Cthulhu conflicts with Dogs mechanisms.

[Eric Provost]

Ok, so in my other topic here, I mentioned how much I love the Dogs conflict resolution system.  What I've never mentioned to anyone at the Forge before is my love/hate relationship with Call of Cthulhu.  I love the flavor and the setting, hate the mechanisms of the dice, as they relate to the system.

So, with the Dogs system running about in my head, I had this sudden flash of insight.  Using Dogs' system to resolve a terribly overlooked Cthulhu conflict; The Mysterious Tome.

If you're familiar with CoC, then you're probably onto what I'm going for here, if you're not familiar with the game, lemmie draw you a quick picture.  In the Cthulhu setting there are these mysterious books floating around, some of them are translations of books that predate human history.  All of these books o' niftyness have both resources the PCs may need to complete the story line, such as a spell or bit of trivia they need to know, but are also cursed with the ability to drive a reader insane.  

Now, the classic system has a fairly straight-forward resolution mechanism.  The PC chooses to read the evil tome for X amount of time, in an effort to find the bit of info they need, and are subject to Y amount of sanity 'damage'.  Simple & boring.  A single toss of the dice later, your PC knows the info they need to know, and are permanantly afraid of their own shoelaces, or whatever.

So, with Dogs' resolution system in mind, I think to myself how wonderfully intereting a Mythos Tome could become.  For example:

Player:  I'm going to open the ancient tome and try to find some information on how to send this monster back to where it came from.
GM:  So, what's at stake is; Do you find the Ritual of Banishing?
Player:  Sounds good.
*dice rolled*
Player:  Raise; I find a description of the beast, along with a referance to it's true name.
GM:  Block; As you read down the description of the beast, you accidentally mumble aloud the Five Secret Names.  Raise; Your eye is drawn to a color plate of a painting showing a village burning to the ground, apparently the work of the beast.
Player:  Taking the blow; I drift off for a bit, staring deeply at the pic.  Raise; Eventually I pull my eyes away and continue searching.  A few moments later I find a sketch of the runes I'm going to need to draw for the ritual.
GM:  Reverse the blow; Unfortunately, your poor geometry skills result in a poor re-creation of the sketch.

Etc, etc.  

I imagine that Fallout from such a conflict could be defines as such things as Wasted Time, Sanity Loss, or even Accidental Summoning.

But really, I just wanted to share the idea that the Dog's resolution system of Raise & See could be applied to make what used to be a boring bit of a game turn into the exciting and interesting bit that it really should be.

I'm so terribly excited by it all.

Eric

[Brand_Robins]

Ayup. It is very cool. There was a similar thread about using Dogs for Delta Green that you should totally check out: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12648

[Eric Provost]

Doh!

I'm a day late and a dollar short, as usual.  Thanks for the link.

Eric

[stingray20166]

I'm a day late and a dollar short, as usual.

Maybe -- but I would have never seen the Delta Green link if you hadn't posted this.  Thanks!