kafka

Imagination and handouts created the day of the adventure...so lots of imagination.

SIgh, I know but shipping and exchange rate kills me.

Most of my adventures do involve Cryptids of some sort...however the backstory is that these were entities that were touched by the Mythos in some way.

Playing a historical CoC campaign that will eventually utilize Cthulhu & Clockwork set in the early 1600s which merges 7th Sea with a historical milieu. However, the campaign has players split over time...so I can bring in other elements/times but the same basic archetype still will emerge.

If I cannot find my receipt...as I have had to change emails. Can I send you a picture of me holding the book in a number of different places?

Absolutely that is understood. Will Chaosium be participating in the Bits and Mortar program. As I prefer to buy this at my FGLS...shipping from Chaosium is a killer.

1930s tech is rather good for Traveller. However, I am looking for something that would indeed capture that Aliens/Bladerunner vibe but at the same time be Hard SF. I found RoH to be very good but it did not capture that Hard SF as much as it did the Alaister Reynolds feel. When I say hard, I think of the Asimov robot trilogy (for its time), and much of late 60s & 1970s SF (except when Star Wars obliterated that tradition), parts of Clarke, Benford, Outcasts, or as stated 2300AD. I like the idea of sending people out there with essentially one way tickets due to cryo-sleep never really have a life outside of being spacers going on 5-20 year "missions" and some sort of STL colonization program going on simultaneously. So one might have sparcely populated human colonies out there. But, space is largely barren and hostile. Which is not to say there lots of things that cannot be explained. Aliens or xenomorphs would be of an animal intelligence or slightly above. However, very completely alien. There would be ruins of precursor civilizations that could never be explained. So, I see tech as a fusion...there is not enough hi-tech manufacturing hubs out there...that tech has to be brought in from the Core worlds. So it is much easier to adopt lower tech standards/designs out on the colonies with an infusion of spacey tech eg Ground cars powered by fusion. But the basic design could be very 20/20st century.

Not sure that I want to go the full WoD or After the Vampire Wars route...rather horrors should be more subtle. Such as, I ran a game where investigators where First Nations policemen who had imprisoned a demon 66 years ago. Now one of the officers was infected by the demon unbeknownst to their comrades. I never want to spell out who the demon was.

I think they are still recovering from the loss 7e engendered with its kickstarter...so they are squeezing every penny.

Nameless Horrors was truly excellent. Blood Brothers (1 & 2) was truly horrible (although good for a laugh). I was wondering if the 7e will see some more non-Mythos horror scenarios/sourcebooks. As most of my homebrew adventures have involved these (with just a suggestion of the Mythos taint behind them), I am beginning to run out of material. Will we likely see more non-Mythos horror or is that more the realm of the Esoterrorists? I always liked the premise of the X-Files where legends turn out to be part of a larger conspiracy. That said, week after week, of Mythos horrors can kill a group (literally and figuratively) -- so I am looking for supernatural scenarios in which players get the cosmic horror kick but without the terrible SAN loss that might go with it. And, I would want these to remain in the realm of a purist CoC format not pulp.

When are we likely to see 7e hit the shops...I missed the kickstarter but I purchased the PDFs from Drivethroughrpg but I still like to read with old fashioned paper. So when can we expect to see this on the shelves of our FGLS or at least retailed through Amazon.ca?

Ok...it is sleeping but I still would want to see a lavishing beautiful sourcebook dealing with the CR universe which could have fast forward element of Icarus Rising within it. Essentially, slow boats (STL) sent out from Earth to colonize nearby systems. A discovery of an artifact beyond Pluto's orbit allows for FTL but not without a cost. And, what mankind finds out beyond 50 ly radius is lots of dead worlds. Beyond that strange aliens. And, beyond that the unknown. A very nice hard compact SF universe. With lots of ruins where the Old Ones once resided. Most of the 1920s scenarios could be retooled for this purpose but with added peril like Vacc Suit leaks and meteor storms along with countless other SF tropes. The secret would be keep it very hard...

Is Clockwork & Chivalry Core Rulebook part of Bricks and Clicks, as I purchased a copy via my FGLS and would not mind having the PDF backup? I used your webform twice to ask the same question and got no reply. If it is not, no problem, it is an excellent product and I have very much enjoyed digesting it..

I loved Cthulhu Rising and really wanted to see this flushed out with realistic artwork and placed in a Traveller 2300AD universe. I am really surprised that Mongoose did not make an attempt to snap him up and pull him over when the monographs could easily translated into Traveller 2D6 mechanic and T5 gives us a SAN mechanic... His website went dead after a while...do we know if he is still writing for CR or did all his energy go into River of Heaven?

Quatermass certainly has his place in the alternate Cthulhu Mythos busting organizations, like the BBC drama, The Invasion...they remain classic cosy catastrophes, especially, for Atomic Age Cthulhu - one should check The Quatermass Memoirs.

More interesting is the set of caves under the sinkhole that come to a stop where there is an ancient locked oaken door. What to find out more...join my Cthulhu group, as they search for the key...

The name's kafka, well actually Franz but I take the most famous of Franzes and make it my own. I live in the Czech Republic and have lived in Canada...but largely call Europe my home. I started with BRP when a picked up a 3rd Edition (Games Workshop) Call of Cthulhu rulebook from a local comic shop. I had a vague inkling about what Cthulhu was about from reading White Dwarf articles and more importantly adventures. When I found the rulebook really did not support what I was thinking about - kinda investigative Indiana Jones horror. The rulebook sat on my shelf and was eventually sold. But, all the while Cthulhu gnawed at me, as I read all of Lovecraft's works and many of his contempories and later hacks. I found the horror aspect most intriguing. Eventually, I bought a 5.5e rulebook, a number of supplements from Chaosium. Found there a very playable game. But, still was lacking. Found the Unspeakable Oath in my local gaming shop - immediately, I found something that was right. Bought other Pagan supplements and found what Cthulhu was missing was contained there within. Then I came across Delta Green...and there was something I liked but at the same time did not like. Thus began my move toward making Cthulhu my own exploration of horror. I think Pagan and Pelgrane do it very well. Although, I find something not quite right about DG. Worlds of Cthulhu brought me back to loving BRP after a brief flirt with d20 Cthulhu. Now, I am completely floored by Cthulhu Rising and the possible application of BRP to a wider set of games beyond Cthulhu. This, in turn, has triggered my earlier passion for an Indiana Jones investigative horror and numerous other possibilities. Now, onto my gaming history, like most began with D&D and was wowed by it back in 1981. Next game was Cthulhu in about 1983. Quickly followed by Traveller in 1985. Stayed with Traveller to the present day. Left (A)D&D with 2e over what I perceived to be fundamental changes to the rules and did not like those changes. Played all sorts of games from 1981 to present day...but the ones that are closest to my heart are AD&D 1e, Traveller and Cthulhu but not necessarily in that order. Best system is BRP, second best is GUMSHOE then comes a 2d6. No longer really interested fantasy either as a reading pastime nor as a gaming experience. Mainly interested in Non Fiction hence my games are wanting always to be grounded in the Real World with Larger than Life characters which is why I think I keep coming back to BRP.

What I am suggesting is that Chaosium get back into the business of doing adult games not teen games with adult cautionary warnings. I think any topic can be handled in a mature manner and still being respectful to the fact that there are younger members of the audience reading the material. This is something that Pelgrane and to a lesser extent Pagan (which does delve into the dark and adult) has mastered. It would not necessarily put them into competition but widen the playing field. Licenses and monographs do that to a certain extent but I think people tend to follow the leader and if Chaosium was seen to be to be a company that handles mature topics in a horror genre rather than another Magic Book or another rendition of a Classic Adventure. For instance, if the future Gaslight supplement would deal more with Victorian Holmesia and delve more into the darker aspects - the Empire, Condition of Children, even Sexuality...it would be a more rounded and successful product. GURPS & BRP are somewhat in symbiotic relationship - indeed they support another mode of play but also they compete for the same gaming dollar. Now, if the new Delta Green would come out as a GURPS product - I would buy it because I want new Delta Green products. However, the problem is that the new development would sort of make the old products seem quaint. So, if there is to be a rival to D&D then one of the other major companies must go. Now, White Wolf is not going anywhere thanks to their partnership with CCP. D&D/Pathfinder will probably always have a place on most gaming shelves (although, I have not a set of rules since AD&D 1e). So that leaves a bloated middle. BRP has done some great things and is a superior form of play but it is still complex but not nearly as much as GURPS. So, by knocking GURPS out...my point is that it would advance up the totem pole as the possible contender D&D/Pathfinder as the second game of choice. For all other rivals are below BRP & GURPS.

BRP has the unfortunate association with Chaosium. Which for many new gamers Chaosium is a legacy company not capable of producing shiny new products that is overlay with a complicated mechanic. If you look at the BRP book, you will see what they mean. We converts need to see the forest and trees... And, the second aspect is that Chaosium is associated with Call of Cthulhu and not horror in general or even cosmic horror. Much as I love Call of Cthulhu, and I really do, it has been a while since Chaosium did really something beautiful with the product line. And, I think beauty is the right word as where Pathfinder & D+D beats us it is in the aesthetic sense. Chaosium has relied on secondary tier companies like Pagan or C7 to pick up the slack. Now, many game stores will not risk picking up a boutique product like Bumps in the Night (ordering 4-6 copies to negate the high postage charge and spreading the cost) nor are they likely to invest heavily in World War Cthulhu until they see there is a market for it. Rather go with the safe distributor that either the grognards (us) will buy everything that Chaosium produces or have a company that they can return things back to the distributor should it not sell (and Chaosium one such company). Also, Chaosium is missing where the horror is... I pick any of Pelgrane products especially Fear Itself but even the Esoterrorist books - I can feel the fear. The way they have structured Call of Cthulhu and even monographs is not induce fear. "The only emotion in the world is fear, and the oldest fear is fear of the unknown" by making every supplement/adventure a Cthulhu monster rather a serial killer. Similarly, exploring aspects of horror that are innate - say fear of fire - maybe there is GOO lurking behind the arson attacks in an investigator's neighborhood or maybe it is a drug crazed youth gang. But, the feeling of being tied up in a burning house by some pyromaniacs would induce more fear than any alien from Formant. Sadly, it is those rare adventures that push the envelope we grognards thrive upon in story but the new ones seem to lack the same punch - was it because they were better written or was because the mechanic was pushed aside for the story. Sometimes, I think that BRP/CoC suffers from dice rolling rather than encouraging the story to run its course. And, I know that is the province of the Keeper but BRP never makes this explicit unlike say White Wolf games. Similarly, exercises in purple pose like Goodman's Cthulhu line fall flat. So, if BRP is to survive it must gain a sense of the aesthetic or mood of players out there capture that and also move toward a more narrativist game structure. I think that is why Trail is doing so well. We may disagree about the mechanic (how it gets there) but they have managed to get the right feeling. And, it must also deal a death knell to GURPS which like it or not is BRP's biggest competitor as it is still too small to take on the likes of D+D or Pathfinder.

I run an irregular game with a bunch of people set in the Modern Day. Initially, they are bunch of wacked amateurs who the police call upon to do their work when the police are stumped or do not want to devote resources to a particular operation. Example of the first would be a kidnapping and an example of the second would be a lost cat. Just something to keep public relations going. The group cannot tell anyone has either it would harm their reputations in their day jobs (i.e. professors, librarians, etc.) or the police have a long rap sheet on them (and/or just a combination of both). Naturally, one of them is computer geek, another a granny who is "psychic", another single mother, another who is a professor in paleo linguistics, etc. This loose group is called: The Losers by the police and a local community newspaper dedicated in telling their story. I was inspired in part by the old TV show Seeing Things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Things_%28TV_series%29 & ) The Mythos angle comes in when they are called in my the Chief of Police who needs scapegoats or something that cannot be traced back to them. ANd, thus begins the long decent into madness. Done these merely as one-shots...but could develop it into a campaign without any problems. I have also done a Modern Horror of a downed airplane passenger/survivor complement...and before you say it...I have never watched Lost. The initial fight for just survival bonds the group together.

Think Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew would be a great way to get new and young gamers into Cthulhu - save the SAN penalty would make them effectively one shots which goes against bringing new players in. I should think the material is rather timeless, if played with new gamers, as their minds are relatively unpolluted by: those things...as the players get older each mystery they uncover leads them to a conclusion that there is malignant cult orchestrating many of these mysteries...as they probe the cult and the players get older - would be the time to unleash the cosmic horror. For me, it is always the question of when to start to introduce players to Cthulhu - in their 20s everyone has the maturity to handle it. In the earlier years, it is harder so Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew might just be the vehicle.

Well, the cover was the best part of the book's art...being Cheeky that is... However, the rules I found were solid yet I would have expected more...as I did get more even from the small sections in Worlds of Cthulhu...I guess if I want something realistic I will have to wait for BRP Western akin the BRP Rome (C7's product). Where you have a solid historical setting with the Mythos as an option. For the thing that I love about Cthulhu is that one plays a highly realistic game and need never really call the Mythos for what they are.

Might sound silly but where is the Combat Actions Chart...I like flowcharts and always found RPGs were bulky in their presentation of combat...reflecting their heritage as Wargames...coming from the LARP tradition myself.

Personally, I like to mix and match different languages...but as I am sometimes in a quite a competent and linguistical diverse group (especially PbeM) - I use Drow http://www.grey-company.org/Maerdyn/resources/translator/index.cgi?text=&tiny=1〈=Drow[/HTML] Usually throws most Cthulhu players for a loop. Also really simulates what an arcane text might actually sound like.

Yes and that is what annoys me so much. That Chaosium's writing has not suffered (well save that excursion to Bermuda Triangle) too much. They are industry standard. Which is why I think the deep brooding art or at least good horror art is not present raises my eyebrows. As the argument of affordability - well, I could go on Deviantart or similar sites and find countless artists waiting to be discovered by Chaosium who could turn out WIN or what we are asking about not to mention China or Russia is a huge potential to keep costs down. Yes, I loved the Peterson's guides...but if you have to B&W (to save printing costs) 5.6e and Unseen Masters is some of what I like plus TUO.