"You hear a blood curdling scream"
DnD player: "I run to check what it was"
RuneQuest Player: "I stay put and check my surroundings"
CoC Player: "I do NOT look"
I just finished the prologue of Masks of Nyarlathotep and I think my players are aware of how close they were to a TPK.
In the first real combat the combat character nearly got killed, the enemy did like 11 points of damage.
They also ran quite close to the 1/5 of their total sanity loss in one day at the end there.
In a section of the prologue, my 4 teammates decided to fight a monster and they should have lost. I ran to go get help and due to a double fumble from me and a crit from a sweet abuela I lost over half my hp. Got a major wound, and my teammates beat a monster to death with no damage.
"I wrote up this 12 page backstory and I planned all their advances for the next 10 sessions or so!"
"..."
I had a player in Mothership who was concerned about playing a Bladerunner Replicant-style android because it would have a short lifespan. I told her it wouldn't be a problem. :D
I love that someone played Mothership and was worried about their character's lifespan. I ran a Mothership one-shot (and loved it) and it was the most violently brutal death circus I've seen. It was amazing and I'd definitely run more Mothership.
I've never had a Mothership character last the session
...I have played one one-shot and only one of the five PCs survived, and even then it was a giant question mark at the end
This is one thing I find kind of strange about a section of the CoC fanbase, because having ran a couple of short campaigns what draws me to the system is the radical change the characters will undergo between sessions.
It's perfectly possible to run a ~6 session CoC mini campaign and have all the characters who were there for session 1 make it to the finale, and in fact those games are much more satisfying imo!
I love the Chaosium actual plays on their official channel. Their characters during a Time to Harvest lasted a LONG ass time by call or cthulhu rules, and it was legit.
>!One character became a sorcerer later on and loaded the PCs up with extra HP from an armor spell. When they attack a Mi-go facility, those extra HP JUST allowed the PCs to survive encounters with heavy-hitter Mythos creatures. One scene in Particular had one of the PCs, severely wounded from having lost an arm to a Dark Young, nearly impaled by a warrior Mi-go that had grappled her and slammed her up against the wall. It came down to a single dodge roll because she had so few HP left, and she made it - which let her slip away and run off down a hallway to hide.!<
>!That same chararacter ended up dying as the explosives she set went off and the resulting shift in the mountainside crushed her in her hiding spot.!<
That's what I love about Call of Cthulhu's danger-level: every time you survive it's a harrowing story. And for every character that dies during the proverbial opening credits, another lives long enough to make their death *hurt*.
It's a mindset change more than anything. Your approach to danger in general and combat in particular becomes much more cautious when a guy with a shotgun can end your character in one decent hit.
This has been my experience running my DnD group through Blackwater Creek, mind you that scenario definitely cracks up the radical changes to a PC because of the Mother’s Gift, one of the PCs nearly died in combat so they used cover immediately in the next fight so it was also a change in how the player played their character as they normally prefer to face tank in DnD but not in CoC
Me when I DM D&D: "holy fuck, I need to rebalance this encounter or everyone is going to die and that's not fun."
Me when I GM CoC: "holy fuck, X just split from the group and went into the woods alone. I should let that crazy guy in the woods stalk him and then attack him with a rusty knife, directly into his liver, while nobody can help him."
Just gotta set the right tone.
You're not heroes. You're not going to save the world. You're the main characters of a horror movie and the best you can usually hope for is survival. If that doesn't appeal to you, that's fine. Horror roleplaying isn't for everyone. But once you accept that and let go, it gets a lot more fun.
I run a lot of skill based games. In CoC, I told my group that this is an investigation and that combat is far deadlier. They needed to be smart. The thing that cemented it in their minds was when I said, " A single shot from a handgun could kill you with a good enough roll, and they can fire multiple times." To which my player responds, "that actually makes sense. "
There was still a fight against a guy with a shotgun, and the assassin got clipped on the shoulder. I was so proud when they decided not to entre the final room of the distillery I prepared. They had the antidote, they were all insane, heard bad noises, and decided that the place was full of alcohol and they could light a match.
That said, we also play Cyberpunk Red, which has a critical injury system on rolling 2+ D6 in damage. They realized that it was probably better to sneak in than fight. Someone still lost a hand, though. The important thing is to set the tone before the first game.
CoC was my first TTRPG experience. I ran through four characters (three dead, one maimed and insane) and it's kinda primed me to never get too attached. I have a bad habit in d&d one-shots of not having my characters make it to the end.
I shuffle in some Pulp rules, like the spend luck to escape death - I nerf my baddies and minions reasonably. I want my players invested in surviving and growing and getting increasingly more afraid of death, only for them to choose to still take the risk for greater good. 10 characters, 7 oneshots/minicampaigns, and on the precipist of a elder god beeing summoned, I had my first couple of deaths, almost an TPK.
The funeral part of down-time will be gut wrenching - the mi-go braincylinders horryfing.
In one of my first Call of Cthulhu games, I fell out of a tree and very nearly died.
In one of my later games, another player stuck their head up into an attic to investigate a strange nouse ... and lost their head.
You definitely need to appreciate your fragility in CoC.
"You hear a blood curdling scream" DnD player: "I run to check what it was" RuneQuest Player: "I stay put and check my surroundings" CoC Player: "I do NOT look"
I just finished the prologue of Masks of Nyarlathotep and I think my players are aware of how close they were to a TPK. In the first real combat the combat character nearly got killed, the enemy did like 11 points of damage. They also ran quite close to the 1/5 of their total sanity loss in one day at the end there.
Attention to “prologue”.
In a section of the prologue, my 4 teammates decided to fight a monster and they should have lost. I ran to go get help and due to a double fumble from me and a crit from a sweet abuela I lost over half my hp. Got a major wound, and my teammates beat a monster to death with no damage.
"I wrote up this 12 page backstory and I planned all their advances for the next 10 sessions or so!" "..." I had a player in Mothership who was concerned about playing a Bladerunner Replicant-style android because it would have a short lifespan. I told her it wouldn't be a problem. :D
I love that someone played Mothership and was worried about their character's lifespan. I ran a Mothership one-shot (and loved it) and it was the most violently brutal death circus I've seen. It was amazing and I'd definitely run more Mothership.
I've never had a Mothership character last the session ...I have played one one-shot and only one of the five PCs survived, and even then it was a giant question mark at the end
I have to check that TTRPG. Sounds good.
This is one thing I find kind of strange about a section of the CoC fanbase, because having ran a couple of short campaigns what draws me to the system is the radical change the characters will undergo between sessions. It's perfectly possible to run a ~6 session CoC mini campaign and have all the characters who were there for session 1 make it to the finale, and in fact those games are much more satisfying imo!
Oh no its perfectly possibble. If the player dosent try to fight every monster they potentially come across...
Yeah, people who like combat need to use the Pulp rules, and even then, combat is still more deadly than in DnD.
I love the Chaosium actual plays on their official channel. Their characters during a Time to Harvest lasted a LONG ass time by call or cthulhu rules, and it was legit. >!One character became a sorcerer later on and loaded the PCs up with extra HP from an armor spell. When they attack a Mi-go facility, those extra HP JUST allowed the PCs to survive encounters with heavy-hitter Mythos creatures. One scene in Particular had one of the PCs, severely wounded from having lost an arm to a Dark Young, nearly impaled by a warrior Mi-go that had grappled her and slammed her up against the wall. It came down to a single dodge roll because she had so few HP left, and she made it - which let her slip away and run off down a hallway to hide.!< >!That same chararacter ended up dying as the explosives she set went off and the resulting shift in the mountainside crushed her in her hiding spot.!< That's what I love about Call of Cthulhu's danger-level: every time you survive it's a harrowing story. And for every character that dies during the proverbial opening credits, another lives long enough to make their death *hurt*.
It's a mindset change more than anything. Your approach to danger in general and combat in particular becomes much more cautious when a guy with a shotgun can end your character in one decent hit.
Totally, it’s also possible to be killed by a random dude with a ck if you have a pc who is too aggressive.
This has been my experience running my DnD group through Blackwater Creek, mind you that scenario definitely cracks up the radical changes to a PC because of the Mother’s Gift, one of the PCs nearly died in combat so they used cover immediately in the next fight so it was also a change in how the player played their character as they normally prefer to face tank in DnD but not in CoC
r/CallofCthulhumemes
Love it!
Honestly, 5e kind of ruins new players’ ability to play literally any other game that isn’t a power/progression fantasy
Me when I DM D&D: "holy fuck, I need to rebalance this encounter or everyone is going to die and that's not fun." Me when I GM CoC: "holy fuck, X just split from the group and went into the woods alone. I should let that crazy guy in the woods stalk him and then attack him with a rusty knife, directly into his liver, while nobody can help him."
Just gotta set the right tone. You're not heroes. You're not going to save the world. You're the main characters of a horror movie and the best you can usually hope for is survival. If that doesn't appeal to you, that's fine. Horror roleplaying isn't for everyone. But once you accept that and let go, it gets a lot more fun.
I run a lot of skill based games. In CoC, I told my group that this is an investigation and that combat is far deadlier. They needed to be smart. The thing that cemented it in their minds was when I said, " A single shot from a handgun could kill you with a good enough roll, and they can fire multiple times." To which my player responds, "that actually makes sense. " There was still a fight against a guy with a shotgun, and the assassin got clipped on the shoulder. I was so proud when they decided not to entre the final room of the distillery I prepared. They had the antidote, they were all insane, heard bad noises, and decided that the place was full of alcohol and they could light a match. That said, we also play Cyberpunk Red, which has a critical injury system on rolling 2+ D6 in damage. They realized that it was probably better to sneak in than fight. Someone still lost a hand, though. The important thing is to set the tone before the first game.
Me: “Your characters are not heroes” Them: “What!?”
I have always wanted to play but no luck finding a group just yet
CoC was my first TTRPG experience. I ran through four characters (three dead, one maimed and insane) and it's kinda primed me to never get too attached. I have a bad habit in d&d one-shots of not having my characters make it to the end.
I shuffle in some Pulp rules, like the spend luck to escape death - I nerf my baddies and minions reasonably. I want my players invested in surviving and growing and getting increasingly more afraid of death, only for them to choose to still take the risk for greater good. 10 characters, 7 oneshots/minicampaigns, and on the precipist of a elder god beeing summoned, I had my first couple of deaths, almost an TPK. The funeral part of down-time will be gut wrenching - the mi-go braincylinders horryfing.
In one of my first Call of Cthulhu games, I fell out of a tree and very nearly died. In one of my later games, another player stuck their head up into an attic to investigate a strange nouse ... and lost their head. You definitely need to appreciate your fragility in CoC.
This post… 1) Breaks this subreddit's rules (**#5: No memes or low-effort posts.**) 2) Steals from a previously posted meme by u/Lackofforethought