Are you a new Keeper? Here's some tips and options!

[Tommasi]

This is all so good. I’ve come back to CoC after years and years in the wilderness. One thing I think is worth remembering is that as GM you get to craft YOUR version of Lovecraft. So there’s some stuff I love (Arkham country, ancient evils, Deep Ones, Elder Things etc.) and some stuff I don’t like (adventures set in dreams, stuff with time travel) … but it’s purely about taste and what you think “feels” Lovecraftian. If you manage to work that out, you’ll be so much better at conjuring an atmosphere that your players will enjoy.

Um. That’s it. Sorry.

[klecser]

Welcome Back! And you have a really good point about how important it is to recognize that cosmic horror is a really broad genre, and different people like different things!

[Spence]

Don't forget that there are goldmines of great ideas for games during other timeperiods besides the 20's.  Some covered by CoC products, but a lot of material and ideas can be mined from adjacent games such as ToC and Slasher Flick. 

[Phaedrus]

Great stuff!  Thanks, this will make getting CoC  sorted out a bit easier.😁

[DamonJynx]

This is an excellent thread with plenty of good advice. I've only just started getting into CoC (been playing mostly d20 games for the last 22 years or thereabouts with a bit of Legend and Mythras thrown in) and I think it's a great game - it is without doubt becoming my preferred I think. The rules have just the right amount of crunch and are very easy to pick up. We're playing through Doors to Darkness for the irregular games with my PF group and I run a fortnightly Wednesday night group that was playing Elric of Melnibone (Legend/MRQ2) but we have just switched to Pulp Cthulhu to play A Cold Fire Within and then possibly Two Headed Serpent.

I would add for new players and keepers; absolutely get the starter set and play through that. Then, as your experience grows and you pick up the other books, primarily the Keepers rulebook and the Pulp Cthulhu book, play through the scenarios in those books and decide your style.

I think, coming from a D20 background, I found the open nature of the scenarios and focus on role-playing not roll-playing a bit daunting at first. By that I mean, in D20 games it's usually enter Room X and deal with the very specific encounter, generally either a trap or combat, rinse and repeat. In CoC there is a lot more flexibility, players have far more agency - even in the more linear scenarios. Once I got my head around that, I found it very liberating. Playing this game is more fun than I've had in ages...

Edited June 27, 2022 by DamonJynx

[Darius West]

Tips for players:

1.  Enter the scary property without any prior investigation.  2. Get scared by things that are wrong.  3. Trip over something unnamable and dangerous. 4. Roleplay (very cathartic) screaming. 5. Die horribly. 6. Repeat.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Darius West

[klecser]

Added video overview of the Investigator Handbook as a way for new players to really flesh out (wording intended?) their characters.

[klecser]

Updated to include some great recent releases! Cults of Cthulhu, A Time To Harvest, and Alone Against the Static are confident recommendations. For some godawful reason I did not have a direct link to Seth Skorkowsky's Channel, which is probably criminal on my part. Don't send mob bosses after me, please. It's been corrected.

[klecser]

Added Arkham as a definitive product of the line. 

[EldorfDragonsbane]

One tip I love to remind both new players and new keepers is while the core game is set in the 1920's it isnt set in the 1920's you may have learned about in school. Think of it being set on an parallel earth where the Great Old Old Ones and Magic exist, for the most part it mirrors our world but at the same time it is different, certain events did happen, while others might not have. Who's to say that the Great Depression didnt start a year later or a year earlier, when you are running the game its your world to do what you want with, you can play it as accurate to history as you want, or you can have some divergence. The key thing to remember is to have fun both playing and running the game, who cares if certain things aren't realistic.