# Call of Cthulhu d20 Preservation Society



## Gomez (Jan 20, 2005)

I know that Call of Cthulhu d20 is out of print and unsupported by Choasium. But I love it and I want to see it thrive. I am currently running a Masks of Nyarlathotep Play by Post game and I am starting up a Delta Green game using the rules. 

So....

*standing up and clearing my throat*

"My name is Gomez and I play Call of Cthulhu d20!"

anyone else?


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Jan 20, 2005)

While I don't play CoC itself very often, it's one of my most-used d20 books.  I'm waiting for the Delta Green book to come out with d20 stats .... but I'm not sure if it ever will.

--fje


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## MrFilthyIke (Jan 20, 2005)

I'd use d20 Modern for CoC, I like it better than the straight d20 version.


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## Desdichado (Jan 20, 2005)

I love that book.  We use it a fair amount in our neck of the woods; we have an intermittent Cthulhu campaign, and I borrow tons of elements for my d20 Fantasy campaign all the time.

I'd love to get our actual Cthulhu game back off the ground again, though.  Either that or start up a new one.


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## Anthraxus (Jan 20, 2005)

I love Call of Cthulhu d20, and would like to play it more often. I'm still waiting patiently for Delta Green d20. I email Scott Glancy every 6-8 months to ask "if it's coming out yet", but it just seems to keep getting pushed back. Last time, he thought it would be ready for Gencon SoCal. I guess it wasn't.


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## Andrew D. Gable (Jan 20, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I know that Call of Cthulhu d20 is out of print and unsupported by Choasium. But I love it and I want to see it thrive. I am currently running a Masks of Nyarlathotep Play by Post game and I am starting up a Delta Green game using the rules.



I want to do some converting of Gaslight (1890s) to d20.  I love the Victorian era, and I absolutely love the idea of investigating Cthulhu in the era... I'm thinking of making a document showing how 1920s scenarios can be retrofitted to Gaslight, similar to how there's been notes made on using Cthulhu Now scenarios in Delta Green.  I also hope to do some d20 conversions of scenarios from Gaslight, Dark Designs, Sacraments of Evil and The Golden Dawn.

BTW, Gomez, I'm assuming the Masks of Nyarlathotep you're running from is the Complete version?  I noticed last night on the Chaosium site that it has a few new chapters beyond what were in the original campaign.  I know one of the new ones in the Complete edition is the Australia chapter, what are the chapters in it if you don't mind telling?  I'm just curious which are new.  Of course, if you're running from the original and not Complete it's a moot point.


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## Gomez (Jan 20, 2005)

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> I want to do some converting of Gaslight (1890s) to d20.  I love the Victorian era, and I absolutely love the idea of investigating Cthulhu in the era... I'm thinking of making a document showing how 1920s scenarios can be retrofitted to Gaslight, similar to how there's been notes made on using Cthulhu Now scenarios in Delta Green.  I also hope to do some d20 conversions of scenarios from Gaslight, Dark Designs, Sacraments of Evil and The Golden Dawn.
> 
> BTW, Gomez, I'm assuming the Masks of Nyarlathotep you're running from is the Complete version?  I noticed last night on the Chaosium site that it has a few new chapters beyond what were in the original campaign.  I know one of the new ones in the Complete edition is the Australia chapter, what are the chapters in it if you don't mind telling?  I'm just curious which are new.  Of course, if you're running from the original and not Complete it's a moot point.




I would love to see a Gaslight conversion. I would really like to see a Gaslight list of firearms and item costs and such. Did you ever get the Shadow over Baker Street book. It has some neat mythos Sherlock Holmes stories. I read the first couple and the promptly lost my book.   

As for conversions, I have Realm of Shadows and I might do a conversion of it in the near future. 

Yes. I am running the Complete verison. I think the Australian chapter is the only new one but I am not sure. 

BTW! Hurray for you doing a Delta Green game and doing Dead Letter! I love that scenerio from Countdown! You got me looking at my Delta Green stuff again and my creative juices going. So I had to run a DG game too!


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## barsoomcore (Jan 20, 2005)

There was a great Delta-Green-type CoC adventure in Polyhedron that I ran at a con and it was GREAT fun. Um, I forget what issue but it was the one with the Genetech game in it, I think.


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## Turanil (Jan 20, 2005)

I do have d20 CoC and love it. This one of my preferred d20 books, extremely well done. Nonetheless, I plan to use it in conjunction with Grim Tales for the rules / PCs. In any case, i would like seeing it published and supported again. 

I wonder about "Pulp Cthulhu" which is supposed to have d20 rules in addition to BRP ones...


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## Gomez (Jan 21, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> I wonder about "Pulp Cthulhu" which is supposed to have d20 rules in addition to BRP ones...





Chaosium offically stated that there will be no "Pulp Cthulhu". I guess they are so strapped for money they could not even think about printing it.

Edit: Let me correct myself. Chaosium said that there would be no d20 content in "Pulp Cthulhu"


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## Anthraxus (Jan 21, 2005)

Did some research. Apparently, EOS press will be publishing the Delta Green d20/dual stat in Spring 2005. Yaaaaay!   

EOS forum DG posts 

-A


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## Achan hiArusa (Jan 24, 2005)

*Coc d20*

I don't like using Modern or anything else for CoCd20.  In fact, I made hit points = Con only (though negative hit points were throughly d20) and used the healing times for the BRP version.  I also gave out XPs using the DMG story awards and used the White Wolf system for handing out story awards (100 x level for each xp category in White Wolf, its always fun to ask "What did you learn?").  I used damage absorbing armor (using the armor from the Shadowchasers Magazine article) and defense bonuses.  It worked fine and we had fun one summer playing it.  I was tempted to add a combat option with 4 + Int bonus skill points, 8 class skills, and a Fighter's BAB, but we never got that far.

But now with Future d20 I could do Cthulhupunk (I have both the GURPs book and the Interface "Darktime" magazine).

The Delta Green book has been so much vaporware for so long.  I am not holding my breath, but I so wish it were out.


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## Keeper of Secrets (Jan 25, 2005)

I love all things CoC.  However one of the things that kind of bugged me about the d20 version was the concept of levels and advancement which seems to slowly take away the bleak hopelessness which has made the game so popular.  I think it is a similar reason why I never found Ravenloft so frightening - zombies are pretty scary but not to 6th level characters with 40 hp.


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## Henry (Jan 25, 2005)

Keeper of Secrets said:
			
		

> I love all things CoC. However one of the things that kind of bugged me about the d20 version was the concept of levels and advancement which seems to slowly take away the bleak hopelessness which has made the game so popular. I think it is a similar reason why I never found Ravenloft so frightening - zombies are pretty scary but not to 6th level characters with 40 hp.




On the other hand, that 6th level PC would have to have a 16-18 CON and close to  average hit points to have 40 hp. If those zombies do 10 damage in any attack, it's make a Fort. save at DC15 or die. The best possible save would be about a 6 or better (maybe a 4 or better if Great fortitude is in the game, and I don't think it is), but that's a 20% chance of failure even if one played a PC devoted to not dying (that is, good fort save, 18-19 CON, and possessing great fortitude). So even Brom Bones or his cousin Fat Albert would have a chance of dying due to a stray gunshot or hound of tindalos. 

Now, I will agree that above 10th level the numbers change from threatening to pulp adventure - it's an artifact of d20, to be sure. I've sidestepped the issue by never running above 10th level characters - which are the max you need even for the experts of the world.

_Side Note: I have a hard time getting my players to play regular CoC as more than a once-a-year one shot. The fact is that the regular horror game is SO depressing that they don't want it. In one player's opinion, if he wanted stark, depressing horror he'd stick to his own life story. _


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## Ghostwind (Jan 25, 2005)

I run a Delta Green style CoC campaign using the Spycraft rules and so far, it is working pretty well.


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## jeff37923 (Jan 25, 2005)

Hello my name is jeff37923, and I play d20 CoC. 

The only disturbing thing is that I get to watch people discuss how the Necronomicon is _real_ on the local goth boards between games.


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## Turanil (Jan 25, 2005)

Keeper of Secrets said:
			
		

> I love all things CoC.  However one of the things that kind of bugged me about the d20 version was the concept of levels and advancement which seems to slowly take away the bleak hopelessness which has made the game so popular.



 I did play BRP CoC more than d20 CoC. I say you can have a bleak hopeless campaign, or a pulp action one, in either system. It's all up to the DM, and how players play their characters. In any case, I don't like hopeless CoC where your characters die every three sessions or so. As a DM I want a campaign where the players survive and even thrive, something pulpy rather than hopeless. But even like that, my adventure would describe a bleak horror disturbing world. The fact the players would survive and slay some monsters, even stopping an horror for a while wouldn't change the overall depressing tone... (Of course nothing so horrible such as simulating one's real life!  )


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## Gomez (Jan 25, 2005)

jeff37923 said:
			
		

> Hello my name is jeff37923, and I play d20 CoC.
> 
> The only disturbing thing is that I get to watch people discuss how the Necronomicon is _real_ on the local goth boards between games.




You mean the Necronomicon isn't real???


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## Tom Cashel (Jan 26, 2005)

With heartfelt apologies to Ray Davies...

_We are the (Cthulhu) D20 Preservation Society 
God save Theron Marks, Delta Green and Chaosium 
We are the Harvey Walters Appreciation Society 
God save formless spawn of all the different varieties 
Preserving the old ways from being abused 
Protecting the new ways for me and for you 
What more can we do?
We are the Elder Sign Preservation Society 
God save Doc Armitage and good Wilbur Whately
We are the SAN Score Appreciation Consortium 
God save the big XP and all those who were awarded them 
We are the Howard Lovecraft English Speaking Vernacular 
Help save Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath and Dracula 
We are the BRP Persecution Affinity 
God save little dice, magic points and our sanity 
We are the Lack-of-support Condemnation Affiliate 
God save the Roaring '20s, antique tables and billiards 
Preserving the old ways from being abused 
Protecting the new ways for me and for you 
What more can we do?
God save D20 Cthulhu._


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## Cthulhu's Librarian (Jan 26, 2005)

Tom Cashel said:
			
		

> _We are the (Cthulhu) D20 Preservation Society
> God save Theron Marks, Delta Green and Chaosium
> We are the Harvey Walters Appreciation Society
> _(snip)...




ROTFL!   

Got much free time on your hands?


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## Ion (Jan 26, 2005)

> You mean the Necronomicon isn't real???




I'm told the Necronomicon is real...but not as lovecraft described it...

/me just wanted an excuse to share the link...


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## Tom Cashel (Jan 26, 2005)

Cthulhu's Librarian said:
			
		

> ROTFL!
> 
> Got much free time on your hands?




When you're home with baby, and baby is sleeping...   

In short, yes.


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## Turanil (Jan 26, 2005)

Ion said:
			
		

> I'm told the Necronomicon is real...but not as lovecraft described it...
> 
> /me just wanted an excuse to share the link...



Thanks for the link. It is really interesting. I still have a hard time to determine if all of this is fake or genuine...


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## Ion (Jan 26, 2005)

I think half the fun comes from those blurred lines.


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## Desdichado (Jan 26, 2005)

Keeper of Secrets said:
			
		

> I love all things CoC.  However one of the things that kind of bugged me about the d20 version was the concept of levels and advancement which seems to slowly take away the bleak hopelessness which has made the game so popular.  I think it is a similar reason why I never found Ravenloft so frightening - zombies are pretty scary but not to 6th level characters with 40 hp.



I've never played a CoC campaign where the characters ever got higher than third or so level, at which point they're arguably weaker than their BRP counterparts, though.  Levels are a tool to scale the game, not an imposition.  You don't have to move levels if you don't want.

And even if you do, the Massive Damage Threshold goes a long way towards mitigating the effects of HP.  Although, frankly, I think the game would have benefited greatly from a GrimNGritty Hit Points like variant.  IIRC (and am not mixing it up with the very smiliar _Darkness & Dread_ version) you simply take your CON score times a size modifier (for all medium creatures it's 1, so no effect in CoC) + your hit dice.  So even a 15th level character is only CON + 15 hit points, hovering somewhere around 25-35.  He may be extremely capable in a lot of situations, but he ain't shrugging off damage, that's for sure.


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## barsoomcore (Jan 26, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I've never played a CoC campaign where the characters ever got higher than third or so level, at which point they're arguably weaker than their BRP counterparts, though.



I just have to say that if your CoC characters are blithely rising in level, well, you don't play it like I play. Over third level and still possessing any shred of sanity is profoundly unlikely in the games I've run. Usually everyone is stark raving mad by the end of the first session and it's roll up new characters for the next session.


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## Desdichado (Jan 26, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I just have to say that if your CoC characters are blithely rising in level, well, you don't play it like I play. Over third level and still possessing any shred of sanity is profoundly unlikely in the games I've run. Usually everyone is stark raving mad by the end of the first session and it's roll up new characters for the next session.



Exactly.  

Plus we play for months at a time without leveling up.  Come to think of it, we don't ever level up.  We just occasionally start a little higher than 1st level to give us enough staying power to last into a session or two.

Besides, CoC is about slowly mounting tension and creeping dread, in our games anyway.  We can spend many sessions back to back without a single encounter with just a mounting sense of creepiness and wrongness.


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## Narfellus (Jan 26, 2005)

I'm also running a Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep d20 CoC campaign. They are still in the London Chapter. I actually use a blend of 5th edition CoC, d20, Grim Tales, and d20 Modern. Our game is a little more action/hero oriented than default Cthulhu, but it's no less dangerous. For what it's worth, the new Australia chapter is my favorite in the whole book. REALLY scary from a players point of view. 

I like the d20 CoC book enough, it's very pretty, and the rules work, but it didn't have the FEEL of the original game that I wanted. Still, it's one of WotC's better products, sorry to see it go. I as well am waiting for Delta Green d20. Maybe one of these days...


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## Desdichado (Jan 26, 2005)

Narfellus said:
			
		

> I like the d20 CoC book enough, it's very pretty, and the rules work, but it didn't have the FEEL of the original game that I wanted.



What... that Runequest feel?


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## Tymothi (Jan 27, 2005)

** STANDS and raises his head ** I PLAY CALL OF CTHULHU D20! and I am not ashamed!! Call of Cthulhu d20 is a good system..yes I said it..


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## DMH (Jan 27, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I just have to say that if your CoC characters are blithely rising in level, well, you don't play it like I play. Over third level and still possessing any shred of sanity is profoundly unlikely in the games I've run. Usually everyone is stark raving mad by the end of the first session and it's roll up new characters for the next session.




This is why I really don't see the point of campaigns like Masks. By the time the players are done, they have used dozens (or more) of investigators and the whole planet is insane or dead.

I like the system a lot more than D20 Modern and, if I were to run a modern or horror game, CoC is the rule set for me. I do want to run a few of the senarios in Blood Brothers I&II, Nocturnum (not the whole thing) and Beyond the Mountains of Madness.


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## Angel Tarragon (Jan 27, 2005)

My name is Charles Wenzler and I play Cthulhu D20. I'm waiting to get my Grim Tales book and enough money to buy the Dreamlands book to work on my Cthulhu variant D20 game.


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## Turanil (Jan 27, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> My name is Charles Wenzler and I play Cthulhu D20. I'm waiting to get my Grim Tales book and enough money to buy the Dreamlands book to work on my Cthulhu variant D20 game.



LOL! You failed your sanity check it seems!   Well, I will have to remember to send you the document I am currently writing for this GT/d20 CoC/Dreamland campaign I am preparing. I failed my own sanity check (buying the Dreamland book while I am short on money lately) because of YOU!!


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## Angel Tarragon (Jan 27, 2005)

LMAO! Yeah, yeah.


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## Turanil (Jan 27, 2005)

DMH said:
			
		

> This is why I really don't see the point of campaigns like Masks. By the time the players are done, they have used dozens (or more) of investigators and the whole planet is insane or dead.



Nobody is obliged to play that way. Not all players are masochists who like to see their characters destroyed in less than three sessions. If I run a CoC d20 campaign, chances are the investigators will have suffered and be humilated, and will end up with a mental illness of some sort; but at the same time they will be alive, 10th level, and with some spells and other stuff.

Lovecraft wrote stories in which the protagonists would most of the time die and become irrevocably mad. But others wrote stories in which the protagonists would succeed. I do particularly like _The Trail of Cthulhu_ by August Derleth, in which the Dr. Shrewsbury is a scientist with knowledge of magic, and has got some powers (prescience and supernatural vision) despite having had some "little problems" (he has lost his eyes, and now has empty eyesockets).


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## MrFilthyIke (Jan 27, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> What... that Runequest feel?




Yes, actually.  I first played CoC under that system, and it ALWAYS will be the original CoC system.   

Nothing wrong with d20 version, just prefer to alter it till its not d20 anymore.


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## Desdichado (Jan 27, 2005)

MrFilthyIke said:
			
		

> Nothing wrong with d20 version, just prefer to alter it till its not d20 anymore.



There's a few takes on it out there I actually like better.  I like the _Darkness & Dread_ version of horror checks and madness better than the "d20" Sanity rules that were bolted on pretty much unchanged from BRP.  I also like the GrimNGritty (also in _Darkness & Dread_ take on health/hit points better than CoC, which didn't bother to change them.  That actually allows leveling up to be a concept that makes _some_ sense in a Cthulhu-esque game, because you're still just as fragile even with new levels.

But I really like the CoC classless (well, I guess technically there are two very open and flexible classes) approach, and with just the few bolt-ons I mentioned above, I think it's the best thing going in horror rpg systems.

Then again, I'm a bit of a d20 whore anymore.  I've essentially dropped all my games from other systems these days.


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## trancejeremy (Jan 28, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Nobody is obliged to play that way. Not all players are masochists who like to see their characters destroyed in less than three sessions. If I run a CoC d20 campaign, chances are the investigators will have suffered and be humilated, and will end up with a mental illness of some sort; but at the same time they will be alive, 10th level, and with some spells and other stuff.
> 
> Lovecraft wrote stories in which the protagonists would most of the time die and become irrevocably mad. But others wrote stories in which the protagonists would succeed. I do particularly like _The Trail of Cthulhu_ by August Derleth, in which the Dr. Shrewsbury is a scientist with knowledge of magic, and has got some powers (prescience and supernatural vision) despite having had some "little problems" (he has lost his eyes, and now has empty eyesockets).




That's funny - I was just going to post over on Yog Sothoth a question about where Dr. Laban Shrewsbury originally came from. Now I know - thanks. I never read any of Derleth's Mythos stuff. (I have read his Solar Pons stuff).

Still, I think that's overstated a bit. A lot of HPL stories involved a protagonist that was crazy to begin with, or in some cases, an actual monster.  Usually when there are actual investigators, like in The Dunwich Horror, they come out okay. Or the Case of Charles Dexter Ward.  


Plus, not to beat an old argument to death, but for the most part, CoC d20 is arguably more deadly than the original. I remember there was a statistical analysis that proved it. Basically, because characters in d20 cannot "dodge" attacks (or bullets) like in BRP (where the attack makes an attack roll to hit, then the defender makes a dodge or parry roll to see if it actually missed), while they might have more hit points, they get "hit" more often. And at low levels, CoC d20 characters have fewer hit points. And of course, the massive damage rules means characters can die from any hit that is strong enough (and given the firearm damages, it means most hits by guns).


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## Turanil (Jan 28, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> That's funny - I was just going to post over on Yog Sothoth a question about where Dr. Laban Shrewsbury originally came from.



This arouse my curiosity: where else Dr. Laban Shrewsbury is mentioned. I mean, where did you see it if not in August Derleth's _The Trail of Cthulhu_?




			
				trancejeremy said:
			
		

> Plus, not to beat an old argument to death, but for the most part, CoC d20 is arguably more deadly than the original. I remember there was a statistical analysis that proved it.



I agree with you. It's the reason why I intend to use Grim Tales for my d20 CoC campaign (GT for PCs, insanity, and magic use) while d20 CoC sourcebook will be use for the setting, monsters, etc. With GT, and layers probably beginning at 5th level, I think the game should be less lethal. (I want to begin 5th level because I will adapt "Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia" for an archeological + Dreamland adventure, and this module is for 5th to 10th level PCs).


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## arwink (Jan 28, 2005)

I tend to prefer to the BRP for one-off cthulhu sessions, but the d20 version is the first cthulhu supplement that's ever made me feel like I could run a relatively long-term campaign in the setting.


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## Tom Cashel (Jan 29, 2005)

How about using Brian Lumley's Titus Crow stories as a template for an ongoing campaign?

Here's a snip from Amazon.com:



> Lumley's prose has a baroque feel that lends an antique patina to Crow's world (supposedly in the 1960s and '70s), and his blend of horror à la Lovecraft, adventure reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and techno-science fiction with shades of Asimov is always pleasantly surprising. Titus Crow makes for solid and enjoyable reading that deftly crosses genres.




Seems like this would dovetail with D20 CoC quite well.


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## teitan (Jan 29, 2005)

jeff37923 said:
			
		

> Hello my name is jeff37923, and I play d20 CoC.
> 
> The only disturbing thing is that I get to watch people discuss how the Necronomicon is _real_ on the local goth boards between games.




Dude, it is, I have three copies on my bookshelf, one by Simon, One by Wilson and one by Giger!!!! 

Jason


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## Turanil (Jan 29, 2005)

teitan said:
			
		

> one by Giger!!!!



Hey! But I have it too!! I had completely forgotten about it! Maybe it can get a fair price on ebay? I am willing to sell, it, I don't care about this book anymore.


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## teitan (Jan 29, 2005)

I tend to run Cthulhu at higher levels than most. I start my PCs out at level 5 and whatever hit points they have when they are done rolling is what they get. The only level based benefits I give are skills, feats, BAB and Defense bonus. I think that too many hit points and the game loses its feel but most D20 PCs are much weaker than their BRP counterparts and I think this is the best way to handle it, higher starting levels. I also ruled that they had to use the skill in the adventure before they can put more points into it.

Most of my campaigns tend to focus on conflicts with humans and cultists with an occasional mythos creature at the climax but an easy out to keep players from dieing too much. I want them to come back and play after all!!!

Who cares if Chaosium isn't supporting D20 Cthulhu though, with the conversion notes in the book and the Screen, we have enough to convert our own stuff. Now I just need Masks of Nyarlothotep!

Jason


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## ColonelHardisson (Jan 29, 2005)

Keeper of Secrets said:
			
		

> I love all things CoC.  However one of the things that kind of bugged me about the d20 version was the concept of levels and advancement which seems to slowly take away the bleak hopelessness which has made the game so popular.  I think it is a similar reason why I never found Ravenloft so frightening - zombies are pretty scary but not to 6th level characters with 40 hp.




I played in a CoCd20 campaign, and I've played the original, and I can tell you that levels and the like really didn't take away any of the scariness. In fact, these things _added_ to the hopelessness at very appropriate times - we got up to 5th-6th level, and it was pretty demoralizing (in that good "CoC" way) when we realized that all our nice pretty levels and hit points would do us no good against some of the various baddies we faced. It sure seemed easy for critters to hurt us pretty badly - heck, the most tense combat encounter in the campaign was against dogs! Everything else pretty much involved us running away.


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## Narfellus (Feb 2, 2005)

I agree. Levels and more hitpoints in CoC d20 only get out of hand if the GM allows it. It can be easy for unexperienced gamers to accidentally kill Cthulhu, but then they aren't playing CoC at all by that point, just some game with vaguely similar rules.


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## Turanil (Feb 2, 2005)

Narfellus said:
			
		

> It can be easy for unexperienced gamers to accidentally kill Cthulhu, but then they aren't playing CoC at all by that point



Not even D&D. I did read once that Monte Cook told they had done a fight between Cthulhu and 20th level D&D PCs (i.e.: the iconic characters from the PHB brought to 20th level). He said that they couldn't kill him, that Cthulhu slew many PCs and that finally they were only able to banish him.


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## TerraDave (Feb 2, 2005)

I've only played BRP CoC, but the D20 book--at least without playtesting--struck me as one of the all time great stand alone RPGs (books). 

I also have heard that was more successfull commercially than expected. Surprising that so little support has come out for it...or is that par for the course for Chaosium? (still doesn't explain the lack of 3rd party material, or does it, given licensing arrangements?)


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## TerraDave (Feb 2, 2005)

*D&D CoC*



			
				Turanil said:
			
		

> Not even D&D. I did read once that Monte Cook told they had done a fight between Cthulhu and 20th level D&D PCs (i.e.: the iconic characters from the PHB brought to 20th level). He said that they couldn't kill him, that Cthulhu slew many PCs and that finally they were only able to banish him.




Has anyone here used the appendix to add Cthulhu fun to their D&D campaign? Would be very interested to read how it went.


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 2, 2005)

The only thing I've used from the CoC d20 book, is the section on monsters and using them in standard D&D campaigns. "All you Need is Cthulhu" article by Monte on the old WoTC website. The Starspawn too.

The fact that Chaosium fumbled the ball so badly with this opportunity still pisses me off.


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## Desdichado (Feb 2, 2005)

Hey, Joe, do you still have that article?  I'd like to read it if you do.


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 2, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Hey, Joe, do you still have that article?  I'd like to read it if you do.




I'll take a look. I know I have a hardcopy of it somewhere.


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## Turanil (Feb 2, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> I also have heard that was more successfull commercially than expected. Surprising that so little support has come out for it...or is that par for the course for Chaosium? (still doesn't explain the lack of 3rd party material, or does it, given licensing arrangements?)



This is but a guess, but maybe Chaosium didn't want the competition of d20 CoC against BRP CoC? Maybe they thought that if many people went to play d20 CoC they would have a hard time selling all of their BRP supplements available in stock? Who knows...


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## Committed Hero (Feb 3, 2005)

Some late comments,

I bet the d20 CoC book outsold every Chaosium product ever made.  I don't know why on earth they agreed to toss away the rights to CoC without some sort of plan to earn some money; but then again this is Chaosium we are talking about, whose decisions typically mirror their name (recently, they've denigrated d20 CoC on their own site).  

There used to be an interesting site by a Dallas gamer who statistically compared BRP and d20 characters; according to him d20 characters are weaker until they surpass 5th level.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 3, 2005)

*Chaosium*

Their hard core base just got angry that anyone would stoop so low as to convert CoC to d20.  They had to choose between getting lots of quick money with d20 and alienating their hardcore fans OR keeping their hardcore fans and the smaller amounts of money they would get over a longer period of time.  If they had gone and created d20 books or had created dual stat books they would lose their hardcore fan base.  Creating d20 books means that their fanbase would have not had access to those books and they would have to print a d20 and a BRP book, thus further dividing their profits (apparently only GoO has that kind of power).  And creating dual stat books would anger their fan base because they would percieve it as buying "useless" content (just look at the angry threads between Dungeon and Polyhedron readers.  Even though the magazine went monthly and the content of Dungeon was not reduced [just spread out between two months], they were angry at having to buy "useless" Polyhedron content, while Polyhedron readers lost content with the monthly format with Minigames being reduced from 60 to 40 pages and odd months containing mostly filler material of dubious quality, with a few exceptions).

The d20 game was also slightly less hopeless than the BRP game.  The margins of survival were higher, and that makes it feel less like horror and more like Pulp.  I know I had problems with the game until I made a few changes (detailed earlier) but it makes a great base for converting skill-based games (like the World of Darkness or Kult) into d20.


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## Desdichado (Feb 3, 2005)

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> The d20 game was also slightly less hopeless than the BRP game.  The margins of survival were higher, and that makes it feel less like horror and more like Pulp.  I know I had problems with the game until I made a few changes (detailed earlier) but it makes a great base for converting skill-based games (like the World of Darkness or Kult) into d20.



Do you have some reasons for believing that?  'coz in my experience, that sentiment is usually some misplaced logic along the lines of d20 = the system of D&D => D&D is not a horror game => d20 CoC is a more pulpy "action-oriented" game than BRP.  This logic typically ignores the fact that BRP is essentially the Runequest system.  

In my experience, your statment there is completely wrong.  If you have some more concrete examples of why you believe that, though, I'm interested in seeing them.  Usually the d20 CoC detractors in places like yog-sothoth.net and rpg.net haven't really been able to produce any.


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## Desdichado (Feb 3, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> I'll take a look. I know I have a hardcopy of it somewhere.



Cool!  If all you have is a hardcopy, I'd take a scan of it too, if that's not too much trouble.  E-mail me at jdyal at wowway dot com if you find anything.


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 3, 2005)

And Chaosium did do several dual stat books and even tried to do Elric as a dual statted book. Ah, I had such hopes for that potential and they just screwed it up.


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## MrFilthyIke (Feb 3, 2005)

From Chaosium's publishing schedule, I think there's only maybe 2 employees and 1 freelance writer.  Most of the recent stuff is literally cut 'n' paste of older editions.  :\


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## Narfellus (Feb 3, 2005)

Yeah, i don't understand Chaosium's business model at all. They put out some great products, but so infrequently i wonder how they even stay in business. Something works right for them though. Must be those wealth rituals they perform in the basement on full moons...


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## Turanil (Feb 3, 2005)

Committed Hero said:
			
		

> but then again this is *Chaosium* we are talking about, *whose decisions typically mirror their name* (recently, they've denigrated d20 CoC on their own site).



LOL! Chaosium has lost their sanity it seems!  

Anyway, not sure they would have made a better business in converting to d20 (d20 third party publishers do not necessarily make fortune). Then, as for the problem of doing dual-stat products, this is a false problem: either you do a full fluff product with stats-only documents available for free on the internet (or maybe sold as small printed 2$. add-on); or you print one set of stats in the book (for the version with the more selling potential) and provides conversions for free on the Internet. 

As for now, d20 Call of Cthulhu is still available on amazon.com it seems.


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## thud13x (Feb 3, 2005)

I do not play d20 CoC but is was the first non-D&D d20 book I bought.  I also have the BRP book, but also have not played it.  If I could only play them!!!!

ARGHH!! (Gutteral scream of frustration)


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## Desdichado (Feb 3, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> As for now, d20 Call of Cthulhu is still available on amazon.com it seems.



At half its original price, no less.  I'm tempted to pick up a backup copy.


			
				Narfellus said:
			
		

> They put out some great products, but so infrequently i wonder how they even stay in business.



Even then, their products pale in comparison to the Cthulhu products by Pagan Publishing.  John Tynes is Da Man.  It's no accident that WotC recruited him to write the "soft" aspects of this book instead of one of the Chaosium guys, I'd imagine.


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 3, 2005)

Delta Green is indeed, the single best thing to happen to Call of Cthulhu. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Pagan Publishing's work, like the Golden Order, were great, but Delta Green... man, it still rocks on toast.


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## TerraDave (Feb 3, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Delta Green is indeed, the single best thing to happen to Call of Cthulhu. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Pagan Publishing's work, like the Golden Order, were great, but Delta Green... man, it still rocks on toast.




But this returns to the question of why Chaosium couldn't license out d20 CoC (and still satisfy their hardcore fanbase with their own stuff).

I do remember seeing some kind of megamodule for CoC d20 from somebody not Chaosium, and d20 delta green has been promissed for a while, but it still seems like a big, wasted oppertunity


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 3, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> But this returns to the question of why Chaosium couldn't license out d20 CoC (and still satisfy their hardcore fanbase with their own stuff).
> 
> I do remember seeing some kind of megamodule for CoC d20 from somebody not Chaosium, and d20 delta green has been promissed for a while, but it still seems like a big, wasted oppertunity




It doesn't bring the question up to me.

I think that they're just poor business people without common sense.

Turn our whole library into PDF files for the audience?

Turn pet projects into PDF files instead of hand bound spiral bound books that cost as much as a full color hardback?

License out the CoC game at a reasonable price with good terms (Pagan noted several times that they could only do X amount of books per year.)

License out Elric or the Eternal Champion to a 3rd party and actually get it supported?

Stop claimin that the card crash from 15 years ago crippled us?

Stop claiming that we're just a mom and pop shop that are doing the best we can?

Yeah, they suck.


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## Committed Hero (Feb 3, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> But this returns to the question of why Chaosium couldn't license out d20 CoC (and still satisfy their hardcore fanbase with their own stuff).




They do license out stuff, but from what I understand the fees are absurdly high.  At least, that's what DG co-author Dennis Detwiller said keeps him from releasing the following - *already written* - DG material (his words in an April 2004 rpg.bet thread):

"1) A DG campaign (about 67,000 words worth)
2) A novel that's a sequel to Rules of Engagement
3) A copy of "The Kitchen Sink" the complete debriefing from the Roswell incident.
4) A new chapbook: Black Cod Island, a look at a Haida Indian Deep One cult in Alaska."

I don't know if Denied to the Enemy is #2, but I want the other things like heroin.

As to satisfying hardcore fans, if ten times the number of hardcore fans start buying CoC things, why should Chaosium care about a grumpy minority?  Any true fan would just be happy to get new books.....


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## Turanil (Feb 3, 2005)

After Western End Games (Star Wars d6) died, WotC bought the right to produce d20 SW. Let Chaosium disappear from bad business decisions, and then WotC (or someone else) buy the license and do stuff for CoC d20.


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## Gomez (Feb 3, 2005)

Now what does Chaosium have the rights to exactly? Is Cthulhu, Deep Ones, and all the rest their property? I thought Lovecraft's work was Public Domain stuff. I remember reading something that Dennis Detwiller said that Chaosium only had the rights to the BRP system.


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## Committed Hero (Feb 4, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Now what does Chaosium have the rights to exactly? Is Cthulhu, Deep Ones, and all the rest their property? I thought Lovecraft's work was Public Domain stuff. I remember reading something that Dennis Detwiller said that Chaosium only had the rights to the BRP system.




I would be inclined to agree, but it's not cost effective for anyone to litigate this issue (or risk litigation by just publishing the stuff).


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## jeff37923 (Feb 4, 2005)

Ion said:
			
		

> I'm told the Necronomicon is real...but not as lovecraft described it...
> 
> /me just wanted an excuse to share the link...




Gak! 

The truth is much more funny.

A study of the cultural phenomenon that is The Necronomicon, and its many derivations:

http://www.necfiles.org/

HP Lovecraft and The Necronomicon, the Final Thoughts section is the best:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/necron/

The entire HP Lovecraft Archive is a great resource for the horror genre enthusiast, I highly recommend that people read it: 

http://www.hplovecraft.com/


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## TerraDave (Feb 4, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Now what does Chaosium have the rights to exactly? Is Cthulhu, Deep Ones, and all the rest their property? I thought Lovecraft's work was Public Domain stuff. I remember reading something that Dennis Detwiller said that Chaosium only had the rights to the BRP system.




There have been a couple of ENworld threads on this....according to some, including Monte Cook (in comments on his website), it is basically open. According to others, early Lovercraft is open, byt later stuff is sill under copyright by Arkam house, who liscened it to Chaosium.  One issue seems to be Lovecraft basically opening up the mythos to other writters, and if that made it public domain.

And there is Cthulhu stuff out there  you can buy that is not Arkam or Chaosium. A lot of confusion on this issue comes from the 1st Deities and Demigods (appropriately), and why later printings did not have the Cthulhu mythos. One story about that is here 

In terms of CoC d20, technically it is not open content. So even if the Mythos is public domain, you could not use certain things, like the spells, that are unique to that book in a 3rd party publication. BTW, thanks the UA, the sanity system _is_ open.  So you probably could do a D20 Modern Cthulhu suplement, for example, but would have to replace somethings.


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## MonsterMash (Feb 4, 2005)

So D20CoC is well worth buying if I can find a copy then? 

I've played the BRP version for years (and had been playing RQ2 before that) so I'd probably still play the BRP version, but if the source material is good then I could mine that for stuff for D20 games and CoC.


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## Desdichado (Feb 4, 2005)

The source material is excellent.  Not only can you use it for non-Cthulhu games, because it's standard d20 format, but the GM advice is probably the best. ever. written.

And you can pick it up _new_ from Amazon for about half the original price.  I'd absolutely recommend it.  EDIT: at least in North America.  I haven't looked at amazon.uk.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 4, 2005)

*Fine Mr. Dyal*

Let's first look at Sanity (now this is based on the RQ system):

In BRP to get a +1d6 to Sanity you must have 90%+ in a single skill.  Assuming a character starts with around a maximum of 75% in a skill and he earns a check mark meaning he will have a 75% of earning +1d6 to his skill, meaning an average of 0.875 skill point on the first adventure (per skill with a check).  The average number of skill points you get will mathematically decrease arithmatically (to 24%, 23%, ... , 9%)  and thus it will take over TWENTY adventures to gain that sanity bonus.  Also Gaining Cthulhu Mythos could destroy your character in that same amount of time.

In d20 you gain back +1d6 sanity every level.  This could easily happen every one to three adventures.  And since Cthulhu Mythos is gained at 1-2 points per unlucky roll rather than 5%, it will take three times as many adventures for it to destroy your character.  Also characters become unplayable at -10 Sanity rather than 0 Sanity.

Now let's look at hit points:

In BRP your hit points are never greater than your (SIZ + CON)/2, so on average you will have on average (13 + 11)/2 = 12 hit points.  You will suffer a shock effect if you take more than half your hit points which in this case is 6, you will be unconscious at 1, 2, or 3 hit points, so actually you only have 9 hit points in the D&D sense.  Healing is at 1d3 per week, so any injured character will be out for an average of five weeks.  Damage from monsters is +1d6 per eight points of STR + SIZ, whereas a d20 size class gives you a +4 Str and +0-2 points for damage (increase of one die) and there are far fewer size classes in d20 than there are in CoC (I did a BRP to d20 SIZ conversion table, just don't have it here).  So on average the monsters are doing more damage in BRP.

In d20 we have hit points based on level.  By 5th level, d20 characters can have more hit points on average than any BRP character, and they still have 15 levels to advance.  The 10 hit point MDT becomes less and less important as your Fort Save increases.  A starting character can have up to a +8 Fort Save giving only a 35% chance of failure, and it gets better as you go up in level.

And now Magic.  

In BRP it is true there is no limit on you POW, but POW increase rolls become harder and harder to gain.  So the practical limit is around 25.  So your magic points are 25 or less, so you can only cast spells so many times before you are exhausted.

In d20 the cost is spread across the ability scores as ability damage, allowing more casting of magic and thus more reliance on magic.  As long as the characters protect their spellcaster (now which game does that sound like, hmmm), they can use magic much more often than in BRP.

So in having characters with generally higher sanities, faster skill acquisition (you can extrapolate that from my first paragraph), more hit points, creatures doing less damage, an MDT mechanic meant to be meaningful but easily circumvented, and more frequent spell casting you have a game that is more Pulpy than Horror.  I am sure if I had the rulebooks in front of me I could easily point out other systemic differences.

Now, I'm not saying that is totally a bad thing.  CoCd20 is easily one of my favorite games, its just the play comes out differently from BRP.


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## Gomez (Feb 4, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> According to others, early Lovercraft is open, byt later stuff is sill under copyright by Arkam house, who liscened it to Chaosium.  One issue seems to be Lovecraft basically opening up the mythos to other writters, and if that made it public domain.




I read somewhere that at one point Chaosium was paying Arkham house for the rights to do Call of Cthulhu. That was until Chaosium found out that Arkham House didn't infact have the rights to any Mythos stuff (it was public domain) and they stopped paying them.


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## Desdichado (Feb 4, 2005)

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> Now, I'm not saying that is totally a bad thing.  CoCd20 is easily one of my favorite games, its just the play comes out differently from BRP.



Thanks for answering, and much more coherently than I've seen from most in the past.  I know the two systems do play differently, but I suppose I still disagree that d20 is more "pulpy."  For one thing, I think your greatest implicit assumption, which is not necessarily true, is some kind of leveling speed.  In "long term campaign play", which has never been a CoC hallmark anyway, that might be an issue -- maybe -- but probably not.  There's no assumption as to the speed at which you level inherent in the ruleset.  Heck, we were playing the Nocturnum longterm campaign (unfortunately shelved as player's schedules became increasingly irreconcilable) and we had not leveled up at all, and had no expectation to after going through several of the "adventures" in the campaign.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 4, 2005)

*Other Observations*

Now I said it had more of a Pulp feel, just not enough.  I want to actually run a Pulp Heroes or Adventure! Cthulhu game some time (oh the agony, I have turned Pulp Heroes into the game system I want it to be and WW comes out with d20 Adventure! which only requires a few tweaks, most stemming from the fact that the people at WW don't understand that a +1 die to a roll is not mathematically the same as a +1 bonus to a d20 roll is).

Now true, with a maximum of a 75% starting skill that means that a BRP character starts with the skill bases of a 12th level character (we can assume that they have Skill Focus and Skill Affinity feat equivelents to make them 7th level), but having the hit points of a 3rd or 4th level character, and no feats.  So the power level is a little more difficult to compare.  And BRP doesn't handle long term games very well, whereas d20 has tried to create a more campaign oriented game.

And now with Future d20, I can run the Cthulhupunk game I wanted to do, heh.


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## TerraDave (Feb 4, 2005)

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> Now true, with a maximum of a 75% starting skill that means that a BRP character starts with the skill bases of a 12th level character (we can assume that they have Skill Focus and Skill Affinity feat equivelents to make them 7th level), but having the hit points of a 3rd or 4th level character, and no feats.  So the power level is a little more difficult to compare.  And BRP doesn't handle long term games very well, whereas d20 has tried to create a more campaign oriented game.




Right, from memory, a BRP charecter can do a lot with their starting skills (otherwise you would never get anywhere in the game).  But would not seem to be as survivable.  However, again from memory, fighting cultists or the least powerfull of creatures was perfectly do-able.  It was against the big bad stuff (most of it) that you where in trouble (dead), and it seemed like you could have a 100 hp's and it wouldn't be enough. 

However, combat didn't happen that much, and could be a little wonky.  I think if combat was more frequent, the more straight foward d20 system (and the one in CoC d20 is streamlined a little bit) would have the edge.


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## TerraDave (Feb 4, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I read somewhere that at one point Chaosium was paying Arkham house for the rights to do Call of Cthulhu. That was until Chaosium found out that Arkham House didn't infact have the rights to any Mythos stuff (it was public domain) and they stopped paying them.




LOL...this would seem to fit the pattern...


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## ZSutherland (Feb 4, 2005)

*Help!*

I would love to join the d20 Cthulu Preservation Society, but I'll need help.  Here's some background.  I've read many mythos stories, including much of Lovecraft's work.  I picked up the d20 version of the game after hearing about it here and chose that version because my players were already familiar with the d20 ruleset.  I finally got a chance to run it one night when many of my players couldn't make it to the game.  I made up some 1st lvl chars for the 3 players present and we ran the 1st level adventure presented in the book.  Two of the players loved it, and I really enjoyed running it.  The third player was less thrilled, citing the hopelessness and lack of heroics as reasons for his distaste.  Unfortunately, that player's new work schedule and upcoming fatherhood prevents him from playing with us any longer.  However, it does open up the possibility of playing Cthulu again.  As Joshua Dyal said, Monte Cook's DMing advice is the best I've ever seen.  I'll read it and get all worked up to play Cthulu; I'll even work out what I think is a really good scenario.  But then, without fail, I'll sit down to write it out and get stuck.  Here are the things that get me most often.

1) I can see any bunch of characters stumbling into mythos-land once by accident, but what basic human insticts (other than self-preservation) does your typical investigator lack that allows him to pursue it further?  What strange drive exists in the typical investigator that urges him to continue down the road to madness?  I know what Monte has to say about it, but I'm not sure how to convey that to the players during the game.

2) We typically play D&D, and though dungeon crawls are rare and I had to toss out the encounter system or risk the players leveling only once every 6-10 sessions due to lack of encounters, I'm able to run story heavy games w/o reams of notes.  I figure out what's happened, what the NPCs involved are planning, where any clues are and such, and then let the players interact and move the story around.  However, for some reason, I find that much harder to manage with Cthulu.  I feel compelled to detail every NPC they might encounter, every location they might examine, etc so that I'm prepared and the game doesn't fall flat because I didn't expect them to do this particular thing.  I know that behaviour is futile.  I know that no matter how much you plan, the PCs will always do the one thing you didn't even think of, but I don't know how to react to it.  Horror gaming seems more complicated and complex.

Anyway, I hope you guys can use your obviously considerable knowledge and experience at this to help me out.  My current players all want to play it, and I'd love to run it.

Z


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## Gomez (Feb 4, 2005)

Accually the Gamemaster secton was written by John Tynes of Delta Green fame. Monte wrote the rules section.   

Well a big motivation behind any CoC investigator would be Knowledge! The persute of ancient lore, the thrill of discovery. Let's look at a example. The movie *"The Creature from the Black Lagoon"*. You have a bunch of scientists looking for the fossils of a "missing link" in some backwater of the Amazon. They then encounter a living fossil that starts to kill of the crew. At first they don't know what they are dealing with but once they find out they are too deep in to escape. A _"We cannot run it's got Mary!" _ sort of thing

A Call of Cthulhu game should or can go like that. 

1. Some event or information peaks the Investigators interest. 
2. They do research and/or some investigation.
3. They get into some sort of trouble because of the said research/investigation.
4. They get an inkling that they are up against something really nasty. 
5. They finally find out what the nasty horror is all about but it's too late and they have to think fast or get eaten. 

Throw in some red herrings and some memorable NPC's and let it stew! 

That is just one formula though. You need to mix it up so you don't do the same old tired thing everytime.


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## Turanil (Feb 4, 2005)

ZSutherland said:
			
		

> I would love to join the d20 Cthulu Preservation Society, but I'll need help.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys can use your obviously considerable knowledge and experience at this to help me out.  My current players all want to play it, and I'd love to run it.



To begin with, you've got the right avatar pic! Otherwise, just try to convey an atmosphere of mystery, and half-said things most of the time. And be devious towards the players.


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## mmadsen (Feb 5, 2005)

ZSutherland said:
			
		

> 1) I can see any bunch of characters stumbling into mythos-land once by accident, but what basic human insticts (other than self-preservation) does your typical investigator lack that allows him to pursue it further?  What strange drive exists in the typical investigator that urges him to continue down the road to madness?  I know what Monte has to say about it, but I'm not sure how to convey that to the players during the game.



Imagine how insignificant _everything_ else would seem, once you know what's out there.


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## arwink (Feb 5, 2005)

ZSutherland said:
			
		

> 1) I can see any bunch of characters stumbling into mythos-land once by accident, but what basic human insticts (other than self-preservation) does your typical investigator lack that allows him to pursue it further?  What strange drive exists in the typical investigator that urges him to continue down the road to madness?  I know what Monte has to say about it, but I'm not sure how to convey that to the players during the game.




Start small.  Minor shocks, dead bodies, evil cutlits.  If you're going to be running a game with an eye on the long term, starting with the big bads is generally not the way to go.  As a good rule of thumb, don't hit the players with anything too weird in the first three to four sessions.  Keep them sure that *something* is going wrong, but don't let them nail down the fact that it's decidedly supernatural.  Suspiciouns are good, confirmation is bad.

Once you've got them embroiled in the plot, start bringing out the real weirdness.  By now the players should know three things: 1) The alien and unknowable actually exists and is up to _very bad things_, 2) No-one else is going to believe them if they tell them about it and 3) If they don't stop it, no-one will and the earth is doomed.  Essentially, you lure people into an overarching plot and mire them to the point that if they do the sensible thing and walk away things are only going to get much, much worse.

On the scale of designing individual adventures, pay really close attention to the second step mentioned in the rulebook: Motivation to continue.  If the players don't feel like they should be investigating the goings on, they wont.  In a recent game I played in, the group went to an occult auction that was interupted by a murder and a theft.  We made a half-hearted attempt to investigate, but our research had picked up nothing about the stolen item, the owner of the auction house was opposed to our investigation and asked us to leave it to the police, and we knew there were bigger things afoot due to the over-arching campaign plot.  After a fruitless hour where we were essentially told "No-one wants you involved in this" we all shrugged and left.  (Not that there's anything wrong with having NPC's telling your players that no-one wants them involved, but when you're told that repetitively by people who aren't all that suspicous or worried about their stolen property...)



> 2) I feel compelled to detail every NPC they might encounter, every location they might examine, etc so that I'm prepared and the game doesn't fall flat because I didn't expect them to do this particular thing.  I know that behaviour is futile.  I know that no matter how much you plan, the PCs will always do the one thing you didn't even think of, but I don't know how to react to it.  Horror gaming seems more complicated and complex.




Once I've worked out the initial scenes and how the players get into the adventure, I find it easier to work in three stages.  
List everything the players need to know.  
List all the cool locations, NPC's and events I think are integral to the plot.  
Create a general flowchart that links them all together with appropriate skill checks or investigation.

By pushing the focus on the things the players really need to know, I can quickly adapt the information to ensure it matches the PC's plans, and I can use the investigative elements they come up with to direct them towards the scenes I think are necessary.  The Flowchart means I can give them guidance if they need it, but I'm ready to improvise if they want to talk to someone else.

After all, it doesn't really matter if they find Mad Kieth's diary beneath the floorboards of his asylum cell or a file contianing a rough transcript of his ravings on the psychiatrists computer, as long as the information eventually gets them to the delapidated old house he inhabited with his mother and fall through the floorboards into the pool of zombie kittens below.  

Just remember to take notes


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## Byrons_Ghost (Feb 5, 2005)

ZSutherland said:
			
		

> 1) I can see any bunch of characters stumbling into mythos-land once by accident, but what basic human insticts (other than self-preservation) does your typical investigator lack that allows him to pursue it further?  What strange drive exists in the typical investigator that urges him to continue down the road to madness?  I know what Monte has to say about it, but I'm not sure how to convey that to the players during the game.




Well, the investigative questions have been mostly covered, so I thought I'd throw in on this, which can be tough. There's a couple of different options. The metagame option is to just work out with the players that they have the sort of characters that would do this sort of thing, and that no one wants to worry too much about the why's of things. This usually works pretty well with players used to horror gaming (CoC definately isn't the only horror game out there with motivational problems), or if the players are the type of good sports who will go along with the campaign premise because it means they get to play.

Of course, even if the players are like this, there's no reason not give them an in-game reason, which is option #2. In this case, you want a campaign framework just like in any other game- it could be a central villain, a central mystery, a conspiracy to halt, whatever. The Mythos actually gives you a pretty good way to tie things together, because if you want to play it "pure", then the Mythos is behind all supernatural events in one degree or another. Whereas PCs in a fantasy game might stop orcish incursions only to discover that the orcs weren't actually connected to the Dark Lord, in CoC anything odd is potentially the result of Mythos activity. So I guess what I'm saying here is that you need less in the way of hooks than you might in other games.

The most popular CoC framework out there, Delta Green, essentially began as a means of providing a framework for characters to have a reason to investigate the Mythos, and to continue to do so (as well as a good means of bringing in replacement PCs). The fact that DG accomplishes these metagame goals while providing a phenomenal setting and world is a large part of it's success.

Of course, if you don't have the DG books, you're going to have trouble finding them. Here's a couple of other ideas I've considered as a campaign framework:

1. The Real Mythos- the characters are Lovecraftian fans and scholars, academics, horror buffs, etc. After discovering that some of the things HPL hinted at were true, they begin investigating the events of the stories and trying to match them to what "really" happened, as well as events in the author's life. There is some sort of time limit on this- a reading of a story hints that the end of the world is near, for example. But because of the means in which they've gotten together (ie the shared supernatural experiences in the first session or two), and the outlandishness of the situation (horror writer's creations turn out to be real, and only the fanboys can save the world? Not going to be a popular theory with authorities...), the PCs are left on their own to solve things.

2. Magical Self Preservation- The first investigation is a typical one- searching for a missing person, examining a haunted house, etc. During the course of the investigation, the PCs are hit with some sort of curse that will destroy them under the proper circumstances (after a set amount of time, if they leave a certain geographical area, etc). The PCs would already have motivation to stick together and, being otherwise unfamilar with the supernatural, will have to go out and investigate strange events in the hopes of learning enough to discover how to reverse the condition.

Again, both of these can seem like railroading if the player's aren't willing to go along with the basic premise.

It might help to track down some Chaosium modules for the BRP game, if not to run than at least to see how they're generally organized. Many of the older books are now PDFs on DriveThruRPG, if you want a cheap & quick way to get some inspiration. There's also a ton of free adventures on the chaosium site, and probably some other sources on the web as well.

Finally, for running any horror game in general, there's a book by Kenneth Hite called "Nightmares of Mine" that lays out pretty much everything you need to know. Much of the material also was used by the author when he was writing GURPS Horror 3rd ed, if that's more your speed.


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## ZSutherland (Feb 5, 2005)

I really appreciate all the responses, guys.  It says a lot about a game that people are so passionate about it.  If anyone's still in the mood to help, I'll lay out the broad strokes of a storyline I came up with and see if anyone has anything fun to add or advice to give on it in particular.  I'm down to 2 players atm due to work schedules and such.  I'm thinking of having them both be FBI Agents (one using the actual agent template and the other using either the psychologist template or the technician template) who are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a woman in a small town (either west texas or northern georgia probably).  I'm looking to combine and warp one of the plotlines from Neil Gaiman's American Gods and the movie "The Stepford Wives."  The men of this small town are all part of a cult.  Each year at a specified time, one of them sacrifices their wife or one of their children in a ritual to appease an alien being that they believe is a god.  They're somewhat xenophobic about the outside world (the internet is the tool of the devil, rock'n'roll is the work of Lucifer, etc) and in return for their sacrifice, the alien being (mi-go perhaps) protect them from outside influence, keeping the world at bay.  These people are basically still living in Ward and June Cleaver world.  The alien replaces the sacrificed wife or child (heavily modified and controlled) with a clone or some such.  These sacrifices have been going on for years.  However, the town doctor finally kicked it last year, and they need a new family practicioner.  The missing woman's husband, a fairly young man, is brought to the town with his family.  He is quickly brought into the fold, but his wife is suspicious and tells her mother who lives out of town.  When she's sacrificied, her mother's been in constant contact with her for a few weeks and doesn't buy her son in law's lame excuses about why she can't come to the phone.  When her daughter returns, very different in personality and no longer worried, mom doesn't buy it.  More to the point, she's already contacted law enforcement.  Perhaps mom is important (wife of a senator or a senator herself), but the PCs are sent to investigate.

So:

1) Is Mi-go a good choice or would something else fit the bill better?
2) What kind of clues and such should I let the players find?
3) Other than the freaky people in town, what kind of scares can I pull on them, especially in the first few sessions?
4) What's a good way for the PCs to resolve this?

Fire away, feel free to tweak, modify, or scrap.

Z


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## Committed Hero (Feb 5, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> However, combat didn't happen that much, and could be a little wonky.  I think if combat was more frequent, the more straight foward d20 system (and the one in CoC d20 is streamlined a little bit) would have the edge.




The "lack" of combat in BRP Call of Cthulhu is really only relative to other games.  Combat has always been a part of Chaosium's own adventures and always will be.


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## Byrons_Ghost (Feb 5, 2005)

Z-

Mi-go sound like a pretty good choice, running these sorts of experiments on humans is definately part of their MO. One thing to consider is their motivation; granted, they have alien minds, but they should be getting something out of this setup, even if it's more sacrifices for their diety (who I think is Azathoth, but I could be misremembering).

For clues to unravel the mystery, you could use letters written by the wife, or old journals from the time when the cult was originally begun. One of the standards in these local cult cases is also finding the insane or guilt-ridden member who's on the verge of snapping and getting the whole story from them. The young doctor might be a good choice in this case, or perhaps an older single parent who has lost multiple daughters to the cult.

It's good that you're thinking of the ultimate resolution of the mystery- a lot of CoC adventures get stuck on that point, they just present the situation, let the players figure things out, and then assume that the PCs will simply kill, blast, and destroy whatever seems Mythos related. In this case, I would say that driving off the mi-go (either with weapons or spells) will cause the collapse of the cult, removing the head as it were. There's likely to be some mortal leaders as well, of course. They could either be lumped in with the mi-go at the climax, or left in town for future plot development. Another option is to have the clones dissolve or otherwise disappear when the mi-go depart, leaving the town with a large number of disappearances on their hands. Regular law enforcement could then pick things up from their, prosecuting the remaining cult members for whatever they feel like.

Speaking of law enforcement, this doesn't really seem like an FBI type case. They're generally called in by local law enforcement, though of course there's exceptions. Most likely, anyone with a badge is just going to write the mother off as a nutty mother-in-law. Especially since there's no actual victim missing. All this makes for a great Mythos investigation, since the police won't be paying attention. But it's unlikely that the agent would be assigned to it, unless you're going with a more X-Files type of game. It is quite likely that the mother, being ignored by authorities, could call in some sort of private investigators.

Hope this helps- it sounds like a pretty good scenario! Hoping that you're players aren't familiar with Stepford, of course...


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## Andrew D. Gable (Feb 6, 2005)

Here's some conversions I've done.  The first two files are bringing Gaslight into d20 (really, all that needed done was the addition of some new occupations) and the last is a conversion of the adventure "Eyes of a Stranger", from _Sacraments of Evil_.  

The Perception thing is a houserule.  I choose to take a page from Lone Wolf and bundle Listen, Spot, and Search into one skill.  If you want to keep with the three skills, go ahead.


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## Turanil (Feb 6, 2005)

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> Here's some conversions I've done.  The first two files are bringing Gaslight into d20 (really, all that needed done was the addition of some new occupations) and the last is a conversion of the adventure "Eyes of a Stranger", from _Sacraments of Evil_.



Thanks for the files. I guess that d20 Past will be the perfect book for doing Call of Cthulhu with d20 when not having access to d20 CoC. We can expect some later supplement geared at d20 Past horror I guess (with Cthulhu like denizens, sanity rules from UA, etc.), and so in the end Chaosium will look plain stupid... (for not having continued to distribute and support d20 CoC).


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## Andrew D. Gable (Feb 6, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Thanks for the files. I guess that d20 Past will be the perfect book for doing Call of Cthulhu with d20 when not having access to d20 CoC. We can expect some later supplement geared at d20 Past horror I guess (with Cthulhu like denizens, sanity rules from UA, etc.), and so in the end Chaosium will look plain stupid... (for not having continued to distribute and support d20 CoC).



I imagine so.  The blurb about D20 Past on Wizards' site says about Victorian horror, IIRC.  The star doppelganger in the Menace Manual was pretty Cthulhuvian, and the blood fiend/jumping jack in the same book is a Victorian-era iconic monster (Springheel Jack, dontcha know).  As to other non-COC "Cthulhu" monsters, the monster books from Necromancer, in particular, have some Cthulhuoids.  *Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia* has major COC flavor.


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## Monte At Home (Feb 7, 2005)

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> Let's first look at Sanity (now this is based on the RQ system):
> 
> In BRP to get a +1d6 to Sanity you must have 90%+ in a single skill.  Assuming a character starts with around a maximum of 75% in a skill and he earns a check mark meaning he will have a 75% of earning +1d6 to his skill, meaning an average of 0.875 skill point on the first adventure (per skill with a check).  The average number of skill points you get will mathematically decrease arithmatically (to 24%, 23%, ... , 9%)  and thus it will take over TWENTY adventures to gain that sanity bonus.  Also Gaining Cthulhu Mythos could destroy your character in that same amount of time.




You're forgetting to add that standard CoC characters gain lost Sanity back by defeating Mythos creatures, which is what the Sanity regained per level mechanism mimics.


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## Monte At Home (Feb 7, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Accually the Gamemaster secton was written by John Tynes of Delta Green fame. Monte wrote the rules section.




Actually, FWIW, as far as the non-system stuff goes, John wrote the Mythos chapter (probably the best chapter in the book) and some of the Gamermaster chapter, as well as the End of Paradise scenario. Ken Hite, Scott Glancy, and I worked on the Gamermaster, Stories and Settings chapter (I no longer remember who wrote what exactly among that stuff).

For the system stuff, I wrote the first 7 chapters (John Crowe wrote most of the gun stuff in Chapter 6), the Little Slices of Death scenario, and all the appendices. Bruce Cordell and John Rateliff did the initial conversion of most of the monsters in Chapter 8, although I developed the final version of them as well.

I bring this up mostly because I don't think the other writers who worked on the book beyond John and I get enough credit.


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## MonsterMash (Feb 7, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> The source material is excellent.  Not only can you use it for non-Cthulhu games, because it's standard d20 format, but the GM advice is probably the best. ever. written.
> 
> And you can pick it up _new_ from Amazon for about half the original price.  I'd absolutely recommend it.  EDIT: at least in North America.  I haven't looked at amazon.uk.




Amazon Uk is still selling it for a reduced price from list, but not by as much - list was about 22 pounds, Amazon sells it at 17 pounds, which works out at close to $30 US plus shipping.

Looks like it might well be worth it though, but I'll check e-bay and the sales threads here before going with amazon.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 7, 2005)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> You're forgetting to add that standard CoC characters gain lost Sanity back by defeating Mythos creatures, which is what the Sanity regained per level mechanism mimics.




I had thought that mechanic was retained in CoCd20, I remember seeing it in the web enhancement for the adventure sequel to rats in the walls.  But then again as I approach 1/3 of a century my memory does fail me.


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## Gomez (Feb 7, 2005)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> Actually, FWIW, as far as the non-system stuff goes, John wrote the Mythos chapter (probably the best chapter in the book) and some of the Gamermaster chapter, as well as the End of Paradise scenario. Ken Hite, Scott Glancy, and I worked on the Gamermaster, Stories and Settings chapter (I no longer remember who wrote what exactly among that stuff).
> 
> For the system stuff, I wrote the first 7 chapters (John Crowe wrote most of the gun stuff in Chapter 6), the Little Slices of Death scenario, and all the appendices. Bruce Cordell and John Rateliff did the initial conversion of most of the monsters in Chapter 8, although I developed the final version of them as well.
> 
> I bring this up mostly because I don't think the other writers who worked on the book beyond John and I get enough credit.




I stand corrected   and Thanks for the info and for the *Great* book by the way!


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## TerraDave (Feb 7, 2005)

Committed Hero said:
			
		

> The "lack" of combat in BRP Call of Cthulhu is really only relative to other games.  Combat has always been a part of Chaosium's own adventures and always will be.




I did play through what I think was a Chaosium adventure that was all investigation.  There was some danger, maybe potential combat, but no actual exchange of blows or gun fire.  And then at the end some horrible creature was summoned, and we didn't run fast enough and all died (but it wasn't the really bad creature, so the world was saved).

But yes, normally there is some, and there can be a lot, though again I think CoC d20 could handle that sort of thing a little better.


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## TerraDave (Feb 7, 2005)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> Actually, FWIW, as far as the non-system stuff goes, John wrote the Mythos chapter (probably the best chapter in the book) and some of the Gamermaster chapter, as well as the End of Paradise scenario. Ken Hite, Scott Glancy, and I worked on the Gamermaster, Stories and Settings chapter (I no longer remember who wrote what exactly among that stuff).
> 
> For the system stuff, I wrote the first 7 chapters (John Crowe wrote most of the gun stuff in Chapter 6), the Little Slices of Death scenario, and all the appendices. Bruce Cordell and John Rateliff did the initial conversion of most of the monsters in Chapter 8, although I developed the final version of them as well.
> 
> I bring this up mostly because I don't think the other writers who worked on the book beyond John and I get enough credit.




I just want to second Gomez is saying thanks for such a great book.

Clearly one reason was the resources that WotC was willing to put in it.  To bad that doesn't happen more often, and it is too bad that there has been so little follow up/support


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## Narfellus (Feb 7, 2005)

As much fun as CoC one-shots can be, for a larger, overarching storyline, i would have to recommend picking up one of Chaosium's modules. _Masks of Nyarlathotep_ is a great one, one of the best adventures i've ever read. Seriously, it's fun and creepy just to read from a GM's point of view. _Beyond the Mountains of Madness _ would be another one, and then there's one i have i want to run one day, _Escape from Innsmouth._ And all of them are combat heavy in my campaign, but the PC's have only fought mostly cultists so far, and one wearboar that they were able to kill with a silver-plated axe, but once the Mythos creatures start pouring in their little peashooters won't be doing much good.  Fortunately, they have one brave character who will have access to an Elder Sign if he ever finishes reading the Libris Mysteriis.


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## teitan (Feb 7, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> After Western End Games (Star Wars d6) died, WotC bought the right to produce d20 SW. Let Chaosium disappear from bad business decisions, and then WotC (or someone else) buy the license and do stuff for CoC d20.




You don't really need to purchase the rights to publish a mythos game, you just can't call it Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium owns the trademark on the title). Most of HPL's estate exists in the public domain and has for years because nobody bothered to copyright it. Derleth claims to own the copyright but HP's aunts were the inheritors to the estate and not Uncle Augy. Since the Aunties never did anything to protect Howie's estate the rights would have lapsed in the early to mid 70s and even then, again in the mid 90s. The only thing protect is the trademark terms like Call of Cthulhu, Mythos etc. that Chaosium and Uncle Augy have used in their book titles. If I wanted to publish a game set in the word of H.P. Lovecraft I could, it is just coming up with a recognizable title that doesn't violate the trademarks.

Jason


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## jaerdaph (Feb 7, 2005)

*d20 Cthulhu by Gaslight*

I've added my Victorian era professions for d20 CoC PDF I did a couple of years ago to the Preservation Society.


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## TerraDave (Feb 8, 2005)

teitan said:
			
		

> You don't really need to purchase the rights to publish a mythos game, you just can't call it Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium owns the trademark on the title). Most of HPL's estate exists in the public domain and has for years because nobody bothered to copyright it. Derleth claims to own the copyright but HP's aunts were the inheritors to the estate and not Uncle Augy. Since the Aunties never did anything to protect Howie's estate the rights would have lapsed in the early to mid 70s and even then, again in the mid 90s. The only thing protect is the trademark terms like Call of Cthulhu, Mythos etc. that Chaosium and Uncle Augy have used in their book titles. If I wanted to publish a game set in the word of H.P. Lovecraft I could, it is just coming up with a recognizable title that doesn't violate the trademarks.
> 
> Jason




Funny, this was discussed earlier in the thread, and many other times on EnWorld.

I have seen so many conflicting things on this, do you have any refrences, websites, that sort of thing confirming the lapse of copyright (I know I have seen statements that some stories are still under Arkhan House copyright elsewhere)? Thanks!


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## teitan (Feb 8, 2005)

Well, for the longest time copyrights persisted for 50 years after the authors death, which means that if any of the HPL's copyrights existed that they would have gone PD in the early 80s! In the 90s, Senator Sonny Bono pushed a bill through congress that ruled that any copyrights qould persist for life +75 years. Because the HPL copyrights would have, according to previous laws, long before passed into the PD under the old laws, then the new law (which is the basis that Arkham House continues its arguments) would NOT affect the HPL's copyrights. Basically, using the old law of life +50 and looking at the Bono Act you see, very clearly, that HPL was dead more than 50 years before the law passed. The Bono act became law in 1998, HPL died in 1937 which means that his copyrights would have lapsed in 1987 under the old law(barring anything done before 1923 which would already be in the Public Domain). The Bono act did not protect copyrights retroactively, as in no copyrights could be recovered under the Bono Act so HPL's creative work would have passed into the PD by quite some time, especially the pre 1923 material. The only way to protect this material is through exploitation of trademark laws which is how groups like the Ordo Templi Orientis have maintained their claim on the Equinox and Orriflamme periodicals which had long before ceased publication (Equinox in the 1960s, Orriflamme in the 1940s) but were trademarked in the mid 70s. I learned a lot about copyright law looking into the estate of Aleister Crowley (which, if I had 1,000 dollar in 1993 I could have purchased because that is what was paid for it).

As for a reference on the Bono Act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act is about the best I could dig up on short notice. It very clearly states the key element though, the Bono-CTEA is NOT retroactive.

Jason


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## GMSkarka (Feb 9, 2005)

I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )

It occurs to me, however, that given the copyright issues (S.T. Joshi layed out a nicely detailed picture in one of his books on Lovecraft that pretty much ends with the conclusion that it's all PD), that it would be a fairly simple matter for a publisher (say, I dunno, Adamant) to put out a line of PDFs using the Open Content sanity/madness rules and other stuff from _OGL Horror_, and release it under the title "Lovecraft D20" or something...

Hm.   Something to think about.


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## Arcane Runes Press (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> It occurs to me, however, that given the copyright issues (S.T. Joshi layed out a nicely detailed picture in one of his books on Lovecraft that pretty much ends with the conclusion that it's all PD), that it would be a fairly simple matter for a publisher (say, I dunno, Adamant) to put out a line of PDFs using the Open Content sanity/madness rules and other stuff from _OGL Horror_, and release it under the title "Lovecraft D20" or something...
> 
> Hm.   Something to think about.




You should do it. But instead of just Lovecraft, you should do a series of "Horror in the style of X" pdfs, where X is a recognizable style of horror. 

Italian Zombie Apocalypse/gore type films

Hell, Italian psycho-horror would be a good one. Dario Argento is worth a series on his own. 

Carpenteresque flesh grotesquerie (though I wouldn't suggest this for a title) 

Old Style Universal Studios horror

Hammer Films

80's style slasher films

50's era atomic "horror"

Psychobilly horror

Cronenberg's body/identity paranoia


The possibilities are (almost) limitless


Patrick Y.


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## Thorin Stoutfoot (Feb 9, 2005)

*Masks d20 Conversion*



			
				Narfellus said:
			
		

> As much fun as CoC one-shots can be, for a larger, overarching storyline, i would have to recommend picking up one of Chaosium's modules. _Masks of Nyarlathotep_ is a great one, one of the best adventures i've ever read. Seriously, it's fun and creepy just to read from a GM's point of view. _Beyond the Mountains of Madness _ would be another one, and then there's one i have i want to run one day, _Escape from Innsmouth._ And all of them are combat heavy in my campaign, but the PC's have only fought mostly cultists so far, and one wearboar that they were able to kill with a silver-plated axe, but once the Mythos creatures start pouring in their little peashooters won't be doing much good.  Fortunately, they have one brave character who will have access to an Elder Sign if he ever finishes reading the Libris Mysteriis.



And of course, I can't resist a plug for my d20 conversion for Masks of Nyarlathotep.


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## Gomez (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )
> 
> It occurs to me, however, that given the copyright issues (S.T. Joshi layed out a nicely detailed picture in one of his books on Lovecraft that pretty much ends with the conclusion that it's all PD), that it would be a fairly simple matter for a publisher (say, I dunno, Adamant) to put out a line of PDFs using the Open Content sanity/madness rules and other stuff from _OGL Horror_, and release it under the title "Lovecraft D20" or something...
> 
> Hm.   Something to think about.




I would buy it!    I would love to see some Gaslight type stuff too!


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## GMSkarka (Feb 9, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I would buy it!    I would love to see some Gaslight type stuff too!




Heh---I've actually been working on a project called "AGE OF GASLIGHT", which is a D20-Modern-based adaptation of my old Age of Empire RPG from 1996.



			
				Arcane Runes Press said:
			
		

> You should do it. But instead of just Lovecraft, you should do a series of "Horror in the style of X" pdfs, where X is a recognizable style of horror.




That's a pretty stellar idea...but I wonder about the sales appeal with such a wide-ranging focus. Also, I'd be talking more about doing adventures (since that's what people would want, I think, as time-savers) rather than genre supplements.  Really, though, the attraction for me is twofold:  1) I've always been a big fan of Lovecraftian horror, and 2) It fills a support void that there is some demand for.


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## Prest0 (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )




Yeah, don't hold your breath. I e-mailed them six months to a year ago and never heard a word from them.


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## TerraDave (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )
> 
> It occurs to me, however, that given the copyright issues (S.T. Joshi layed out a nicely detailed picture in one of his books on Lovecraft that pretty much ends with the conclusion that it's all PD), that it would be a fairly simple matter for a publisher (say, I dunno, Adamant) to put out a line of PDFs using the Open Content sanity/madness rules and other stuff from _OGL Horror_, and release it under the title "Lovecraft D20" or something...
> 
> Hm.   Something to think about.




Just to repeat, the CoC D20 Sanity rules are also open content thanks to Unearthed Arcana...I look forward to seeing what you come up with!


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## GMSkarka (Feb 9, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> Just to repeat, the CoC D20 Sanity rules are also open content thanks to Unearthed Arcana.




That's true...I completely forgot about that.  (...and, that's what I get for not reading the thread more closely...)

Coincidentally, I heard back from Chaosium this morning:  Dustin (Wright) told me that he didn't think they'd be interested, but that he'd talk with Charlie (Krank) about it.   I'm not holding my breath.   It looks like support would have to be in the form of the unofficial "Lovecraft D20" that I mentioned earlier.


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## Turanil (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> That's true...I completely forgot about that.  (...and, that's what I get for not reading the thread more closely...)
> 
> Coincidentally, I heard back from Chaosium this morning:  Dustin (Wright) told me that he didn't think they'd be interested, but that he'd talk with Charlie (Krank) about it.   I'm not holding my breath.   It looks like support would have to be in the form of the unofficial "Lovecraft D20" that I mentioned earlier.



Yeah, lets do an unofficial "Lovecraft D20", if only to piss them off. By the way, I would like it to be based on d20 Past rules, and including not only sanity from UA, but also incantation rules. Of course, adding stuff from OGL Horror would also be an intersting thing.

(BTW: I would be interested in contributing a few things to this project too. I have created some material for my next "Indiana-Jones meets Cthulhu" campaign, and would be willing to propose them to the endeavor...)


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## Gomez (Feb 9, 2005)

I just hope that _Lovecraft d20_ is not confused with the _Book of Erotic Fantasy_!   



I like the name _Lovecraft d20_ by the way!


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )
> 
> It occurs to me, however, that given the copyright issues (S.T. Joshi layed out a nicely detailed picture in one of his books on Lovecraft that pretty much ends with the conclusion that it's all PD), that it would be a fairly simple matter for a publisher (say, I dunno, Adamant) to put out a line of PDFs using the Open Content sanity/madness rules and other stuff from _OGL Horror_, and release it under the title "Lovecraft D20" or something...
> 
> Hm.   Something to think about.




Heck, start with a monster book of aberrations and other things that go bump in the night.


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## Henry (Feb 9, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Yeah, lets do an unofficial "Lovecraft D20", if only to piss them off.




You might have been suggesting this tongue-in-cheek, but it's not a good idea to do anything for spite - especially since there's so much cross-pollination in RPG companies. Your annoying opposition today is your boss tomorrow. 

But if anyone could succeed at bringing a lovecraftian horror game back to d20, it's Gareth.  I just wish Chaosium would allow the idea to expand a bit more back into d20.


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## Desdichado (Feb 9, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I just hope that _Lovecraft d20_ is not confused with the _Book of Erotic Fantasy_!
> 
> I like the name _Lovecraft d20_ by the way!



How's about Yog-Sothothery d20?  Use HPL's own term.


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## TerraDave (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> It looks like support would have to be in the form of the unofficial "Lovecraft D20" that I mentioned earlier.




That would still be pretty kewl.  Compatible with 3.5 D&D, D20 modern, some sort of mix and match (yes, I realise it is a little early, but what are your _thoughts_?)


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## barsoomcore (Feb 9, 2005)

Lovecraft d20 is brill.

As in "iant".



The thing about the CoC Sanity system is that it provides a sort of "alternate hit points" system that players have to work with and compensate for. Most other horror mechanics (haven't seen OGL Horror so am completely talking out of my posterior just at the moment -- see if anyone notices) have a "Save Vs Fear" kind of effect which is just right for some games, but one of the key "flavour" bites to CoC is that steadily-dwindling store of Sanity every character possesses.

It makes the fear not just something that happens in the game, but something that the game actually revolves around, much like hit points do for combat.


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## barsoomcore (Feb 9, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I wonder about the sales appeal with such a wide-ranging focus. Also, I'd be talking more about doing adventures (since that's what people would want, I think, as time-savers) rather than genre supplements.



I think, though, you could usefully combine the two. Release adventures set in different genre "worlds" along with whatever mechanical doohickeys you need to support that era (an equipment list, notes on skills and feats, maybe a couple of Backgrounds or something). If the game is flexibly designed enough (like d20 CoC was) you won't need much to support different time frames/genres/settings.

Don't view them as genre supplements -- view them as adventures that need just a little bit of supporting crunch and fluff.


----------



## teitan (Feb 10, 2005)

I would LOOOOOOOVE to see a Kult like D20 Modern setting! Would rock on toast.

Jason


----------



## Gomez (Feb 10, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I think, though, you could usefully combine the two. Release adventures set in different genre "worlds" along with whatever mechanical doohickeys you need to support that era (an equipment list, notes on skills and feats, maybe a couple of Backgrounds or something). If the game is flexibly designed enough (like d20 CoC was) you won't need much to support different time frames/genres/settings.
> 
> Don't view them as genre supplements -- view them as adventures that need just a little bit of supporting crunch and fluff.





Now thats brill!


----------



## MonsterMash (Feb 10, 2005)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> I bring this up mostly because I don't think the other writers who worked on the book beyond John and I get enough credit.



Now that shows class.


----------



## MonsterMash (Feb 10, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I think, though, you could usefully combine the two. Release adventures set in different genre "worlds" along with whatever mechanical doohickeys you need to support that era (an equipment list, notes on skills and feats, maybe a couple of Backgrounds or something). If the game is flexibly designed enough (like d20 CoC was) you won't need much to support different time frames/genres/settings.
> 
> Don't view them as genre supplements -- view them as adventures that need just a little bit of supporting crunch and fluff.




Very good idea there BC.


----------



## mmadsen (Feb 10, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> Heh---I've actually been working on a project called "AGE OF GASLIGHT", which is a D20-Modern-based adaptation of my old Age of Empire RPG from 1996.



Ooh, sounds interesting.  Does the change in name imply a shift in focus, from the Empire to London?


----------



## GMSkarka (Feb 10, 2005)

mmadsen said:
			
		

> Ooh, sounds interesting.  Does the change in name imply a shift in focus, from the Empire to London?




No...the name implies my compliance with an agreement signed with Microsoft after they released a computer game using a similar name to the name of my game.   The publisher I was working with at the time (Event Horizon Productions) had our lawyers contact them, and, long story short, since we were near the end of the print run on AGE OF EMPIRE anyway, we agreed to settle out of court, allowing Microsoft exclusive use of the name in return for a cash settlement.

I'm just renaming the game to comply with that (even though the original signatory is no longer in business, having been purchased by Guardians of Order), and to prevent brand confusion.


----------



## Kesh (Feb 11, 2005)

Does anyone know which Mythos names and terms are actually trademarked? It shouldn't be too hard to create a Lovecraft d20 game using the remaining bits of info from his works.

A "Dreamlands" setting would rock, for one thing. 8)


----------



## Turanil (Feb 11, 2005)

Kesh said:
			
		

> A "Dreamlands" setting would rock, for one thing. 8)



Chaosium already published a Dreamlands sourcebook (for BRP CoC). It is more some kind of weird fantasy than true horror.


----------



## GMSkarka (Feb 11, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Chaosium already published a Dreamlands sourcebook (for BRP CoC). It is more some kind of weird fantasy than true horror.




...and Adamant has released a D20 supplement for running weird fantasy dream-setting games:  Dreamscapes: The Definitive D20 Guide to Worlds Beyond Sleep, which, if you're into that kinda thing, you should check out (there's a free demo on that page).


As far as trademark goes...there are none that I could find (which makes sense, given that the materials are all in the public domain, and a 70-year history of other writers including Lovecraft's creations in their own stories exists).


----------



## jcfiala (Feb 11, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I like the name _Lovecraft d20_ by the way!




I like it too.

I'm currently developing a cute one-shot in the vein of Steve Jackson's 'Munchkin d20' and 'Space Munchkin' OGL games, called 'Cthulhu Munchkin', which I'm going to run at GenghisCon this next weekend.  The basic idea of it is to turn a lovecraftian story into more of an action movie/pulp game, set in modern day times and making fun of all those fun Lovecraftian things.  (I think at one point I'm going to have them find a room full of stuffed albino penguin dolls.)

But reading through the d20 Cthulhu book really has caused me to think that there was something there that could have gone on to better things - and perhaps some work done could produce something solid, in the vein of d20 Lovecraft.

Hmm...


----------



## teitan (Feb 11, 2005)

Basically, if it is a Chaosium title for a book or an Arkham House title then it is prolly trademarked like the title Call of Cthulhu is a trademark for CHaosium...

Jason


----------



## Byrons_Ghost (Feb 12, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I think, though, you could usefully combine the two. Release adventures set in different genre "worlds" along with whatever mechanical doohickeys you need to support that era (an equipment list, notes on skills and feats, maybe a couple of Backgrounds or something). If the game is flexibly designed enough (like d20 CoC was) you won't need much to support different time frames/genres/settings.
> 
> Don't view them as genre supplements -- view them as adventures that need just a little bit of supporting crunch and fluff.





I think this would be the way to go. It's been done for other lines, for example AFMBE. They've gotten a lot of distance out of putting zombies (or zombie like things) into different settings and genres. Basically they just lay out a description of the genre, give some pertinent rules, and then 3 or 4 adventure/campaign settings that showcase various flavors of the genre (the kung-fu book, for example, had John Woo gunplay, Wuxia, Big Trouble in Little China, and Mortal Kombat type settings. All with zombies!)

As for HPL D20... yeah, I'd be interested. Especially if it got printed- sorry GM, I'm just not that big of a PDF fan. But that's just me. Another thing I'm probably in the minority on, I didn't really care for the D20 CoC classes. Just too generic for my tastes, not enough options. Something more along the lines of D20 Modern, though, with increased lethality and dangerous magic would be cool.

Wait... I just described Grim Tales, didn't I?    Man, I need to get that book...


----------



## Ghengis Cohen (Feb 25, 2005)

teitan said:
			
		

> I would LOOOOOOOVE to see a Kult like D20 Modern setting! Would rock on toast.
> 
> Jason




I'm in definite agreement there, but such a game would probably need OGL liscensing, since Hasbro/Wotc, would not put their wholesome, family oriented reputation behind something so bloody nefarious.


----------



## teitan (Feb 26, 2005)

So true, but ti would still be fun. I would also like to see a WOD like setting where you play monsters etc. That would be cool as well.

Jason


----------



## philreed (Feb 26, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> I've sent Chaosium a query asking if they'd be willing to license support of CoC d20 to a third-party publisher, but no response as yet.  (I'm not surprised, this is Chaosium we're talking about...their response time can be measured in geological epochs  )




They don't answer their phone, either. I've been trying to contact them for well over a year -- I guess they're just too good for me.


----------



## Turanil (Feb 26, 2005)

I got a look at d20 Past art, and seeing the prestige classes and some monsters (especially the sea-devil), I think we get an excellent set of rules for CoC characters. I supose the book will also have 1930's equipment. Then, one only needs to make a CoC d20 supplement with cults and organizations, creatures, reprint UA sanity rules, books and magical items, and maybe a new magical system if d20 Past still comes up with D&D-like spellcasters. And then, ready to go!!


----------



## Krieg (Feb 27, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> They don't answer their phone, either. I've been trying to contact them for well over a year -- I guess they're just too good for me.




They managed to reply rather quickly when I sent them a terse letter explaining why I would no longer be a customer and would like to be removed from their mailing list.


----------



## DanielJ (Feb 28, 2005)

I have call of cthulhu d20 but i dont have a group that plays so i havent played it yet.

I am gming a play by post game on another forum but i havent had the luxery or pleasure of playing the game as a player before.


----------



## barsoomcore (Feb 28, 2005)

DanielJ said:
			
		

> i havent had the luxery or pleasure of playing the game as a player before.



Dude, welcome to my world. My bookshelves are full of games I've run that I've never played in: Grim Tales, d20 Modern, CoC, Exalted, Skull & Bones, Mutants and Masterminds...

I buy games because I want to play characters in them. And then nobody I know will run them so I do. And then everybody I know says, "Well, there's no time for ME to run a game cause you're running them all the time."

Sigh.


----------



## Gomez (Feb 28, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Dude, welcome to my world. My bookshelves are full of games I've run that I've never played in: Grim Tales, d20 Modern, CoC, Exalted, Skull & Bones, Mutants and Masterminds...
> 
> I buy games because I want to play characters in them. And then nobody I know will run them so I do. And then everybody I know says, "Well, there's no time for ME to run a game cause you're running them all the time."
> 
> Sigh.




Have you ever tried a Play by Post game? That is how I get to run and play in some games that I would never get to in my normal gaming group.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Feb 28, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Dude, welcome to my world. My bookshelves are full of games I've run that I've never played in: Grim Tales, d20 Modern, CoC, Exalted, Skull & Bones, Mutants and Masterminds...
> 
> I buy games because I want to play characters in them. And then nobody I know will run them so I do. And then everybody I know says, "Well, there's no time for ME to run a game cause you're running them all the time."
> 
> Sigh.




Ha, ha, ha, oh it hurts! Same boat. With players and potential GMs saying 'but you can do it better!' as though this will somehow make up for never getting to play! The worst was somebody who stopped his game because other players were saying I could do it better. I wanted to play, I liked my character, we played one session and two players started saying that I could do it better so the GM stopped the campaign. No, I wasn't one of the ones saying that, I wanted to play! I didn't even give suggestions. I disagreed with them publicly, but he decided they were right. Bah!

Scenario wise just about everything by Pagan is worth picking up. My favorite is not _Delta Green_ but rather _Walker in the Wastes_. But all their adventures are worth getting. I keep hoping that they will produce more, but it has been a few years now, and John Tynes no longer is involved with gaming the last I heard. 

The Auld Grump


----------



## Nisarg (Feb 28, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Chaosium offically stated that there will be no "Pulp Cthulhu". I guess they are so strapped for money they could not even think about printing it.
> 
> Edit: Let me correct myself. Chaosium said that there would be no d20 content in "Pulp Cthulhu"




So its not so much about being cash-strapped as just plain assinine?

I mean, here they are slowly starving to death, and they refuse a license to print bread. 

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg (Feb 28, 2005)

Tom Cashel said:
			
		

> With heartfelt apologies to Ray Davies...
> 
> _We are the (Cthulhu) D20 Preservation Society
> God save Theron Marks, Delta Green and Chaosium
> ...




I love you, and want to have your baby.

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg (Feb 28, 2005)

Ion said:
			
		

> I'm told the Necronomicon is real...but not as lovecraft described it...
> 
> /me just wanted an excuse to share the link...




The information in your link is not true. There is no "true" necronomicon.  I don't know where that guy got his "facts"; but they're wrong.

The "inspiration" for the Necronomicon are the various medieval grimoires (like the Key of Solomon, etc), which are of course real.

But the "history" of the Necronomicon itself begins in H.P. Lovecraft's pretty little head.

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg (Feb 28, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> I read somewhere that at one point Chaosium was paying Arkham house for the rights to do Call of Cthulhu. That was until Chaosium found out that Arkham House didn't infact have the rights to any Mythos stuff (it was public domain) and they stopped paying them.




Which would pretty much mean Chaosium's own legal claim on anything setting-wise (that they did not invent themselves, i mean) would be a big goose-egg.

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg (Feb 28, 2005)

teitan said:
			
		

> If I wanted to publish a game set in the word of H.P. Lovecraft I could, it is just coming up with a recognizable title that doesn't violate the trademarks.
> 
> Jason




"Chock-Full of Tentacles"?

"I Can't Believe its not Cthulhu"?

"Diet Nyarlathotep"?

"Things Man Was Not Meant To Copywrite"?

Nisarg


----------



## barsoomcore (Feb 28, 2005)

Don't make me come over there.


----------



## DanielJ (Mar 1, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Have you ever tried a Play by Post game? That is how I get to run and play in some games that I would never get to in my normal gaming group.




you have a play by post game i could be involved in? ~_^


----------



## jaerdaph (Mar 1, 2005)

_Cthulhu Calls Collect_


----------



## jcfiala (Mar 1, 2005)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Which would pretty much mean Chaosium's own legal claim on anything setting-wise (that they did not invent themselves, i mean) would be a big goose-egg.
> 
> Nisarg




Well, that was the impression I got from talking to them last week at Genghis Con (Note: I may have misheard - I'm just representing what I thought I heard).  In particular, they thought that they had just as much the right to publish a lovecraftean game as anyone else, and that they had created enough that the game stood on it's own.

Which is true - CoC is something most gamers seem at least somewhat aware of.

I also heard (or think I overheard) that the problem with the Cthulhu D20 had to do with someone at WotC announcing that CD20 was almost sold out in an attempt to increase sales.  It wasn't sold out, but this apparently caused all interest in CD20 to hit the skids - and so they backed off of publishing anything that wouldn't get bought.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the CD20 backlash from the CoC Grognards wasn't part of that too.

So - not only do I think that a Lovecraft D20 game would be a good idea, but I *think* Chaosium wouldn't mind it too much as long as it didn't tromp on trademarks - because it's a part of the industry they've decided not to work in.

But I wouldn't put Cthulhu in the name of the game - I'd probably call it something atmopheric...


----------



## Gomez (Mar 1, 2005)

How about HASTUR HASTUR HASTUR d20!  


Edit: Oh Dang, I just said that out loud.......... :\


----------



## Gomez (Mar 1, 2005)

jcfiala said:
			
		

> I also heard (or think I overheard) that the problem with the Cthulhu D20 had to do with someone at WotC announcing that CD20 was almost sold out in an attempt to increase sales.  It wasn't sold out, but this apparently caused all interest in CD20 to hit the skids - and so they backed off of publishing anything that wouldn't get bought.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of the CD20 backlash from the CoC Grognards wasn't part of that too.




That is crazy. If they thought the CoC d20 book was about to be sold out, that would mean that a lot of people owned the book and that there were be a market for support material. 

If you go by their logic though, if it didn't sell well then that would be a good time to publish material for it. :\


----------



## barsoomcore (Mar 1, 2005)

Yeah, if that's true, it sure doesn't make any sense to me. Products selling out is a GOOD THING, isn't it?

But I would sure take anything somebody at Chaosium said about something somebody at WotC said with a few grains of salt.


----------



## jcfiala (Mar 1, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> That is crazy. If they thought the CoC d20 book was about to be sold out, that would mean that a lot of people owned the book and that there were be a market for support material.
> 
> If you go by their logic though, if it didn't sell well then that would be a good time to publish material for it. :\




I have been misunderstood.

It is probably my fault.

As I understood it, the problem is that they *were not* sold out.  But sales suddenly stopped, because of the announcement.  And if you're not able to sell the main book, why are you producing supplements?

Coc D20 is hardly sold out - they had a bunch at the convention.  I don't know if they sold any.

(Or, I could have misheard.  I was browsing.)

John


----------



## Nisarg (Mar 2, 2005)

jcfiala said:
			
		

> I have been misunderstood.
> 
> It is probably my fault.
> 
> ...




This still makes no sense, John.  Why would sales plummet because Wizards incorrectly announced a near sell-out... if I was hells-bells determined to buy the CoCd20 book, and someone told me its about to be sold out, I'd just run over a few civilians on the drive over to my FLGS to get it.
Even if I was on the fence, the announcement that I might not have another chance would just motivate me to buy it now, rather than later.

Nope, sorry, this sounds like more of Chaosium's doublethink here.. "yea we had to cancel the whole line because Wizards said it sold out when really it hadn't just yet; they lied! Its Wizard's fault, and not at all related to the fact that we're a bunch of deranged economic failures with all the business sense of an epileptic baboon".

Nisarg


----------



## barsoomcore (Mar 2, 2005)

Well, I think it's rather more likely that the truth got distorted on its way from WotC via unspecified person at convention via jcfiala.

Or rather, it's SO likely that we can't really use this as evidence of a twitching baboon. I would say there was plenty of evidence already, however.


----------



## Ion (Mar 2, 2005)

Nisarg said:
			
		

> The information in your link is not true. There is no "true" necronomicon.  I don't know where that guy got his "facts"; but they're wrong.
> 
> The "inspiration" for the Necronomicon are the various medieval grimoires (like the Key of Solomon, etc), which are of course real.
> 
> ...




He cites The Book of the Arab, by Justin Geoffry, Starry Wisdom Press, 1979 as his source.


----------



## Nisarg (Mar 2, 2005)

Ion said:
			
		

> He cites The Book of the Arab, by Justin Geoffry, Starry Wisdom Press, 1979 as his source.




You may want to read this link:

http://www.techgnosis.com/lovecraft.html

as its a much more legitimate analysis of the whole Lovecraft phenomenon, and the origins of the myth of the Necronomicon's existence as a self-referential cycle.  In other words, people who claim the Necronomicon is real usually use other, earlier, but equally fake claims of reality, whose "facts" ultimately lead to a planted bit of "proof" that has no grounding in real history or reality.


BTW; here is a rebuttal of the page you posted:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necfaq.htm

Nisarg


----------



## JoeGKushner (Mar 2, 2005)

jcfiala said:
			
		

> Coc D20 is hardly sold out - they had a bunch at the convention.  I don't know if they sold any.
> 
> (Or, I could have misheard.  I was browsing.)
> 
> John




Well, someone mentioned CoC d20 being like 50% off at Amazon, but last time I checked, they were out. Not saying Amazon is the be all and end all, but if they can't get any more... then again, maybe they've gotten some since my last search... nope. All they have is 1 under the new and used for $39.95.


----------



## Narfellus (Mar 2, 2005)

Last year from Amazon i bought the Necronomicon by Simon (Avon Publishing). Not that i thought it was real (the author claimed to have translated it from a world-worn tome he found in bookstore) but i thought MAYBE it would be a good CoC prop. It wasn't. I sent it back the next day. But do a search on Amazon, there are tons of reviews about it and maybe some screen shots. Interesting if nothing else.


----------



## Desdichado (Mar 2, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Dude, welcome to my world. My bookshelves are full of games I've run that I've never played in: Grim Tales, d20 Modern, CoC, Exalted, Skull & Bones, Mutants and Masterminds...



My bookshelves are full of games that I've neither run nor played in.


			
				barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Sigh.



Indeed.


----------



## HeapThaumaturgist (Mar 2, 2005)

Well, as to everybody that never gets to play:

  I'm usually in that boat myself, but two of my players have recently decided they're bored with running/playing D&D and want to run a D20 Modern and Mutants and Masterminds game, respectively.  Both on Wednesdays, alternating nights.  So, woo hoo, I'm finally getting to PLAY in a D20 Modern game.

We'll be playing Urban Arcana, which I own and have never used, with the dark level turned up a few notches.  Not that all of the "D&D In NYC" will be taken out, though:  Apparently down-town there's a little gym and youth outreach center called "The House Of Kord", run by a big guy named Hanaur.  Who just incidentally has the same name and description as the GM's Barbarian/Cleric/Mighty Contender of Kord PC from my RttToEE game we retired last year.  A little campy, but I think he'll be able to pull it off.

What's of further interest to this thread is that I wanted to run a sort of Investigator/John Constantine style PC (the movie made me remember how much I liked the comics).  But there's nothing with that dark sort of magical flavor in Urban Arcana/Modern so we sat down and hashed out a system where-by I could take some of the more flavor-appropriate spells from CoC and just learn them incidentally.   Darkness, Light, Cast Out Devil, Identify Spirit, Unmask Demon, Detect Magic, etc.

This is like the fourth time we've taken either the Magic or Psychic rules from CoC and put them to use in another game.  It's led me to crafting a whole new system of magic, based on the FLAVOR of CoC, some of the mechanics of Grim Tales, and some of the mechanics of Blue Rose.  

--fje


----------



## barsoomcore (Mar 2, 2005)

HeapThaumaturgist said:
			
		

> It's led me to crafting a whole new system of magic, based on the FLAVOR of CoC, some of the mechanics of Grim Tales, and some of the mechanics of Blue Rose.



And I can see this system-that-sounds-exactly-like-what-I-want where, exactly?


----------



## Achan hiArusa (Mar 6, 2005)

*Kult d20*

Did I hear that right?  I might have some files you would be interested in.  Its just monsters I converted in a few short days to White Wolf and d20.  Not sure if I can legally post them.


----------



## DnDChick (Mar 6, 2005)

My name is Erica, and I like CoCD20.  

If anyone is interested, I have a few webpages dedicated to d20 Cthulhu. Enjoy!

My general house rules page:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlhere/cthulhumod.html

My Call of Cthulhu conversions page:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/cofcd20.html

My Dreamlands conversion page:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/dreams.html

My Original monsters page:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/original.html

NPC stats for Dr. Phibes and Vulnavia in D20 Modern:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/adp.html

... and in Cthulhu d20:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/adpcoc.html

NPC stats for the Addams Family in D20 Modern:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/addams.html

... and in Cthulhu d20:
http://members.aol.com/CountryGrrlHere/addamscoc.html


----------



## HeapThaumaturgist (Mar 6, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> And I can see this system-that-sounds-exactly-like-what-I-want where, exactly?




I'll whip it up and post it in another thread.

--fje


----------



## amethal (Mar 14, 2005)

If there was an award for the best thread, I'd nominate this one.

Interesting, informative, creative, polite, and it even has celebrity cameos.

You have inspired me to rush out and buy Cthulhu d20. I can therefore confirm that Amazon UK has never heard of it, and Amazon.com are offering me the chance to buy it from their marketplace sellers for about 50 dollars (including international postage). I've gone from not wanting it (the result of plenty of negative comments seen elsewhere, which I now realise were posted by misguided fools) to not being able to get it for a reasonable price.

I will have to see how it goes on eBay.

Keep up the good work!


----------



## DnDChick (Mar 14, 2005)

Best of luck in your search, Amethal!

I, too, know the pain of wanting to find a OOP game product. I've been looking for the Pirates of Darkwater RPG for years with no success.


----------



## barsoomcore (Mar 14, 2005)

amethal said:
			
		

> If there was an award for the best thread, I'd nominate this one.



I understand. It's a fine thread.

However, you haven't read this one.

Best. Thread. Ever.

I mean, it coined LOVECRAFTIAN RINGWALDPUNK, for crying out loud. Like anyone's going to top that.


----------



## DnDChick (Mar 15, 2005)

amethal said:
			
		

> If there was an award for the best thread, I'd nominate this one.
> 
> Interesting, informative, creative, polite, and it even has celebrity cameos.
> 
> ...




Amethal ... I think my FLGS has a copy in store.

http://www.thedragonshoard.com/

Call that store, (540) 885-5530, and tell them Erica Balsley sent you.  The owner, Harry, is a personal friend of mine some 20 years going. See what kind of deal he might make you for payment and shipment.

Good luck!


----------



## Nuclear Platypus (Mar 15, 2005)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I understand. It's a fine thread.
> 
> However, you haven't read this one.
> 
> ...




Yup, topping that will be tougher than a $2 steak. 

OK, maybe I watch too much wrasslin' since that's at least 3 threads where I've used a Jim Ross (WWE commentator) saying and managed to get 'slobberknocker' into my gaming group's vocabulary.


----------



## MonsterMash (Mar 16, 2005)

amethal said:
			
		

> If there was an award for the best thread, I'd nominate this one.
> 
> Interesting, informative, creative, polite, and it even has celebrity cameos.
> 
> You have inspired me to rush out and buy Cthulhu d20. I can therefore confirm that Amazon UK has never heard of it



Not actually true, try here - though that is no guarantee that they have it. Other places to try could be Caliver books and Leisure Games.


----------



## Geron Raveneye (Mar 16, 2005)

amethal said:
			
		

> If there was an award for the best thread, I'd nominate this one.
> 
> Interesting, informative, creative, polite, and it even has celebrity cameos.
> 
> ...




Any luck on ebay so far? I got mine there, and it was 12€, as far as I remember, roughly 16$ or so. Stupid me passed up the one auction where it went for 5€. *wallbashing ensues*


----------



## Krieg (Mar 16, 2005)

FWIW CoC D20 is still available directly from Chaosium...although I don't think their shipping rates to Europe are very favorable.


----------



## MonsterMash (Mar 16, 2005)

Just been listed on e-bay here, but a bit pricey (£12 + £5 post - not excessive, but I prefer sellers to start lower)


----------



## Methos (Mar 16, 2005)

*More Optimism in d20 CoC*



			
				Turanil said:
			
		

> I did play BRP CoC more than d20 CoC. I say you can have a bleak hopeless campaign, or a pulp action one, in either system. It's all up to the DM, and how players play their characters. In any case, I don't like hopeless CoC where your characters die every three sessions or so. As a DM I want a campaign where the players survive and even thrive, something pulpy rather than hopeless. But even like that, my adventure would describe a bleak horror disturbing world. The fact the players would survive and slay some monsters, even stopping an horror for a while wouldn't change the overall depressing tone... (Of course nothing so horrible such as simulating one's real life!  )




I love d20 CoC, actually far more than standard CoC, simply because the characters have a chance!!  I can guarantee that with the group I used to game with (sadly, we've all moved away, but hoping to go online with them now), that the GM would have been probably doomed to being strung up eventually in a campaign which was essentially hopeless, which I believe standard CoC is.  Let's be honest, you have to be a bit of a masochist to play CoC, since your odds of surviving more than about 3-4 adventures was very low.

Having said that, it is the GM's role to create a fantastic horror experience, which I believe is still highly possible using the d20 CoC rules.

Cheers

Methos


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## Methos (Mar 16, 2005)

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> Their hard core base just got angry that anyone would stoop so low as to convert CoC to d20.  They had to choose between getting lots of quick money with d20 and alienating their hardcore fans OR keeping their hardcore fans and the smaller amounts of money they would get over a longer period of time.  If they had gone and created d20 books or had created dual stat books they would lose their hardcore fan base.  Creating d20 books means that their fanbase would have not had access to those books and they would have to print a d20 and a BRP book, thus further dividing their profits (apparently only GoO has that kind of power).




Geez, if this is true, there are some very sad people out there.  It is just a game people! Variation is great for our overall hobby, IMHO.  The more possibilities and variation that exist in our great hobby, the more likely it is that there will be more people interested in the hobby, and thus a healthier hobby with more products produced, more gamers to game with, more conventions to go to, etc.  Even if I don't play a particular game system or a particular style of gaming, I'm always pleased to see more people interested in gaming in general.  I have played D&D for 25 years, but also play miniatures (GW mostly), Eurogames, Hex and counter wargames, etc.  The fact that I don't participate in LARPs, the Gurps system, other systems, CCG's, computer games, and several other styles that I can't think of right now doesn't mean that I somehow "look down" on those people that do enjoy those games, or berate those games, or "get mad" at a particular gaming company.  On the contrary, I'm always pleased to see different ideas being brought forward and seeing new people being interested in gaming as a whole.

Cheers

Methos


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## Desdichado (Mar 16, 2005)

Methos said:
			
		

> I love d20 CoC, actually far more than standard CoC, simply because the characters have a chance!!  I can guarantee that with the group I used to game with (sadly, we've all moved away, but hoping to go online with them now), that the GM would have been probably doomed to being strung up eventually in a campaign which was essentially hopeless, which I believe standard CoC is.  Let's be honest, you have to be a bit of a masochist to play CoC, since your odds of surviving more than about 3-4 adventures was very low.



Seems to me that you actually have less of a chance until you get up a few levels.  If you get up a few levels.

But I said that a few pages ago in this thread already.


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## vortex (Mar 28, 2005)

*Maybe I just don't get it...*

I think its pretty clear why chaosium didn't put out any more d20 CoC product. The d20 book was designed as a 'gateway'. It would  be distributed down the WOTC chain and would reach the people that would never oherwise look beyond DnD (or d20). However, if they 'got into it' and wanted to do more CoC, they would just start playing good old BRP CoC.

I must admit that make the most sense to me, too.

If you want more CoC material - why not just use BRP CoC?
d20 is great fun, especially if you want to run a strategic combat oriented game.
However, BRP is such a simple transparent system. I don't recall ever having to open a rulebook during play. I think this is important if your are trying to generate atmosphere and tension.
Ok you may say "I don't want to learn a whole new set of rules". I've never met a DnD player that didn't pick up the CoC rules in about 5mins.

Obviosly, from the other postings in this thread, people are keen to keep usind d20 rules for CoC. Can you tell me why?


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## arwink (Mar 28, 2005)

vortex said:
			
		

> If you want more CoC material - why not just use BRP CoC?
> 
> Obviosly, from the other postings in this thread, people are keen to keep usind d20 rules for CoC. Can you tell me why?




Because, as simple as BRP is, it isn't necessarily a great system for character development and long-term play.  

Don't get me wrong - I love BRP Cthulhu.  When I run short-term campaigns and one-offs I use BRP Cthulhu to the exclusion of all else.  When I want to run something that involves long term character arcs that has a Cthulhu feel, I turn to d20 CoC.

I'm part of a group that's currently going through one of the published 12-part campaigns using the BRP system, and it's frustrating the hell out of everyone. In the second session we learn that singing is an important skill for us to have even a remote chance of making it through the campaign - the closest we have is a character with an Art (Dancing) score of 20% and most of us relying on our raw talent.  While we've made some succesful checks on pure luck, the dice turned against us at the end of the session and we repeated our chances of getting 5% or less when seeing if our singing skills progressed.  The campaign moves fast, so we don't have the time to use the research rules to improve (and the Keeper is disinclined anyway).

End Result - we're more inclined to try shooting the unspeakable menaces because we're more likely to have an affect than trying to use the spell the campaign put in place.  And there's another three or four semi-critical skills suffering the same problem.

Compare that to d20 CoC, where the development of character development is mediated by levels (which does sound like sacralidge to hard-core BRP'ers) and places the focus of the character development in the players hands. I've played in BRP games where everyone ends up with high scores in the same skills due to constant use, while the abilities that seperate them from one another languish in the background due to the lack of opportunity for them to make a difference in the course of the campaign.

Another big difference that places me in the d20 camp for long-term play is the introduction of rules like take 10 or take 20.  In BRP, if there's a clue that absolutely needs to be found, it either hinges on a single die roll (Spot hidden, library use, whatever) which could be failed or the Keeper is forced to engineer a situation that reliese heavily on Keeper-Fait.  The players don't find the clues based on their own skill - they find them because of luck or because they need to be found. With Take 20 I can ensure that the clues are always possible to be found if the PC's are willing to take the time rather than relying on a single die roll - and sessions can be engineered to ensure all clues are able to be found by a group of players that engage in clever play and an engagement with the scenario.  I can create a situation that rewards player choice, rather than player luck or the demands of the story.


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## vortex (Mar 28, 2005)

arwink said:
			
		

> Because, as simple as BRP is, it isn't necessarily a great system for character development and long-term play.




Leveling up is critical to character development in DnD. In fact, the desire to get more powerful characters drives the game. So what does the DM have to do? Beef up the oposition ro mach the PCs level.

In CoC (a least when I've played it) - *knowledge * is power, and the quest for knowledge drives the game (thats why PCs are called *investigators*). When a game runs well, skills, feats, money etc etc become largely irrelavant.




			
				arwink said:
			
		

> I'm part of a group that's currently going through one of the published 12-part campaigns using the BRP system, and it's frustrating the hell out of everyone. In the second session we learn that singing is an important skill for us to have even a remote chance of making it through the campaign




Sounds rough. Although I think the fault lies with the scenario rather than the system. Perhaps there is another solution. Maybe you need ot hire a singer (after all most people can't sing, Xp from successful adventures are unlikely to change that).




			
				arwink said:
			
		

> Another big difference that places me in the d20 camp for long-term play is the introduction of rules like take 10 or take 20.  In BRP, if there's a clue that absolutely needs to be found, it either hinges on a single die roll (Spot hidden, library use, whatever) which could be failed or the Keeper is forced to engineer a situation that reliese heavily on Keeper-Fait.




I've found the opposite. As the base for say 'spot hidden' is 25%, its likely someone in a group of 4 investigators will make the roll. If you really analyse it, success is highly likely, the die roll is only to add tension and give the players the illusion of achievement. Good scenarios should only allow randomness to give the player a slight edge. If the scerario grinds to a hold over a missed roll, there is something wrong with its design.


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## arwink (Mar 28, 2005)

vortex said:
			
		

> Sounds rough. Although I think the fault lies with the scenario rather than the system.




Agreed, but the variable quality of supposedly professional Cthulhu modules produced by Chaosium is a big indicator that competent modules can be difficult to write for Cthulhu and even harder to determine for a casual keeper.  This applies double for long-term games - see Chaosium's own note about full-length campaigns under their writers guidelines.



> I've found the opposite. As the base for say 'spot hidden' is 25%, its likely someone in a group of 4 investigators will make the roll. If you really analyse it, success is highly likely, the die roll is only to add tension and give the players the illusion of achievement.




Dice are fickle.  I can think of twice in the last year where the campaign has ground to a halt because everyone in our group of five failed a roll - and this includes characters that have scores of 90% in some of the Cthulhu critical skills.  On average, yes, things work out.  I want the safety net of take 20, which ensures that if the dice go against the players they can still get the details they need.  Tension can be generated by time constraints and interruptions to the search check, it cannot be regained once a blown die roll means the players have lost the clue forever.



> Good scenarios should only allow randomness to give the player a slight edge. If the scerario grinds to a hold over a missed roll, there is something wrong with its design.




Again, I'll point to the variable quality of Chaosium modules here.  Espeically once you get past the one-off session of attrition-based horrror.  And for all its simplicity, my expreience with the BRP system has suggested that it can be downright horrible in the hands of someone who hasn't yet grasped the genre of Cthulhu.  Simple systems are great for players, but often I've seen DM's flounder with the lack of guidance inherent in the rules. 

Again, I have nothing against the BRP system - for short-term stuff where character development and gradual skill acquisition aren't essential to the plot it's a downright perfect game system. It's simple and easy to throw at people for a one off, and the rules perfectly capture the sense of impending doom coming up as the heroes grip on sanity is slowly stripped away.  In a set-peice game where sanity and character attrition is expected I don't want a sense of character development or improvement - it's likely to thwart the feel I'm building.  It's just not the feel I'm looking for in a continious campaign that runs for twelve months or longer.

Edit:







			
				vortex said:
			
		

> Leveling up is critical to character development in DnD. In fact, the desire to get more powerful characters drives the game. So what does the DM have to do? Beef up the oposition ro mach the PCs level.




I don't necessarily think the process of leveling up leads to considerable power-boosts in CoC d20.  With the Massive Damage rules, hit points are essentially meaningless because even a 20th level character can die if bitten by a dog or shot with a handgun.  The combat abilities, for the most part, are much slower.

What's important to me is that the players can add a +1 bonus to the characters skills at the end of every session or two - and they get to control where those points go. To be honest you could ditch the BRP Call advancement rules and offer me 10% worth of skill ranks that can be added wherever I want at the end of every second session and it'll address my complaint just as effectively.  I could even live with a short-list of relevant skills that could be improved.  I just don't like being at the mercy of the dice when determining how my character has developed as a result of his experiences.


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## Committed Hero (Mar 28, 2005)

vortex said:
			
		

> Leveling up is critical to character development in *DnD*. In fact, the desire to get more powerful characters drives the game. So what does the DM have to do? Beef up the oposition ro mach the PCs level.




[my emphasis]

DnD, yes; but plenty of d20 system games and settings need not be focused on that aspect of character development.  It is trivially easy to change the d20 rules to allow skill rank acquisition without leveling up (as a side note, however, I make that clear to players at the outset; I would play like this in any game - and any system - if the stories were good).  That's really all you need to get character development without the pitfalls of increasing combat competency.


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## Gomez (Mar 28, 2005)

vortex said:
			
		

> Leveling up is critical to character development in DnD. In fact, the desire to get more powerful characters drives the game. So what does the DM have to do? Beef up the oposition ro mach the PCs level.




Well first, Call of Cthulhu d20 is not DnD. As a Keeper who is running two COC d20 games, I don't see leveling characters as what drives the game. It is more of a reward for good play. I am running a d20 COC Masks of Nyarlothotep game in which the players are going to level soon. They have been in a total of three combats. *One*, they basically let a group of cultists escape *Two*, they were involved in a pitched battle with some cultists, and *Three*, they fled from two zombies.  But they also have been doing a ton of investigation and role-play.

Also if you throw a monster or group of cultists at a group it's not some let's kill it and take their treasure enterprise like you would see DnD. It is usually _how do we get out of here alive_ or _we have to do our best to stop this evil even at the cost of our lives_. You can get the same "feel" from a d20 game as a BRP but in my humble opinion the d20 rule set is just better and in fact more seamless in play.


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## teitan (Mar 28, 2005)

D20 CoC is about as tactical as my left hand. You can't compare it to DnD, sorry, it doesn't need minis, has no Attacks of Oppurtunity and is less combat focused than many BRP fans want to paint it.

Jason


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## barsoomcore (Mar 29, 2005)

teitan said:
			
		

> D20 CoC is about as tactical as my left hand.



Okay, so we pit d20 CoC against Teitan's Left Hand in a game of Squad Leader (the game of tactical unit combat, I believe it says RIGHT ON THE BOX) and see who wins!

My money's on d20 CoC!


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## TerraDave (Mar 30, 2005)

*Something for CoC D20*

This was on the front page: there is some support for CoC D20...

one thing, skimming throuhg this, I noticed that some of the mythos beings had divine ranks...something now found in the SRD, but not original D20 CoC.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Mar 30, 2005)

I think it's entirely in the tone set by the game-master.  There are essential notions in a game's system, I think, that can influence how it can often be played ... D&D, for instance, is hard to play an investigative or skill-centric game because so few of the classes get many skill points.  It focuses alot on combat abilities.  But a group of Rangers, Bards, Rogues and Wizards might be able to play and enjoy such a game handily.  

I run a Dark*Matter d20 game.  D20 Modern is a mix between skill-centric and combat-centric class and feat structures, and can certainly do combat-centric if people want to play it that way.  Yet I run very good, very tense occult investigations ... sometimes in spite of myself.    My players are so into the feeling of unknown threats and investigating that I can spring an encounter whose EL is quite low, but which has them falling over themselves to flee.  The EL doesn't matter, it's all about the description and the feeling of threat. 

--fje


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## TerraDave (Jul 14, 2005)

_Arise from thy watery tomb..._

Haven't seen this on the boards, from Mike Mearls "Things I have written"



> *Projects that Never Were*
> 
> As a reward for scrolling to the end, here's some projects that never were that I can talk about.
> 
> Call of Cthulhu d20 Licensed Game Line: A complete game line that I was to serve as developer and primary designer - most likely sole writer, given that I can write a ton and I'm insanely picky about who I'd hire. We had plans for an Antarctic sourcebook, a Miskatonic University book that didn't suck, and more.




He also has some CoC D20 stuff  on his webpage (though that has been mentioned on the boards, at least breifly)


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## Mokona (Jul 15, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> My name is Gomez and I play Call of Cthulhu d20!




I use D20 Call of Cthulhu!    Mostly in my games I go for a different magic feel than standard Dungeons & Dragons core rules and the magic rules in D20 CoC provide the help I need (with a little tweaking to remove sanity rules).


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## Gomez (Jul 15, 2005)

I am currently running two PBP games of Call of Cthulhu d20. A Masks of Nyarlathotep game and a Delta Green game. I am thinking about starting a one-shot haunted house type game for players new to Call of Cthulhu.


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## KaosDevice (Jul 15, 2005)

(Wow, why did it take me so long to pipe up in this thread?)

I own D20 CoC and enjoy it but honestly I'd rather use BRP for CoC. Mostly because I've been playing it since the early 80's and know the rules inside and out. It's just how my mind works when thinking of CoC. That said, I 've always felt rules were kind of secondary as long as you had good players and a good GM. I was somewhat sad there wasn't a D20 CoC line not because of the rules but because my attitude is one of mo' Lovecraft mo' betta. Regardless of rule system. I mean conversion from D20 to BRP isn't exactly rocket science. It's pretty easy to wing, IME.


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## takyris (Jul 15, 2005)

My brief, d20-Modern-with-Sanity-Rules-and-lowered-massive-damage-threshold game of wiseguy mobsters versus unnatural creatures man was never meant to see never took off, unfortunately. But I really liked being able to name a campaign "Call of Sopranos".


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## Cutter XXIII (Jul 15, 2005)

My Wings of Icarus campaign, the story of a cabal of weirdos trying to bring on the merging of Earth with Carcosa and the reign of the King in Yellow, and the TARDIS-driving heroes who oppose them, ended recently in a TPK. One that finished in a very _12 Monkeys_ kind of temporal loop (which was fun), but a TPK nonetheless.

I guess the moral is...BRP or d20, TPKs happen.

I like d20 CoC!


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## KaosDevice (Jul 15, 2005)

Cutter XXIII said:
			
		

> TPKs happen.





That sounds like a T-Shirt.


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## Drew (Jul 19, 2005)

I love d20 Coc. I've just aquired a copy of Nocturnum (is this any good?) and I'm thinking of running it sometime in the near future. I'm tempted to tinker with the rules, but I try to keep to a policy of avoiding house rules until I've actually played a few sessions of a particular rules set.

I'm sure that BRP (what the heck does that stand for?) CoC is just fine, but I know and love d20...and so that's what I'll play.


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## KaosDevice (Jul 19, 2005)

Drew said:
			
		

> I'm sure that BRP (what the heck does that stand for?) CoC is just fine, but I know and love d20...and so that's what I'll play.




Basic Role Play. The core system for most of Chaosium's game's from the past and present.


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## Morpheus (Jul 20, 2005)

Drew said:
			
		

> I've just aquired a copy of Nocturnum (is this any good?)




If, by "any good", you mean will you get some value out of it as a resource for ideas, the answer is...no. It isn't very good. The better modern Cthulhu books are: _Unseen Masters, The Stars Are Right! and At Your Door_. In general, with the exception of Pagan Publishing, most non-Chaosium sourcebooks/adventures aren't worth bothering with. Pagan Publishing, however, sets the standard for excellence in all things Cthulhu (see _Delta Gree and The Unspeakable Oath_).


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## KaosDevice (Jul 20, 2005)

I was pretty unimpressed with Nocturnum. As for other non-Chaosium stuff, a couple of the TOME mods from the 80's were ok and Games Workshop put out some very nice supplements as well. (Green and Pleasant Land I thought was a standout and I kind of got a kick out of Trail of the Loathsome Slime) Also in the 80's a few companies put out dual statted supplements that were interesting. Chaosium seems to be pretty generous with liscensing if you are willing to use the BRP system it seems.


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## Drew (Jul 20, 2005)

That's too bad that Nocturnum isn't that good. Where can I find the above mentioned scenarios? I didn't have much luck when I searched for them. The only scenario on Drivethrurpg.com that I could find was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Is that any good?


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## KaosDevice (Jul 20, 2005)

Drew said:
			
		

> That's too bad that Nocturnum isn't that good. Where can I find the above mentioned scenarios? I didn't have much luck when I searched for them. The only scenario on Drivethrurpg.com that I could find was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Is that any good?





Well, I liked Shadows but it is a tad long. The stuff I mentioned you would probably have to Ebay. As far as I know none of it is in print any more!


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## Desdichado (Jul 20, 2005)

Drew said:
			
		

> That's too bad that Nocturnum isn't that good. Where can I find the above mentioned scenarios? I didn't have much luck when I searched for them. The only scenario on Drivethrurpg.com that I could find was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Is that any good?



There's a guy in our group who swears by Nocturnum.  We tried to play it once, until everyone's schedules starting blowing up, and we had to restructure our group with only half the original members, and a cadre of new folks.  He's still talking about trying to play Nocturnum, though.  We did play most of the first "module" included in Nocturnum, and I thought it went well, but he's a good GM, even with mediocre material, so that doesn't necessarily say anything for the product itself.

Still, _Delta Green_ and _Delta Green: Countdown_ are two of the best rpg supplements ever written for any system.  And although intended for BRP Cthulhu, it's a good 95%+ usable with any system out there, including d20 CoC, d20 Modern, GURPS, Alternity, Con-X or whatever other system you use for your horror/conspiracy games.


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## Morpheus (Jul 20, 2005)

Drew said:
			
		

> That's too bad that Nocturnum isn't that good. Where can I find the above mentioned scenarios? I didn't have much luck when I searched for them. The only scenario on Drivethrurpg.com that I could find was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Is that any good?




If you wait a month or so (hopefully), _d20 Delta Green_ will be coming out in hardcover. Also, if you go here, you can find a bunch of Pagan Publishing stuff. No need to thank me, just doing my job.


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## Byrons_Ghost (Jul 21, 2005)

For those interested, _The Stars Are Right_ is actually back in print:

http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?cPath=41&products_id=602

Edit: If it's just modern day books you're looking for, _Unseen Masters_ and _Goatswood_ also fit the bill. Both are BRP, not D20. I thought both books were outstanding, although opinions seem mixed from what I've seen online (no surprises there). _Goatswood_ is presented as a sourcebook for the titular British area, but is actually mostly scenarios (most of which are good). 

_Unseen Masters_ has three scenarios, all of which I thought were quite good. However, they're all complex, and the last two require some prior setup in the campaign. I don't think any of them are for beginners, either players or GMs. The first one could be used as a good campaign kick-off (since it draws the PCs together into an investigative taskforce), but it has the potential to be pretty deadly, and would need a forgiving GM to make it a campaign start.


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## KaosDevice (Jul 25, 2005)

Byrons_Ghost said:
			
		

> For those interested, _The Stars Are Right_ is actually back in print:
> 
> http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?cPath=41&products_id=602





The new edition of TSAR is pretty nicely done (I own the original as well as the new one). They did a good job of updating the modules and only a few of them have any sort of dated feel. It's worth the buy for anyone considering running CoC Current Era.


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## Byrons_Ghost (Jul 26, 2005)

KaosDevice said:
			
		

> The new edition of TSAR is pretty nicely done (I own the original as well as the new one). They did a good job of updating the modules and only a few of them have any sort of dated feel. It's worth the buy for anyone considering running CoC Current Era.




I've been debating whether or not to get it, actually. What kind if updating did they do, and how are the new scenarios that weren't in the original?


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## Angel Tarragon (Aug 30, 2005)

jaerdaph said:
			
		

> _Cthulhu Calls Collect_



I saw this T-Shirt at GenCon and would have bought it if they had it in my size! Argh!


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## amethal (Aug 30, 2005)

Hi Guys,

I lost track of this thread, but I'd like to belatedly thank all the people who (months ago) suggested ways I could get d20 Call of Cthulhu.

In the end I bought it on eBay for about 20 euros. My copy is a bit crinkly, however, and I suspect it was water damaged at some point.

Still, I do have it, and its a great book.


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## Garnfellow (Aug 30, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Hey, Joe, do you still have that article?  I'd like to read it if you do.




_That is not dead which can eternal lie_

Here's a link to the Internet Archive's cache of Wizards' old CoCd20 page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030624205856/wizards.com/default.asp?x=cthulhu


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## DnDChick (Aug 30, 2005)

I will soon be drawing to a (perhaps temporary) close my long-running Lord of the Rings campaign. To fill the void, I have chosen to run a d20 Modern/Past Shadow-Chasers campaign of Victorian-era horror. Think "X-Files, set in 1890" and you're in the right mindset.

While it may not technically be used in a strictly Cthulhu d20 campaign, I will be using my poor, neglected CofCd20 book for spells, some monsters, tomes, and so on.


Edit: Just a side note. I can't run straight D20 Cthulhu because I run my games at a game store, and someone else there is already running a BRP Cthulhu game. I don't want to step on his toes. Still wanting to do a horror game, I decided to homebrew a "campaign model" (since that's the D20 Modern term for a "campaign setting" ) using D20 Modern/Past, and elements from Call of Cthulhu D20 and OGL Horror.


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## Gomez (Aug 30, 2005)

DnDChick said:
			
		

> I will soon be drawing to a (perhaps temporary) close my long-running Lord of the Rings campaign. To fill the void, I have chosen to run a d20 Modern//Past Shadow-Chasers campaign of Victorian-era horror. Think "X-Files, set in 1890" and you're in the right mindset.
> 
> While it may not technically be used in a strictly Cthulhu d20 campaign, I will be using my poor, neglected CofCd20 book for spells, some monsters, tomes, and so on.




Sounds very nice! 

I have always wanted to do a Victorian age game and I am toying with the idea of doing a Space:1889 game with either d20 Modern/Past or Spycraft 2.0. Though I want to flesh out the world a bit more and maybe add Mythos elements into the setting.


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## DnDChick (Aug 30, 2005)

If you ever get the chance to do that, Gomez, let me know. I was toying with the same idea a few years ago, and even got as far as converting the Martian races and the strange Martian creatures to d20 Modern format. I will likely never run a d20 homebrew of Space: 1889, but at least someone would get some use of them.


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## Angel Tarragon (Aug 31, 2005)

DnDChick said:
			
		

> Just a side note. I can't run straight D20 Cthulhu because I run my games at a game store, and someone else there is already running a BRP Cthulhu game. I don't want to step on his toes. Still wanting to do a horror game, I decided to homebrew a "campaign model" (since that's the D20 Modern term for a "campaign setting" ) using D20 Modern/Past, and elements from Call of Cthulhu D20 and OGL Horror.



Sounds awesome. I myself have been contemplating the same. When you have everything typed up and ready I'd love to get a copy of your campaign notes.


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## jdeleski (Sep 15, 2005)

*Another Escaped Convict*

Hello.  My name is Jdeleski and I too am a D20 CoC-aholic.  I started with the BRP many moons ago, and still enjoy and respect that ruleset, but find that the D20 version is easier for recruiting players (who are usually familiar with D&D 3.5).  I also enjoy the illusion that it creates for my players that they are becoming stronger and perhaps can handle a confrontation with some lesser mythos creatures (*evil snicker*).

I tend to undertake grand projects and campaigns as a Keeper/DM, and twist them in ways that surprise some players who think that they know what is coming next.    

I pledge to do my best to preserve the grand tradition of D20 CoC.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Job (the tortured one).


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## Desdichado (Sep 15, 2005)

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> _That is not dead which can eternal lie_
> 
> Here's a link to the Internet Archive's cache of Wizards' old CoCd20 page:
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030624205856/wizards.com/default.asp?x=cthulhu



You, sir, are teh r0xx0rz!

Thanks, man!


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## ssampier (Sep 17, 2005)

Delta Green d20 is coming out?

I feel like I'm been asleep for five years and strangely didn't miss anything. 

Now I just need a copy of the d20 CoC book.


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## KaosDevice (Sep 18, 2005)

ssampier said:
			
		

> I feel like I'm been asleep for five years and strangely didn't miss anything. .





I've felt that way my whole life.


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## ssampier (Sep 20, 2005)

KaosDevice said:
			
		

> I've felt that way my whole life.




~Snooze~

Errr, what? Delta Green d20 out yet?


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## talien (Sep 27, 2005)

TerraDave said:
			
		

> Has anyone here used the appendix to add Cthulhu fun to their D&D campaign? Would be very interested to read how it went.



Yes.  In chapter 16 of my story hour, you'll see just how it went down: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=103252

Two advanced byakhee and a Chosen of Hastur later...and suddenly they learned the fear of a converted Call of Cthulhu adventure! BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAahem.


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## talien (Sep 27, 2005)

Arcane Runes Press said:
			
		

> You should do it. But instead of just Lovecraft, you should do a series of "Horror in the style of X" pdfs, where X is a recognizable style of horror.
> 
> 80's style slasher films



That's a great idea!


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## talien (Sep 27, 2005)

Byrons_Ghost said:
			
		

> I think this would be the way to go. It's been done for other lines, for example AFMBE. They've gotten a lot of distance out of putting zombies (or zombie like things) into different settings and genres. Basically they just lay out a description of the genre, give some pertinent rules, and then 3 or 4 adventure/campaign settings that showcase various flavors of the genre (the kung-fu book, for example, had John Woo gunplay, Wuxia, Big Trouble in Little China, and Mortal Kombat type settings. All with zombies!)



This is a great idea!


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## talien (Sep 27, 2005)

An adventure fragment for CoC d20 that's still sitting on the WOTC server: http://www.wizards.com/cthulhu/files/Jenkin_lives.zip

Shantak and Ygolonac (also still on WOTC's server): http://www.wizards.com/cthulhu/files/shantakygolonac.zip

And Monte's article: http://web.archive.org/web/20020606050202/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020329x


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## Jraynack (Oct 2, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> So....
> 
> *standing up and clearing my throat*
> 
> ...




Sure do!  About once a year, around this time, I take a break from our regular fantasy campaign and one a one shot that I have written.

My first work is Delirium which characters track a serial killer that is thought to have died 10 years prior.  As a matter of fact, it was this adventure that got me to start our game company Alea Publishing Group.

Though we haven't published this one yet - It is very graphic and we are looking for ways to conform to the d20 standard, we have published the second of these adventures Whisper of Horses.  Though it is in d20 Modern (CoC rules are not OGL) it was originally written using CoC rules and playtested in both system, it is easily adaptable in CoC.

Perhaps I might run Delirium as a PbP if I can find the time rather than attempting to publish it.

I have tried to contact Chaosism in hopes to support Cthulhu d20 with a licensing agreement so that we could produce official d20 CoC material but have never heard a response.


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