Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Houseruling Call of Cthulhu

Like I recently posted about, I have been listening to the recorded sessions of Horror on the Orient Express campaign for Call of Cthulhu. It have kind of rekindled my old love for the game. I became a patron of Yog-Sothoth.com just the other day to show my support, and to get hold of the recordings of the latest recordings, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth - by gaslight.

So, naturally I have now gotten the urge to play CoC. The fact that I still haven't managed to get my other planned game off the ground don't stop me from dreaming.

Ever since the read Trail of Cthulhu I have been thinking that some of the inventions of that game would work excellently if brought over to CoC. I still think the BRP system superior to Gumshoe, but some aspects are interesting.

  • Drives - frankly, having a specified reason to go peeking into things that make you go mad is a good idea. Having some mechanic that brings it out into play wouldn't hurt either. 
  • Pillars of Sanity - I never really felt comfortable with the idea of gaining sanity after the adventure for defeating monsters. It works in Chill, but personally I think it feels cheap in CoC. Having some abstract beliefs and principles as the grounding of your world view opens up interesting possibilities. If something happens and the Investigator can somehow argue that he will stand it by seeking comfort in one of his beliefs, that is a cool idea. Also imagine someone having experienced something that shows his world view to be a noble lie. Instead of going insane, he could have the pillar "crumble" from within, and now have a more fragile hold on his sanity.
I'm pretty sure I could think of more. The idea of not having to roll if the clue is important is less of revolution for me. I never saw the big need for that Gumshoe invention. Letting the game grind to a halt because of a failed roll is shoddy game mastering, whatever the rules set.
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