Quote from: Ravenswing;691239The premise always stuck with me.  The way I figure, I decide how my world works in every particular: what's true, what's not, what works, what's hokum, what's considered "good," what's considered "bad."  People who can't stand that my POV might not agree with theirs are at best a poor fit for my campaign, and might not be a good fit for anyone's.[/COLOR]

(= It's how I run my games in terms of theosophy, too. Including regards to tools like alignment and any ideas therein.

Quote from: Ravenswing;691239Well, said my friend, I figure that the Lord God, omnipotent and all-knowing creator of heaven and Earth, has enough on the ball to figure out the difference between a game and reality.[/COLOR]

Sandy Peterson, famous Mormon and occasional RPG author, on working on Doom:

Quote from: Sandy PetersonI have no problems with the demons in the game. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, they're the bad guys.

Quote from: JeremyR;691227None. That's one of the things I dislike about CoC, more and more non-Mythos magic crept in.

Which IMHO, defeats the whole point of the Cthulhu Mythos. The only sort of "magic" that is real in it is somehow related to the Mythos, like Nyarlothotep being the Black Man of Witches.

It should be presented like all other magic is just BS, while Mythos magic is real. Though not necessarily "magic", but some sort of alien science

I don't think you have to worry much about the 10% being "real" magic, considering Pundit might even be referring to his definition of actual real magic .... and corresponding occultism.

There is an interesting gap between the Mythos Magic and what may be real magic, if used in the same setting.
Mythos Magic is rare, and insane-causingly dangerous, while assumed "real" magic is common but requires so massive studying and practicing ... without obvious results even, so only 1/10 ever reaches any kind of results at all, because all else gives up before that, or do not consider it worth it.

However, even some variants of alleged or actual real magic may also lead to the one studying it going a bit nuts or worse, so there is a clear possible connection there.

I really do not know what Pundit has in mind for the question, though, so ...

But, then we also has the laws on worldbuilding to think about.
How would the prescence of Mythos Magic affect those 10%?
According to some, Magic do not exist at all, so to those, those 10% would BE the Mythos Magic.
But, if Magic do exist in reality, then how would that be affected in a world based on the CoC Mythos?

Sorry if i do not give any answers, but just more questions.
However, i think that the point of view i have given should be taken into consideration.
As for any suggestions i might have, i find it best to not step into that area, since i know that my suggestions might get into an area not fitting the Mythos at all, unless i'm careful ... and currently, i do not feel careful enough.

My CoC games have werewolves, mummies, ghosts, witches, zombies, theoretically vampires (though never actually met in-game), and all kinds of other supernatural crap.

Give me the high level flyby on what people actually think might work (especially with a list of actual books), give me a system flexible enough to allow what does work, and let me decide what does and doesn't. Give me enough wiggle room to decide between Cthulhu only and a game of Hellboy if that's what I want.

I prefer a "no magick but the Mythos" approach in Call of Cthulhu.  The mundane occult in such a game is just powerless wankery; if any actual power is manifest in an occult practice, it comes Mythos sources, regardless of what the magician thinks he's doing.

I prefer the two blended together with no distinct line drawn between Mythos and the occult. The Mythos as the true face of the hidden knowledge alluded to and wrapped in cultural expectations and myth.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;691282I prefer a "no magick but the Mythos" approach in Call of Cthulhu.  The mundane occult in such a game is just powerless wankery; if any actual power is manifest in an occult practice, it comes Mythos sources, regardless of what the magician thinks he's doing.

This

Quote from: TristramEvans;691284I prefer the two blended together with no distinct line drawn between Mythos and the occult. The Mythos as the true face of the hidden knowledge alluded to and wrapped in cultural expectations and myth.

Or how about tainted ones, which are like regular monsters except with aspects of the mythos. Similar to Warhammer chaos mutations, so you might have a squamous vampire on a sliding scale between normal vampire and mythos vampire.

Actually it could be a lot of fun to mix up five or six of these kinds of templates in one setting, the PCs would never know what they were facing next. Is it a mythos orc, or a chaos orc, or a possessed orc, or what?

Quote from: JeremyR;691227It should be presented like all other magic is just BS, while Mythos magic is real. Though not necessarily "magic", but some sort of alien science

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;691282I prefer a "no magick but the Mythos" approach in Call of Cthulhu.  The mundane occult in such a game is just powerless wankery; if any actual power is manifest in an occult practice, it comes Mythos sources, regardless of what the magician thinks he's doing.

This is how I deal with it as well.

Quote from: The Traveller;691298Or how about tainted ones, which are like regular monsters except with aspects of the mythos. Similar to Warhammer chaos mutations, so you might have a squamous vampire on a sliding scale between normal vampire and mythos vampire.

The Shunned House is pretty much Lovecraft's take on a vampire... and seems to me more in line with the old legends than the modern day sort that cruise dance clubs.
Ghouls or some other degenerate group, like the Martense clan, seem like they might serve as werewolves... though without the back and forth shape-changing.  
Deep Ones are the Creature From The Black Lagoon and Herbert West kind of has Frankenstein covered.
There's weird mummies in Entombed With The Pharaohs.

I think that most "mundane" magic shouldn't work -- and that (in a CoC world), the "real" magic should be Cthulian magic.

HOWEVER: I like to think that people who are pursuing the esoteric would have come across Cthulian stuff and worked it into their understanding of magic.

Or more specifically: in a CoC world, there is powerful, esoteric knowledge that, if you have it, lets you do the supernatural. I think that in a CoC-verse most traditions of magic (and at least some legends, myths, and superstitions) are probably based on poorly understood CoC magic, and are poor imitations of "real" magic.

People who vigorously learn and experiment (A. Crowley) and dedicate their life to understanding the esoteric would probably have found a few nuggets of gold amongst all the silt.

So:

Most non Cthulian magic doesn't work -- but it is 'directionally' correct in some way. Further: attempting to understand magic in a traditional framework (e.g. Satanism) would tend to lead to wildly incorrect assumptions and (usually) ineffective magic.

But not always -- someone might be wrong about *why* something works or what they're doing (particularly if they believe that the universe is fond of them) but still come up with an effective formula.

A well-versed occultist who gained a decent understanding of "real" magic would start to be able to understand the mistakes most people make and start to see how common (ineffective) magic tracks actual, working magic.

To pull this off, you'd probably want to give the GM/Keeper some guidance on "Real Occultism" and how it "gets it wrong" and what the "right answer" is so they can pull this off in a game.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Ravenswing;691239has enough on the ball to figure out the difference between a game and reality.

The premise always stuck with me.

Yup. A critical maxim for any artist or game designer to keep in mind: your fictional worlds are not reality, and don't have to reflect your beliefs about reality.

Nearly a decade ago, the then-owner of Torg was revising the cosmology to match his vision of the real world. I argued against it, vehemently, saying that the fictional cosmology need only reflect the world of the game, not the real world.

He never quite understood my point.

It is worth noting that Lovecraft did draw extensively on real world occult when ppresenting his Mythos. It's largely believed The Necronomicon was based on a copy of the Lesser Key of Solomon his father was known to have owned. As such, I don't think the two need to be regarded as separate. When a caster invokes Gabriel or Asmideus during a spell, whose to say that the thing outside or reality responding to that evocation isn't some tentacled old one or even Nyarlothotep, who collects alternate names like I collect miniatures.

Quote from: The Traveller;691298Or how about tainted ones, which are like regular monsters except with aspects of the mythos. Similar to Warhammer chaos mutations, so you might have a squamous vampire on a sliding scale between normal vampire and mythos vampire.

Actually it could be a lot of fun to mix up five or six of these kinds of templates in one setting, the PCs would never know what they were facing next. Is it a mythos orc, or a chaos orc, or a possessed orc, or what?

That is interesting, but I see it working only in a very specific type of setting/genre premise. I generally kept supernatural to a very minimum in my Cthulhu games, and everything encountered I've made as unique as possible. That said, I have presented two different types of vampires so far. One based on the Eastern European Varcolac, and one that was basically an Aztec bat-god.

Quote from: TristramEvans;691411That is interesting, but I see it working only in a very specific type of setting/genre premise.

Yeah you'd need a spacious enough setting so you aren't constantly tripping over all the branches on the family tree. Not neccessarily physically huge but capacious, an ill reputed apartment block downtown could house a lot of variety. It would introduce a nice element of unpredictability to encounters.