Gothic Fantasy: What Do YOU Want to See?

misterguignol · March 04, 2012, 03:45:40 PM

Quote from: Nazgul;519298I'd put in a section on how to handle insanity. Don't just tell your players "You're crazy now".

Do it by sending them notes about what they see or whispered conversations about what they overheard. Make it seem like they've stumbled upon hidden knowledge, not that they've lost their marbles.

Stay away from the other pcs at first. Only working back to them later. So as to prolong the ruse. Have a few pieces of information be useful (the paranoid mind picking up on a few things) have the rest of it be inconclusive.

But don't just pass notes to the insane individual, do it for everyone. Then no one will know who is crazy and who isn't just by the notes. "Is this something I saw, or am I insane?"

Generally, this is what I do: a character who has gone mad doesn't start exhibiting their symptoms until the next gaming session. After all, madness takes time to develop, right?

In the interim between game sessions I will inform the player what kind of madness their character has, what its effects are, and how they want to role-play it. It's like your note-passing system in that it can make insanity a surprise that is revealed in play, but I time it so that it doesn't require anything in game at the moment of acquisition.

I am a big fan of passing notes in play though.

Rincewind1 · March 04, 2012, 08:56:06 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;519302Generally, this is what I do: a character who has gone mad doesn't start exhibiting their symptoms until the next gaming session. After all, madness takes time to develop, right?

In the interim between game sessions I will inform the player what kind of madness their character has, what its effects are, and how they want to role-play it. It's like your note-passing system in that it can make insanity a surprise that is revealed in play, but I time it so that it doesn't require anything in game at the moment of acquisition.

I am a big fan of passing notes in play though.

Notes are great, especially for madness. Generally speaking, the "team - play" of mental disabilities was my favourite part of Trail of Cthulhu, and one I'd suggest reading and considering for all but the most hardcore immersionists.

misterguignol · March 04, 2012, 09:01:30 PM

Quote from: Rincewind1;519385Notes are great, especially for madness. Generally speaking, the "team - play" of mental disabilities was my favourite part of Trail of Cthulhu, and one I'd suggest reading and considering for all but the most hardcore immersionists.

I wish ToC wasn't $40.

Rincewind1 · March 04, 2012, 09:02:09 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;519388I wish ToC wasn't $40.

Hells, it's that expansive? I got the book as a birthday present.

misterguignol · March 04, 2012, 09:02:48 PM

Quote from: Rincewind1;519389Hells, it's that expansive? I got the book as a birthday present.

It is on Amazon at least. Just checked.

Is it a particularly big rulebook?

Rincewind1 · March 04, 2012, 09:05:44 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;519390It is on Amazon at least. Just checked.

Is it a particularly big rulebook?

About 250 pages.

misterguignol · March 04, 2012, 09:06:46 PM

Quote from: Rincewind1;519394About 250 pages.

I'm interested in it, but I don't think it's something I can really buy right away.

I also keep hearing good things about Bookhounds of London.

Rincewind1 · March 04, 2012, 09:10:54 PM

Quote from: misterguignol;519395I'm interested in it, but I don't think it's something I can really buy right away.

I also keep hearing good things about Bookhounds of London.

I'd be more then willing to discuss them (my current ToC campaign is using Bookhounds of London and Occult's Guide to London), but perhaps in another thread, so we leave this one to well, you?

misterguignol · March 04, 2012, 09:13:49 PM

Quote from: Rincewind1;519398I'd be more then willing to discuss them (my current ToC campaign is using Bookhounds of London and Occult's Guide to London), but perhaps in another thread, so we leave this one to well, you?

Hah, sure!

RPGPundit · March 05, 2012, 11:34:40 AM

I think that one of the things that perturbs me in this is that the term "Gothic" was one of the things that utterly ruined Ravenloft, for example.

RPGPundit

misterguignol · March 05, 2012, 11:40:23 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;519563I think that one of the things that perturbs me in this is that the term "Gothic" was one of the things that utterly ruined Ravenloft, for example.

RPGPundit

How so?

RPGPundit · March 06, 2012, 12:15:02 AM

In various ways. It made it a woe-fest, for starters. Everything was a "human tragedy". Shit, they even tried to suggest that the Illithid Brain in that one domain was somehow a tragic figure.
Characters were all but expected to be emo. Corruption wasn't about the embrace of evil so much as the embrace of personal tragedy.

Seriously, my antidote to this will be to one day run a dark-fantasy ravenloft game where the PCs' explicit job will be to go realm-to-realm kicking the shit out of the monsters, rather than "trying to escape" or finding that whatever they do the darkness wins out through cheap tricks, etc. etc.

RPGPundit

misterguignol · March 06, 2012, 12:18:58 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;519830Seriously, my antidote to this will be to one day run a dark-fantasy ravenloft game where the PCs' explicit job will be to go realm-to-realm kicking the shit out of the monsters, rather than "trying to escape" or finding that whatever they do the darkness wins out through cheap tricks, etc. etc.

Oddly, that's always how we played it, except the PCs could win out and rub the darkness's face in it.

misterguignol · March 06, 2012, 12:22:10 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;519830Corruption wasn't about the embrace of evil so much as the embrace of personal tragedy.

You're actually wrong about this point though; I just checked the section on Powers Checks and there is nothing about personal tragedy in there; it's all just a gradual embrace of evil, in fact.

Rincewind1 · March 06, 2012, 12:27:31 AM

Quote from: misterguignol;519833You're actually wrong about this point though; I just checked the section on Powers Checks and there is nothing about personal tragedy in there; it's all just a gradual embrace of evil, in fact.

While let's face it, a personal tragedy is a perfectly valid (and quite common) reason for why you'd turn to a more...risky means of gaining power, to settle the score etc.

And a question remains if Dark Powers aren't some form of a multiplanar parasite, feeding off bad feelings. That'd be kinda cool I think - not perhaps as main lore, but as one of the possible explanations.