It's been mentioned before in other threads, but if you're just reading the Call of Cthulhu book, it's entirely reasonable to interpret some of what the writer says as: Avoid combat, play a subtle investigator.

I think that there are "implications in the text of the game saying 'you have to play an effeminate etc. etc." It's an available reading.

I don't think it's the best reading - I think a careful reading shows that it's more of a warning that "not every single damn situation is resolved with a gun. Try some other stuff when it's more appropriate to do so." Which is not the same thing as "never use a gun, never enter combat".

But some people make that mistake - and it is, I think, an understandable mistake. But still a mistake.

Quote from: RPGPundit;492095No, they wrote the game with the type of character the OP posted being a completely valid and supported choice. Lots of rules on combat, huge lists of guns, and no special implications in the text of the game saying "you have to play an effeminate university professor who investigates the occult and then curls up like a fucking pussy to die because the player thinks actual combat is somehow forbidden".

RPGPundit

And a bunch of monsters that such things are meaningless against, however. I always got the impression  those things were there because of the feeling of obligation in RPGs that they had to be there, and because for some people, it's about history porn. Knowing exactly what was available in that time period.

I'm not saying the Op's character is invalid, or that every character needs to be an "effeminent professor" as you say, in fact most of my Call of Cthulhu games take their cues from Hellboy and the BPRD more than anything, and I always add in some pulp action. But the structure of adventures in Call of Cthulhu (and as that gameline is generally known and famed for having some of the best, if not the best adventures, it would be silly not to use them even if, like me, a GM tends to heavily modify them to suit their own tastes and work in larger "subplots") rewards characters who have a diversity of skills and are not simply optimized for combat.

My general goal as a CoC GM is to make the investigative aspect of the game the funnest part for players, and I downplay combat as a solution to most problems. It exists, but in general, only maybe 1 out of every 5 sessions I run actually involves a combat, and as often as not it comes about because of player mis-steps. As such, a player who was primarily a combat munchkin, valid as a character choice or not, would not get most of the big "wins" of any given session and would basically have to hang around until a situation for combat presented itself while the other players took spotlight. I would also worry that this would encourage the character to look for combat situations.

I had a session the week before last that ended up with 2 TPKs in the same night. And I've since heard from the players that was one of the most enjoyable adventures they ever had. As one of them put it: "the Awesome thing about this game is that when my character loses, I feel like I'm winning".

Some of that probably has to do with my homebrew sanity system that I replaced the abstract "sanity point loss" mechanic with, which I never felt had the right amount of impact in play. It uses Tarot cards instead, with specific effects based on the cards drawn, and for most people I've played with the times they are forced to "take a card" are actually the highlight of the session for them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;492095Lots of rules on combat, huge lists of guns, and no special implications in the text of the game[...]

I'd be more inclined to believe that the emphasis on combat rules and weapons lists comes from the fact that in 1980, that was just what everybody thought RPGs were supposed to do, regardless of the amount of combat in the source material.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492139I'd be more inclined to believe that the emphasis on combat rules and weapons lists comes from the fact that in 1980, that was just what everybody thought RPGs were supposed to do, regardless of the amount of combat in the source material.

I thought it was due to the default setting being 1920s-30s USA. Guns galore.

Neither tactics nor intrigue are % skills in CoC...

Quote from: soltakss;491937If you play CoC straight, then you play a set of PCs with some kind of investigative skills and go on a whodunnit, following a series of mundane and occult clues and then die or go insane. Even if you happen to survive, you end up going insane anyway by researching those occult skills that you need to survive the game.

Far better to play a counter-character who you can actually enjoy playing.

My experience and many others' seem to disagree with you. I have run several long term campaigns, and though mortaility is higher than in other games, your experiences don't add up to ours. And I don't fudge dice, I roll lots of published adventures and run the game pretty much by the book.

Quote from: TristramEvans;492123And a bunch of monsters that such things are meaningless against, however. I always got the impression  those things were there because of the feeling of obligation in RPGs that they had to be there, and because for some people, it's about history porn. Knowing exactly what was available in that time period.

I'm not saying the Op's character is invalid, or that every character needs to be an "effeminent professor" as you say, in fact most of my Call of Cthulhu games take their cues from Hellboy and the BPRD more than anything, and I always add in some pulp action. But the structure of adventures in Call of Cthulhu (and as that gameline is generally known and famed for having some of the best, if not the best adventures, it would be silly not to use them even if, like me, a GM tends to heavily modify them to suit their own tastes and work in larger "subplots") rewards characters who have a diversity of skills and are not simply optimized for combat.

My general goal as a CoC GM is to make the investigative aspect of the game the funnest part for players, and I downplay combat as a solution to most problems. It exists, but in general, only maybe 1 out of every 5 sessions I run actually involves a combat, and as often as not it comes about because of player mis-steps. As such, a player who was primarily a combat munchkin, valid as a character choice or not, would not get most of the big "wins" of any given session and would basically have to hang around until a situation for combat presented itself while the other players took spotlight. I would also worry that this would encourage the character to look for combat situations.

I had a session the week before last that ended up with 2 TPKs in the same night. And I've since heard from the players that was one of the most enjoyable adventures they ever had. As one of them put it: "the Awesome thing about this game is that when my character loses, I feel like I'm winning".

Some of that probably has to do with my homebrew sanity system that I replaced the abstract "sanity point loss" mechanic with, which I never felt had the right amount of impact in play. It uses Tarot cards instead, with specific effects based on the cards drawn, and for most people I've played with the times they are forced to "take a card" are actually the highlight of the session for them.

Sounds interesting. Care to elaborate more on the sanity system? Also, I agree: CoC rewards, in my experience, a well balanced set of skills across the group.

Quote from: Imperator;492197Sounds interesting. Care to elaborate more on the sanity system?

Sure

Characters have a Psyche score or rank, which represents their current sanity, mental balance, or equilibrium, as well as a pool of "Stress Points".

Each character also has an ARCANA which is defined by one of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, providing a rough indication of that character's knowledge & experience with the Mythos & an overall comprehension of the nature of reality.

Starting characters may choose either The Fool (0) or The Magician (I) as their Arcana. Characters who start with The Fool (0) are people who have thus far led ordinary lives and have not been exposed to the supernatural. Characters who start with The Magus (I) have a background in the occult or have experienced the supernatural and are beginning to be aware of the "true nature of the universe".

Whenever a character in the game experiences an event that challenges their perception of reality, they draw a card from the deck. If numbered, the value of the card determines the amount of Stress points taken; if this amount surpasses the character's Stress Threshold (total Stress points), the character permanently loses a rank of Psyche and the Stress pool is refreshed. The Court Cards for each suit (Page, Knight, Queen & King) cost Stress of 11, 12, 13, and 20 points respectively, and each have individual temporary effects depending on the suit (Cups tend to involve things associated with dreams and consciousness, Swords have to do with a character's ability to reason and view things logically and rationally, etc). These are minor temporary effects, like passing out or entering shock, for the most part.

If one of the Major Arcana are drawn, it is compared to the character's current Arcana. If the card drawn is equal to or lower than the character's Arcana, it is discarded and the character suffers no ill effects. If the card drawn is of higher value than the character's Arcana, the character develops a Derangement, as determined by the specific card drawn. (In one game a character happened to draw the Death card at the wrong moment, and I described how he suddenly saw the flesh melt away from everyone standing near him and he perceived himself to be surrounded by cackling skeletons). I usually have players couch their responses to this in terms of "freeze", "frenzy", or "flight", taking a cue from Unknown Armies.

An exception to this is The Fool (0), which "trumps" every other Major Arcana except The Magus (I). This represents the "protection" that ignorance provides mundanes and how a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A character's Arcana is increased the more they are exposed to the world of the Mythos, so basically in any event where in the standard CoC system they would gain Mythos points.

It's also tied into the magic system, as a character's Arcana determines their ability to use spells.



Ex: Shaggy sees a g-g-g-ghost. His player draws a card from the deck, revealing it to be The Hermit (IX). As Shaggy's Arcana is The Fool (0), he discards with no effect. Though he may be scared, he's managed to rationalize away what he saw as simple illusions and his sense of reality is left intact. When Thelma later encounters the same ghost, however, she draws The Hanged Man (XII), which trumps her current Arcana; The Magus (I). She has seen something impossible that her mind cannot dismiss or cope with, and this encounter will have a lasting effect on her mental health.

Second Stage Mythos stories often involve directly fighting against the forces of the Elder Gods.

Check out stories by August Derleth, Robert Bloch, and especially Brian Lumley.

CoC Swine (to bandy about that term) who have 'decided' this is the 'proper' way to play the mythos must be ignoring the fact that half the material in the basic CoC manual (any edition) actually includes many, many articles pertaining to these works.

I encourage anyone who is playing CoC to actually read Lovecraft's stories, but realize he didn't really connect them all.  There are two different sides to Lovecraft's writing - and CoC kinda mashed those together with the takes on the mythos by these different authors.

Then they claim it's "pure mythos" when they have no idea that such a thing never actually existed except in the minds of some of Lovecraft's correspondents.

Take Robert Howard, for instance - the first person to show us that A) Yes you can fight an Elder Thing and B) Yes, you can win then get drunk and go wenching afterward.

Hell, Lumley even let cripples get in on the fighting.

Quote from: TristramEvans;492213Sure

Characters have a Psyche score or rank, which represents their current sanity, mental balance, or equilibrium, as well as a pool of "Stress Points".

Each character also has an ARCANA which is defined by one of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, providing a rough indication of that character's knowledge & experience with the Mythos & an overall comprehension of the nature of reality.

Starting characters may choose either The Fool (0) or The Magician (I) as their Arcana. Characters who start with The Fool (0) are people who have thus far led ordinary lives and have not been exposed to the supernatural. Characters who start with The Magus (I) have a background in the occult or have experienced the supernatural and are beginning to be aware of the "true nature of the universe".

Whenever a character in the game experiences an event that challenges their perception of reality, they draw a card from the deck. If numbered, the value of the card determines the amount of Stress points taken; if this amount surpasses the character's Stress Threshold (total Stress points), the character permanently loses a rank of Psyche and the Stress pool is refreshed. The Court Cards for each suit (Page, Knight, Queen & King) cost Stress of 11, 12, 13, and 20 points respectively, and each have individual temporary effects depending on the suit (Cups tend to involve things associated with dreams and consciousness, Swords have to do with a character's ability to reason and view things logically and rationally, etc). These are minor temporary effects, like passing out or entering shock, for the most part.

If one of the Major Arcana are drawn, it is compared to the character's current Arcana. If the card drawn is equal to or lower than the character's Arcana, it is discarded and the character suffers no ill effects. If the card drawn is of higher value than the character's Arcana, the character develops a Derangement, as determined by the specific card drawn. (In one game a character happened to draw the Death card at the wrong moment, and I described how he suddenly saw the flesh melt away from everyone standing near him and he perceived himself to be surrounded by cackling skeletons). I usually have players couch their responses to this in terms of "freeze", "frenzy", or "flight", taking a cue from Unknown Armies.

An exception to this is The Fool (0), which "trumps" every other Major Arcana except The Magus (I). This represents the "protection" that ignorance provides mundanes and how a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A character's Arcana is increased the more they are exposed to the world of the Mythos, so basically in any event where in the standard CoC system they would gain Mythos points.

It's also tied into the magic system, as a character's Arcana determines their ability to use spells.



Ex: Shaggy sees a g-g-g-ghost. His player draws a card from the deck, revealing it to be The Hermit (IX). As Shaggy's Arcana is The Fool (0), he discards with no effect. Though he may be scared, he's managed to rationalize away what he saw as simple illusions and his sense of reality is left intact. When Thelma later encounters the same ghost, however, she draws The Hanged Man (XII), which trumps her current Arcana; The Magus (I). She has seen something impossible that her mind cannot dismiss or cope with, and this encounter will have a lasting effect on her mental health.

Really really interesting. Thanks for posting it. Food for thought, certainly.

Quote from: soltakss;492063About ten times, with the same results each time.

I've never had a character survive a single scenario intact. The one character who survived was hit by a cultist's spell and withered his arm and leg and he ended up in an asylum.

I have enjoyed some of the games, but the result is always the same, in my experience.

Simon, it's one way to play it, but it's certainly not the only way.

Kind of like how Vampire can be about the moral challenges of subsisting on human blood to survive as an immortal, supernatural predator, but most people would rather have dark superhumans with katanas and trenchcoats and mirrorshades at night fighting each other.

Unlike Pundejo, I don't think either way is "right" or "wrong" (I do feel that the pulpy, dynamite-and-tommy-guns approach is underrated and underused in my own gaming group, though; their preferred way of playing CoC mirrors your own experience). A game, any game, is what you make of it.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492139I'd be more inclined to believe that the emphasis on combat rules and weapons lists comes from the fact that in 1980, that was just what everybody thought RPGs were supposed to do, regardless of the amount of combat in the source material.

And yet, every subsequent edition has held to the same rule.

Could it possibly be that in fact Lovecraft and co.'s stories are PULP stories and thus expected to have action? Could it be that in fact anyone who isn't a fucking retard and actually READ lovecraft, rather than making effete fantasies about what its probably like founded on their own struggles with masculinity and excessive love of emo music, knows for a fact that there's loads of actual action and fighting in his books, and it is not at all a requirement that protagonists, when encountering horrific things man was not meant to know, should curl up into a fetal position like a fucking pussy and die?

Do we need to repeat that Cthulhu IN "Call of Cthluhu" is beaten by RAMMING HIM WITH A MOTHERFUCKING SHIP?!

Yet there are Swine out there, and they could be called nothing else, that CONTRARY TO EVERYTHING IN THE GAME RULES AND THE SOURCE MATERIAL, believe that so much as lifting a weapon to defend yourself in that game, much less having someone trained and capable of doing so, is to be strictly forbidden.

RPGPundit

There's always a player like Algol in CoC games. Not only do I consider them awful players, but morally questionable human beings and in line for a severe talking to.
But regardless, all the metagaming in the world doesn't do them any good when I GM.

Min-maxers are annoying in any system. It's just more crippling in Call of Cthulhu than D&D.

Quote from: RPGPundit;492483Could it possibly be that in fact Lovecraft and co.'s stories are PULP stories and thus expected to have action?

It certainly could be.  It's been a long time since I've read the original Lovecraft and his stuff and the imitators are all swimming around in my memory, indistinguishable.

But as a general rule, RPGs still haven't broken away from the problem of being tactical wargames with tacked on skill systems.  So if a game seems to focus heavily on combat and that's not the primary focus of the source material, I tend to assume that's the reason.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492503But as a general rule, RPGs still haven't broken away from the problem of being tactical wargames with tacked on skill systems.  So if a game seems to focus heavily on combat and that's not the primary focus of the source material, I tend to assume that's the reason.

I'm not sure what the problem with that is.

Except maybe you're an art-school hipster pussy type who needs 'feeling', 'meaning' and 'drama' in every game he plays. Watching your friends pretend to be 'moved' would get old faster than getting my ballsack nailed to my gaming chair.

You should probably read some more Lovecraft.  There's all kinds of fighting - just not a lot of winning.

Go play Vampire some more, then you can cry whenever someone punches someone in Elysium.

Leave the fighting of Elder Gods to people who don't see fighting as a problem.