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Author Topic: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG - Will host this Sunday!  (Read 1751 times)

GlyphGryph

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Ah, Call of Cthulhu - nothing quite like diving into a twisted realm of Lovecraftian lore with a you know will probably be dead or insane (or worse) by the time it's all over.

If you"ve never played before, you can at least take a look at the Chaosium Quick Start Guide to get a feel for what the game's rules are like. Warning! Don't read the campaign in the quick start rules if you plan on playing! Its the most common introductory campaign for players and its no fun at all if you've already read it!

Theres also some great stories thatt have arisen from this game; stories like that of Old Man Henderson, that are worth checking out.

If you HAVE played before, does any have any favoritet books/modules/adventures? Anything worth picking up? Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the Moden Day campaigns, but I found Masks of Nyarlothotep to be pretty damn good.

If you are interested in playing, I'm also trying to get together a group for first timers to run through the introductory campaign I mentioned above - you'd need a mic and access to voice chat, plus free time during the east coast afternoon or evening, but it will be great fun.

Would also be interested in hearing anyone's stories from their games though if it ruins a modules plot might be best to name it and put it in spoilers.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 07:54:35 pm by GlyphGryph »
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Flying Dice

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2013, 11:18:02 am »

The most vivid memory I have of CoC is busting into a house to investigate with two other PCs. One of the others had a shotgun, and had loaned me a second one. We vaporized something like six cultists while searching for the papers they were trying to destroy. The foremost rule of CoC is that shotguns are the best weapon, barring an ice rink full of high explosives.
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Neonivek

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2013, 11:40:05 am »

It is in my opinion probably one of the hardest games to get just right.

Since you need to plunge the players into a world of terror and danger, but not harass them.

You need to make information be a wondrous and dangerous thing... but at the same time not make it so being blind, deaf, and stupid a true advantage. (the bookshelf in the study shouldn't be filled with haunted books... The diary of the mad murderer who went crazy, might)

You need to present them with alternate means to deal with the horror, but you cannot make it too easy.

The best way to think of designing a session in this in my opinion is that EVERY game should have a "perfect run" where you see no monsters, have no sanity strikes, and solve the mystery (even if you don't solve everything). Everything outside this perfect run (or runs) are risky but help solve the mystery.

You might find who died inside the house by checking the records in the library (or police station), as an example, but if the players aren't smart enough to pick up upon that then they could find the corpse inside the basement and look through its pockets.
« Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 11:48:58 am by Neonivek »
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Cthulhu

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2013, 02:30:41 pm »

It's definitely a challenging game to GM.  Horror's a hard element to do well.  I have an adventure kind of half-formed floating around in my head/computer that I've never gotten around to seriously doing.  I don't want to spoil anything in case I do decide to do it but it's pretty much ripped shamelessly from the scariest thing in that Secret World MMO.

I might be interested in playing but I already know the scenario in question :C  Could probably suppress my knowledge, I really only remember a few of the most memorable elements of it.

As for scenario suggestions, Michael LaBosierre's adventures are pretty good, they run from the 20s to modern day though there's a pretty heavy emphasis on undead enemies.
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Xantalos

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2013, 02:33:03 pm »

PTW. I have an interest in this genre.
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Neonivek

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2013, 02:33:32 pm »

Well I say that sometimes it isn't about being original but about using what is derivative in the best possible way.
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Karkov

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2013, 02:43:02 pm »

PTW, Old Man Henderson was probably the best thing ever to come from CoC, and I'd love to watch a group of (what I assume to be) sane people trying to play this.

I'd love to play myself, but my evenings are my busiest times.

GlyphGryph

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2013, 02:46:32 pm »

I might be interested in playing but I already know the scenario in question :C  Could probably suppress my knowledge, I really only remember a few of the most memorable elements of it.
I might play more games later with less common adventures, this was pretty much exclusively meant to be an introductory game for those who haven't played before.

And honestly, yeah, it's a pretty work intensive game to do well. It's why I've never actually made my own adventures for it (Though I spent a lot of time making props for existing ones in preparation for the game!)
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Evilsx

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2013, 03:56:10 pm »

PTW Kinda Interested with this and if i can fit it in my time, I might join in
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Flying Dice

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2013, 06:16:54 pm »

Out of curiosity, how would we be running it? IRC, steam chat,...?
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Fniff

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2013, 08:01:54 pm »

I must say, I'd be interested.

uber pye

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2013, 11:31:50 pm »

depending on the time, and if i can find a mike, I'd join
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GlyphGryph

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2013, 12:04:48 am »

Voice chat of some sort.
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RedKing

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2013, 01:53:22 am »

One of the best CoC adventures I ever played was a homebrewed one at a convention. It was more of an Indiana Jones-type feel with a touch of eldritch horrors. There was a Nazi submarine in Nanjing Harbor, and we were a collection of expats in occupied China cajoled by British and American intelligence into finding out what was going on. There were car chases, shootouts, seduction, betrayal and eventually we found that the Nazis were making some kind of ubermensch clone thing, with the help of these strange cone-shaped aliens....;)

Culminated in the ubermensch getting loose and chasing us through the sub, breaking through bulkhead doors as we frantically fought our way out and kept trying to slow it down. Finally we got out the aft hatch and our steel-jawed Man of Action character fired a flare gun into the sub's diesel tank as we all jumped into the rubber dinghy nearby, providing a suitable Big Explosion sequence and an ambiguous end to the Nazi menace (or is it?).


Was great fun, and a refreshingly different use of the core system and mythos.
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Yoink

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Re: Call of Cthulhu: the classic Chaosium Pen and Paper RPG
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2013, 01:58:36 am »

Interested... although I don't believe my console mic would work in my computer.
Also, I'd have to ha


Actually, I can't really enter into a campaign just now, going on holiday in a couple weeks. :( Sounds awesome, though. I believe my siblings used to play a lot of CoC, and I just recently read the titular story.

(Yeah, I can see why it's so damn popular around here!)
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