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Post by kesher on May 20, 2016 9:01:46 GMT -6
This is a deceptively "light" system written by Graham Walmsley for running HPL-ish adventures. It is awesome: Cthulhu DarkPair it with his groundbreaking book on how to run HPL-ish adventures by going back to the stories themselves, and you begin to hear the voices chanting in the deep: Stealing CthulhuAnd then, here is the man himself, suggesting ways to hack the rules: Hacking Cthulhu DarkAnd, if you search around, you'll find many hacks already out there... I think Mr. Walmsley may have succeeded in reducing RPGs to their Essential Saltes...
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Post by kesher on May 25, 2016 15:56:10 GMT -6
I ran this last night for a new group I'm occasionally playing with, and I have to say that it was the best Call of Cthulhu-ish session I've ever run. Character sheets consisted of a printed out photo of each character, a short background description , and a D6 set to current insanity levels. I've attached the "Investigator Dossier" I put together before play. Attachments:Investigator Dossier.pdf (323.03 KB)
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bea
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 133
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Post by bea on May 26, 2016 7:22:44 GMT -6
I've had a soft spot for Cthulhu Dark ever since I first saw the system. Still haven't had the opportunity to properly try it, sadly.
Tell us more about the session you ran! How did the system help make it the best?
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Post by Finarvyn on May 26, 2016 9:01:40 GMT -6
Pair it with his groundbreaking book on how to run HPL-ish adventures by going back to the stories themselves, and you begin to hear the voices chanting in the deep: Stealing CthulhuI checked out the other two links, which are the freebies, but didn't follow through on this one since it costs $10. Can you give me a sense as to what makes this book so good? I'd like to have more success running a Cthulhu campaign, but hate to throw away ten bucks without knowing what kind of thing I'll get.
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zeraser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 184
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Post by zeraser on May 26, 2016 9:09:25 GMT -6
Cthulhu Dark is a lot of fun - certainly more manageable than CoC, I think - but over the last year I've had a lot of fun playing Lovecraftian horror in Dread, the game that uses Jenga blocks. What's nice about Dread is that very little explanation is required to get players (newbies especially) into the game.
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Post by delverinthedark on May 26, 2016 11:51:28 GMT -6
Cthulhu Dark really is an awesome little system. I second the call for a play write-up!
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Post by kesher on May 26, 2016 15:54:00 GMT -6
bea: Sure! First was the fact that there is essentially no traditional character sheet--just a short background and a D6. I mean, I have a very soft spot in my heart for the 3rd Ed. Call of Cthulhu boxed set--I own it, and we were going to use it. But as I started reading the rules again it reminded me how, at least in my experience, a character sheet consisting largely of stats and skill percentages grates on the necessary atmosphere for a horror game. CD pares it down to the absolute essentials: who the investigator is (his background), what he's risking (his insanity die), and then I added the requirement for a picture--an actual photograph--just to ground in "reality" that much more. Plus, it has perhaps the most brilliant CoC-ish rule of all: if you try and physically fight a mythos creature, you die. Period. This is exactly how it works in the stories. In terms of the rules in play, another spot of brilliance is rolling for the results of "investigating", however it's being contextually defined. The investigator rolls 1-3D6, and can't fail, which again makes perfect narrative sense. The number rolled on the highest die simply indicates the depth of knowledge unearthed. Now, this had real implications for me as Keeper, in that in any given "investigatory" situation, I needed to be ready to supply a range of information. The main rules, as well as the extension, Dark Tales, gives some good advice on how to do this, but in practice I found myself, for prep, writing out a paragraph or so of complete detail for the main objects, places, or people the players might conceivably want to investigate. Then, depending on the results, I eyeballed out a portion of the "truth." Doing that beforehand really grounded me in the background story in a way that I've not experienced before--I was never at a loss to provide info, and it was also exciting for me, since I never knew how much actual info they were going to uncover in any given investigation. This, in effect, removed the "carrot on a stick" feeling I've experienced with traditional CoC games, where you need to find specific quantas of info in a specific order for things to move forward. Also, there were situations where a particular investigator could've uncovered more info, but didn't take the hint/bait; however, since the whole thing's non-linear in structure, it didn't waylay or stall the overall story arc at all. In summary, the players and myself were far more involved or immersed in what was going on, because there were no extraneous details to manage; this, perhaps not surprisingly, led to a lot more straight-up "role-playing" than this group usually engages in, which was awesome. Characters and NPCs swiftly acquired quirks and definition. @finarvin: Second was the fact that I read Stealing Cthulhu before playing. IMO, this book is worth every penny of the price. The main theme is that most traditional "CoC" adventures, and therefore games, have drifted far, far away from the form and atmosphere of the original stories; therefore, Whamsley goes back to the stories themselves as a guideline on how to play this type of game. The first part of the book unpacks structural motifs that occur repeatedly in HPL's fiction and then advocates, with copious examples, cutting up the stories themselves and putting them back together in different configurations, often changing locale or central mythos element, to create entirely new scenarios. He also spends time on unraveling HPL's narrative technique, the most useful of which for me was the concept of a slowly closing "narrative distance" between the investigators and the central mystery. The second part of the book is essentially a user's manual for something like 15 of the main mythos beings, from Azathoth to Deep Ones, suggesting multiple new ways of using them in scenarios, one of which inspired me directly for the scenario I just ran. Hope that helps!
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