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Any D&D/D20

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[Grim Portent]

Not sure where you got the idea that Call of Chtulhu is d20, since its a d100 system like the 40k FFG RPGs. I think it has had at least one d20 conversion, but its primarily d100.

Since you seem to like d100, might be worth checking out the Delta Green RPG, which is a spin off of Call of Cthulhu where you work for a secret government agency/conspiracy dedicated to keeping the mythos contained and secret in the modern day. It also cites X-Files as an inspiration, so its probably easily hackable.

Another possibility might be Modiphius's Achtung Cthulhu. Haven't played that one myself but its a bit more pulpy and definitely has Nazi supernatural stuff.

I've not actually looked into Call of Cthulhu in detail, so I probably picked up the d20 impression from some discussion or other where it got mentioned on the other forum I use. Which given it's riddled with D&D people, probably winds up with half the references being to the d20 conversion anyway.

Achtung! Cthulhu looks like it might be interesting for a more action oriented game, and I'll probably check it out.

Delta Green might be exactly what I'm looking for.

[Great Order]

Found a conversation which has lead me to a... semi-useless item idea. Useless if the PCs have no idea what it does. And it depends on the setting.

A True Immovable Rod.

It's stationary compared to the universe's frame of reference. On Earth, for example, we can base that off of the CMB. So you activate it and, from the players perspectives, it suddenly whizzes off at 370km/s, possibly straight through the planet depending on where it was activated.

[Egan_BW]

Or rather, what time of day.

[King Zultan]

All fun and games until you activate it and it flies right through your chest.

[Loud Whispers]

Found a conversation which has lead me to a... semi-useless item idea. Useless if the PCs have no idea what it does. And it depends on the setting.

A True Immovable Rod.

It's stationary compared to the universe's frame of reference. On Earth, for example, we can base that off of the CMB. So you activate it and, from the players perspectives, it suddenly whizzes off at 370km/s, possibly straight through the planet depending on where it was activated.

Unless you activate the immovable rod and discover your world is flat or motionless. Even better if it is flat and rotates so at the true northernmost point, activating it produces a relativistic stripper pole

[Criptfeind]

If it was rotating around the north pole it'd presumably take a day per rotation (assuming the reason why it's rotating is to provide a day night cycle with a stationary sun, other things like year long rotations or whatever are possible too I guess) so you'd end up with the slowest stripper pole in the world.

Also I'm not sure but I thought that under special relativity, there is no universal reference frame for a Immovable Rod to stick itself in, at least in our universe? Although we could imagine that d&d cosmology might differ, I could certainly imagine that perhaps in the standard D&D cosmology the prime material having no universal reference frame itself, but the multiverse as a whole having one, presumably based on the astral sea. Which a true immovable rod locking itself into a reference frame based on an alternate dimension might have some pretty wacky characteristics... Possibly starting with achieving infinite velocity if the prime material plane is infinite in scope but finite in the area taken up within the astral?

[Great Order]

Yeah, not really, which is why I based it off of CMB. But in any other setting you can choose what "The" frame of reference is, whether that's because the world's the only thing in the universe or a god/gods decided what it'd be.

And yeah, like I said it's not necessarily useful. Just kinda funny. It'd make an exceptional weapon if you could work out when and were to activate it so that it flies into a purple wurm's brain at relativistic velocities.

[Kagus]

I believe that's exactly what the immovable rod did in certain SS13 branches; start rapidly flying through the map and annihilating everything in its path.

At least until someone suplexes it into a potted plant.

You probably haven't heard of it since the full rules aren't even out yet. The quickstart was released a few months back and the full rules come out in October.

Pretty much all I know about it is that its produced by the Critical Role folks and its an investigative horror rpg in the vein of stuff like Call of Cthulhu.

That would certainly explain why, yes And given that description I can see why my friend wants to run a game of it; she's a bit of a CR fangirl. Also somewhat excitable in general, so leaping to collect players for a system that's not even out yet seems in character.

[scriver]

I'm in

[Persus13]

You probably haven't heard of it since the full rules aren't even out yet. The quickstart was released a few months back and the full rules come out in October.

Pretty much all I know about it is that its produced by the Critical Role folks and its an investigative horror rpg in the vein of stuff like Call of Cthulhu.

That would certainly explain why, yes And given that description I can see why my friend wants to run a game of it; she's a bit of a CR fangirl. Also somewhat excitable in general, so leaping to collect players for a system that's not even out yet seems in character.

To be fair to your friend, there's a good chunk of games you can get pretty far running with just the quickstart rules for. A lot of RPGs can fit the important rules in like 4 pages if pressed.

I feel like this forum's RPG culture largely skews towards older RPGs, so I was mainly amused because an RPG being released in 2023 by Critical Role doesn't feel like it would overlap a ton with this crowd's preferences.

[Loud Whispers]

I believe that's exactly what the immovable rod did in certain SS13 branches; start rapidly flying through the map and annihilating everything in its path.

At least until someone suplexes it into a potted plant.

And if two rods collide they produce a singularity

[Digital Hellhound]

My players ended up breaking the terms of a contract with a devil in my Spelljammin' campaign, and I'm thinking the devil is going to get them the only proper way - by suing them in infernal court. The devil's name is Keresiar the Alchemist, and he's been waiting for a while to take vengeance for tricking him into giving them very generous terms.

So they'll soon return to their ship to find an imp there with a summons to the Hells to defend themselves in the court of devil law. If they do not comply within the allotted time, they'll be hunted by devil cops across the planes. They might choose to avoid it, who knows, but in case they do agree to show up and go deal with the infernal judicial system...

...what kind of awful and silly nonsense should they face? I want to create some terrible hilarious courtroom antics to throw at 'em.

Some context:

• Their contract stipulated non-aggression, neither party can inflict harm upon the other (physical, mental, spiritual)
• The party got themselves imprisoned, but seemed like they were going to clear their name - so the devil sent an infernal assault force to free them as a friendly gesture
• The intent being to frame them as being complicit in the attack and thus get painted in the worst possible light, ruining any chance of clearing themselves
• The devils attacking the place were acting all friendly and loudly proclaiming that they were there to help; the party still attacked them, because devils attacking innocents, we can't stand by
• They inflicted harm on the servants of Keresiar and thus broke their pact
• Additionally they destroyed a horrifying flesh abomination that was actually just an art piece of Keresiar's, so that's vandalism on top of the breach of contract

The charges they'll be facing will be, I'm thinking:

• Breach of Contract: As described above.
• Vandalism: Destruction of horrible flesh abomination in their path that was an infernal art piece, the philistines.
• Conduct Unbecoming of Mortalkind: Refusing to age (by spending most of this campaign in the Astral Plane), among other misdemeanors.
• Multiple Homicide: Killing several devils (though not in any permanent way).
• Hate Crime (Religious): Killing a devil-worshipper (which they merely enabled and did not personally commit, so easyish to disprove)

But I'm looking for other ones to add on there. The more bizarre and spurious, the better.

They'll be assigned an infernal public defender, who will appeal for lighter sentencing on grounds such as "Your Dishonor, they are ignorant and stupid mortals who cannot be expected to think for themselves." Directly defending themselves will be extremely difficult due to bizarre infernal legal customs, so the situation is stacked against them.

I'm thinking the potential defenses (hinted at with the appropriate checks) so far could be:

• Entrapment: Keresiar's unwanted rescue was fully intended to manipulate them into breaking the contract; witnesses can be found to support this
• Keresiar Broke It First: Claiming that they suffered mental or spiritual harm from the unwanted rescue and its dangers, so that the devil broke the pact first
• Divine Immunity: One of the party has the soul fragment of a long-dead god inside them, which may provide them immunity to prosecution on grounds of divinity (if only for that PC)
• Harm, What Harm?: Killing devils just sends them back into the Hells, thus no actual permanent harm was inflicted upon servants of Keresiar.

Of course, should the case go against them, they'll just have to break out of Hell. That'll be fun too.

I'm in general interested in any ideas on how to make an infernal courtroom as entertaining as possible! Throw me your wildest suggestions, if you have 'em!

[Egan_BW]

Conspiracy to disrespect Hell.

[heydude6]

It's hard to top what you've already written. Adding extra charges is especially hard since the ones you currently have were deliberately set up by you in advance (your vandalism charge only works because you had the foresight to summon a flesh horror). Those are always going to be superior to ones added retroactively. The only additional charge I can think of is adding Child Abuse (perhaps one of the demons was actually underage).

I have some ideas for the coutroom though, especially in terms of ways to mount an effective defence.


Jurisdiction Conflict: For a court that prides itself so much upon the letter of law, it is astonishing that the infernal court is willing to overlook the plaintiff's blatant interference in the legal proceedings of another sovereign plane. His actions very well may have caused a mistrial! *shocked gasp from devlish jury*. Doesn't he know that Hell has an extradition treaty to prevent these kinds of incidents?

Hiatus in Anticipation of evidence: I don't know the official legal term for this one, but in some courts if a client has multiple pending trials, and if it's likely that the outcome of one trial will significantly influence the subsequent trial, then that trial cannot proceed until the previous one has been concluded. Since so much of the clients' defence rests on whether or not the plaintiff committed harm, the outcome of the trial in the material plane plays a pivotal role in the outcome of this one and this trial must be postponed till the former's conclusion. Tempt the party into sabotaging their material trial to improve the odds of the hellish one, only to have it be undone by...

The Plaintiff's Paradox: If the Plaintiff's actions cause the client to receive a guilty verdict, then we can conclude that the Plaintiff committed harm, thus we must give an innocent verdict, thus the plaintiff did not commit harm, thus we must give a guilty verdict, thus the plaintiff did commit harm, thus we must give an innocent verdict.... etc. This can be a defence or an attack defending on where you stop the recursion.

I summon the witness!: While we try to determine whether the plaintiff's actions negatively impacted the outcome of the previous trial, it may be useful to ask the jurors themselves how the demonic invasion affected their perception of the clients' innocence or guilt. Let me just finish drawing this pentagram and- Wow! didn't expect so much screaming... do they really hate the wallpaper that much? (Feel free to do the usual witness badgering, ask leading questions, etc. For extra fun, use the power of prophecy to summon people who were only supposed to become jurors in the future. If you want to go even farther, you could plane-shift the whole town into hell for the duration of the trial.)

Multiple Hearings: We have exceeded our allotted time and the judge believes there is not yet enough evidence to reach a verdict. For the time being, our client will be released on bail and will return to court when a slot will next be available (I don't think there's anything that screams legal hell more than a protracted lawsuit. Plus it gives you an excuse to let the party go back for adventuring. For extra torture, make them pay bail after each hearing and continuously increase its price).



Ultimately, I think a hellish court that tricks the defendants into thinking that they actually have power over their verdict is better than one that's blatantly kangarooo from the outset. It would go a long way to boost player investment if the defence lawyer could actually get some of the misdemeanour charges dropped, and let the player's actions decide how badly they fumble the breach-of-contract defence.

[Digital Hellhound]

These are great, thank you. It will be entirely possible to win the case, because a) devils will honor their own laws and b) the plaintiff has many rivals who would love to see their case collapse and them get demoted.

Actually, now that I think about it, the party getting a rival devil to support them and provide them the best defense lawyer of the Nine Hells would be a great way to go about it.