[Crypt of Chthonos] Sailing to Sarnath: A Kind of Horror Heartbreaker

[Bill_White]

I've followed with interests threads that talk about Lovecraftian games, because I've always enjoyed the idea of Call of Cthulhu even though I'd never played it.  The consensus that emerges from them is that a fix for CoC would involve making risking sanity for in-game resources a central mechanical element.  I oversimplify a little:  Here are summaries of some of the threads I'm talking about:

[COC] and thoughts about the genre discusses the contradictory quality of typical Call of Chthulhu play engendered by Sanity mechanics that encourage cautious/paranoid play in collison with genre conventions pushing characters to stick their necks out.  But "if CoC was a game like DitV, instead of having a genre convention for foolish/reckless behavior fighting with the Sanity mechanic, the game would give rewards for investigation and going insane" (Chris Geisel).  Eric J-D agrees, saying, "what you'd want is a mechanic that gives players control over some other aspect of the story being created if they put their character's sanity at risk and fulfill certain agreed upon genre conventions."  Eric goes on to suggest that in Mythos fiction, we generally know as we are reading that some horror will be revealed in all its manifest awfulness; we are just waiting for it to make itself clear.  In contrast, the goal of typical CoC adventure is to unravel the mystery while husbanding one's Sanity points.  Later, he says that what a Mythos-inspired game needs is  "some way of creating collaborative storytelling that [builds] towards that moment when the last chilling line [is] delivered and everyone [feels] his bowels threaten to loosen."

Drifting to R'lyeh:  Facing the Problems with Call of Cthulhu is billed as an "autopsy" on Call of Cthulhu by Brian (or maybe Bryan) Bankhead, originator of the thread.  Brian argues that CoC play skews heavily illusionist (i.e., players believe that they have more choice-in-play than they actually do) because of a mismatch between the investigation rules and the structure of a typical CoC adventure.  The skill rules suggest that characters will occasionally fail to find the necessary information required to drive the plot forward, but a typical adventure requires that characters find that information or else they just sit there, stewing, until either the GM drops the information in their laps (and then what were the skill rolls for?) or the game just dies.  Thus illusionism.  Brian concludes that CoC has "something for everyone to hate." 

Hounds on the Moor is a link to a DitV hack by Rustin that tries to emulate Lovecraftian horror.  Interesting for its adaptation of DitV town creation to adventure construction:  Imagine a supernatural horror and and a handful of characters surrounding that horror who may be motivated by curiosity or greed and whose knowledge may range from occult dabbling to sorcery to insane apocalyptic servitude.

So my solution is Crypt of Cthonos, in which the GM offers evocative hints at the beginning of the game and the players decide what they are willing to put their characters through in order to unravel the mystery's skein.  So the game in schematic form works like this:  the GM creates a network of creepy game places, things, and people as an initial framework for the adventure.  Players create characters as new elements of that network.  Play takes the form of efforts to elaborate this network; this will occasionally result in conflict whose fallout has consequences for characters, their relationships, and the other elements of the network.  Play continues until the mystery is solved or at least plumbed to the extent players desire.

I'm pretty pleased with these rules, but I wonder what people think of it as a response to the problems identified in the threads above.  I haven't playtested it yet, but if you like these rules I encourage anyone who wants to make use of them and report back to me about whatever strengths and weaknesses emerge.

[Wood]

As a lover of all things Cthulhuesque, I've downloaded it. I'll read it properly and comment when I have the time.

[Anders Larsen]

I find you game very interesting. I really like the idea of the chthonic web, it seems to be a good way to structure a mystery game without the problem of illusionism. I am just not sure I would call it a Cthulhu rpg.

I have not had time to read the different threads you link to (I have read some of them for some time ago, but I don't remember them clearly) so I can only judge from my own understanding of the Cthulhu Mythos. It does not seems to me like you hit the central ideas of a typical Lovecraftian story. The stories you game seems to tell - at least from what I can see from the examples - seems to me more like a Stephen King type of horror. For example, Lovecraft never concerned himself with his characters personal issues or relationships. His stories are typically an investigation that step by step will lead the main character to face the ultimate horror, and this will normally make the character go insane; like after experienced something so horrible and alien, it is impossible to face reality anymore. And I can not see anything in your game that will lead the characters towards this horrible truth. You have concepts of Doom and Madness, and it may be what I am looking for, but you need to describe some more about what effect these have in the game - what they represents.

Of cause I may have misunderstood what you want with this game.

- Anders

[Bill_White]

Anders --

I think you're probably right.  In thinking about the game and the effects I'm striving for in it, I've begun to think that maybe it's the Hitchcockian rather than the Lovecraftian that I'm after.  I haven't fully thought this distinction out yet, so maybe it will turn out that there's some middle ground or synthesis that will ultimately be the end-point (the Lovecockian, perhaps) of the design.  But the interplay of character as a counterpoint to the dynamics of plot (the inexorable Lovecraftian fall to doom) is important to me as a game-element, and I think is necessary to add impact to the plot, so that characters aren't merely the barometers of the proximity of the horror.

Thanks for a useful comment.  I, too, think the chthonic web is the most interesting element of the game thus far.  Everything else is in play.

[Narf the Mouse]

I suggest, however, that you do *Not* mix the words 'Lovecraft' and 'Hitchcock' in the rules in such a manner, unless you wish to totally derail every single game session of your game ever.

[Mel White]

Hmm, 'Hitchcraft' might avoid the risk Narf brings up ;-)
Mel

[andrew_kenrick]

I really like this Bill - definitely a good way to run a horror/mystery game. I like the idea of the Chthonic Web, although why not free it up even more - rather than have an end location/node, why not just have a vague idea of where the mystery is leading/a final conflict planned out. That way players could decide that they find the horror by spending a lot of time chasing forbidden books, eventually culminating in something nasty happening in the bowels of the university. Or they might go for a more adventurous approach and mount an expedition into the Arctic to seek out a magical artefact, culminating in something nasty happening in the tundra. Same basic premise, but you free up the players' possibilities even more!

I also liked the idea of Threat Level, although couldn't really work out what it did aside from defining how many points went into nodes. It reminded me a lot of Tension in Dead of Night (which Ron talks about far more eloquently than me here) - Tension goes up over the course of the game depending on what the players do, but not only does it have a mechanical effect (giving the GM points to influence the game), but also is also used for descriptive/narrative purposes to flavour the events. I can imagine something similar being done with Threat, so the higher the Threat, the more unnatural/dark/non-euclidean things get.

I disagree that the game isn't Lovecraftian - it's just that the examples in the text place more emphasis on the characters' personal issues than you might expect in a Lovecraft story. I think it would work very well as a Cthulhu game, if you played down interpersonal issues that exist in your examples.

[Narf the Mouse]

Perhaps the amount of research done could determine the difficulty of the 'end boss'?

[Bill_White]

Re:  Lovecock.  Okay, I was kidding.  I only mentioned it because my friend Alexander (iskander) has anointed 2006 the indie RPG year of the cock on the strength of illustrations in books like Mortal Coil and Dictionary of Mu that feature male full frontal nudity as um decorative motifs (both by Jennifer Rodgers, I think).  I personally would play the game in a "Hitchcrafty" way, to emphasize the character drama as well as the mystery (remember that Hitchcock is the guy who gave us the term "maguffin" to refer to the thing that everyone in the movie is after but that ultimately does not matter) but Andrew is probably right that one could approach it from a purely Lovecraftian perspective and still have a satisfying game.

I do intend for Threat level to work like Tension, at least as I read it from your descriptions of play in Dead of Night.  It goes back to the description in at least one edition of Call of Cthulhu of the game as being like "peeling an onion."  At the beginning, the characters believe that things are as they seem; as it progresses, menace increases as the dimensions of the threat become increasingly manifest and visible.  So the Threat level increases the strength of newly introduced nodes and gives the GM more dice to roll in conflicts with the player-characters.  This kind of implements Narf's suggestion, in that Threat increases when nodes are "resolved" (there has to be a better, more elegant way of saying this:  it essentially means once puzzles are solved or threats overcome or soul-blasting implications digested), which gives the GM a chance to introduce new nodes as well as disquieting details that undercut the apparent resolution.

As far as the open-endedness:  I like the idea of player choices and preferences shaping the form of the "final encounter" with the "chthonic," preternatural, or spooky.  However, I think it's okay for the GM to be more than a facilitator, to have some "real" explanation in mind for the mysterious portents that begin the game.  Certainly that move will help to add structure and coherence to the play of the game.  But with so many specific details left undetermined at the beginning, there should be room for the kind of responsiveness to player input that Andrew suggests might be cool.

I'm going to work up a playtest adventure and try to get some players to try it out; I'll report back when I do.  Other comments and considerations are welcome!

[Mel White]

Bill,
A couple of questions. 
1)  Do you see NPC characters as being written up as nodes with values for Menace, Mystery, and Malice; or with the same attributes as the player characers?
2) In Conflicts, how many dice does the GM roll?  In the example, the GM rolled 1d6 for the node Malice, and then 4 dice more.  Were these 4 dice tied specifically to the PC's Hate or were the 4 dice tied to the PC's Madness?  In other words, if the PC's Hate was at strength 2, but his Madness was 4, how many dice would the GM roll?
Mel   

[Narf the Mouse]

For suggestions for #1, I'd suggest characters if they are 'ordinary' people, nodes if they are 'Monsters'.

[Bill_White]

Bill,
A couple of questions. 
1)  Do you see NPC characters as being written up as nodes with values for Menace, Mystery, and Malice; or with the same attributes as the player characters?

They're the same things with different names.  Mechanically, Menace = Physique, Mystery = Intellect, Malice = Persona, and the overall Threat = Psyche.  They have a different "thematic" effect, though, so while Jack the Ripper may be best described in terms of Menace, Mystery, and Malice, Sherlock Holmes (a potential ally) is probably better entered into the Chthonic Web with Physique, Intellect, and Persona scores.  If player characters come into conflict with their erstwhile ally, the GM can use the overall Threat level to determine Holmes's successes.

Two points:

(1) As an ally, Holmes is merely a source of resources for the player-characters rather than an active agent in his own right.  Say a PC spends an Interaction to establish a relationship with Holmes ("I call upon Mr. Holmes in his flat at 221B Baker St and reveal to him the peculiar circumstances surrounding the affair at Gloomshawe Heath.  He is rather taken with the conundrum and we talk long into the night.  He invites me to call upon him again").  A link is created between Holmes and the PC, at +1.  Having made this investment, the PC can Gather Resources, saying "Holmes arranges for us to travel to Gloomshawe Heath together, and he makes much of certain seemingly inconsequential details about the lay of the land and local migratory patterns," to which the GM responds, "Take Investigation tokens equal to your Psyche" (and possibly "plus the strength of your relationship with Holmes" though that's not in the current rules).

(2) The GM can call for conflicts at any time, and on any pretext.  So:  "While you're speaking with Holmes in his flat, his perspicacity and vast erudition have you struggling to keep up with his reasoning.  His wisdom threatens to leave you scratching your head in puzzlement."  The player:  "I try to keep up with his reasoning, learning what I can of both his methods and the truths he extracts from them."  GM:  "That's a conflict." 

The player rolls dice equal to his character's Intellect plus Madness, with each result equal or under his Psyche counting as a success.  (Note:  I would not let the PC use the +1 relationship with Holmes as a die, regarding the conflict instead as "interrupting" the player's expenditure of the Investigation point.  If the relationship survives the conflict, though, that relationship might provide a die under certain circumstances.  There may be need for a rule limiting the maximum relationship strength between any pair of nodes.)

The GM rolls dice equal to Holmes's Intellect/Mystery, counting as successes results equal or under the Threat.  One potential outcome is that the GM will use one of his successes to nullify the player's investment, reducing the strength of the link to 0 or even converting it into Fear, Obsession, or Hatred involving Holmes (as written, the rules suggest that it is the player's choice as to the specific form it takes).

A third point:  it may be worth it to replace the general "Threat level" with a specific Psyche-paralleling Threat score for each node that signals its efficacy in conflict and that has the potential to increase as the characters come closer and closer to its core truth.  So as the characters learn more about Jack the Ripper [as the players add more information to Jack the Ripper's node], the monster's Threat and therefore his efficacy in conflict against them increases.  Notice that this won't increase the difficulty of "resolving the node" (solving the mystery), since that's equal to the sum of Menace, Mystery, and Malice.  This would make non-player "nodes" exactly mechanically parallel to player-characters, regardless of whether they were viewed as "monstrous" or "potentially friendly."  Thoughts about that?

2) In Conflicts, how many dice does the GM roll?  In the example, the GM rolled 1d6 for the node Malice, and then 4 dice more.  Were these 4 dice tied specifically to the PC's Hate or were the 4 dice tied to the PC's Madness?  In other words, if the PC's Hate was at strength 2, but his Madness was 4, how many dice would the GM roll?

The Crypt Keeper ;-) I mean GM would roll 3 dice:  1 for the persona-disrupting Malice of the node, and 2 for the character's self-destructive Hatred.

Basically, the GM gets to use the character's issues as dice in his favor by indicating how they apply as a source of tension in the current scene.  "Your Obsession with your dead wife makes it hard for you to resist the ghost's psychic manipulations" and so forth.

And as the Threat increases, the GM's chances of messing up the characters via conflicts grows greater.

Bill

[Mel White]

A third point:  it may be worth it to replace the general "Threat level" with a specific Psyche-paralleling Threat score for each node that signals its efficacy in conflict and that has the potential to increase as the characters come closer and closer to its core truth.  So as the characters learn more about Jack the Ripper [as the players add more information to Jack the Ripper's node], the monster's Threat and therefore his efficacy in conflict against them increases.  Notice that this won't increase the difficulty of "resolving the node" (solving the mystery), since that's equal to the sum of Menace, Mystery, and Malice.  This would make non-player "nodes" exactly mechanically parallel to player-characters, regardless of whether they were viewed as "monstrous" or "potentially friendly."  Thoughts about that?

Bill,
I was originally thinking that NPC nodes would best be built the same as other nodes, using Menace/Malice/Mystery.  The 'Holmes' example has me reconsidering, though.  The cool thing in the example is the ease of which a 'friendly' NPC can become a threat, without having to worry about justifying, say, low Malice or low Menace scores.  In other words, we wouldn't expect a Holmes type character to be built with high Menace (from the PCs point of view) but if Holmes did, later, become an enemy, we would not want him burdened with an artifically low Menace.  And building some NPCs as characters does provide a certain level of useful uncertainty regarding that NPC's role. 
I like the idea of each node having a separate Threat score--perhaps as a modifier to the overall Threat.  That would make specific nodes more dangerous in a Conflict in the early stages of the game when the overall Threat remains low.  It makes sense, too, that nodes should increase in Threat as the PCs come closer to resolving that node.  It's the monster backed into a corner, the bad guys taking desperate measures to prevent defeat, or the truth just being too painful for some to bear...
Mel

[Bill_White]

Okay.  Imagine a game that goes something like this.

The GM creates a Chthonic Web with these two unconnected elements on it:

[Location]  Starry Wisdom Chapter House:
A compact, strongly shuttered Masonic lodge in a disreputable part of town.
Menace 2, Mystery 6, Malice 4 (Threat +2).

[Object]  The Thanarkic Fragments
An ancient inscription carved in stone in undecipherable glyphs.
Menace 0, Mystery 8, Malice 0 (Threat +1).

There's one player.  He creates:

[Major Character] Reno Psmythe
A two-fisted archaeologist with nerves of steel.
Physique 3, Intellect 2, Persona 2, Psyche 3; Madness 1.
Obsession:  Thanarkic Fragments.
ACTION 5, INVESTIGATION 4, INTERACTION 5.

The GM has 9 resource points at his disposal.  Play begins.  GM:  "You're in the Hub City Museum of Natural History, studying the inscription.  You can't make heads or tails of it."

"I'll make a rubbing of the inscription and go talk to my friend Prof. Jeroboam at Agonsett College.  He's an expert in antediluvian linguistics."  The player spends an Action point, and creates the professor with Phys 1, Int 5, Per 2 (Psyche +0).  "I sit in on his lecture on hypothetical Lemurian phonological variations."  The player spends an Interaction point and creates a +1 relationship with Jeroboam.  The player then spends an Investigation point:  "I show him the rubbing, and he tells me that it's clearly Atlantean in origin--"

Now suppose the GM had it in his mind that the inscription was going to be from an Eldritch Things city on a remote Pacific island.  Worry about it, or not?  Is Jeroboam allowed to be mistaken, or does the expenditure of a player resource require that the story conform?  Is the GM allowed or required to say "You mean Muvian" or "You mean Easter Islander" at this point?

How, in other words, do the rules as written make you think the whole "following the GM's plot" thing works in this game, and how do you think it should work?

[andrew_kenrick]

"I'll make a rubbing of the inscription and go talk to my friend Prof. Jeroboam at Agonsett College.  He's an expert in antediluvian linguistics."  The player spends an Action point, and creates the professor with Phys 1, Int 5, Per 2 (Psyche +0).  "I sit in on his lecture on hypothetical Lemurian phonological variations."  The player spends an Interaction point and creates a +1 relationship with Jeroboam.  The player then spends an Investigation point:  "I show him the rubbing, and he tells me that it's clearly Atlantean in origin--"

Now suppose the GM had it in his mind that the inscription was going to be from an Eldritch Things city on a remote Pacific island.  Worry about it, or not?  Is Jeroboam allowed to be mistaken, or does the expenditure of a player resource require that the story conform?  Is the GM allowed or required to say "You mean Muvian" or "You mean Easter Islander" at this point?

Well first off, in this example, I'd tell the GM to stop being such a pedant. I'm sure his idea would work perfectly well in sunken Lemuria/Atlantean as it would Easter Island. I think if the GM wanted to make the plot conform to his whims, he should spend a resource point just like the player, and have the fact turn out to be wrong. Or better yet, have the player's discovery/invention turn out to be a clue that leads towards where the GM is pushing them.

In short, I'd say if you're going to give the players narrative control then embrace it fully. Don't give them a limited amount and then allow the GM to smack them down when they deviate from his ideas.