Curious about modern CoC Groups but Not Delta Green

[rpgstarwizard]

I am curious on how many, if anyone, has ever created other groups to battle the Mythos. Way back before Modern setting came out we running a campaign that had the group part of a clandestine organization. It was called project Nighthawk, and we did run loose, less Cthulhu, more Nightlife. We ran the group from 82-83 to 89. And we had a steady group of core members. Anyone else, or is this the wrong board for this discussion?

[rust]

I do not remember when the first English version of Cthulhu Now was published,

but we got it as soon as it became available. We played the adventures from

the book, and then used the system for quite a lot of other modern scenarios.

However, we never played a real campaign with it, only short series of adven-

tures, and not long afterwards turned to science fiction settings with the sys-

tem as it was modified for Cthulhu End Time.

Since then we have used the Call of Cthulhu system for almost every possible

time period, especially various historical ones, although mostly without the My-

thos or with minor influences from the Mythos only. When BRP was published,

we added some of its options to Call of Cthulhu, and this mix became our stan-

dard system for all kinds of scenarios and settings.

Still, the Mythos only very rarely is a part of our games, perhaps because the

excellent German version of Call of Cthulhu has its focus on more subtle hor-

rors than monster hunting, and most of such horrors are based more on real

world life than on the existence of the Mythos - just watching the news or

reading a few modern history books provides enough material for horror sce-

narios, there do not have to be other monsters than humans.

[rpgstarwizard]

LOL, like wise our Mythos is well, hidden. The group had their hands full with Vampires, werewolves etc. In fact in Nighhawk, monster players were allowed

[zonk]

Still, the Mythos only very rarely is a part of our games, perhaps because the excellent German version of Call of Cthulhu has its focus on more subtle horrors than monster hunting, and most of such horrors are based more on real world life than on the existence of the Mythos - just watching the news or reading a few modern history books provides enough material for horror scenarios, there do not have to be other monsters than humans.

Rust could you provide more detail?

[rust]

Many of the German adventures for Call of Cthulhu seem to be inspired more by

authors like Kafka or by the authors of the "Black Romance" movement than by

Lovecraft. They do not always follow the usual adventure plot of a team of bra-

ve investigators searching for evidence and then fighting Cthulhoid monsters, in-

stead other sources of horror are used, and quite often they are described from

the perspective of the victims of these horrors.

For example, one adventure about a kidnapped child puts the characters into

the mind / dreamworld of the pedophile who kidnapped the child, and they have

to deal with his inner demons (like a giant version of his abusive father) in order

to find and rescue the girl. Another adventure turns into a voyage through a dark

version of the real world, with all the evils and horrors of modern urban civilization

in the extreme.

In a famous solo adventure with a Cthulhoid theme the character wakes up after

a night of nightmares without a memory of the previous day and tries to find out

what happened to her. She slowly uncovers that she was raped by Deep Ones

and now is pregnant and will soon give birth to a monster ...

To come up with an adventure of a similar kind one only has to watch the news,

to take the most horrific story of the day, to find a way to put the characters

into the position of the victims of the event and to raise the horror of the event

to the extreme, with barely a chance to escape (and rarely to fight or defeat the

source of the horror) - the characters do not watch the cultists' (or whatever

the source of the horror is) activities from the outside and punish the perpetra-

tors, they are the more or less helpless targets of the horrific activities and can

only attempt to survive.

Adventures of this kind work well with and without any supernatural or Cthulhoid

element, I usually keep such elements to a minimum and leave it open whether

they really exist or are only imagined. For example, cultists and other terrorists

can be just as nasty and horrific if the deity or cause they believe to serve does

not exist at all, and natural or technical forces can be quite as destructive and

frightening as supernatural ones.

However, that said I have to admit that I use Call of Cthulhu mostly for other gen-

res, settings and scenarios than horror, and use all kinds of horror elements very

sparingly in my campaigns. Most of the time the adventures are much closer to

pulp than to horror, an occasional visit to "horror county" fits my style much bet-

ter than a string of horrific events, which in my view would soon become too im-

plausible, if not ridiculous.

[kafka]

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.