Hey Veeky Forums, so I am newish to tabletops. not exactly new since I've played in a few campaigns but I've never really ran more than a session or two myself. My current group are looking to kick off another session on the side and I got put forward to run it. I was thinking of doing something a little different since they've only played DnD and some of them are a bit jaded with fantasy.
So I saw a post about Call of Cthulu the other day saying it was good for newbies and thought it would make for a cool Silent Hill/F.EA.R campaign. I can't find a torrent for the books though so was wondering if anyone could share them?
tl;dr Looking to run a Call of Cthulu campaign. Need the pdf's and character sheets. Also any tips or cool idea's would be greatly appreciated!
I would recommend playing Trail of Cthulhu instead, particularly if you're newer. The main advantage it has over CoC is that the game can't be halted by bad rolls, other than that the two games are mostly identical.
That said for doing Silent Hill or F.E.A.R you might be better off running Dread or maybe 10 Candles
John Cooper
Halted as in the game literally stops? I know that in DnD like if someone wants to roll for something that you pretty much need them to do (i.e open a door) you just let em.
Ok, I've never heard of Dread or 10 candles? Pro's con's? I am curious.
Ethan Allen
PG9B
Levi Thompson
>Halted as in the game literally stops?
Yes. Most packaged CoC campaigns will grind to a halt if the players don't make the correct skill checks. The one innovation of the Gumshoe system is that the modules just give the players the clues they need to continue, independently of how well they rolled.
Elijah Green
What systems would be good to run then? To employ settings outside of DnD generic fantasy? I've messed around with GURPS before but it seems pretty shit to be honest.
Parker Walker
>Dread The game's core mechanic is a Jenga tower, when you do something risky you pull a block from the tower, if the tower falls the player who did the pulling's character dies or is otherwise removed from the game as soon as possible. As a result the tension (chance of failure) builds until someone dies, then builds again and so on.
>10 Candles Has a rather interesting gimmick, it's played in a dark room where the only light source is 10 candles, standing in a circle. I won't go into full details of the mechanics (you can see that here: youtube.com/watch?v=fX6wmXAqFNg ) but the gist is the worse things get the more candles go out (and the darker the room gets), also the more candles go out the harder the rolls become.
Jace Sanchez
>if the players don't make the correct skill checks That's a retarded and misleading conjecture put forward by Pelgrane marketing years ago to sell a system of dubious quality. ToC has no mystery, it has a Play-button.
Don't listen to this dupe, OP.
Download the CoC 7 quickstart, watch the YT clips by The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, and maybe solo through Alone Against the Flames.
You will have trouble coming from DnD. But it will not be dead ends created by keeper failure by hinging story progress on all-or-nothing skill checks. It will be players expecting to dominate the story through violence, looking for the loot, and grouping opposition into goons, lieutenants, and the bbeg at first sight.
Play a few premade scenarios before setting out to make your own. The moving parts are quite different. And see if your players are into this kind of game or if something like Pulp Cthulhu would be more suited to their expectations.
