I've been playing through Sunless Sea again and I love the atmosphere and writing. I was wondering how you would translate it to a table top game?
Obviously Call of Cthulhu comes to mind, but otherwise what would you guys include to help build the tension and uncomfortable nature of Sunless Sea.
"LOSE YOUR MIND. EAT YOUR CREW. DIE. Take the helm of your steamship and set sail for the unknown! Sunless Sea is a game of discovery, loneliness and frequent death, set in the award-winning Victorian Gothic universe of Fallen London."
sunless sea is great and well written, but its essentially a cthulu-esque, Victorian/steampunk era game.
Mason Jackson
Remind me how Sunless Sea handles sanity? All I remember from the game is that darkness is bad.
Jackson Roberts
You acrue 'Terror' over time, the rate of which is linked to light. So if you have your Headlamp on or are near a buoy or lighthouse then you'll get Terror at a slower rate, but there are times when you might want to turn your Headlamp off because of monsters you want to sneak around or your running out of fuel
Terror is also gained through the story, which is interesting since you can get Terror from... having a chance encounter with some sea beast which is understandable, but also from going into a abnormally dark room with a deep sense of foreboding. If your terror hits 100 you go crazy.
I haven't ever played CoC, how often do you like run into the monsters, since in Sunless Sea you never run into something like a... Shoggoth for example, its always hinted at or eluded too through tricky word play and excellent writing. Most of the uncomfortable things that you read come from some shady character saying something off.
Daniel Cooper
I've been trying to homebrew Sunless Sea in SWN, pretty much lift the ship combat and apply it as is. That way, combat will feel like it matters a lot more. I don't know if the combat system regarding characters would translate that well, probably switch it with something like Unhallowed Metropolis' wound system.
But the horror part, I'm split between the insanity systems CoC and Dark Heresy uses, only more forgiving on the part of removing the insanity. On one hand CoC is unforgiving about it and on the other DH leaves a lot of parts vague.
Also, how would you translate mechanically the various other aspects of the game? The various Zee Gods' curses and attentions should have some kind of effect in-game, same with any unwanted attention from dream sneks. Also, I think that the stats shouldn't stay as they are with Iron, Mirrors, Veils, Pages and Hearts and go down the traditional route.
Samuel Diaz
some zeebeasts are pretty scary. The Flukes, Mount Nomad, lifebergs, Tree of Ages, Neither, Triskelegant, Flukes. It's not quite as bad as, say, Chtulu but still
Andrew Reyes
Not as bad? Methinks you haven't found descended into the Eye and come across the Black Judgement and the House of Chains then.
Brandon Ortiz
Don't forget that Frostfound is a place that you can't enter its final room without being a step away from going completely balls-to-the-wall, out of your mind, jacking off to Jack Chick's Hot Chicks issue #1 insane.
Camden Lee
I think Claymen could be an interesting enemy. Say you have a Clayman on your ship and some enemy agent wipes off his forehead writing and he goes feral. You have this stone behomoth loss on your ship just effortlessly crushing crewmembers.
You don't exactly get many mouthed monsters with thousands of popping gurgling eyeballs.
Alexander Ortiz
stone is actually pretty fucking easy to break if you brought a hammer.
