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Classic Call of Cthulhu Unboxing...plus more!


klecser

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In my opinion, Carl Sargent - the author of Night Below - was the best writer TSR/WotC ever had. 

I own but have never actually run Night Below, but other great products of Sargent's (all for the AD&D 2e era) are:

. Monster Mythology

. Greyhawk: From the Ashes boxed set

. Greyhawk: The Marklands

. Greyhawk: Iuz the Evil

. Greyhawk: Ivid the Undying (unpublished except for excerpts in Dragon magazine, but the complete book is widely available on the net... if I'm not mistaken, TSR themselves authorized its release back in the day)

 

Many grognards don't like what Sargent did to the Greyhawk timeline, but I think the grittiness and historical/political cohesiveness he brought to the setting are second to none. Just as importantly, what he wrote was a pleasure to read, which I can't say is true of all D&D material, regardless of era.

 

I look forward to seeing how you adapt the adventure to CoC. Many of the monsters in Night Below are great candidates for - and were obviously themselves inspired by - the Cthulhu mythos. 

 

 

Edited by TwiceBorn
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2 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

In my opinion, Carl Sargent - the author of Night Below - was the best writer TSR/WotC ever had. 

I own but have never actually run Night Below, but other great products of Sargent's (all for the AD&D 2e era) are:

. Monster Mythology

. Greyhawk: From the Ashes boxed set

. Greyhawk: The Marklands

. Greyhawk: Iuz the Evil

. Greyhawk: Ivid the Undying (unpublished except for excerpts in Dragon magazine, but the complete book is widely available on the net... if I'm not mistaken, TSR themselves authorized its release back in the day)

Thanks for the additional examples. I was reading this and thinking "this person thinks how I think about role-playing."

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Many grognards don't like what Sargent did to the Greyhawk timeline, but I think the grittiness and historical/political cohesiveness he brought to the setting are second to none. Just as importantly, what he wrote was a pleasure to read, which I can't say is true of all D&D material, regardless of era.

If Gygax didn't want it altered, he shouldn't have published it. Especially for a game intended to be creative. I've never understood the Gygax worship. Yes, he was involved in the creation of something great. A lot of nerds, young and old, treat him like he's some deity. And there are plenty of examples from his life that should make one question idolizing him. You ask a lot of nerds WHY they love him so much, and when you get past the standard "he wrote DND" (which is only partly true), most of the answers boil down to "because reasons" and "because I'm supposed to." He DMed in it's infancy, and he just wasn't very good at it, by modern standards. Everybody defends his style as being common with his players, but there are many modern gamers that would feel absolutely retched at his table. 

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I look forward to seeing how you adapt the adventure to CoC. Many of the monsters in Night Below are great candidates for - and were obviously themselves inspired by - the Cthulhu mythos. 

I think if I did it would be in putting the factions and NPCs into Mythos contexts first. And then make the environments less serious threats and more of exploration.  It screams Yig and Tsathogghua, perhaps, with Serpent People and Ghouls and replacing Aboleths with Dholes or sentient Shoggoths.

Edited by klecser
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3 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

In my opinion, Carl Sargent - the author of Night Below - was the best writer TSR/WotC ever had. 

I own but have never actually run Night Below, but other great products of Sargent's (all for the AD&D 2e era) are:

. Monster Mythology

. Greyhawk: From the Ashes boxed set

. Greyhawk: The Marklands

. Greyhawk: Iuz the Evil

. Greyhawk: Ivid the Undying (unpublished except for excerpts in Dragon magazine, but the complete book is widely available on the net... if I'm not mistaken, TSR themselves authorized its release back in the day)

 

Many grognards don't like what Sargent did to the Greyhawk timeline, but I think the grittiness and historical/political cohesiveness he brought to the setting are second to none. Just as importantly, what he wrote was a pleasure to read, which I can't say is true of all D&D material, regardless of era.

 

I look forward to seeing how you adapt the adventure to CoC. Many of the monsters in Night Below are great candidates for - and were obviously themselves inspired by - the Cthulhu mythos. 

 

 

These were the best products for 2e, Sargent is my personal favourite for D&D supplements. My friends and I still use these today for our 4e / 5e campaigns today and the books are a treat to read. 

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Glad to have found some like-minded Sargent fans on these boards.

And I agree with @klecser, for all that I respect Gygax's historical importance in the development and popularization of our hobby, I find his deification in some circles to be ridiculous (for all the reasons previously mentioned).

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I'm sorry to confess that the only book partially authored by Greg Stafford in my vast library is the BRP core book.

I would like to pick up Pendragon someday. Don't think I'm quite as interested in Runequest/Glorantha, in spite of all the great things I've heard about them.

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5 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

I'm sorry to confess that the only book partially authored by Greg Stafford in my vast library is the BRP core book.

I would like to pick up Pendragon someday. Don't think I'm quite as interested in Runequest/Glorantha, in spite of all the great things I've heard about them.

Well it’s about to be a good time to get into Pendragon. 6th edition which is meant to be Greg’s definitive version (he was working on it from 2010 until his tragic death in 2018) is coming soon. Meant to be a starter set (along the lines as the Cthulhu one and the forthcoming RuneQuest one ) out later this year followed by the core books and an expanded Great Pendragon campaign following from that. I recently compiled a list of forthcoming books and what we can expect going forward. It’s well worth a read to see if anything interests you. 
 

Im fairly new to Chaosium, I started with the CoC keepers book and doors to darkness in late 2019 and I’m planning on starting a Masks campaign as soon my local RPG shop is opening its tables but in that short time I’ve been very impressed with the quality of what Chaosium puts out and I looked into RuneQuest more in depth than I had previously. I’m now planning on grabbing the whole current line once I’ve got all the Cthulhu books (5 to go then I have the whole 7e line). I have to say it was the ducks that really sold me on the setting. 
 

what was it that put you off RuneQuest?

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2 minutes ago, glassneedles said:

what was it that put you off RuneQuest?

What put me on Runequest is that it's a sophisticated world with an amazing religious pantheon, Creation Story, and interesting cultural framework. 

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9 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

I'm sorry to confess that the only book partially authored by Greg Stafford in my vast library is the BRP core book.

I would like to pick up Pendragon someday. Don't think I'm quite as interested in Runequest/Glorantha, in spite of all the great things I've heard about them.

Pendragon has piqued my interest as well. Will probably end up buying a few of the books, even if I don’t get a chance to run any of the games. (I’m sure that’s a familiar path for many of us here.)

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12 hours ago, glassneedles said:

what was it that put you off RuneQuest?

Main reason: I'm trying to find reasons to NOT buy into other RPG lines, as I have a massive library the contents of which aren't seeing much use these days! Also, my revenue is next to nil these days.

Additional reasons:

. Between D&D (various editions), Pathfinder (1e, not interest in 2e), Symbaroum, The One Ring, Shadows of the Demon Lord, A Song of Ice and Fire, Yggdrasill and Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok, I think I've got my fill of pseudo-medieval fantasy RPGs. And on top of that, I haven't even gotten any of my sci-fi (Star Wars, Mutant Year Zero, Alien) or horror RPGs (CoC, The End of the World) to the table yet!

. I've never really been excited by Bronze Age settings.

. I doubt my players would want to try yet another RPG game system... especially with their limited time to play and investments in other systems.

The main reason I would like to pick up the new edition of Pendragon is because I'm a sucker for Arthurian Britain, and I've heard that Pendragon is a masterpiece of a system. I doubt I'll ever play it, but I think I would enjoy reading it.

Like you, one of my main priorities at the moment is getting caught up with CoC 7th ed, which I started collecting a year or two ago.

If I win the lottery, then I might add Runequest to the collection. 😉  

EDIT: That said, if someone else proposed to run RQ and they invited me to their game, I would gladly jump on board. But as I don't really enjoy playing RPGs online, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. 

Edited by TwiceBorn
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12 hours ago, glassneedles said:

That’s a long and confusing way of saying ducks are awesome 😛

Yes, ducks are awesome.

  

42 minutes ago, TwiceBorn said:

Additional reasons:

. Between D&D (various editions), Pathfinder (1e, not interest in 2e), Symbaroum, The One Ring, Shadows of the Demon Lord, A Song of Ice and Fire, Yggdrasill and Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok, I think I've got my fill of pseudo-medieval fantasy RPGs.

Runequest is not pseudo-medieval. It is Bronze Age. What makes it really interesting is that the base "rules" of culture are completely flipped on their head. You can offend NPCs in RQ in ways that would impress them in medieval fantasy and impress RQ NPCs with things that would offend a pseudo-medieval NPC. RQ is not about killing stuff and taking treasure. It is about brokering alliances, trading, feeding communities, prestige, and ransoming foes instead of killing them. If you are interested in Pendragon for what makes it unique, you might like RQ for the same reasons. Now that I've found Runequest, I find other Fantasy RPGs boring by comparison. RQ is fantasy role-playing for adults (but could be played at any age assuming table understandings.)

But, if your answer is still "no" for the many reasons you suggest, I support what is right for you! 🙂

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6 hours ago, klecser said:

Yes, ducks are awesome.

  

Runequest is not pseudo-medieval. It is Bronze Age. What makes it really interesting is that the base "rules" of culture are completely flipped on their head. You can offend NPCs in RQ in ways that would impress them in medieval fantasy and impress RQ NPCs with things that would offend a pseudo-medieval NPC. RQ is not about killing stuff and taking treasure. It is about brokering alliances, trading, feeding communities, prestige, and ransoming foes instead of killing them. If you are interested in Pendragon for what makes it unique, you might like RQ for the same reasons. Now that I've found Runequest, I find other Fantasy RPGs boring by comparison. RQ is fantasy role-playing for adults (but could be played at any age assuming table understandings.)

But, if your answer is still "no" for the many reasons you suggest, I support what is right for you! 🙂

 

Indeed, as indicated previously, Bronze Age settings don't really inspire me (I realized after posting that I should not have implied that RQ is pseudo-medieval, when I knew otherwise... and my 2nd bullet was meant to clarify my stance). So let's just say that I've got plenty of RPGs featuring swords and magic, and that not being enthused by the Bronze Age setting made it easier for me to reject RQ.  

I've managed to make my D&D games much less about killing monsters and stealing treasure than the norm, and more about brokering alliances, solving mysteries, and political intrigue, though I have no doubt that Runequest is a better developed system for handling such things. But as it is, the pandemic has halted all of my in-person gaming activities (at least I have plenty of solitaire games!), and who knows when we'll be able to get back to it... after all, I have the good fortune of living in Alberta, the Canadian jurisdiction with the highest per capita rate of COVID-19 variant infection in all of North America, and plenty of fools per capita protesting public health measures... so long as they keep messing things up for the rest of us, there'll be no in-person gaming for me. 

We only just started playing D&D 5e when the pandemic struck (we were 3 sessions in), and everyone agreed that it was a much more enjoyable experience thus far than our more recent experiences with D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e. So once we get back together again, I'll happily ride that wave for a while before proposing that we try something else (which is likely to be CoC or an Alien mini-campaign;  I also know that most of my players would be happy to try both of those games as well as a Star Wars RPG... and I'd rather run something that excites my players than have to work to sell them on yet another system).

Bottom line: my personal finances limit how many games I can afford to collect/read at a time. Now stop trying to convince me to buy what I can't afford, have a lesser interest in (Bronze Age), and friends are unlikely to want to play... unless you intend to gift me some RQ books to get me started! 😛

NOTE: That last paragraph was not meant to come across as hostile/angry, but more good natured/joking.

And thanks for your support!

 

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It does sound like you are set on games! I have to say when I was previously assessing RuneQuest I took a quick glance saw sword and magic and then stopped looking as I’ve gone deep in on D&D 5e and I didn’t need another fantasy RPG. Can’t exactly remember when I took another look but I’m now completely sold on RuneQuest. 
 

I’m at a different stage of the hobby than you and am still looking at stuff to expand to from D&D and Cthulhu hence the jumping on RuneQuest. I’ve convinced a few of my friends to join me in a fortnightly starter set group where we just rotate through starter sets of different games and see what we like. Already got RuneQuest and Pendragon lined up for when they come out along with City of Midts, Tales from the Loop, Paranoia and Traveller. 
 

We’ve all been playing D&D for years at this point with the only long term use of a different system been my Cthulhu games which have gone down well. Looking forward to trying more systems!

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