Soutti

Thank you, everyone for answering my questions. It was tremendously helpful. It was nice to be able to talk to people who have played in this world before. Most of the people I have talked to who are local say, "CoC, Yeah, heard of it. Sounds interesting." and that is as far as it goes.

TheEnclave, thanks. I definitely don't want to kill my characters outright or make them go insane, but I have told them that it is a real possibility in this game. They will all be rolling up backup characters just in case something happens. They can't just do anything and expect me to magically fix it. But I also don't like impossible situations. Feelings of helplessness is fine, actual helplessness is not. I do like the thought of some monsters being nigh invulnerable. But as you said, I need to always provide a way to deal with it. DethStrok9, I stumbled across your insanity video. Very well done!!! It was super helpful. The one session I ran someone went temporarily insane when they saw blood oozing from the wall. So I had them run away in panic, down the stairs, and into the opposing wall...briefly knocking them out, but no damage. Now, as they go deeper insane, it's going to be rooted somehow in that first incident. Also, one final question, when converting people from being Adventurers (like D&D style RPGs) to Investigators, how do you convince them that in a monster reveal, fleeing is a better option than combat?

Now to your other comments, it is only part of an illusion. Yes, I may be able to do an extra die of damage, and therefore the bad guys get an extra die of health, however, it is the options that really make it interesting and potentially more powerful and the reason you want to level up. The animal may ever only have claw claw bite, but I have several options to dealing with it. Those options can indeed give me a leg up or even a way to effectively deal with it that I didn't have before. At some level, our DM would have to invent arbitrary ways of dealing with how powerful he let us become. That's the part I never liked.

Thank you both for your responses. I might have to read them several times to get into my head that it's a different style of play. As it is, that is exactly why I wanted decided to become a Keeper. The system looked incredibly interesting, but I had no Keepers to game with. Does lead me to another question..."Stopping the horror" So if I can't kill it, then what are some ways to stop it? closing portals, dispelling magic...Do the players need to know a lot of magic for that, or are other elements such as kicking the sand ring apart or learning that the ritual bowl must be broken sufficient? I'm not wanting magic to be easy. Doesn't seem like it is supposed to be. Also, as a side rant, they shouldn't make The Haunting end in combat. If that is the most ran module, and a starter module...shouldn't start where they don't want you to go. </endrant>

I have a question about levelling monsters. If your campaign has been running for awhile, and your PCs have increased their skills a bit, how do you create monsters that are appropriate for the group? Coming from a level system, it was easy. But a skills based system is not as intuitive for me.