How do Handle a Bear and Other Real World Challenges

[Jwfortune]

OK - so I got my very first COC game in last night as I lead my group through our version of Amidst the Ancient Trees.  It was super fun and such a good feeling NOT using minis as we do in PF.  The game flowed so much better.

 

One question - How do players avoid violence.  For example, my group faced a bear in the woods after failing a pushed Tracking skill roll.  Three of them had a gun, two of them had no weapon.  They also failed to spot the bear, so they were not able to sneak past it.  They ended up surviving - just barely - but I was wondering when faced with an enemy that wants to kill you and who is stronger than you - are there ways to get out of the situation without dying - or is that pretty much just how it goes in this game?  

Will other scenarios provide a way to get through the entire adventure without fighting at all? How often does this happen?

 

 

[rust]

30 minutes ago, Jwfortune said:

They ended up surviving - just barely - but I was wondering when faced with an enemy that wants to kill you and who is stronger than you - are there ways to get out of the situation without dying - or is that pretty much just how it goes in this game?  

Will other scenarios provide a way to get through the entire adventure without fighting at all? How often does this happen?

Good that you enjoyed the game. 

Remember, you are the referee - you decide whether an enemy really wants to kill a character and whether there are ways out of a situation without dying. Whatever the author of an adventure wrote, you as the referee have the higher rank and therefore the privilege to make any changes you like. 

The different authors of Call of Cthulhu adventures have rather different styles. Some wrote lots of combat and other kinds violence into their adventures, others designed adventures almost or entirely without combat and violence, some wrote adventures which lead to a total party kill when played as written, others wrote adventures where the death of a character is extremely unlikely. A part of your task as a referee is to adapt adventures of different styles to your and your players' favourite style with the "Goldilocks" amount of combat, violence and lethal danger - just right for you.

[trystero]

Dodging and running away—pretty much the tactics you should use in real life if you meet a bear in the woods—seem like the best options, frankly. As in real life, you could try to use Stealth to hide from the bear or Climb to get out of its reach... and as in real life, these are bad ideas because bears have sensitive noses and are better climbers than you are. :-)

It's worth remembering that most animals—including bears—don't attack humans unless they're starving, threatened, or protecting their young, and that they may start with a threat display (roaring, rearing up, etc.) to frighten off intruders before actually attacking. Not every "monster" will fight, or fight to the death, and this is a change from the combat assumptions embedded in Pathfinder and many versions of D&D.

In general, Call of Cthulhu being what it is, running away is very often the best way out of a potentially-violent situation. Combat is always a risk, and (again as in real life), the best way to avoid losing a fight is to avoid having it.

I'm especially entertained to hear about the situation arising in your game because "starting character(s) vs. a pissed-off bear" has been, for decades now, my way of gauging the combat system in any new RPG. The characters should be in danger, but should, with luck and determination, be capable of driving off or killing the bear. My experience is that many games favour the PCs over the bear: RuneQuest and its scion Call of Cthulhu, however, come out of this test pretty well.

[mvincent]

7 hours ago, Jwfortune said:

How do players avoid violence.  For example, my group faced a bear in the woods after failing a pushed Tracking skill roll.  Three of them had a gun, two of them had no weapon.  They also failed to spot the bear, so they were not able to sneak past it.  They ended up surviving - just barely

Avoiding violence with that many bad rolls is probably not a reasonable expectation. But even here violence could've still been avoided by most of the PCs... except for the slowest one (i.e. you don't have to be faster than the bear).

Edited September 2, 2016 by mvincent

[Darius West]

One thing I like about 7th Ed a LOT is the chapter on chases.  If there is one game which needs good chase rules it's this one.  How do you handle a bear?  Pick up a couple of branches and flap them wildly and make the loudest most absurd noise you can.  The bear will probably fail its SAN check and flee.  Failing that, discharging a gun is normally enough to scare a bear away.  Bears aren't stupid.  Humans are better distance runners and more manoeuvrable between trees, plus bears are on a calorie budget that doesn't allow for long chases.  If food is close and available, they will attack.  If dinner outdistances them, they will look for an easier meal.  Food too is a good distraction.

https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/scarebears.htm