I had much the same reaction in the game Hide when I met the flashlight mumblers for the first time :3

you might enjoy this indie horror game called Hide

Here is a review http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/12/this-weeks-best-free-pc-games-12/

play it alone and in the dark

At this point, everyone I know uses some to oodles of house rules when they use Cthulhu and often the Big Book o’BRP.

Also, people use the inter-war period because it’s awesome.

Trail rules state that the GM should basically say what “extra” skills will the group need before running the scenario. My guess is that CoC is the same – those are mostly for 1) providing the examples to generate a more realistic character 2) add something “extra” into the campaign. So I’d just mark the importance of the skill for the player in the rulebook and leave it at that.

I would say that it is the next edition of the game, maintaining the spirit and adding changes.

I also don’t see the use for skills for climb, jump and swim, since normally a DEX x 5 check can encompass all of these.

Having listened to the most recent Unspeakable! podcast, I agree with Shane Ivey in that there should be some way for your PC to regain sanity other than just killing monsters or entering an asylum. Spending time with your family, pursuing a hobby, and similar activities should provide some respite. Fear Itself does this already, but it would be nice to see the father of horror RPGs implement it too.

Eclipse Phase also does a wonderful job of providing bonuses and penalties depending on certain choices. For example, if you take your time researching, it’s a +10 bonus, getting the help of someone is another +10, etc. Something like this should be expounded in the core rulebook, I normally do it as a house rule for my CoC games.

There’s also a minor nit-pick, not to do with the system, but with scenarios written for it. Too many of them attempt to add pulp elements, with gunfights and large confrontations, because pulp was popular back in the 1920′s. I cannot fathom why someone would think that placing a group of five investigators against thirty cultists at the end of the scenario is a great idea. The system just means that it’s extremely dangerous, and can easily become a TPK. Of course, the explanation is always that the players should try to avoid confrontation if possible and find some other ways, but some scenarios force these sorts of end confrontations. It just seems a bit illogical to me.

Of course, for all these nit-pickings, I still love the system as well as your Actual Plays. Hopefully the next edition of the game will add a few necessary changes, while retaining the spirit of the game.

I have seen exactly one use of Operate Heavy Machinery. It is in the Beyond the Mountains of Madness campaign, near the very beginning. There is a fire and someone needs to operate a crane to move some fuel tanks… And that’s it…

Anyways, another great episode with completely valid points. Loved the letter, and I really love the fake iPhone text.

But that’s another great thing about CoC the system is super flexible! And with the BRP book you can add and subtract so much. I totally agree about the poison rules being ridiculously complex. Their even still kinda confusing in Trail of Cthulhu.

I owe my love of CoC entirely to you RPPR, thanks for that. And Tom’s letter was pretty close to a theme I meditate on late at night…

Derp

Thanks!

Any chance we can get a copy of that handout published to the forums or something?

On a side note, my group and I started recording our own live play podcasts. If you’re ever interested in listening to that, search: This Quest Sucks! Gaming Podcast on iTunes.

Peace!

Tom’s letter was brilliant. It actually might be cool to add into an actual D&D game.

To jump back to Eclipse Phase though, the thing about religion actually brings up some interesting roleplaying in a transhuman society. In a game I ran, I had an uplifted bird who was extremely religious… For ancient Egyptian gods, back where they had Ra and Horus…

Tom’s letter is a masterpiece. Clearly dragons would have prevented the financial crisis.

Once again we see Caleb is the cerebral GM while Ross remains the GM who feeds on the broke hopes and tears of his players.

That spreadsheet saves lives though! Can’t wait for the video review of Training Days.

And system specific episodes sounds good in theory.

http://www.rifftrax.com/iriffs/hor-riff-ic-productions/hor-riff-ic-stuff

My favourite definition of horror comes from Clive Barker, who said that it is that point when the character in the story realizes that the alien reality impinging upon the ‘normal’ reality is the way it is always going to be.

So, to me, most horror movies aren’t really horror movies, they are ‘jump and scare’ or ‘gross out’ movies.

(one of my ‘favourite’ horror movies wasn’t marketed as one, The Last King of Scotland, told through the eyes of a young and selfish doctor who gets ‘hired’ by Idi Amin…the movie was so shocking, and all without really showing explicitly anything, that the audience had to be talked down after it was over)

The thing aboot horror in real life is that people get used to it. With exposure, we get used to everything. There have been scientific examinations done of people in horrific situations, like in Kosovo, and despite all that destruction and killing, people still went aboot their lives, still went to church, etc etc.

So my thing with horror in RPGs is that, because we get used to things eventually and because RPGs are slower than slow (not to mention the time to process the game between games), how does one keep the horror factor up? That is why I think shorter games or one-shots are the best. I find that horror campaigns turn into SF/Fantasy games.

Just my 2c. I love this site and listening to all the strange people having a good time.

I still think the latest version of AD&D is like playing bridge — very arcane.

I had all my players listen to the episode as we had several recurring issues that have hurt our last few campaigns.

It was in a 3.5 campaign in which the DM had placed many restrictions on the players as far as race and class, as the “civilized” races retreated into an elven forest as the world was taken over by people corrupted by demons. It was a short campaign, designed for levels 7-11 if I remember correctly… But I was playing a half-elf cleric who had a one or two page background, where basically he was kidnapped and tortured by demons at a young age, when he was rescued by the church of Heironious. From there he decided to become an Inquisitor. (Note that decision was simply made because I saw the Inquisitor prestige class in complete Divine).

This guy, through a series of events, talked the DM into letting him play a homebrew class he found on the D&D wiki. This class is known as the Dashing Swordsman, who is literally designed to be badass. He avoids traps on doors and windows if he dives through like a badass. The more badass, the better. He had no backgroud, by the way.

The desire of my character (who I played relatively seriously) was only to become an Inquisitor. The DM wouldn’t let me due to the flavor requirement of “You need to stop corruption first within your church.” And since I worshiped a Lawful Good deity in evil territory, my church didn’t exist.

This guy had two desires that he made up in the middle of the campaign: To get a magic shovel and dig a tunnel to make an underground fortress of ale and wenches, and a drill to pierce the heavens which would make him a deity. I called him stupid. The DM let him have it.

About the issue of playing insane characters, it’s true a lot of people just get silly or play like insanity is a feat with benefits. I played a pyromaniac Malkavian (many moons ago) and I tried not to be silly with it, but I did actually use it to my advantage… with a highly successful Craft roll in a storage closet in an office building, we escaped certain capture and likely torture and execution when I duct-taped together some old computer parts and said it was a bomb. Being known as crazy turned out to be helpful in that situation (he’ll do it, man, just do what he says…)

But when you play a character with a mental problem, I think you have to work with the GM and do what people with real mental problems unfortunately don’t have a choice in… you have to give up some control of your character. In stressful situations, my character would sometimes feel the need to set a fire… or panic in the face of a fire he set… or both… and when these situations occurred, I lost control of my character and the GM declared his actions. Well, that’s what it’s like when you have mental issues, you do things you can’t control. If you can handle that, you can have a character with mental issues. If you can’t handle that, then you can’t play a character with mental issues (or Call of Cthulhu, for that matter).

Hey, little shameless self-promotion here, I have a transcript of that Kenneth Hite interview here: http://subscriptorium.com/477/2samples/1ftb

I’ll accept the challenge specifically I’m going to attempt to play against stereotype.
I support Ross and his Kenneth Hite kick, that man is awesome. AGh! And Night’s Black Agents looks totally sweet. Loyalty/trustworthiness mechanics!

And I have to say, there has to be GaGa 4.X.

And human flesh.

We demand Gaga, human flesh and the announcer voice.

In regards to the episode, I enjoyed the treatment of the topic, even if it was kind of vague however, you guys have covered similar-ish things before so I don’t feel like I’m lacking in any lessons.

OH MY GOD PLEASE RUN ECLIPSE PHASE GAGA.

I don’t know if you ever saw this short Late Bloomer, but i think it’s right up your alley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gNQ2KYCb4

Other than that the sweat meats of the episode seemed to be pretty informative. I’m playing in a horror campaign now and it’ll be interesting to see if the GM employs any of these tricks.

Its a really bizarre game that takes a totally new interpretation on reality and how we perceive the world.

I own most of the books published for it even though Ive never played or run it, because I am a crazy collector that way *chuckle*

Tom, I cannot agree strongly enough on the BFG. How many gaming problems could have been solved if only we had ourselves a Big F%%%ing Gun? Thank god for John Romero and Sandy Peterson.

Can’t wait to hear your suggestions for horror campaigns!