Cthulhu Dark

[K_Peterson]

I'd heard of this freeware Rpg years ago, and I vaguely recall seeing a character sheet for it. But I never checked it out. I'm not really in the market for yet another Cthulhu rules set, but noticed that there's now a Cthulhu Dark Kickstarter. So, I read up on the KS campaign, watched the fish-tank video, and looked at some of the various links to rules sections. CoC gaming is 90% of the gaming I do these days, so I'm always on the lookout for interesting products/scenarios/supplements for my campaigns.

Quite a lot of praise for this super-light Rpg. "Economical", "clean", "evocative", "thoughtful", "works hard". Well, it's certainly 'economical' and 'laser focused', but I don't quite understand the other accolades. A lot less is more? Unless the Keeper's Section is absolutely amazing - jammed pack full of campaign design advice - I can't grasp why Cthulhu Dark is "Lovecraftian horror at its most intense", and "nothing will feel closer to Lovecraft's awful truth than a game of Cthulhu Dark".

I don't like feeling like a jaded, cynical gamer, and try to give "out-of-the-box" Rpgs a chance. (Hell, I bought Trail of Cthulhu; liked a few things about it; but decided it wasn't for me based on some its design choices). But, when I look at Cthulhu Dark I get more the feeling of I could have designed this. I could have boiled down the essence of CoC into a compact form like this Rpg tries to do, but still have more 'meat' to work with. Why would I pay $15 for a PDF of this, unless the Keeper advice is revolutionary and the campaigns are brilliant?

Maybe someone can enlighten or educate me. What is it about CD that brings designer praise, nearly 500 KS backers, and ~$27k+ in pledges?

 

[yojimbouk]

It feels a lot like the "beer-n-pretzel" systems of the 1980s. Deliberately rules light to get a game up and running with minimal prep. Other than that, I see nothing particularly remarkable about it.

I have his Stealing Cthulhu and it has some good advice but I wouldn't say it's revolutionary.

I felt the same way about Lazer & Feelings. Any RPGer could come up with a one-page set of notes detailing an extremely simple system plus a few random scenario generator tables. It seems to me to be overpraised because it was really professionally laid out.

 

[Spinachcat]

And it's about bleak horror, in which humans are powerless when confronted by hyperintelligent alien horrors. You can't beat them. You can't fight them. You can only watch, run, hide and fear.

This sounds lame.

Why would I want to watch, run, hide and fear, when I could shotgun and dynamite?

But the art looks good.

 

[Spinachcat]

Okay, I just read the 2 page "system"

Verdict - fuck this shit.

The "bleak horror" is about playing doomed PCs. AKA, you can't win, can't succeed, and can only fail and flee.

It's an incredibly narrow read of HPL's work. It's antithetical to why most players play CoC. CoC is RPGs on hard mode. You gotta fight for every inch and sacrifice lots, but if you're smart and the dice don't betray you, sometimes humanity can survive to fight another day.

That's fun, even if you lose 50% or even 75% of the time. Playing a game where the only end result is loss? Lame. Sounds like misery tourism / nihilism masturbation.

 

[CRKrueger]

I'd heard of this freeware Rpg years ago, and I vaguely recall seeing a character sheet for it. But I never checked it out. I'm not really in the market for yet another Cthulhu rules set, but noticed that there's now a Cthulhu Dark Kickstarter. So, I read up on the KS campaign, watched the fish-tank video, and looked at some of the various links to rules sections. CoC gaming is 90% of the gaming I do these days, so I'm always on the lookout for interesting products/scenarios/supplements for my campaigns.

Quite a lot of praise for this super-light Rpg. "Economical", "clean", "evocative", "thoughtful", "works hard". Well, it's certainly 'economical' and 'laser focused', but I don't quite understand the other accolades. A lot less is more? Unless the Keeper's Section is absolutely amazing - jammed pack full of campaign design advice - I can't grasp why Cthulhu Dark is "Lovecraftian horror at its most intense", and "nothing will feel closer to Lovecraft's awful truth than a game of Cthulhu Dark".

I don't like feeling like a jaded, cynical gamer, and try to give "out-of-the-box" Rpgs a chance. (Hell, I bought Trail of Cthulhu; liked a few things about it; but decided it wasn't for me based on some its design choices). But, when I look at Cthulhu Dark I get more the feeling of I could have designed this. I could have boiled down the essence of CoC into a compact form like this Rpg tries to do, but still have more 'meat' to work with. Why would I pay $15 for a PDF of this, unless the Keeper advice is revolutionary and the campaigns are brilliant?

Maybe someone can enlighten or educate me. What is it about CD that brings designer praise, nearly 500 KS backers, and ~$27k+ in pledges?

Based on that description, it's near guaranteed to be mostly Narrative Horseshit, which of course is why it is supposedly "intense" and "closer to Lovecraft's awful truth".

 

[opaopajr]

Based on that description, it's near guaranteed to be mostly Narrative Horseshit, which of course is why it is supposedly "intense" and "closer to Lovecraft's awful truth".

Which is ironic because it's like someone designed a Cthulhu game without ever reading "The Call of Cthulhu"... o_O:p

 

[Tommy Brownell]

And it's about bleak horror, in which humans are powerless when confronted by hyperintelligent alien horrors. You can't beat them. You can't fight them. You can only watch, run, hide and fear.

This sounds lame.

Why would I want to watch, run, hide and fear, when I could shotgun and dynamite?

But the art looks good.

One of my friends lost his shit when I told him I dropped one of The Great Old Ones into a Marvel SAGA game and the heroes beat the crap out of it (though one hero was blasted temporarily catatonic and another was drawn into the Siege Perilous and reborn in a new form)...he was like "That should have been instant lose!"

Screw that. I *like* setting up terrifying monstrosities...and giving my PCs every chance to knock their ass down.

 

[opaopajr]

Well... I wouldn't like that either. (But then I also don't "get" Supers in general.) Cthulhu mythos' pathos is about the struggle to forestall the inevitable, but on a larger time scale than "in the next few hours or days." (Hence why a chase scene that ends in guaranteed death is sort of a cop out to me.) It's taking the everyday human with petty concerns beforehand and offering an ennobling chance to sacrifice for all of humanity, warts and all. Sort of like why things like Cabin in the Woods are meta-responses to this everyman heroic call.

It's not the power, or even the lasting outcome, but the choice that makes the heroics fun. It's not for the badass weaponry or the happily-ever-after, but the pivot to burden yourself with the responsibility that makes the journey shine... at least for me.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

The whole story was that the Sorcerer Supreme of another dimension led the Great Old One to the heroes' Earth to save his own. It took the sanity of one hero, the life of a second hero and a full blown magical artifact to banish it.

They didn't beat it up and lock it in a high security prison.

 

[Necrozius]

After playing Eternal Darkness on Game Cube way back in the day, my views on Lovecraftian hero helplessness has changed somewhat. Sacrifices are made, sanity is lost, but people can still win and fight off the darkness for a bit longer.

As an aside, I still believe that Eternal Darkness is the very best Lovecraftian video game so far.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

After playing Eternal Darkness on Game Cube way back in the day, my views on Lovecraftian hero helplessness has changed somewhat. Sacrifices are made, sanity is lost, but people can still win and fight off the darkness for a bit longer.

As an aside, I still believe that Eternal Darkness is the very best Lovecraftian video game so far.

Totally agree. One of the best horror games ever made, of any type.

 

[Simlasa]

My experience tells me that most people don't much care for straight horror... they prefer it mixed with comedy, action/adventure, romance... something to water down the hopelessness and fear.
I like my horror bleak and unrelenting, like most of Lovecraft and Ligotti and Campbell and Etchison and Barker.
Even plain old Call of Cthulhu can be played that way, but I also realize I'm a bit peculiar in that... so if I want to play with others I have to add fruit punch and paper umbrellas. That's why I think 7e made to move the game further towards Savage Worlds territory.
Stephen King hit on a good formula where he can conjur up some pretty nasty images but soften the blow by wrapping them up in reassuring settings and nostalgia... none of his stories end up feeling TOO transgressive or confrontational.
Not that it's some macho thing, just different tastes. Like enjoying spicey food or cilantro.

 

[Baulderstone]

My experience tells me that most people don't much care for straight horror... they prefer it mixed with comedy, action/adventure, romance... something to water down the hopelessness and fear.
I like my horror bleak and unrelenting, like most of Lovecraft and Ligotti and Campbell and Etchison and Barker.
Even plain old Call of Cthulhu can be played that way, but I also realize I'm a bit peculiar in that... so if I want to play with others I have to add fruit punch and paper umbrellas. That's why I think 7e made to move the game further towards Savage Worlds territory.
Stephen King hit on a good formula where he can conjur up some pretty nasty images but soften the blow by wrapping them up in reassuring settings and nostalgia... none of his stories end up feeling TOO transgressive or confrontational.
Not that it's some macho thing, just different tastes. Like enjoying spicey food or cilantro.

Some genres are hard to maintain at length. Horror is one of those. Keeping people scared for a whole gaming session is an impressive feat. People can get numb if you try and induce the same emotion over a long period of time. When you mix horror with another genre, like King effectively does, you can get people's guard down with some warm reminiscence about growing up in Maine in the '50s before you scare them again.

It's notable that Lovecraft and Ligotti are both known for their short stories. Also, Barker and King both did their purest horror work in short form. The Books of Blood and Night Shift are consistently darker overall than Weaveworld or It.

Comedy is an another genre that benefits from brevity. There is a reason that the TV comedy model is half an hour while dramas are an hour. I became conscious of this about 15 years ago when comedy movies started to push out past the two-hour mark. Even if they were funny, I just began to tire of them before they were over. I also noticed it when binging shows on DVD or streaming. I could binge dramas all day, but I couldn't do more than a few episodes of a comedy in a sitting.

I realized it was because while we tend to think of dramas as the opposite of comedy, that isn't true. Dramas, going back to Shakespeare, frequently have a decent amount of comedy in them. Breaking Bad and even The Wire have some moments of genuine hilarity mixed into the darkness. The wide emotional range makes them easier for me to watch at length.

Bringing this back to RPGs, I find the best sessions have varied tones. It isn't even something the GM needs to try and achieve with a good groups. They will find heavy and light moments on their own.

That isn't to say that you can't do a session of pure horror. It's challenging but it can be done. You can run into trouble when you try to do a whole campaign of unrelenting horror though. One of the reasons Masks of Nyarlathotep works so well as an ongoing campaign is it mixes up the pure horror with world-spanning pulp adventure.

If I want to do pure horror session, I tend to do it as a standalone or if it is a campaign, I used it in contrast to other sessions.

 

[K_Peterson]

Some genres are hard to maintain at length. Horror is one of those. Keeping people scared for a whole gaming session is an impressive feat. People can get numb if you try and induce the same emotion over a long period of time.
...
That isn't to say that you can't do a session of pure horror. It's challenging but it can be done. You can run into trouble when you try to do a whole campaign of unrelenting horror though.

I don't think it's even necessary to scare players "for a whole gaming session", unless you're running a slasher flick inspired campaign. And, even then, you're not likely to be running that for many sessions, if more than 1 session.

You don't even have to introduce other genres to effectively play in a horror or Call of Cthulhu campaign, IMO. By nature, the horrific, sanity-blasting moments should stand out as a contrast to the investigation and discovery that serves as a baseline. There might be mounting dread or fear as an investigation develops, as pieces of clues or rumors start adding up and the reality of the situation becomes clear. But, it doesn't need to be a constant - certainly not at the start of an investigation - unless the PCs are really thrown into a in media res situation, and even then, there can be a lull in the horror once that situation has passed. (Assuming anyone survives).

Bringing this back to RPGs, I find the best sessions have varied tones. It isn't even something the GM needs to try and achieve with a good groups. They will find heavy and light moments on their own.

Agreed. It does happen naturally. There are times when I'm Keeping during a session, and struggling to keep a straight face based on the actions of the players. It's entertaining, and sometimes comical.

 

[Simlasa]

I agree that straight horror is best served in short stories and one-shot gaming sessions. Campaigns of CoC I've run generally became something closer to urban fantasy, peppered with horror and scifi and action-heroics. Which was plenty of fun as well.

 

[Baulderstone]

I don't think it's even necessary to scare players "for a whole gaming session", unless you're running a slasher flick inspired campaign. And, even then, you're not likely to be running that for many sessions, if more than 1 session.

You don't even have to introduce other genres to effectively play in a horror or Call of Cthulhu campaign, IMO. By nature, the horrific, sanity-blasting moments should stand out as a contrast to the investigation and discovery that serves as a baseline. There might be mounting dread or fear as an investigation develops, as pieces of clues or rumors start adding up and the reality of the situation becomes clear.

I think we are pretty much in agreement. I just tend to think of a lot of investigative scenes as veering into other genres. There is a big difference in feel between investigating Chicago gangsters, a New York City heiress and her friends and the residents of a backwoods New England town.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

Probably the most effective horror campaign I have ran was Freshman Year of East Texas University, and that was as much raunchy late night comedy as it was horror.

But it was really effective.

 

[Future Villain Band]

Maybe someone can enlighten or educate me. What is it about CD that brings designer praise, nearly 500 KS backers, and ~$27k+ in pledges?

As somebody who's backing the Kickstarter, my reasons are:
1) Cthulhu Dark is a neat, rules-light take on Mythos gaming, really good for one-shots and short adventures and very easy to teach to new gamers. It leans toward the so-called "purist" mode, toward the bleaker end of the spectrum along with Delta Green, but sometimes that's what you want.
2) Graham Walmsley is a known quantity. His Purist adventures for Trail of Cthulhu are outstanding, his book Stealing Cthulhu was decent, and a book full of GM advice and the like from him is certainly welcome.
3) The settings are probably going to be solid. Even if they're not, they'll give me something to steal from.
4) I've found Mythos gamers to be pretty open-minded. Cthulhu Dark has already had adventures printed up in the Unspeakable Oath, it's been discussed on various podcasts once in a while, so even if I buy it and don't immediately put it to use, I might pull it down when Cthulhu City comes out or run some of the side adventures of Horror on the Orient Express or Masks with it just to see how it flows.

 

[Baulderstone]

As somebody who's backing the Kickstarter, my reasons are:
1) Cthulhu Dark is a neat, rules-light take on Mythos gaming, really good for one-shots and short adventures and very easy to teach to new gamers. It leans toward the so-called "purist" mode, toward the bleaker end of the spectrum along with Delta Green, but sometimes that's what you want.
2) Graham Walmsley is a known quantity. His Purist adventures for Trail of Cthulhu are outstanding, his book Stealing Cthulhu was decent, and a book full of GM advice and the like from him is certainly welcome.
3) The settings are probably going to be solid. Even if they're not, they'll give me something to steal from.
4) I've found Mythos gamers to be pretty open-minded. Cthulhu Dark has already had adventures printed up in the Unspeakable Oath, it's been discussed on various podcasts once in a while, so even if I buy it and don't immediately put it to use, I might pull it down when Cthulhu City comes out or run some of the side adventures of Horror on the Orient Express or Masks with it just to see how it flows.

Most Mythos games are very easy to prep from a stat perspective, but require a lot of work on scenario design side of things. If something has good, usable ideas for Mythos games, I don't care what system it is written for. I don't know if I need another rule set, but probably has enough inspiration make it worth the price.

 

[Simlasa]

1) Cthulhu Dark is a neat, rules-light take on Mythos gaming, really good for one-shots and short adventures and very easy to teach to new gamers.

I'd say the same goes for Call of Cthulhu actually.
As for the 'purist mode' hype... I think that's less of a rules thing. Some/a lot of Chaosium's CoC scenarios push a more 'Derlethian' or 'Lumleyesque' angle... but just as how D&D doesn't have to be about 'dungeoncrawls' CoC can go up an down the continuum of whatever a person thinks 'Lovecraftian' is.

But like Trail of Cthulhu, which I use as sourcebooks for CoC, if there's good ideas to be stolen, I might buy it.

 

[Necrozius]

Yeah Cthulhu RPGs are a dime a dozen. I already have a few very rules-light systems that would allow me to emulate the genre. I'd only be interested in this if it includes great suggestions on creating mysteries/plots.

For now, Tremulus (Apocalypse World hack), Trail of Cthulhu/Esoterrorists, Savage Worlds, Silent Legions and World of Darkness serve me well.

 

[Spinachcat]

Silent Legions (by Sine Nomine) is the best horror RPG book I've bought in a long time. It's a tremendously good resource.

 

[The Butcher]

Silent Legions (by Sine Nomine) is the best horror RPG book I've bought in a long time. It's a tremendously good resource.

Same here. I don't even intend to use the system, just the random generators as fodder for CoC and/or CoD. (Which is what I do with SWN and Traveller.)

 

[Necrozius]

Same here. I don't even intend to use the system, just the random generators as fodder for CoC and/or CoD. (Which is what I do with SWN and Traveller.)

Same here. I've printed out a lot of his tables and included them permanently in my GM Tome.

 

[K_Peterson]

Silent Legions (by Sine Nomine) is the best horror RPG book I've bought in a long time.

I contributed to the Kickstarter a couple of years ago - (I'm a big fan of Sine Nomine's Other Dust). But SL must not have made a lasting impression on me, because I seem to have expunged the PDF from my OneDrive. I'll have to download it again from DTRPG, and give it a serious look.

 

[Spinachcat]

Silent Legions worth a second look just for the random tables. I love the cult generation system because it gives the cult personality, activities and focus beyond "keep sacrificing hot chicks until Cthulhu comes back".

And like Butcher, I find Sine Nomine's primarily value as supplements for other RPGs. Though, I've played and run SWN and like it just fine. Far more psionics and special abilities than Traveller and that makes gameplay more "cinematic" along with the escalating HP.

 

[Spinachcat]

As somebody who's backing the Kickstarter, my reasons are:
1) Cthulhu Dark is a neat, rules-light take on Mythos gaming, really good for one-shots and short adventures and very easy to teach to new gamers. It leans toward the so-called "purist" mode, toward the bleaker end of the spectrum along with Delta Green,

Have you run Cthulhu Dark? What does it do that CoC doesn't?

What do you mean "purist" mode?

What do you consider "the bleaker end of the spectrum"? I've run Delta Green and I consider it on par with 1920s CoC, but with more automatic weapons and airstrikes.

2) Graham Walmsley is a known quantity. His Purist adventures for Trail of Cthulhu are outstanding,

Which do you recommend?

 

[K_Peterson]

What do you mean "purist" mode?

Trail of Cthulhu is what defined "purist mode", as Cthulhu Dark is using the term. It provided game mechanics and adventures focused on a "purist" or "pulp" experience. Playstyles that are on opposite sides of the spectrum, that define either the hopeless fate of investigators, or the possibility that they might fight back (physically) against the Mythos. This blog post gives a little background.

 

[CRKrueger]

Have you run Cthulhu Dark? What does it do that CoC doesn't?

Assume players will engage with some of the mechanics from an OOC, 4th wall perspective.

 

[Spinachcat]

Thank you K_Pete and CRK for the info!

I don't understand the draw of a RPG where the ending (win or loss) is predetermined.

My CoC play is half various eras (1920s, 1970s, pre-1900s) and half via Traveller (I love space horror). I set up the situation and let the PCs do what they do. As its CoC, many of the foes can't be slain by mere bullets or fusion guns. Many investigations go badly. But its never because I set up the finale. I set the stage with Act One. Act Two and Three are written by the players' actions and my world's reactions.

Am I wrong that this "purist" mode smacks of misery tourism?

 

[K_Peterson]

I think we'd need AVB to chime in and defend the purist mode to get some perspective.

From my (limited) experience the purist mode is intended to be extremely emulative of HPL's writing. The adventures are not designed to provide opportunities for the investigators to succeed. They're supposed to reflect being a character in an HPL story, where most of the conclusions don't have any real positive outcome. They don't include the opportunity to defeat a human cult, and prevent a ritual summoning from occurring. They often focus on a situation that little can be done about, meaning that the investigators' actions are mostly futile, and often leaving them broken and shattered as a result.

I own 3 purist Trail of Cthulhu adventures: The Dying of St. Margaret's, The Watchers in the Sky, and The Rending Box. And they all have interesting premises, but I haven't played through them. I'm not sure how my players would feel about them - whether it would be a misery tourism experience for them.

I think the appeal of the purist mode depends on how big you are into emulation. Do your players really want to know what it's like to be a character in one of HPL's bleaker stories? Or would they prefer the middle-ground that CoC provides - not pure story emulation but situations where their could be multiple outcomes, some negative and some positive, and many in-between.

 

[Baulderstone]

LIke Peterson, I have read but not run or played some of the purist adventures. They definitely aren't for every group, but they have an interesting approach. While you can't "win" them in a traditional way, I wouldn't say the ending are predetermined either. All characters in ToC have a Drive, the reason that they investigate the Mythos. The Purist adventures are written to explore how people react when their Drives take them into an unwinnable situation. It's ultimately about you figuring out how your character reacts emotionally.

I guess you could say they are the Kobayashi Maru of CoC adventures.

 

[Simlasa]

'Purist' would also imply to me that they're meant primarily for solo Investigators. Only a few of HPL's stories featured groups.
If they aren't scenarios where the PCs can 'win' anyway then does it matter how many PCs there are?

I'd enjoy playing in such a doomed situation if the mystery/revelation aspects were intriguing/horrifying.

 

[Baulderstone]

I'd enjoy playing in such a doomed situation if the mystery/revelation aspects were intriguing/horrifying.

That's a good point. Most investigative RPG scenarios are about discovering the problem and then dealing with it. A purist ToC game is really only about discovering the problem, so it needs to be interesting enough to serve as a climax on its own rather than the lead into the boss fight.

 

[Simlasa]

I'd think managing to find the truth, and then escape with your life and sanity mostly intact would be the 'best ending' scenario... the 'boss fight' in that case is maybe a final chase or tactical retreat.

 

[The Butcher]

I'd think managing to find the truth, and then escape with your life and sanity mostly intact would be the 'best ending' scenario... the 'boss fight' in that case is maybe a final chase or tactical retreat.

We have one guy who runs one-shot CoC adventures maybe once every 5 years and it's always like this. Complete with a many-years-later epilogue for each PC who didn't die (usually to the tune of "you die in a madhouse" or "the world ends" or "you die in a madhouse while the world ends").

This guy is not a railroader but he's stated more than once that his ideal CoC game is one that reads like an HPL tale. (Yes, he got started with AD&D2 and is a Dragonlance fan. ;))

I can't say it's not fun because fuck it, RPGs are about the journey and not the destination.

But as a Keeper I am firmly in the "Pulp" camp. I challenge my players to ban the monster, or dismantle the cult, or whatever.

 

[Spinachcat]

I'd think managing to find the truth, and then escape with your life and sanity mostly intact would be the 'best ending' scenario... the 'boss fight' in that case is maybe a final chase or tactical retreat.

Exactly.

In many HPL stories, victory is escape and survival. Running screaming into the night isn't always a loss.

The climax is the "holy fuck, can we get out alive?"

We have one guy who runs one-shot CoC adventures maybe once every 5 years and it's always like this. Complete with a many-years-later epilogue for each PC who didn't die (usually to the tune of "you die in a madhouse" or "the world ends" or "you die in a madhouse while the world ends").

I run one-shot CoC at cons and since its a one shot, I go balls to the wall. Doing epilogues is often fun, but I usually let the players tell their stories. I've had players ask me in pre-game if the PCs always lose and I find that crazy. I tell them there's usually a 50% "victory" rate in my CoC games and often victory comes at a high cost in lives, souls and minds.

 

[OHT]

So many 'one-shot wonders' these days. Waste of money IMO.

 

[Baulderstone]

If you want to do the ultimate purist campaign of CoC, just use the story structure of "The Call of Cthulhu". Give the player a big box of player handouts from a dead relative and have them just sit in a room and read them. That's the whole story.

 

[CRKrueger]

Yeah, that's what "Purist" is code for, Literal Literary Emulation. Roleplaying with the conceit of a 4th wall framework that you are inside an HPL story and things will proceed as such.