So /ysg/ what mechanics, if any, have you made or borrowed from somewhere else to put in your games? I was inspired while reading some short stories on a flight and came up with something I'm calling Carcosa Actions:
>PC describes what they're doing >GM describes 2-3 other actions(alt actions) they're also doing in alternate timelines that they're experiencing while in the "core" one. >If it's just thematic/narrative and isn't a test, it's mostly just for flavor. Can incorporate a SAN test. >It's it's during a rolled action> >>Critical results in PC action succeeding and alt actions "erased." >>Success results in action success and SAN 0/1d4. >>Failure results in action failure and SAN 0/1d4. >>Fumble results in alt action becoming the "core" reality and SAN 2/1d6. Thoughts?
An example: >PC says he's searching the room for weapons. >He's also experience a reality in which he: >>starts chanting and vomiting >>cuts long, shallow grooves into his left forearm >>writes a letter to his wife that doesn't exist He's experiencing all of these things at the same time.
Hudson Martin
Bump.
Gavin Garcia
>So /ysg/ what mechanics, if any, have you made or borrowed from somewhere else to put in your games? I played out a few DG scenarios with Unisystem (we already know it, CoC didn't seem to offer anything extra so I just ported the material. Because DG relies so much on investigative rolls I instituted a rule: roll your perception and whatever skill, and the GM will answer questions equal to the levels of success. Magnitude of questions is based on Per and skill level (so Sherlock can ask about mud types in footprints while normal humans get only normal info) and those with photographic memory can "save" questions to ask later. Based on my knowledge of CoC, you could award questions 1/10 under skill rolled, like degrees of success in Dark Heresy.
Luis Perry
>GM will answer questions equal to the levels of success. That's pretty fucking genius.
Landon Bennett
Thanks, worked out pretty nicely. There was some tweaking about certain things having "free" answers attached (i.e. there is a note underneath a book) and how often skills can be rolled, but these things all depend on eyeballing anyway.
Austin Martin
Bump.
Jaxson Murphy
...
Jacob White
...
Matthew Rodriguez
>DG relies so much on investigative rolls
No it doesn't. The book is full of examples where you automatically get the clue if you have the relevant skill.
Elijah Lee
...
Carson Hughes
seems pretty lolrandum to me and incompatible with pushed rolls which at least have a pretty clear action-->consequence dynamic to them
Colton Long
Hey fags. I'm basically running my PCs through Evil Dead 2, with names changed to protect the innocent. I have stats for possession, Deadites--er, The Possessed, and the Necrono--er, the Book of Eibon. I've hit a snag, tho.
How would I do Susannah's (Henrietta's) transformation into an even tougher demon? A second form for when she dies? Another creature entirely? What do?
Brandon Barnes
I stole fetters from Nectronica (where psychological damage is dealt to intra-party relations instead of a single sanity pool) and whatever the system was called from Doublecross (where you have a expressed and repressed feelings for other characters which swap when you go insane) for sanity effects. It makes more sense than "u saw skelie, u scare by spidrs now" system from CoC. In my opinion anyway.
Seriously, I had a CoC character who, after being chased through a jungle by ghostly panthers, lost sanity and developed a phobia of sharks. Sharks. He developed a fear of sharks. In a jungle. From being chased by panther ghosts.
Thomas Miller
It'd only be during specific place events and I'd use it pretty sparingly.
Logan Jenkins
>randomly rolling insanity instead of determining based on context
Your Keeper is retarded.
Logan Martinez
I've had three keepers pull that shit. It's the absolute worst.
Brayden Brown
Goddamn, dude. Even the book says the charts are for inspiration, not for, like, Runequest-style damage.
Leo Sanchez
that's pretty fucking hilarious desu
Isaac Moore
>So /ysg/ what mechanics, if any, have you made or borrowed from somewhere else to put in your games?
I put together a Delta Green oneshot with pregens where the players have to steal some artefacts from a book store. The trick is that at least one of the players gets a character who's working against the rest of the group. There are a lot of different traitors, loyal agents and disguised monsters to choose from, so the scenario can be replayed with the same group.
One of the traitorous Agents is a Yithian, but instead of using the prototype mechanics from the handler's book (which would require a luck roll every time anyone does anything to the character, significantly bogging down play) I decided to use the Portent ability from 5E to reflect their foreknowledge of events. The player secretly rolls 5D100 at the start of the game and records their values. At any point, when they, the GM or another player roll a D100, they can declare that one of the numbers they rolled is substituted instead - using it up in the process
Josiah Brooks
Any chance you have stuff typed up for that? I'm running DG as the Group, but one player is a Program spy.
Ryan Hughes
...
Jacob Ross
Sure. I've ran it once so far and it was pretty fun, albeit completely unbalanced.
Ignore the text colors, it's something I do for the purposes of counting words (in contests on the DG mailing list, stat blocks aren't counted against your total)
James Roberts
Thanks brah.
Aaron Clark
What is the best edition of CoC?
Colton Butler
So long as you're not playing the d20 iteration, the biggest benefit of CoC as a system is that they're all effectively the same rule-set with some slight adjustment from edition to edition.
Advantage/Disadvantage dice and pushing are new in 7th, if I recall, but I like them and they're fairly intuitive mechanics so I recommend using 7th since its the most recent one and what most tables will be using.
Nolan Lopez
What is d20 iteration?
Mason Jenkins
>Unisystem >I just ported the material Plus, that didn't seem to be the case in the scenarios I ran (Last Things Last, Night Floors, The Last Equation).
Jackson Thomas
How serious is Achtung Cthulhu ? It looks like it plays very pulpy
Wyatt White
>(Last Things Last, Night Floors, The Last Equation). Just did Last Things Last as our first session, looking to do the Last Equation next(actually making scenes in roll20 as I type this), and I'm also trying to plan on for what's next. How is Night Floors?
Jacob Morgan
>Last Things Last From page 46 of the PDF
>»» HUMINT 40% can’t tell what to make of her body language and mannerisms. They’re all strange. But if she’s been stuck in a septic tank for all these years unable to die, that should be no surprise. >»» HUMINT 60% senses a strange disconnect between her speech and her facial expressions and mannerisms. It’s unlike any the Agent has encountered. >»» HUMINT 80% can tell she’s in a high state of alert, not quite as defeated as she seems.
The players get a different level of knowledge depending on their characters' skill level, without the dice coming into play at all
>The Last Equation From a previous edition of the game and therefore not relevant to the conversation
>Night Floors Likewise. And anyways it doesn't matter because the skills the player characters have are irrelevant in Night Floors
Mason Jackson
Are there any PDFs with slang from the 20s
Benjamin Jenkins
>How is Night Floors? The atmosphere and set pieces are great, but there's basically nothing the players can do to affect the outcome. The main gameplay loop is "wander until you decide to leave, then wander until the GM decides to let you out". The only decision the Agents can really decide to do is pursue Abagail to the bitter end, which results in them being trapped in Carcosa - game over.
Ethan Adams
Ah, that's less than ideal.
So, we're using roll20 for DG, does anyone else use that and if so do you make the various scenes in it?
Christopher Harris
Shit, the version of LTL I had didn't even have a reference to HUMINT in it. They must all be last edition. Good catch. Night Floors was easily the most thematic and the nicest in terms of writing for me to read as a GM but is completely right. My players never even went onto the Floors. They determined roughly what was going on from a daytime investigation, and burned the place down with all exposed persons involved. They gave a report that Abigail and the rest had been killed/possessed by a bizarre entity.
Brayden Stewart
What would you guys recommend running after The Last Equation?
Christopher Robinson
To be honest, my group were done with DG after three missions. They didn't enjoy the continued tradecraft or dark themes. We are now playing Dark Heresy and they are annoyed I am playing a violence-first puritan type. My life is suffering.
Brandon Walker
That blows, mine really enjoyed Last Things Last. We had stopped playing a Deathwatch meatgrinder and some regular Pathfinder before that, so the investigative stuff really brought them in.
Nathan Hernandez
Out of morbid curiosity what did CoC d20 do wrong? I would like specifics please.
Bentley Thomas
...
Zachary Morales
Any ideas for a Halloween session?
Hudson Jackson
I'm taking the plunge by running a Halloween one-shot this Saturday. By player request I plan to include jack o lanterns and it appears that that is one of the masks of Nyarlathotep. I have a Doctor of Medicine, a Lawyer, a Policeman, and a Private Investigator in this group. Could someone help me out with planning such a scenario with all of these ingredients?
Carter Carter
The only thing I don't like about 7e is the lack of resistance table, it was very useful and using it only takes a minute.
Kayden Harris
Something involving Nyarlathotep. He wears so many masks after all.
Charles Wood
Jinx.
My idea would would be Nyarly playing the part of a slasher to complete a ritual. Have the time periods randomly change and the locations slowly start to merge together as Nyarlathotep completes the ritual. Also Nyarly is wearing a Jack O'lantern mask because he's festive.
Michael Brooks
My group got that when we were 14 and stupid. Basically what we reacted to after a while was how awkward hit points and level ups felt in a CoC game. So we ditched the system and converted our characters and NPCs and kept the campaign. I'd tell you what we switched to but I don't feel like getting burnt at the stake tonight.
Connor Hernandez
Ritual, eh? Shifting time you say? For some reason I'm picturing something that could border on being a Sapphire & Steel story. Hm...
Josiah Lee
has anyone here heard of Cthulhu abides? it's an ingenious little game with ingenious mechanics and I'm wondering if I'll literally the only one who bought it, ever
Hudson Cruz
What specifically makes it terrible?
Charles Campbell
Do tell.
Brandon Davis
Just spitballing but while we're at it...
> The ritual invokes Yog-Sothoth? > A prophet who dreams of lost timelines? > The investigators risk being trapped within written prophecies and historical texts?
Jack Bell
I did an October campaign a couple years back which was basically a smorgasbord of every conceivable slasher trope with some Cthulhu on top for good measure. It was fun making up a bunch of slasher villains of all kinds. >The half-caste pioneer giant brought back to life by inhuman powers in the mountain, draped in furs and wielding makeshift steel traps and weapons >The 70s serial killer reborn into a hillbilly manchild's body, who strangles his targets with bulging eyes and slavering lips >The old forest hermit serving alien masters, who was basically The End from MGS >The creeping, crystalline eldritch entity trapped beneath the sleepy Oregon town
Brandon Richardson
I'm gonna be running my first session of CoC soon. Got any tips?
Luis Barnes
Use Stealing Cthulhu
Oliver Ward
Got a PDF for us?
Andrew Jackson
Music from a Darkened Room
Christian Harris
>flashbacks Man, I remember my party sacrificing me
Zachary Morales
...
Easton Johnson
What is a really good beginner scenario? The entire group is new to CoC and I've only DM three campaigns previously
Ryder Cooper
What would you like to get out of your game? And what time period do tou want your game set in?
William Young
1920 perferred. Want to get general grasp of the rules and focus on investigation of a classic mythos.
Levi Kelly
Maybe start with The Haunting? It is The Intro Scenario for Call of Cthulhu, and has been printed in various editions including 7th
Kayden Brooks
The Haunting is a classic starting scenario and was reprinted for the 7th Ed starter set. It's the go-to first session for people trying to learn the game.
Doors to Darkness is a set of five 7th Ed one-shots for new Keepers, if you want some alternatives to The Haunting or easy-to-run scenarios to follow it up; Servants of the Lake is a new favorite of mine, if you want a particular recommendation mediafire.com/file/v1shd592vfx4kj0/
John Butler
Not the requester but thanks! This is really handy
Noah Barnes
Did someone actually make a mod like this or is it just art?
Alexander Cooper
Alright folks, for our group's Halloween game I'll be running Dead Light, 7th edition CoC. I love the one night survival aspect of it and I've already fleshed out a lot of the details. This is going to be their first time playing and they've made some pretty good investigators which are surprisingly not combat focused.
That said, there is exactly one enemy in the whole scenario and it's not exactly one you can fight. My question is, do y'all think my idea of having the dead light reanimate some of its victims as some sort of ghouls/zombies to be way too harsh on a bunch of non-combat focused investigators? I'm not very familiar with how smoothly the combat goes, so feedback would be appreciated.
