What is your worst roleplaying game?

[Mordar]

Their was a supplement to 1e Call of Cthullu (I think it may have been "The Companion", anyway it had an alternative way of assigning skill points partially based on backgrounds (kind of like "Traveller"), and you would almost always wind up with a PC that was more skilled in "Accounting" than would likely otherwise by the case, which kind of made sense, in that it just didn't seem credible that all these erudite professors of ancient languages would not be able to add and subtract, but no player would likely waste skill points in something that would never enter play.
This helped me realize that the 1980's goal of "realism" was probably unachievable and actually undesirable in RPG's.

As a huge CoC fan (and an RPG child of the 80s), I have to wonder if that 30-35 years ago is far enough in the dim past to be conflated with the 90s-00s...because I don't remember much in the 80s reaching out to be "realistic". Sure, that was the birth of the goth games...but other than having contemporary settings I don't recall much of the effort being to simulate reality. What games are you thinking reflected that goal?

Rolemaster has a justly-deserved reputation for its HILARIOUS critical hit/fail charts (which allowed you to kill yourself by tripping over your shoelaces, or would let a normal rabbit re-enact a certain Monty Python scene), and a generally-deadly combat system. (A friend of mine had his party get tramped to death by sheep. Regular sheep.) ISTR it also had amazingly inept starting characters, but it's been a long time since I glanced at it.

Bah! Lies! Falsehood!

While I grant there were some great critical results (and some that were plainly hilarious, even if they did not result in death), nothing was going to allow a regular rabbit to achieve any of those deadly results without huge GM meddling or luck that wins PowerBall drawings. Similarly, no such sheep-wipe could occur systemically without all parties being in on the outcome. Similarly, I think the RM characters had MUCH greater survivability out of the gate than any of their contemporary characters.

Yes, fine...I'm an RM fan.

- M

[2D8HP]

As a huge CoC fan (and an RPG child of the 80s), I have to wonder if that 30-35 years ago is far enough in the dim past to be conflated with the 90s-00s...because I don't remember much in the 80s reaching out to be "realistic". Sure, that was the birth of the goth games...but other than having contemporary settings I don't recall much of the effort being to simulate reality. What games are you thinking reflected that goal?".....

Yes, fine...I'm an RM fan.

- M

Actually Rolemaster tops my list (though IIRC it started with "Claw Law" in the 1970's), and now that I think about it the push for "realism" started in the 1970's with the "Perrin Conventions", which my DM had in his copy of "All the World's Monster's" (sadly I never got a copy). For some of the history of the "Conventions" click here.

The "Conventions" led to the Runequest which we played in the '80's as a more "realistic" Swords and Sorcery RPG.

But before that (about '79 or '80) the older teenagers who taught me RPG's had moved from our version of D&D (which included the LBB's, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry, God's Demi-gods and Heroes, The Arduin Grimoires, All the World's Monster's, and the AD&D Monster Manual, but not the PHB or the DMG which I was the first to get), and tried the very detailed, and "true to the middle ages" Chivalry & Sorcery RPG, because it was more "realistic". But before I got to actually play C&S "the gang" decided it was just too difficult, and they then moved to the Stormbringer! RPG. IIRC correctly I was the one who urged that we just go back to playing "regular ol' D&D", but I was out voted by the older more experienced (by just a couple of years, but that's a long time to teenagers) guys in the "gang".

The first non "Swords & Sorcery" RPG that I remember us playing was Villains and Vigilantes which had the nod to "realism" of your Superheroes "secret-identity" being yourself!
I really don't remember what I thought at the time but that concept seems lame to me now.

While my fellow gamers (that I knew then) either wanted to explore non-D&D RPG's (leading me to buy Traveller, Top Secret, Champions, and Call of Cthullu) or had the post '70's version of "Basic" D&D (which I never bought), I bought what AD&D I could afford (The Dragon Magazine etc.)
This stopped in '85 with "Unearthed Arcana", which repelled me, though I still tried to get what earlier D&D materials I still could (Chainmail, Empire of the Petal Throne, Swords & Spells etc.).

1985's (King Arthur) Pendragon was the first non D&D and "realistic" RPG thst I was as excited to play as D&D, and I never got to as it was time to leave High School, and say goodbye to the "gang".

The next RPG that captured my imagination was "Castle Falkenstein" with it's rich Gaslanp Fantasy/Steampunk setting, which I could never find a table for.

By the same publisher as the Falkenstein RPG,.I could find tables for Cyberpunk, but the seeting just seemed too much like real life to be much fun, and it was probably the last RPG I played for decades.

If Cyberpunk wasn't the last RPG I played in the 1990's, then it was Vampire.
I have mixed feelings about Vampire. It was better than Cyberpunk and it brought a lot of people into the hobby but...... the setting.
Modern day , and your PC is a supernatural cannibal , just wasn't for me.

In general the trends towards "dark", "grim, "gritty", "realistic" have not been to my taste, nor has the trend toward superpowered PC's, and I really don't like the closer the setting gets to the modern world.

So far I've never actually played any RPG as fun as Dungeons & Dragons.

[Monito]

The Hero System. Bought it in high school. Big, beefy game book. Never cracked it. I got less than a quarter of the way through it. It's like someone took GURPS and said, "Can we make this more needlessly complicated?".

[Mordar]

Ah, I had allowed my mind to wander a bit and it reached a point where the "realistic" path diverged into "system that attempts to realistically simulate skills/combat/conditions" and "system that attempts to realistically simulate environment and interaction". I then followed that second path and found myself seeing

You guys are, of course, correct that there were a number of systems that tried to "real-up" the D&D model of AC/HP and overall combat...as well as skill resolution, etc. Still, I don't feel that was the mood or overall feel of the 80s RPG era. Sure, some of the "fringe" games were doing it...and some non-fringe games (Traveller sticks out to me especially among the games you mentioned)...but most were still in the full-on fantasy mode, laws of physics be darned. Paranoia, Shadowrun, Star Frontiers, Time Master, Chill...none of these pointed me to "realistic" and they are the games I think of when I think 80s.

[ASIDE to 2D8HP: I wonder how much of our differences in experience had to do with the age of the people introducing us to play and their experience...my older friends that were playing were mostly just 2 years older with one exception. The exception was 5 years older and brought in RM, CoC and lots of the "new" games...but mostly the PaceSetter (like Time Master and Chill), TSR boxed games (like Star Frontiers) or other non-fantasy games, because we were going to play AD&D or RM if we wanted fantasy (so why try more flavors of the same thing?). How does that compare to your group/experience? Short version: We played a lot of game styles/settings (fantasy, space, horror, pulp...never much cyber) but generally only 1 or 2 of a given flavor.]

I think there might be a trend to conflate systems that initially appear complicated with attempting to model reality - I don't think my group ever saw RM as particularly realistic. We loved it because it really allowed us to customize our characters...to have massive differences between two characters of the same class at the same level instead of the tiny tweaks that make two 7th level fighters different in AD&D. Now that I write that, I can see how that adds realism (along with the clear ideas behind the weapon/armor tables that try to better address the "bashy weapons are better against plate armor than slashy weapons"...though there was something like that in play for AD&D too...just massively ignored)...

So...I think what I saw as evolution of mechanics can be seen in some cases as evolution towards realism...but only if you take the proper fork on the path I mentioned up above. On the path fork I took...it only meant they were trying to make our abject fantasy have better mechanics.

- M

[2D8HP]

[ASIDE to 2D8HP: I wonder how much of our differences in experience had to do with the age of the people introducing us to play and their experience...my older friends that were playing were mostly just 2 years older with one exception. The exception was 5 years older and brought in RM, CoC and lots of the "new" games...but mostly the PaceSetter (like Time Master and Chill), TSR boxed games (like Star Frontiers) or other non-fantasy games, because we were going to play AD&D or RM if we wanted fantasy (so why try more flavors of the same thing?). How does that compare to your group/experience? Short version: We played a lot of game styles/settings (fantasy, space, horror, pulp...never much cyber) but generally only 1 or 2 of a given flavor.]

@Mordar, OK let me try to clear my mental cobwebs away and think back:
In about 1978 I picked up the D&D "Basic set", the guy who later became my best friend (R.I.P. last year) saw me reading the "blue book", and invited me to play at his house were his older brother was the DM using the '74 original rules plus supplements. So the "gang" was High School classes of '83 (the first DM, and his friends ('83 & '84), his brother, me and a couple others of the class of '86, and my brother (class of 1989), so a six year age difference spread, but with most within three years of each other.
Fortunately my best friend's brother (our first DM) was accepted into U.C Berkeley and stayed in town, so we had eight years of gaming before "real life" broke up "The Fellowship".
IIRC I was the one who introduced most of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons materials, Gamaworld, Ringworld and GURPS, while my best friend introduced most every other RPG (Traveller, Runequest, Paranoia, Champions and MERP/Rolemaster), his older brother of course introduced us to original D&D/Arduin, with minor detours into Villains and Vigilantes, Chivalry & Sorcery, and Stormbringer!, and a major detour into Car Wars. My brother (class of 1989) started us on Empire of the Petal Throne, and Top Secret, which fell on me to GM which I did but using mostly Call of Cthullu rules! I'm not sure who introduced CoC (mysterious that)?
After high school I very briefly played "variant" D&D with "grown-ups", but that ended because of something the DM's girlfriend put on my shoulder that I objected to (and I was attacked by their Ferret!), and then Vampire, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk and now 5e D&D (as well as my buying and reading a mountain of RPG's I've never played).

Easiest to hardest to GM?

1) Call of Cthullu (easy system and the plots are amazingly easy to make up).
2) Basic D&D (fun setting and a 48 page rulebook!).
3) Ringworld/Runequest/Stormbringer! (pretty much the same rules as CoC).
4) Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (the more and closer you adhere to RAW the harder it gets).
5) Every other RPG (mostly because I don't seem to be able to remember for very long any other games rules I read accept for Pendragon which I've never gotten to play).

Most fun to least fun to play?
1) Original D&D (first love is the strongest).
2) All other versions of D&D that I've played.
3) Traveller.
4) Runequest.
5) Shadowrun.
6) Every other RPG I've played that I don't list.
7) Champions/Villains & Vigilantes/superheroes in general.
8) Vampire
9) Cyberpunk.

Games I've never played but want to?
1) Pendragon
2) Flashing Blades
3) Castle Falkenstein (the setting just looks so fun!).
4) Dungeon World.
5) All the various other versions of D&D that I haven't yet played including the "retroclones", "homebrews" etc.
6) All the "Fantasy Heartbreakers".

Games you would have to pay me well to play:
1) Werewolf (I actually like Lycanthopes in most Fantasy settings, just not W.O.D.).
2) Pretty much any modern day, near future or "dark future" setting, I just don't see the point. Most of my work in real life is spent doing building repairs for the police and the jail, I don't want any settings close to that in my games, I crave escapism (gas-lamp fantasy, swashbuckling, Swords and Sorcery, Space Opera etc.)!

[Arachnion]

Easily Adeptus Evangelion, 2.0, 2.5, and sure Borderline while we're at it.

I don't like the community, I don't like the tone it tries to shoehorn you into, and the mechanics have been a mess every time I've tried. Highlights include:
-A class whose signature feature makes them worse at fighting
-A class whose signature feature makes the rest of the PCs suffer
-1d100 dice core

Mind you, I like RIFTS, so mechanics have to be deeply fscked for me to really object to them.

[Sith_Happens]

-A class whose signature feature makes them worse at fighting
-A class whose signature feature makes the rest of the PCs suffer

Details for the morbidly curious?

[Arachnion]

Details for the morbidly curious?

2.5 edition, then. It's the Dark Hersey system; burst fire gives you a +30 to hit on a d100 roll. For the Skirmisher, the guns class, their to-hit roll determines their ability to get through AT fields. It's not (completely) unreasonable for a skirmisher to pretend that AT fields don't exist as they shootbangs the angels to death, which is awesome.

Except, as it turns out, if they want to take that nifty "precision" ability that shows up in their class advancement table like five times. That ability offers all sorts of neat benefits, most of them to using firearms...and only works with single shots. Give up that +30 bonus, and suddenly AT fields mean no fun shootbangs time. Instead, you gotta get up close and personal with the angel to neutralize it (and thus forgo your range advantage).

The second is the Berserker class. The whole party gains resources after battles that can be used to help upgrade their anti-angel defences. If the Berserker ever does the Thing Their Class Is Named For, it immediately puts a penalty on that resource gain. Naturally, they're most effective when using The Thing Their Class Is Named For.

[Anonymouswizard]

2.5 edition, then. It's the Dark Hersey system; burst fire gives you a +30 to hit on a d100 roll. For the Skirmisher, the guns class, their to-hit roll determines their ability to get through AT fields. It's not (completely) unreasonable for a skirmisher to pretend that AT fields don't exist as they shootbangs the angels to death, which is awesome.

Except, as it turns out, if they want to take that nifty "precision" ability that shows up in their class advancement table like five times. That ability offers all sorts of neat benefits, most of them to using firearms...and only works with single shots. Give up that +30 bonus, and suddenly AT fields mean no fun shootbangs time. Instead, you gotta get up close and personal with the angel to neutralize it (and thus forgo your range advantage).

I thought you could aim as a half action to get a +30 to hit (or is it +10)? I'm fairly certain firing full-auto is a full action as well, but I'm away from my copy of the rulebooks, I'll double check.

[Arachnion]

I thought you could aim as a half action to get a +30 to hit (or is it +10)? I'm fairly certain firing full-auto is a full action as well, but I'm away from my copy of the rulebooks, I'll double check.

Half-aim was +10, I think. I usually did that on top of burst firing. Full auto meant too many lost actions for too little benefit/ammo expenditure, IMO - and it also doesn't work with Precision. Usually I'm pretty good at spotting "trap" options for various builds, but that one has gotten the furthest in fooling me.

[Anonymouswizard]

Half-aim was +10, I think. I usually did that on top of burst firing. Full auto meant too many lost actions for too little benefit/ammo expenditure, IMO - and it also doesn't work with Precision. Usually I'm pretty good at spotting "trap" options for various builds, but that one has gotten the furthest in fooling me.

That's horrible.

I mean, I'm an Eclipse Phase and Anima fan, so I'm not totally against confusing systems where it's easy to end up suboptimal (although the Eclipse Phase book could really do with a 'raise several skills to 60+' note), but that's just horrible design.

As I remember, full auto was great for noncombat characters in Dark Heresy with the +30 to hit and the chance of landing multiple shots. It's certainly not good for anyone focusing on combat, but it's a good argument for the Adept and/or Psyker to begin with Pistol Training (SP) over Pistol Training (las). I can't remember how burst fire went, but I've never played with someone who used fire settings other than single shot (I tend towards semiauto, both because I love the ammo superiority of las and because I'm always either the face or the medic). I might be getting confused with how I tend to run games to encourage aiming though (...not that anybody thinks to aim).

Spoiler: tangent

Show

While I'm talking about Eclipse Phase, it has the best cyberpunk hacking rules I've seen. Just 2 InfoSec rolls, one to beat the firewall and one to beat active opposition, and your character will have skills and moneys for a secondary area.

[Arachnion]

Yeah, everyone of the pilots in AdEva had to be combat focused (for obvious reasons). Aiming was also very important due to hit location rules and tracking HP on different limbs-once the Core got exposed, you really really needed to start hitting it as hard as you could. There weren't many weapons available at start, they had to be unlocked with those resources the Berserker makes you get less of.

There was also one point in development where Angels got an action for every Eva opposing them, so if you had a poorly optimized team member they didn't just reduce the theoretical max strength of the team, they increased the actual, functional strength of the enemy. Hooray for unstable difficulty equilibria!

[Destro_Yersul]

There's no burst fire in Dark Heresy that gives +30 to hit. In DH1 Full Auto gives +20, and Semi-Auto gives +10. I'm not familiar with AdEva, did they change that? You can pretty easily get +20 on a single shot by using Half Aim and a weapon with the Accurate quality or a laser sight. The tradeoff is no chance of multiple hits. Also, both Full Auto and Semi-Auto are full actions.

[Arachnion]

There's no burst fire in Dark Heresy that gives +30 to hit. In DH1 Full Auto gives +20, and Semi-Auto gives +10. I'm not familiar with AdEva, did they change that? You can pretty easily get +20 on a single shot by using Half Aim and a weapon with the Accurate quality or a laser sight. The tradeoff is no chance of multiple hits. Also, both Full Auto and Semi-Auto are full actions.

It's been a long while. Looking back over it, it seems like you're right RE: full auto and semi-auto bonuses. Maybe I was just in the habit of using full auto? I distinctly remember fishing for every single bonus to hit that I possibly could. AdEva as a skirmisher to me was a game about trying to screw probability distributions and fishing for degrees of success on to-hits first, and everything else second.

Weapons and equipment were reworked for AdEva. I don't know how they are in Dark Heresy, but in 2.5 release Adeva you can make it so a half aim is a reaction action ("precise"), and another attachment can make it so that you can make a sort of "floating +10" for any allied to-hit rolls (Markerlight), with a half action on your part. One other thing knocks semi-auto down to a half action (Burst), but removes the to-hit bonuses. That's all you get for messing with accuracy on guns, equipment-wise. Equipment is bought on a per-mission basis from a pool of points you get that refills after each mission, and you increase the size of that pool with XP.

The core of the skirmisher approach I had was the ability to make every degree of success add 1 to your "get past AT fields" stat for a given attack. So every +10 to hit is a +1 to Breach, and if Breach is less than the enemy's Deflection your attack does absolutely nothing. There are some nifty weapons to boost breach, but they take a long time to unlock. There's also a background that boosts it, but they lock you into a single sort of backstory and bar you from some advantages I really wanted to try out.

It all sort of gave me the feeling of trying to fight the rules, even though shootbangs is nominally one of the skirmisher class's focuses.

[Longes]

While I'm talking about Eclipse Phase, it has the best cyberpunk hacking rules I've seen. Just 2 InfoSec rolls, one to beat the firewall and one to beat active opposition, and your character will have skills and moneys for a secondary area.

I'm calling bull****. Unless you stack speed multipliers with Psi you can't do any combat hacking, and even then - it has bizarre limitations. Everyone in the world is a ghost in the shell, a dataform digitally printed on a blank brain. People are walking around able to replace their own sense data with external devices. And not just stuff like having the inside of their goggles display porn – people can have their “ecto” wrist computer generate sounds and smells inside their brain to change the mood of their surroundings. People can send these mentally generated images directly to others, intruding onto their sense space. So why are hackers doing crap like giving people -30 with "virtual illusions" instead of just taking over and locking a person in virtual hell forever?

[Longes]

Easiest to hardest to GM?

1) Call of Cthullu (easy system and the plots are amazingly easy to make up).

Call of Cthulhu chargen involves steps like "spend 500 points among bajilion skills, oh and the skill list isn't complete and there could be new skills in any book". And if you didn't roll high EDU and INT, then you get less skills so you may as well set the sheet on fire and start over.

Also, while a Call of Cthulhu adventure is easy to make, a Call of Cthulhu campaign is not. Call of Cthulhu simply doesn't have infrastructure in place to support a group of protagonists to go on repeat adventures. The standard Lovecraftian plot is that you accidentally stumble upon supernatural, try to get away and/or destroy the supernatural, and then try your hardest to never encounter supernatural ever again because it's bad for your sanity. There isn't much of a reason for Call of Cthulhu protagonists to go find more supernatural evils. And since Randolph Carter is not a PC type supported by CoC, searching for power and knowledge are not options either.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm calling bull****. Unless you stack speed multipliers with Psi you can't do any combat hacking, and even then - it has bizarre limitations. Everyone in the world is a ghost in the shell, a dataform digitally printed on a blank brain. People are walking around able to replace their own sense data with external devices. And not just stuff like having the inside of their goggles display porn – people can have their “ecto” wrist computer generate sounds and smells inside their brain to change the mood of their surroundings. People can send these mentally generated images directly to others, intruding onto their sense space. So why are hackers doing crap like giving people -30 with "virtual illusions" instead of just taking over and locking a person in virtual hell forever?

I don't see the problem here, hacking isn't supposed to be a combat thing in RP. Hackers should have combat options, the Interface and Infosec skills won't take all.your CP, and if you want to hack somebody's Mesh Inserts you should do it before combat (or get your Muse or other AI to help you).

[Kurald Galain]

The standard Lovecraftian plot is that you accidentally stumble upon supernatural, try to get away and/or destroy the supernatural, and then try your hardest to never encounter supernatural ever again because it's bad for your sanity. There isn't much of a reason for Call of Cthulhu protagonists to go find more supernatural evils.

That's silly. You might as well claim that there's no reason for D&D protagonists to find more monsters, because adventuring is bad for your hit point total.

[Longes]

That's silly. You might as well claim that there's no reason for D&D protagonists to find more monsters, because adventuring is bad for your hit point total.

D&D protagonists are generally professional murderhobos who adventure for loot. Call of Cthulhu characters have actual jobs to go back to and get into the first adventure by accident.

[Kurald Galain]

D&D protagonists are generally professional murderhobos who adventure for loot. Call of Cthulhu characters have actual jobs to go back to and get into the first adventure by accident.

Those are funny stereotypes, but you're wrong on both accounts.

[Longes]

Those are funny stereotypes, but you're wrong on both accounts.

You are yet to present an argument for how Call of Cthulhu game extends into a campaign.

[Khedrac]

Extending into a campaign is down to the Keeper as much as anything else.
And that is ignoring that most of the published "adventures" are mini-campaigns as much as anything else.

The general way to create a CoC campaign is by "job".
If the characters all work for an organization (such as a University) where they keep coming across the adventure hooks then their desire to preserve the world should encourage them to keep investigating to prevent disaster.
In the campaign I play in we were working for the US Government department that tries to keep a lid on such things (now WW2 has started we have been given Canadian passports and gone to join SOE). Same principle.

Tbh with the right adventure hooks, you don't even need the organisation, but then you really the party to be a bunch of friends who will invite each other along if one of them gets a weird inheritance or invitation.

Yes, it is slightly harder than in standard D&D-style fantasy where most characters are out for loot and magic, but it's not difficult.
If a player plays a loner character who isn't going to join in and you don't have an organization that will push them, point this out to the player saying the equivalent of "yes, Fred stays at home relatively safe, now please generate a character who will get involved." If the players actively avoid the adventure then it is more the players' fault than the Keeper's.

[Earthwalker]

D&D protagonists are generally professional murderhobos who adventure for loot. Call of Cthulhu characters have actual jobs to go back to and get into the first adventure by accident.

I too have this problem with CoC I was never sure if it was just me or the GMs I played with. Always seems to just work better as a one shot. When people say they are in long running CoC campaigns I wonder how, and what kind of character they are playing and how they manage to get on.

I think one GM had a plan for a walker in the wastes campaign and that generally worked by having a group of people PCs and NPC out in the wilderness with the threat always there. The campaign was the life of the whole group so if you died you took over an NPC and just carried on.

In DnD adventurers go risking their HP for the chance to get loot. In CoC I aren’t sure why someone would be hunting down the supernatural.

[Longes]

I too have this problem with CoC I was never sure if it was just me or the GMs I played with. Always seems to just work better as a one shot. When people say they are in long running CoC campaigns I wonder how, and what kind of character they are playing and how they manage to get on.

I think one GM had a plan for a walker in the wastes campaign and that generally worked by having a group of people PCs and NPC out in the wilderness with the threat always there. The campaign was the life of the whole group so if you died you took over an NPC and just carried on.

In DnD adventurers go risking their HP for the chance to get loot. In CoC I aren’t sure why someone would be hunting down the supernatural.

That's because the horror genre is not set up for multiple adventures with the same protagonist. You may have the same villain, but the basic premise of horror is that you want to get away from the bad thing.

[Earthwalker]

That's because the horror genre is not set up for multiple adventures with the same protagonist. You may have the same villain, but the basic premise of horror is that you want to get away from the bad thing.

I do know what you are saying and like I said I have problems with CoC. I don't have the same problems with Chill for example as the background and setup is that the player characters are working for Save and their job is to investigate the supernatural.

Its a small point but setting that up means that you have a reason to be investigating. All the CoC stories I have ever been involved with, you as a player and your character know nothing about the supernatural you have to learn as you go.

[LibraryOgre]

You are yet to present an argument for how Call of Cthulhu game extends into a campaign.

Really, some of that comes down to "How long is an 'adventure'?"

Sure, if your first adventure is busting some cultists who've taken up residence beneath the University Library, and that's it, then you might go back to your normal life with your SAN mostly intact. But what if that first one points to a conspiracy of cultists, requiring you to arrange to guest lecture at an array of Universities, slowly building a picture of a grander plan, which requires that you travel to Ayers Rock in Australia, for your final confrontation with the secret high priest of Azathoth, who happens to be YOUR grad student.

That's a call of Cthulhu campaign. Not just the one evening of things that go bump in the night, but fighting the end of the world using only your degree in Dead Languages and uncomfortable New England manners.

[Sith_Happens]

That's silly. You might as well claim that there's no reason for D&D protagonists to find more monsters, because adventuring is bad for your hit point total.

It's generally a lot easier to regain hit points than SAN.

[Kurald Galain]

It's generally a lot easier to regain hit points than SAN.

And you generally have way more SAN than hit points. Fthagn!

[Anonymouswizard]

It's also possible (although hard) to play an adventure and come out with Sanity damage that can be lost with a couple of months of treatment. The game expects you to lose SAN, especially if the players make use of magic, and so all the examples are Investigators with SAN under 40 (although it's reasonable to start at that level), and learning more about the Mythos lowers your cap, but it's possible to have only a minor loss or even a net gain by the time of the next adventure.

Now, Call of Cthulhu would not be my first choice for a campaign, it's fun to run an adventure but I just don't have the ability to make a full campaign in it, but it's certainly possible. It all depends on your attitude.

[awa]

I feel like a cthulu campaign would have to be heavy on cultists and to a lesser extent monsters you could convince yourselves are not actually supernatural and save the most monstrous for the finale.