Newbie GM, Looking to Start a Call of Cthulhu Group; Advice?

[RedJacketMan]

I've lurked here a couple times, just joined recently. I've had an interest in Call of Cthulhu for a while, especially since I started listening to Role Playing Public Radio's actual plays. So I want to start a group, but I'm not sure how to run it. I'm pretty inexperienced, I've only been playing D&D 3e for about a year and a half, and I have no GMing experience. I have the main rule book for 6th edition as well as some supplementary materials - part of my eagerness comes from gathering all these materials but not getting the chance to use them.

I was thinking of running the group either as a series of one shots, using the supplementary materials I have - some published scenarios - or as a full-fledged campaign, running the "Raid on Innsmouth" Campaign that I managed to get a digital copy of, or maybe something based on Delta Green.

Any thoughts, what do you think would work better for a new GM? I am a little worried about pitching the idea; there are a couple gaming groups, but most ones outside D&D haven't gotten off the ground. I'm a little nervous so any newbie advice in general would be great as well. Thanks for the help.

[Milodiah]

I noticed you said Call of Cthulhu. And Delta Green. My two favorite RPGs of all time.

I highly recommend Delta Green, as it deals with two narrative problems that regular CoC suffers from: 1, where you get the missions, and 2, where the new blood comes from when someone rolls up a new PC.

1, a lot of CoC scenarios (too many, I say) have cheesy, borderline Scooby-Doo plot hooks. Dead uncle-you've-never-heard-of leaves you a spoooooky mansion in his will, or a friend you don't remember writes you about some spoooooky stuff happening that you obviously should come take a look at, because you're somehow the professional at this kind of stuff. In Delta Green, however, it's simple: A-Cell sends you some case notes, pats you on the bum, and throws you to your death.

2, A-Cell can also throw the next cell after your guys, telling them to find out what happened to the first dudes. As opposed to Scott Glancy's line about Masks of Nyarlathotep, "we'd go down to the hotel lobby and ask the bellhop if he wants to come fight evil with us!"

It's also modern, which players obviously have a much better time connecting with. Sure, it's 1997, but I update it to 2004, and there's no reason to not make it 2014, it's only 1997 because it came out in '97.




Anyway, as for regular Call of Cthulhu...I don't recommend The Haunting, in my opinion it's not in the 'true' vein of Call of Cthulhu. Haunted mansions aren't quite the right vibe, as opposed to ancient mystical cults or horrors from beyond time and space. Other than two published Delta Green scenarios, I've never actually run a published CoC/DG scenario...always homebrew for me. I know it can be a pain, but it's worth it.

If you haven't read H.P. Lovecraft's works, do it, they're wonderful in my opinion and help you grasp the setting. The Shadow Over Innsmouth is obviously about Innsmouth, The Whisperer in Darkness introduces the Mi-Go, The Dunwich Horror is prime HPL material all-in-all, with many, many others.


Finally, may I recommend Sixtystone Press's Investigator Weapons, Volume One. Every '20s gun you'd ever want, statted out properly and professionally both mechanically and realistically, as well as a good set of rules to go with them.

Any questions, let me know...I like to indulge myself by claiming to be an expert on the game.

[RedJacketMan]

Thanks for the advice. I definitely might try going about making something more present. There's a lot to work with there and it might be more relatable than saying, "so you ALL live in Arkham."

[gom jabbarwocky]

I noticed you said Call of Cthulhu. And Delta Green. My two favorite RPGs of all time.

I second that comment! DG is great.

It's also modern, which players obviously have a much better time connecting with.

True, but I also happen to think that setting CoC in the modern day is a great move in line with the spirit of the original writings. After all, if you read the original short stories and novellas, Lovecraft often makes mention of ideas and technology that were, at the time, cutting edge. There's no reason that the concepts of the Mythos should be considered incompatible or awkward beside modern technology and science. That they are inconsistent with science's understanding of the universe is kind of the point. In my humble opinion. The '20s zeitgeist is still cool, too, if one prefers that.

My best tip to someone most familiar with D&D who is coming to CoC - when writing up adventures, de-emphasize combat. You'll be tempted to throw in some action set pieces to punch things up a bit (I know I was), but they rarely work out. Stick mostly to mystery-solving and investigation stuff. Cultists rocking machine guns and itchy trigger fingers are best saved for the final act, when all the PCs are going to die anyway. My players usually say their best investigation, where they managed to solve the mystery with no PC casualties, was one where they fired nary a single bullet... although they did manage to hit a cultist with their car and manslaughtered him by accident.

[Milodiah]

Remember, in CoC a single man with a Thompson sub-machine gun can be a TPK. I've seen it happen. Not saying don't give people the equipment they would conceivably have, I'm just saying that CoC combat is about as realistic as one would expect, and a single .45 slug has a fair chance of killing the average human being.

[veti]

1, a lot of CoC scenarios (too many, I say) have cheesy, borderline Scooby-Doo plot hooks. Dead uncle-you've-never-heard-of leaves you a spoooooky mansion in his will, or a friend you don't remember writes you about some spoooooky stuff happening that you obviously should come take a look at, because you're somehow the professional at this kind of stuff.

To be fair, I seem to recall Lovecraft himself used those tropes often enough. Mind you, that was pre-Scooby Doo.

One problem is that - everyone knows at the outset that they're playing CoC. Which pretty much rules out a whole line of possible introductions where the characters think they're "just" being paid to find a rare book for a slightly eccentric collector, or on a scientific mission to the Antarctic, or whatever. In my day, I tried to counter that effect by having my players deal with entirely-mundane scenarios from time to time - featuring entirely non-cultic kidnappings, smuggling or, yes, book collectors.

It's also modern, which players obviously have a much better time connecting with. Sure, it's 1997, but I update it to 2004, and there's no reason to not make it 2014, it's only 1997 because it came out in '97.

There is one technological change that's huge since the 1930s, and pretty major even since the 1990s: everyone now has a cellphone. I can't count the number of stories I've read, written as late as the 90s, where the difficulty of Person A communicating with Person B is a major plot point. If you want that to be a factor in 2014, you have to come up with some reason why the cellphone isn't working.

[RedJacketMan]

I guess my option would be to set it in the nineties if there are going to be scenarios that aren't intertwined. That way the investigators actually have to spend time in a library or searching some database for information on somebody rather than googling it on their phone.

The twenties sounds like a cool thing to go for. There's a feeling of authenticity in that time period for the Mythos and Lovecraft. But that might be more appreciated by players who already have exposure. If I did do the twenties, I would probably try to make the campaign a long running plot. Not so much Scooby-Doo where they have a wacky series of misadventures. I like your solution, veti, mix up the supernatural with the mundane. After all, a Private Detective agency has to get a relatively normal job once in a while, right? It could serve to break up the long-con a little without letting up on the pressure.

I'm hoping to get enough new blood to avoid the problem where people try to get their hands on dynamite straight away.

[Milodiah]

The "Scooby-Doo Problem" typically occurs on the first session of the campaign, I should point out. After they encounter the supernatural and (since it's a campaign) decide to go after it instead of, say, moving to an isolated beach cabin in Mexico and passing time with cerveza y señoritas until the Old Ones show up.

If you do the '20s, may I suggest you go for one of Adam Scott Glancy's WWI scenarios, I recommend either Dig to Victory or U-boot Heraus!. While they haven't been published yet (tentative release date is February) those two are pretty easy to reverse-engineer from the RPPR podcasts, and also extremely awesome. They provide a situation in which the PCs are just doing their jobs, and the Mythos comes to them, rather than them poking their noses into some bizarre situation just 'cuz.

On another note, it's important to remember that there are seldom signs that scream "OMG IT'S THE MYTHOS" on the first glance of a case unless the cultists/monsters/weirdness is particularly clumsy and/or stupid, which often is not true. There can be mundane signs that develop into a Mythos situation (missing persons case --> human sacrifices to Shub-Niggurath), or seemingly supernatural signs that develop into a mundane situation (creepy cult --> just a con-man's latest "change your will to me" scam). It's crucial to avoid tipping your hand to the players too early.

Two important things I believe:

1) Up until the mid-game or even early end-game, the party should be at least a little bit divided on whether it's occult or just weird, a lá Mulder & Scully.
2) There should be a single climactic instant in the mid or endgame that completely convinces everyone that it's something from beyond human experience.


Look at The Shadow Over Innsmouth or The Whisperer in Darkness for an example of what I mean; in both cases, the protagonists are educated and rational men who first dismiss the outlandish explanations of others as...well, outlandish, but then prove themselves wrong in a horrifying revelation. Another good example is The Colour Out of Space, in which the situation is mostly ambiguous as to whether it falls under the category of mundane-but-currently-undiscovered scientific phenomenon or beyond-time-and-space supernatural monstrosity, until the very end.

Also, remember how your characters would rationalize such things...I've actually taken to (mildly) decreasing the SAN costs of seeing something SAN-check-worthy if the player can connect it to something his/her character already believes in. To a devout Catholic, a byakhee is clearly a demon from Hell. To a member of the Miwok Indian tribe, a Deep One is clearly someone bit by a sea-serpent to become a Salmon Shaman (yes, I did do the research for this one. It's actually kind of scary how well it syncs up with HPL's Deep Ones lore, even down to the abundance of fish caused by the presence/herding practices of Deep Ones). In fact, for the latter, I even waived the SAN check, because the character had been (accidentally) brought up from childhood to accept this idea.

[Jigawatts]

I haven't delved too much into Call of Cthulhu as a system, but I did participate in the 7th Edition Kickstarter and am leaning towards picking up the updated Horror on the Orient Express adventure when my core books show up. Should be a fun change of pace from Pathfinder, definitely going to do the 1920's time period.

[BWR]

One problem is that - everyone knows at the outset that they're playing CoC. Which pretty much rules out a whole line of possible introductions where the characters think they're "just" being paid to find a rare book for a slightly eccentric collector, or on a scientific mission to the Antarctic, or whatever. In my day, I tried to counter that effect by having my players deal with entirely-mundane scenarios from time to time - featuring entirely non-cultic kidnappings, smuggling or, yes, book collectors.

This actually applies to almost all fiction, be it horror, adventure, drama, whatever. The fact that it is being shown/told, the fact that we are paying attention to it means the audience (or players, in this case) knows something extraordinary is about to occur. It's up to the players to roleplay that they don't expect it (unless they are forewarned). I've also used the mundane adventure to great effect. When the PCs (and more importantly, the players) are expecting to find something nasty going on, they can really work themselves into a tizzy trying to find the hidden plot and secret horrors.

[Knaight]

Any thoughts, what do you think would work better for a new GM? I am a little worried about pitching the idea; there are a couple gaming groups, but most ones outside D&D haven't gotten off the ground. I'm a little nervous so any newbie advice in general would be great as well. Thanks for the help.

Between the two I'd go for Delta Green, but it's in a solid 4th place for usable horror systems. First and second belong to Nemesis and Trail of Cthulhu, and which is in first and which is in second depends on whether you want to skew towards investigation (Trail uses the GUMSHOE engine, made for investigation first and foremost) or whether you want to skew towards action horror (it's what Nemesis is best at). Third is Dread, which is more of a one shot system but which builds tension like nothing else.

As for advice, horror as a genre absolutely depends on player buy in. You need to players to be on board with the idea and actively trying to make it work alongside you. Horror depends on maintaining the mood, and a beer and pretzels attitude or players getting distracted easily will kill it in no time, in a way which it really won't for basically any other genre. So, make sure that the people you're pitching it to are on board and willing to do their part in making it work.

[hifidelity2]

I enjoy setting CoC in the 20’s if for no other reason than confusing the hell out of the players with “proper” Pounds , Shillings and Pence – none of this decimalisation rubbish

Also everyone smokes, you can have “one for the road”, and the baddies will (provided you are from the upper echelons of society) treat a Lady Investigator with respect

[Scipio_77]

Well, don't do overdo it and it might be a trite cliche that does not work for everybody... but I had great success with descriptions such as "You don't hear the creaking door". It forces the player to play with ignorance and it puts a very "simple" horror-movie type cinematic over the scene.

[Scipio_77]

I enjoy setting CoC in the 20’s if for no other reason than confusing the hell out of the players with “proper” Pounds , Shillings and Pence – none of this decimalisation rubbish

Also everyone smokes, you can have “one for the road”, and the baddies will (provided you are from the upper echelons of society) treat a Lady Investigator with respect

You could also make a twin campaign, two stories playing out at different times... the result of one affecting the others. I haven't done it in CoC, but I have tried in WoD chronicles and it worked really well.