Stormkhan Cogg of Pavis

I'm sorry but I need to play in a game where I can call out ... "Size of An Azathoth!" Makes me think of a Bill Bailey joke: "I was the kind of kid who wondered why the magician didn't say something silly like ... Size of a chaffinch!" Says my age when I remember the cartoon, from The Banana Splits.

Thing is, the magic system was designed with the source material in mind; it's rare for the good guys to use magic while the bad guys do. That's the, ah, nature of the bad guys in the Mythos, not an RPG. This might be an issue with those used to games - usually fantasy - where magic is flung around with nary a care. Horror games limit who can do magic, how they do it ... and at what cost to their soul or spirit. Magic Points are to use in the game mechanics, POW is part of the characters psyche.

My own personal take on your situational questions ... 1) If a player failed with some social skill - let's say Charme - another player had a go. Which leads to almost guaranteed success. I did stop some conversations and had the NPC get mad/annoyed or similar, but it still feels a bit weird. How do you guys handle NPC interaction? A) It depends on who is present during the interaction. If Investigator 1 enters the store and tries a social roll but fails, they can either push it (creating another chance, changing approach by, say, trying a different skill etc.) and take the penalty or shrug and let Investigator 2 enter the room and try one ... at a penalty? Think of it as the target not knowing the relationship between investigators; they may be strangers, they may be colleagues, but there's no apparent 'team'. If both a present when the first approach is made, subconsciously the target assumes they are working to a common goal. After all, in a group one tends to think that the one who speaks first is the leader. There wouldn't be a third chance though ... 2) Time. Some things take time for example searching for documents in the library or something. Does this have some kind of impact or can the game? I guess they need to eat here and there and sometimes their employer gets annoyed, but in general does it affect anything? For example would players be allowed to just rest for as long as it takes for them to heal up or study a spell for weeks if there is no pressure from the employer? A) You need to strike a fine balance between reality and playing the 'story'. After all, all investigators will take baths, go to the toilet, sleep and eat etc. Unless this ... action is integral to the story moving forward, just take it as assumed to have happened but with no incident. Gloss over time-outs for research by filling in with "Well, it's taken you six weeks of intensive research - including the time taken to clear your office desk of overdue paperwork and keep your employer happy ... for the moment!" To introduce a certain element of both realism and play/entertainment, you could turn the employer into a minor NPC who's getting increasingly frustrated with the investigators absences. Even cops who are tasked with an investigation are required to regularly report in, do a bit of paperwork then slope off while the Captain's not looking! If you think your players would prefer it, add a week or two to study/rest to represent dealing with mundane job chores. 3) Character progress. I guess in every group there are more active and less active players. Which leads to faster skill enhancement by the more active players and more active players tend to also be more specific in regards of what they are doing which leads to more skills being used. So do you somehow interfere with skill leveling in the sense that PCs don't drift too far apart in regards of skill? If 3 adventures are played and one player is very active and gets 10 used skills while another only used 4 successfully the first one will be so much more skilled across the board (30 VS 9 potential enhancements). Which leads to the active player being even more active because most his skills are kinda high. I'm not sure if it's the case but I expect the more introverted players to get frustrated by that. A) I'm afraid this a problem which deals with players rather than investigators. It's not common for a 'team' of investigators to let one do all the work (earning the experience) while the others just tag along. This is why that while playing the adventure is like a movie, there is no 'star'. Everyone has a part to play equally. If everyone doesn't get a fair chance to play, they will get fed up and probably leave. In this situation, it's probably one player who tends to dominate the action. They may come up with great ideas, manage to perform all the right stunts, know all the right things to say but they can't be allowed to throw the rest of the team into shade. Rather than gag (metaphorically) the pushy one, put them into a situation where they are alone to do what they do well. Then, turn to the other players and see what they are going to do while Peter Perfect is doing his stuff. Make sure you go round the table, giving everyone a chance to speak. The core point about this problem isn't a character progressing further than the others - that's a symptom of the real trouble; one player is dominating the play, even if it's not nasty or with the other players consent. The essential thing to bear in mind that a character shouldn't be more active because they've got all the killer skills but because that character, if they were that damn good, would be on their own and not part of the team. They might become mentors of the others, letting the rest of the team perform but acting as back-up if anything goes wrong. Always bear in mind that this is a game being played for the entertainment of all the players, including the Keeper. Consider game mechanics as aiding that entertainment. If they don't just take a pass and think of an alternative way of making it fun.

Well, the darkness is definitely covering and concealing.

The Ithaca Auto & Burglar:

The Lancaster Howdah pistols ...

There's a great You Tube channel called Forgotten Weapons available for the Investigator with an eye on 'personal protection'. While it must be noted that many of the interesting ones were custom or rare, I couldn't help thinking that the ... er ... "well heeled" Investigator might consider the Lancaster Howdah pistols (dated from Victorian times for the military and big game hunter) to the U.S. Auto Bandits which available from the 20's up to the early '40s were, in effect, shop-bought sawn-off shotguns! Keepers should always limit because of their rarity and state and country legislation, but might give investigators an interesting option. Seems to me that existing combat/weapon rules could easily be applied.

Visualise it like this: A cultist is trying to spear you. Successful dodging means you're twisting and leaning out of the way - dodging the blows. If you decide to drop to the ground (or you accidentally fall, then a successful dodge means you're rolling out of the way. You're at a disadvantage, sure, but you don't want to be pinned!

When it comes to mystery scenarios, I think the best is when one NPC is murdered but not connected to the Mythos theme: "Yeah, so I poisoned the mad old man. But look at what's going to be summoned - I think there's bigger issues at stake rather than my motives!"

This is such a great idea. Trouble is I've run out of the Color out of Space.

That's statistics for you. 😉

When it comes to episodic or short Call of Cthulhu adventures, what is your preference for content? What ticks the boxes for you as a player or Keeper when a session ends? A real action adventure! Mainly combat, plenty of chases, some investigation, little research or digging. "Hey - we may've died but look how many cultists we took out!" The Mystery. Mainly investigation, plenty of research, some combat, a chase or two. "We uncovered that plot and put a spanner in the works for them! Oh, and Fred died but hey ho." Uncovering doom. Some research, investigation into that research, the chase, deadly combat. "Once we entered that temple, we'd sealed our fate! The Earth is in trouble now!" Digging deep. A lot of research (and background) with handouts galore, investigation with conclusions, a chase and survivable combat. "We discovered the ancient city and it's peoples fate. They tried to stop us taking away that knowledge but we've made it back!" My own preference, as investigator and Keeper is the mystery. It makes for an entertaining session or three, leaves players with a sense of achievement and involves most elements of the game. With campaigns it is possible to have a mix of all; with type 3. usually the concluding 'episode'. The reason why the Action Adventure doesn't 'do it' for me is that I came from AD&D to RQ2, enjoying the deeper skill use of characters. I love CoC because combat is short and relatively realistic (within the bounds of a game) and so it encourages thought and planning among players. What does anyone else think? What ... style of adventure d'you like?

My ol' RQ2 referee used to describe the Dodge roll as "being lucky enough to not be in the way of a hit".

I think much of HPL's work suffers for it's exposition. The stories, and concepts, are grand but it's amazing how his characters turn into narrators of ancient history. Look at how much information is garnered from the bas reliefs on the walls of the ctiy 'in the mountains of madness'. Wonderful history lesson, studied, photographed then sketched, detailing the history of The Elder Things, only to be remembered in detail back home. Recall the amount of minute description in The Shadow Out of Time, as the hapless victim recalls his dreams. It was like HPL had so much background to impart that he used his characters to read out from his notes rather than recount their experiences. At least Call of Cthulhu was more 'natural' in the storytelling, leaving it up to the reader to make conclusions.

Just "discovered" this thread. While I love most of HPL's work, my top three favourites are The Shunned House, The Haunter of The Dark and The Lurking Fear. The first because it shows how much research can be done - and in fact should be done - before an investigation. The second because the horror is implied rather than shown. Finally, the third is a grand introduction to the world of a CoC Investigator.

Interesting to note, Tindalos, that in dark ages Ireland one of the largest denominations of coin, the cumal was the equivalent value of one milch cow. In fact, cows were used widely as a value in terms of wealth.

There's a couple of great productions of this work on You Tube. I can highly recommend 19th Nocturne Boulevard's HPL productions but none yet on Dexter Ward.

Since this is the season, I thought I'd put this out here. A classic HPL story, just for the time of year!

In all honesty, I'm in the middle of a project just on this subject. Paper Chase was the first and I'm sure there are plenty of Keepers with their own creations. Thing is, a 'solo' (as in one Investigator - one Keeper) is very in keeping with HPL as a whole. They weren't stories of teams but of individuals discovering the terror. Of course The Dunwich Horror is the exception.

Wow, has this discussion taken a turn. The way I see it now, after taking in all the above input, is ... In the initial character creation, the skill of Occult might be considered to be 'Mythos Lite' i.e. some knowledge but flawed and vague. It also can act as a lead-in for a good Keeper. Let's not forget that it can be used to create a red herring for characters leading them into the direction of non-Mythos realms of thought but, advisedly, it can help. After all, the skill Occult can 'remind' investigators that certain days of the year (e.g. Walpurgisnacht) has 'always been associated with the Otherworld and the dead, especially the harmful spirits. And in HPL's own writings, such 'celebrations' figure large, vide The Dunwich Horror, The Festival. If you don't use a skill then, apart from the initial point investment, it won't develop. If the investigator you envisage holds Occult in contempt but in character template needs to allocate points to it, then allocate none or the minimum indicated. In game terms, it can't be taken as Mythos-lite, i.e. SAN loss avoiding knowledge gain because use of Occult doesn't really, directly, involve Mythos subjects. Occult relates to non-Mythos ... er ... myths. Should there be a connection then it will be vague. E.G. Occult studies have recorded the idea of ghouls as spirits or even people who thrive in cemeteries, living off of corpses, but it doesn't arm you with the Mythos concept of the ghoul. The nature of The Occult has changed since the days of HPL, as has the concept of horror. What was, at the time of writing, psychologically terrifying may no longer be. All writing, especially set in a time past of the readers, must be taken within context of its setting. What was scary then isn't now. That said, if we play investigators of the 1920s/30s then we must play them as being scared of things in that time. It's called role playing. Many will have experience of the horrors of Great War trenches - and losing SAN (!) in the process. Hardened to gore, they'd still freak out at seeing a corpse rise! We, on the other hand, mayn't have experienced real warfare but have seen too many zombie movies so might approach animated corpses with a little more stoicism. All in all, I see BRP as being a realistic mechanics-wise, game system but in a fictional world. The SAN rules may not be realistic as in real life but they (mostly) work in the fictional ... er ... real world.

Remastered, perhaps, but it's just as easy - and free - to watch on You Tube.

Point taken, Numinti, but ... Er. The characters in the game CoC are meant to reflect 'real life' characters or professions. The Occult literally means hidden knowledge. Some characters will have this 'hidden knowledge' e.g. a professor in anthropology might know a bit, someone interested in ghosts might know a bit, a fringe journalist might know a bit. Frankly, the title of the skill might be "paranormal knowledge". The thing is, a player might consider "Occult" as a waste of points - so be it. But this skill is useful for the player character to get some hint or insight from the Keeper. " If there's no obvious use for a skill or the uses are too niche or watered down so there's no value for points (ie, the athletics skills) then in the real world, nobody takes them." Um. People pick up skills as we grow, learn, experience. I, myself, am not expert or qualified occultist but after over 40 years of reading stuff, experiencing some very weird events, listening to accounts and attending conferences, I might be justified in having 'occult' as a skill. I didn't chose it as part of my academic career. Thing is, people play role-playing games not to win but to have fun. As you said. There is fun in being a fully fleshed out character, not a Grimm-style Mythos hunter. And having the skill Occult is part of that character potential. Does it 'waste' points? Well, that all depends on your approach to character creation. Arts/Crafts (photography) in the creation of a Private Investigator character makes sense (for a divorce-chasing gumshoe perhaps) but you don't have to add buckets of points in this and, with Keeper consent, you can change the skill emphasis.

True.

This sounds to me, from personal, real experience to be fair. IN REAL LIFE I've experienced huge physical pain but i haven't - and cannot - experience the pain of childbirth. I can sympathise but I cannot experience. I LOVE the concept of 'cuvade'.

Fair point.