Old Man Henerson

Another thing I just thought of, while we may or may not be able to know the thoughts and motives of the elder gods, their physical actions are clear enough for us to see. Perhaps over time we could find patterns to their actions, and therefor, ways to potentially push them back.

Yeah. They eventually learned it from the Cymri, and of course, technology marches on.

At the same time, the Cymri of the time of the Normans, were masters of the long bow; preforming feats of archery that were feared and greatly desired by the English and the Normans. They were so good infarct that the way to determine a battle was by how many archers you had on your side, and if they were even, the victor was determined by how many Welsh archers they had. A Cymri there for, should have a much higher cultural skill in archery than a common archer of the English or Normans.

That is a cool story concept, neither the players nor the cultists know what the elder gods are up to, though the PCs want to stop them and the cultists want to gain power from them. In the game I am working on, the BBEG is a cosmic planet eating abomination that needs to feed off the Earth's life force to survive. However, instead of eating the world out right, it let its four children take control over the earth so that hey could learn to feed on it, like a mother cheetah teaching her cubs to hunt with the prey it caught. Once the children are feed, it will return to destroy the planet totally. The PCs, who are descendants of the humans who fled to Mars before the invasion, then have gain enough psychic power to fight and destroy these beings before the earth is lost.

Hi. I am not a Pendragon player, but I am a big fan of Arthurian legends. I was wondering if any of you have ever run a campaign involving the myth where it says Arthur will return to save Britain in its darkest hour. How would you guys go about running such a campaign?

Yeah. Playing and having a good time should always be the most important thing GMs and PCs focus on, even if you have to bend the rules a bit to achieve it. You are also right that movies are rather incapable of showing the true scope of cosmic horrors and powers, but that is what imagination is for!😁 That is a very interesting idea, though I am not sure how you would implement it. How would you do it?

Well, there you have it. I wonder if they each poked at each other's books, like if Howard asked if cthulhu was really that strong, and Lovecraft asked how Connan could stand seeing so many monsters and not go insane. Call of Cthulhu It does seem much more suited for one shot adventures. It is sort of surprising that it became so popular when you have to tone down the monsters like that to even run a campaign. Do most people play Call of Cthulhu as a one shot? Yeah, I will see how the story goes,. The end goal for my game is for the PCs to gain superhuman psychic powers by taking the soul stones the children of the planet water who has ravaged the earth and gain enough power to face it head on in psychic combat. Perhaps I will make a book about it or make a log on this site. Thanks again for all the help. I will send you an email address and pick up the chart then. Thanks for everything. 😁

The danger sense power might be a better option if you don't want the PCs to know about the ambush well in advance.

It is a wonder that Lovecraft made friends with Howard in the first place, I cannot imagine a more incompatible pair. I digress that Cthulhu and horror is not my cup of tea. the idea for this thread came more from the thoughts I have been having about the mythos for a while now, especially since I have been writing a book and making a campaign that deals with these concepts. Lovecraft would honestly faint at the mere thought of a world like ours. By the book's description, Cthulhu's can barely take a boat to the face when the stars are right, how could he possibly stand up to nuclear weapons, railguns lasers, or antimatter? If that is the case, who is to say that Nyarlathotep and the rest of the old one gang can withstand the power of advanced technology, who is even to say that they are the only powers in the universe?

Interesting. I did not know any of that. To tell the truth, I have not really followed the development of RPGs That much. The more you know. I would love that very much. Thank you.

At first, I wanted to include the mythos monsters like Cthulhu and others into my game I am working on, especialy since it was heavily inspired by the End Time monograph, but I decided against it as I thought it would be far more creative for me to make my own mythos beings. The three main deities I have planed for the PCs to fight are still very much inspired by the mythos however, and are based on Cthulhu, The King in Yellow, and Nyarlathotep. As for the scarryness of these beings, my players and I have never done anything remotely related to Cthulhu, and are rather lax on the seriousness of them, so we would be very okay with fighting them in a game.

Yeah. My PCs are good for anything, so there should not be too much trouble. I just need to finish up all my monsters, companions, bosses and bang out the plot so we can get started. And Don't worry, there will be twists, lots of them. 😎

Yeah. It would make sense not to advertise for your competition. Things have changed a lot though since then, now every one and their dog has Cthulhu running around in their game. Thanks for the tip. The SIZ chart in the book can be a bit hard to read at times, so this will be a lot of help in the future. Thanks a lot!👍

Don't worry, I will not disappoint. 😉

I had heard of stuff like that a while ago. They even put Cthulhu into a old, D&D list of gods, though I think they got in trouble for it and had to remove him. I actually just did that today or yesterday making a monster. I took most of the stats for a giant squid and modified it into a flying squid monster. Now that you mention it, I also remember reading a blurb somewhere in the Big Golden Book about how you could use the mutation powers to make a bunch of new monsters from existing animals. Right now I am trying to make a creature by taking the stats from the ghost, and a while ago I transferred the Yellow mold from D&D bestiary into BRP stats. So from now on, I think I will try to modify animals and monsters to create my new set of monsters.

Yeah. I have no plans running a Cthulhu game, I just wanted to see if any one else had ever thought of such a thought about the mythos. I do like elements of the mythos though, as you have seen in my posts, as I think that fighting beings like Cthulhu sounds like one of the most cool and epic battles one could have in an RPG. I have never thought of that before. I will have to look into those books some time. Thanks for the tip.

I plan for the planet eater to be the big finale of the game, so there probably won't be anything else after that, otherwise I would be worried about what came next. I always respect a fellow fan of Yoda. 👍 Yeah, there is a lot to unlearn from D&D, more than I ever imagined. It is actually pretty surprising because my experience with D&D has been rather casual, yet there is so much of it that is now embedded into my perception of rpgs. I will learn though, as you said, and with each game I will get better and better. Thanks again for all your advice. I am actually quite surprised that this post has generated so many comments as it was my first post.

Or a senile old man looking for his lawn gnomes. 😉

Good to know, thanks a lot. I had planed on setting up 2 or 3 check points in the game I was working on so that my PCs could move up their power level as the story progressed and their powers would be sufficient to take on the cosmic planet eater I have planed for the end of the game. Like you said, a more organic approach might be the best option. I think I see it now. Enemies should have lowish skills to keep the PCs alive, and mass engagements should kept far away from the players, unless they have a significant advantage, (Like the high ground LOL) Fighting smart and tactically sounds like the best option for this game. Thanks for the all the advice. I will be sure to craft lots of incentives into the story, lest I end up a star on r/rpg horror stories. 😅

Yeah. Cthulhu is not for me, I was just curious if anyone else had thought of the same idea. Also, good job spotting my handle, 😉 I found that story absolutely hilarious, especially the irony of Henderson and co. doping a yacht onto of a meeting of Cthulhu worshipers. I much prefer how William Hope Hodgson portrayed the cosmic horrors in his book The Night Land, they were quite fearsome, but theoretically killable, and were actively fought against by the powers of good. As for RPGs, I sprung for the Big Golden Book a few years ago, but I am only just getting around to trying to put something significant together. I liked the idea of having a simple set of rules that could be applied to any story I could imagine. Now, however, I am finding that such freedom comes at the cost of hand crafting most of monsters for my story.

I guess that I have never liked the pessimistic tone of Lovecraft. 😕 To me, things like Cthulhu represent the ultimate enemy to defeat , something to be feared for sure, but not to cower and shrink away from. The monsters of Lovecraft are the ultimate darkness, and to uphold the light, even in the face of such overwhelming odds just speaks to me in such a profound way.

Yeah. I suppose that would be the case, when you are that powerful, thugs tent to just run away anyway. I am still a bit fuzzy on how the different power levels work. From the description the book gave, I thought that superhuman level meant you could go toe to toe with Cthulhu or more powerful beings. As a side note, do you think it is possible to change the campaign's power level mid way through the story? Like say if your PCs gained some kind of mega power up and you wanted them to face greater enemies? I will be sure to remember that for the future. Alternatively, you could give the PCs access to better weapons like automatic weapons, grenades, or even a tank to even the odds. You are also right that D&D loves ambush attacks. It would certainly be better to focus less on ambushes unless it was important. As an author, I will have to watch my self for Mary Sue characters in the game, It is so tempting to rail road the story like that. It is even tempting turn my PCs into Mary Sues as the story progresses so that they can complete my plot ideas for me. 😅

Hi guys, I have had this idea for a long time now, and I have searched all over the internet, but I have never really found anyone talking about it. What if the Mythos was not actually all it was made out to be? What if, while certainly powerful cosmic beings, the great old ones were not all powerful. What if all the talk the cultists make about the Elder gods being so powerful and invincible, was just that, all talk; cleverly designed to demoralize their enemies. What do you guys think about this idea? Would it make a great game?

Thanks for the advice Nick, and thanks to all you guys for the help. I feel a lot more confident about running this system now. Now all I have to do is generate the base form of my monsters, finish up the plot, and I am ready to go.

I have to admire the groundedness this game has to offer in regards to combat, though I think it could get in the way if you want to make some cosmic Elder God fighting superhero when a common thug can bring you down with a lucky role. Also, how would you handle a situation where the PCs have to fight a horde of enemies? Give them a backup army of redshirts? Not to mention how in Solar Wars -- The Last Straw, the princess can now fly through space using unlimited MarySue power!