Quote from: Sommerjon;567133I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

The RPGGeek game rankings are pretty much dominated by CoC.

I look forward to see the changes. If I like them, I will implement them. This far, what I've read sounds interesting.

If I don't like them, I will keep playing as I have always done. Those complaints about "ruining the game" are ridiculous and most probably unfounded.

What it is becoming clearer and clearer for me is that this and similar discussions are not about the quality of the rules or the game experience they provide. It's about a bunch of nerds claiming the property of a game's name, for fuck's sake, and whining like little bitches "If you want to change it, don't call it with the same name." Which is fucking hilarious. And sad.

Also, from now on, you can assume that I agree with everything the Butcher says unless I clearly state otherwise. The guy keeps winning threads as far as I can see, even if being a reasonable, non-hysteric poster is demodé around here these days. I swear it, I've never seen so many people trying to outpundit the Pundit.

Quote from: Sommerjon;567133Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

When I chanced upon my second gaming group, it was one of a handful of RPGs outside D&D (the others being MERP, Rolemaster, Star Wars D6 and later d20, GURPS and oWoD) that they were genuinely excited about, and played regularly.

I'd say it's the iconic horror RPG, much like D&D is the iconic fantasy RPG, or Traveller the iconic SF RPG. I consider these three the "holy trinity" of traditional RPGs.

Quote from: Imperator;567190Also, from now on, you can assume that I agree with everything the Butcher says unless I clearly state otherwise. The guy keeps winning threads as far as I can see, even if being a reasonable, non-hysteric poster is demodé around here these days. I swear it, I've never seen so many people trying to outpundit the Pundit.

:hatsoff:

Back in junior high and high school CoC was our go-to game for horror and also for two-fisted occult action ala Indiana Jones (the latter resulted in some fairly spectacular TPKs).

If they're going to finally make non-trivial changes to the game I hope the retain its main strengths:

1) Backwards compatibility. One of CoC's strong points is the large library of excellent support material.

and

2) In discussions about how CoC is awesome one of the most common things to hear is "The system gets out of the way." I hope the resist any urge to pile on complexity to the point that they lose that.

Quote from: Sommerjon;567133Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

It gets a fair bit of traction at cons in Denver, and I've run a few campaigns here.  There's a fair bit of discussion that pops up on the big purple as well - for instance, there's a thread there that's come back from the dead now that Pagan Publishing's 'Delta Green' and 'Delta Green: Countdown' books are available as pdfs for the first time.  (They're both really good books, but had been created by a small publisher years before the idea of RPGs as ebooks ever took hold.)

There's a lot of conversation at the Cthulhu-centric website/forum //www.yog-sothoth.com as well, so if you're interested in keeping up with Cthulhu roleplaying that's a good place to keep an ear open.

Quote from: The Butcher;566581Chaosium does have a sad track record as a business. Read up on it (at least up to 2006) here.

But none of Chaosium's troubles business-wise were related to their RPG design.  They never produced crap games or supplements.  Instead, they simply made some very bad business decisions (viz. the deal with Avalon Hill, investing too heavily in the 'card game' fad of the early 1990s, etc.).

In terms of RPG-design, Chaosium has been remarkably solid for over 30 years.

Also, despite their problems, Chaosium never actually went under, unlike every other RPG company that started in the 1970s.

Quote from: Imperator;567190I look forward to see the changes. If I like them, I will implement them. This far, what I've read sounds interesting.

If I don't like them, I will keep playing as I have always done. Those complaints about "ruining the game" are ridiculous and most probably unfounded.

Quote from: Dimitrios;567205If they're going to finally make non-trivial changes to the game I hope the retain its main strengths:

1) Backwards compatibility. One of CoC's strong points is the large library of excellent support material.

and

2) In discussions about how CoC is awesome one of the most common things to hear is "The system gets out of the way." I hope the resist any urge to pile on complexity to the point that they lose that.

I agree with the sentiments expressed above.

My number one concern is cross-edition compatibility.  If this is maintained, then I can keep using my older CoC material with 7e (if I like 7e), or use new 7e-era material with a pre-7e version of CoC (if I don't like 7e).

Finally, I think it is important to keep in mind that none of these changes have been finalized yet.  My impression is that Chaosium would like to ensure the compatibility of CoC with the BRP goldbook.

Quote from: Sommerjon;567133Weird.

I've only seen CoC played(rarely) at Cons and the only board that mentions it with any frequency is this one.

Weird.

My extraordinarily limited experience is not reflective of broader reality.

Quote from: Akrasia;567212But none of Chaosium's troubles business-wise were related to their RPG design.  They never produced crap games or supplements.  Instead, they simply made some very bad business decisions (viz. the deal with Avalon Hill, investing too heavily in the 'card game' fad of the early 1990s, etc.).

As much as I like Chaosium's general output and some of the ideas put forth for 7th edition, I've got to disagree with you here - Nephelim was a poor RPG design, because it was a game that didn't tell you what the heck you were going to do with it. It really reeked of trying to make another White Wolf game with their house system and not making it something someone would want to play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;566532Succeed "every now and then", huh?  The game survives 30 years, but now needs to be "fixed".

Yeah totally, every now and then.  Cthulhu has always suffered from a big bunch of skills and not many points split between them.  Even fairly good investigators tend to have some key skills at 30 - 40% meaning they fail more often than they succeed.

I don't see how you got to the second part of your statement from the first.  The game has survived sure - that's not "thrived" or "got bigger then D&D", its "scraped through some pretty lean years".  If you still want to use it as it was, you still can, your old editions won't explode.  Having a new edition that's the same as the last six seems pointless, so if there's going to be a new one, lets at least make it different.

The success of CoC has been entirely due to the proliferation and quality of its supplements in my view - in spite of the system - most people get a lot more out of all that goodness than the out of date and shonky BRP mechanics.

There are horrific 60's shopping centres up and down the UK that have survived 60 years.  That doesn't mean they're any good, or particularly great for thier purpose.  They really need knocking down and starting again.

I'd advocate the same for Cthulhu, but failing that a fresh lick of paint and filling in some of the cracks will have to do!  

Quote from: Akrasia;567215Weird.

My extraordinarily limited experience is not reflective of broader reality.

iknowrite?

The next con in the west I think is Pacificon, not counting the Special Events (DCC by Goodman, and SW by the Lyons') PFS or LFR there are 15 RPG events currently listed. Three of them are
Cthulhu Pulp
Cthulhu D20
Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition

I've never seen a con without a CoC event, it's the one thing you can count on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;566532Call of Cthulhu is a game of emulating Lovecraft's stories, not Horror Movies from TV Tropes.

So far I really fail to see what the goal of these changes are that doesn't fall into the traps we've seen other long-running RPGs fall into...

1. Change for the sake of change.
2. New kid stuff is kewler.
3. The game that may have existed longer then the new authors have been alive is flawed in some fundamental way.

Ooops, missed this bit!

Yeah, the game should emulate Lovecraft, BRP isn't brilliant at that.  The characters in his stories don't often fail library use or miss important clues due to poor skills, they tend to succceed at all that kind of stuff.  The building of some tension in the stories also relies on things happening when dramatically important, not having strict dog positioning rules - the hounds turn up when its scary - from a roleplaying tension point of view, when players screw up a roll for example.

The guys who have written the changes have clearly stated they love the game and are trying to smooth down the rough edges.  Its not change for the sake of it, or a having new stuff because its cooler.  Its upadting an out of date system, because they love it and want the game to be better.

As mentioned previously, just because the game is old, that doesn't mean its mechanically good.  Lots of Keepers at conventions blatantly ignore most of the rules and do what they want anyway, so its hard to see what the hoo-hah is about regardless.

Quote from: Akrasia;567212But none of Chaosium's troubles business-wise were related to their RPG design.  They never produced crap games or supplements.  

Not yet...

Quote from: Akrasia;567212Instead, they simply made some very bad business decisions (viz. the deal with Avalon Hill, investing too heavily in the 'card game' fad of the early 1990s, etc.).

In terms of RPG-design, Chaosium has been remarkably solid for over 30 years.

I'm afraid the decision to revise their otherwise "solid" ruleset might have been borne out of a skewed business vision, one that's also been adopted by WotC (D&D 4e) and FFG (WFRP 3e).

Let's make one thing clear. I don't want CoC 7e to fail, whether I like it or not. I want Chaosium to stay alive and rockin' on. But based on the above-mentioned editions of D&D and WFRP, which (1) took the games ion directions that didn't interest me and most of my group; and (2) may not have been for the best, in business terms -- I do have something of a bad feeling about this.

Quote from: game.monkey;567221The characters in his stories don't often fail library use or miss important clues due to poor skills, they tend to succceed at all that kind of stuff.

This right here points to exactly the kind of incorrect assumptions I'm talking about.

Having important vital clues to an investigation be binary so if your players miss a single die roll and the world ends because no one notices the worn newspaper article stuffed in the back of a bible misfiled in a library- is bad GMing.

I don't need an entire new edition of Cthulhu (Trail) just to make sure that doesn't happen, the idea itself is ludicrous, and I sure don't need that new-school "fix GM stupidity through rules" crap added to the original.

Quote from: RPGPundit;566574The GM in the cthulhu game shouldn't NEED permission to take the gloves off or fuck up the players.  The other side of your statement implies that if the PCs refuse to "push" they should somehow be entitled to be able to demand a certain level of security.

Obviously a GM can do whatever he wants, he's always got bigger elephants.

It works as a tension building mechanic, because the player knows there's more riding on this roll - if he takes it voluntarily, it could lead to a whole world of hurt.

There's got to be some trust between GM and players.  If the players think the GM might just decide to kill them on a whim, you're going to struggle to bring any tension or that slim hope of survival, because they know whatever they do doesn't make any difference.  If they've got the illusion of some control, then they're going to be more bought in, and if they know by pushing its not GM Pundit being mean like usual, the frickin' rulebook says they should get screwed, and its their choice to do it anyway, then that adds a whole different aspect to the roll.

Sure players should get some security.  You read loads of Cthulhu tomes and you should lose sanity and go bonkers.  You choose not to read the tomes, your entitled not to lose as much sanity.  Your character gets in a fight with savage dogs and he might get mauled.  He hides up a tree and lets everyone else deal with them, he's probably not going to take the same damage.

If player choices don't make a difference - or importantly their perception is that they're not making a difference - you lose their trust and enjoyment of the game.  In our overwrought example the players are none the wiser about how many dogs are coming, or from where, so as a Keeper you can still say whatever you want about the outcome.  As long as the players are feeling like what they're doing matters, they're more invested in the game.

Characters in Cthulhu should feel helpless and insignificant - players should feel like they've got choices - even if they're unpleasant ones!