to pass secret instructions to individual players.  Like EricW said, Instead of telling them they have paranoia, pass them a card saying that they are hearing noises like someone is following them.  When they look ask for the spot hidden.

I sometimes pass cards to players that say nothing. 

Pass a card to a player asking them to roll d100 in secret and write the result on the card and pass it back.  I can then nod, say thank you and do nothing.  That really gets the player paranoia boiling....

Never underestimate the power of the secret Keepers note!

Yes I have, and my advice is "Let them".   

If it is only known by the Keeper and the player it can be a lot of fun, as they can them play as a spy in the ranks.    

At best is is a great game, at worst all it means is they get to make a new PC sooner. 

My guess is they have been buffed up a little.  One common use of pre-gens is to introduce new players and a little edge can help them last a tiny bit longer.  And any little bit of help to delay a new players first characters time of death/insanity would be helpful. 

To be blunt, I would not run ATTH for a con.  I've been running it for a group at my FLGS and we are just about ready for the final scenes of Episode 3.  Some has to do with missed weekends due to summer and events.  But our sessions tend to run in the 5 hour range.  If you get good role players who really get into the game the sessions will run longer and cover less ground making the campaign run longer overall.  

There is a small mountain of short CoC adventures/one-shots available.  I'd try one of them. 

It is extremely easy to update CoC 6th to CoC 7th, so you have literally reams of CoC RPG goodness to utilize.  BRP is CoC's really really close cousin. 

"Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game" is from Arc Dream Publishing

"The Laundry" is from Cubical 7.

For more Pulpy games with possible combat or heavy physical action it is Call of Cthulhu all the way.  And now with 7th edition it is perfect!

For low action straight up investigation I tend to lean toward GUMSHOE’s investigation system. 

But I will tell you straight up, if you want a good “doing things” resolution system, stick with CoC. 

For myself I am very hindered using PDF’s as books, so my CoC is delayed until I can get hardcopies in hand.  And for me, Pulp Cthulhu is the major delay. 

A clarification,  when I mention a map, it is not a battlemap.  By map I refer to either a general town map or a sketched layout map.  Basically the same type maps as you find in the Keepers Guides two scenarios.

9 hours ago, Jwfortune said:

I am just re-reading the Amidst the Ancient Trees scenario and with all of the Sanity rolls, it seems highly likely at least one of the investigators will go temporarily insane.  Is this common for a COC scenario?

 

 

8 hours ago, mvincent said:

Yup.

Absolutely

Also, if your players have never played a CoC type RPG before.  I personally suggest using pre-generated player characters.  Some players may not realize that a high casualty rate (insanity/death) is normal for the Horror genre and can get miffed when they pour a lot of effort and time into the "perfect character" only to have them die or snap in the first scenario. 

Handouts and theater of the mind. 

It is far easier to build tension and horror by narrative.  Giving the players a defined map actually seems to remove some of the suspense and apprehension since they can solidly anchor their vision. 

Not having a map in front of them to back up memory fans a players uncertainty.  

Ah Ha! 

A monogram for Halloween.  Looks like I have my plan..

3 hours ago, dce said:

Glad you liked it

In terms of supplements which have 7e stats it's also worth mentioning that last year I released a free PDF upgrade pack which took an old Chaosium title ("In The Shadows) from the 1990s and gave it brand new -- and for the first time legible -- handouts plus included notes and stat blocks which upgraded its three scenarios to 7e. You can get this free upgrade pack from RPGNow.  I am hoping to release another one of these upgrade packs later this year.

 

Dean (from Adelaide)

You are the Cthulhu Reborn free update packs?  Excellent work!  I have two of them and they are both well done and very welcome  from us that don't have very much free time. 

Thank you

2 minutes ago, carpocratian said:

I don't know.  I won't shop with them anymore, for various reasons (very customer unfriendly, etc.).  I'm definitely not going to order something through them, since they mark most of their stuff up above MSRP.

I'll just wait until the game is easily available for online ordering and stick with the sixth edition in the meantime.  If it can't be easily obtained without going through third-parties (like the FLGS), my players won't buy it or play it, anyway, since most of them like to have a copy of the versions they are using.  That probably means waiting for it to hit Amazon or eBay.

Bummer.  My FLGS is pretty good and a great place to game. 

That said.  If you aren't going through a FLGS, I'd order direct from Chaosium as soon as they get physical stock.  Chaosium has always done a good job for me on direct orders. 

22 minutes ago, carpocratian said:

When and where can it be ordered online, then?  My FLGSs only carry Pathfinder and D&D these days.

While they use a locally accessible distributor for their higher volume games (D&D 5th, Pathfinder, Fate, Star Wars), my FLGS generally uses ACD or Alliance for the rest.  They will be stocking CoC as soon as they (the distributors) indicate stock.  Do you know who you FLGS uses?

14 hours ago, Mike M said:

Retail on sale date is next Monday 22nd August.

Cool, FLGS dutifully poked

So, any word if these have actually hit distribution?

Cool, ATfH is going great, and it would be fantastic for the FLGS to have books on the shelf....

Yup

I tend to think of the 'stans as Middle East with India as the "left side" of "Asia".

So tonight we begin running Episode Two at my FLGS. 

Currently, we have two full tables going.  Tonight's session will kick off with chargen to replace the non-survivors from Episode One. 

All in all a great time.