Quote from: Ladybird;621550I think the thing to do, is to take the concepts and build from there - hostile universe, the emptiness of realizing there are powers as far above you as you are above insects, etc - and start there, rather than "Now, what can I have the Cthulhu cultists do this week?". You can build a lot on that chassis, without needing to go down the "how many tentacles?" route.

I am working on something along those lines - still in lots of pieces, but Im hoping to have a beta document ready to go before the summer.

Call of Cthulhu (the RPG) being the grandmaster of Lovecraftian rpgs not only set expectations of game players towards Lovecraft (for those who gamed first before reading), but an entire generation of Lovecraftian writers. There are folks who wrote gaming materials for Chaosium or the other third party publishers who went on to write their own stories. ST Joshi commented on this at one of the HP Lovecraft Film festivals I attended.

Lovecraft had themes which transcend both the expectations and limitations of both the RPG and Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft was also an extremely well read, literate guy who, like others of his time and earlier, made use of third party sources which were limited or unreliable. His small New England world was pretty much "the world" to him, as were his own foibles. But even the stuff he gets wrong is facinating.

Quote from: RPGPundit;622962That's kind of the point; true evil is something you can feel, a wrongness that is absolute and needs no explaining. It is evil by its very presence.  
And of course that doesn't jibe well with our post-modern decadent values where we want to explain that hitler just had a bad childhood and its not his fault and people are campaigning to save the endangered pubic crab because its a living thing too; but in a way that makes it even MORE impacting, if you can get the sensation across.  In Lovecraft's time, people knew there were absolutes of wrong and right, true and false; but in our time, if a complete relativist can be made to feel that everything he believed was just so much pretentious bullshit, that in fact there IS something that is objectively true and it will crush you like a meaningless insect, then that could be powerful stuff.

So yeah, I think that the Mythos CAN be saved, by turning it on its head: it used to be about finding out that the things you thought were real didn't turn out to be so; now it has to be about finding out that there ARE real (inescapable, objective and absolute) things, when you thought nothing was.

RPGPundit

Absolutism is kind of an obvious boogeyman for a relativist worldview isn't it?

Also moral relativism and fatalism and the notion that there is no such thing as originality and progress... these ideas are extremely old. Ecclesiastes old at least.

I don't think the mythos needs saving anyway because I think its basic premises are still fertile ground. If it has suffered it has suffered from overuse, and the only cure for that is an audience who hasn't heard this stuff yet.

Quote from: Opaopajr;622607Something about the whore always getting ripped apart and the virgin being spared (after a night of hell) agreed with him.

It apparently agrees with much of modern Hollywood horror as well.

In fairness to Lovecraft, I believe he began to change his tune a bit towards the end of his life. However I wouldn't be unduly concerned, he was to a great exent a product of his times. Like Charles Dickens, champion of London's downtrodden and vocal advocate for the genocide of every Indian on the subcontinent.

What we take from these ideas today is more important than the context in which they first appeared, so cosmic horror still has a place. I don't agree with the hopelessness angle, I think that's an expression of something far less pleasant (once in the distant mists of time, I calculated the global production rate of nuclear weapons versus the time it takes Cthulhu to regenerate after a direct hit, turns out we could do it, pass the lead lined living suit fellow spawn campers), but the idea of terrifying sorceries and secrets too abominable for man to know has a cachet.

Quote from: beejazz;622976I don't think the mythos needs saving anyway because I think its basic premises are still fertile ground. If it has suffered it has suffered from overuse, and the only cure for that is an audience who hasn't heard this stuff yet.

I agree and think that the 'overuse' has been primarily along a very narrow line of 'smash the cult, save the earth' type adventures... as compared to the wider variety of stories written by Lovecraft and those who draw inspiration from him.
There are variations within Lovecraft (and horror in general) that I think are better served by 'one-shot' adventures with isolated/pre-fab PCs. The concept of stretching stories out over long campaigns deflates certain sorts of atmosphere I think (not that I haven't enjoyed wonderful long campaigns of COC).

Quote from: The Traveller;622985In fairness to Lovecraft, I believe he began to change his tune a bit towards the end of his life.

I was surprised to read that Lovecraft favored Roosevelt and considered himself a democrat. Nothing to do with his racism but he always struck me as being very conservative in his views, I would have thought him a staunch opponent of anything smelling of 'socialism'.
The guy was complicated. I don't think he can be written off as merely 'racist'. Like anyone else, I think his viewpoints changed over time... as seen in  some of his later stories such as Shadow Out Of Time where the aliens grew less overtly malevolent. Still, his brain-stealing MiGo aren't any more prejudiced than our modern surplus of cannibalistic rural folks.
Lovecraft's experiences in Red Hook (and the story they inspired) reminds me of a Bulgarian grad student friend who moved to the U.S. a few years ago to get her PhD... and after a few short weeks in St. Louis she was going on about how 'the niggers are worse than the filthy gypsies!'. A VERY smart girl with, at that point, a very narrow view of the world.
Speaking for myself I know that I've said and done horrible things that my current persona is shocked to recollect.

Quote from: Simlasa;623002I was surprised to read that Lovecraft favored Roosevelt and considered himself a democrat.

Eh the early democrats were sponsors of the KKK and related groups, I think the Republicans only started courting the red states post war. Your point is good and still stands however.

Quote from: The Traveller;623011Eh the early democrats were sponsors of the KKK and related groups, I think the Republicans only started courting the red states post war. Your point is good and still stands however.

yeah, I corrected that because I didn't mean to associate Republicans with racism, more that I always thought of Lovecraft as being an arch-conservative... but was surprised to find he wasn't. So saying he was 'racist' is likewise not the whole of his persona and can't remove from him the promise of eventual enlightenment and weakened prejudices (or at least trading them in for new ones).
I think it's easy to read 'fear of the other' into just about any horror story... just as fantasy RPGs often get slammed for their wanton slaughter of 'orcs'. HPL had racist thoughts but I think it's a stretch to translate that to the entire mythos being some sort of overlay for Lovecraft's fears of miscegenation.

Quote from: RPGPundit;622962So yeah, I think that the Mythos CAN be saved, by turning it on its head: it used to be about finding out that the things you thought were real didn't turn out to be so; now it has to be about finding out that there ARE real (inescapable, objective and absolute) things, when you thought nothing was.

Yeah, there could be mileage in this. Cultists as glassy-eyed zealots determined to open people's eyes to realities they've never even contemplated, Mi-Go and Deep Ones and other aliens as aloof and superior beings privy to a secret you'll never know and couldn't comprehend if you did know, the Old Ones as the rightful rulers of the Earth with humanity (and all the other mundane species) as the cosmic equivalent of vermin who've built cobwebs in the corners of the house whilst the owners have been on an extended holiday...

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;621944How about something where the Mythos is the good guys.

I proposed a setting where God was the bad guy trying to destroy the world and "the Mythos" (serial numbers filed off for public safety) reached out across the stars to save humanity. Heroes empowered by the whispers of the Old Ones to fight against the angelic hoards...

In this design contest (Warning, TBP alert);  http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?623604-TRO-Challange-Game-fu-9-You-cannot-Defeat-my-Resplendant-Pheonix-Style

My post (Again, on TBP)

I have more of the setting written up somewhere I can post if anyone's interested.

Quote from: RPGPundit;621534The recent death of one of the guiding lights of the CoC RPG got me thinking... is Cthulhu (who has evolved to being the source of cutesy "hello kitty" drawings and plushies) completely spent as an adventuring concept.. .or is there something that could be done with a mythos campaign (be it fantasy, medieval, roman, 1920s, modern, futuristic or other) that would still actually be novel?

If so, what?

RPGPundit

To answer the original question...

For me. Yes. It's boring. I really dig Delta Green as a RPG product. So much detail, great ideas, well polished stuff. The fan made supplement for Cthulu space was well done. The detail found in many CoC supplements is good (I own a bunch). I feel like the classic interpretations of the The Mythos are getting tired. Now, not saying "it sucks", because that's not accurate. It's just a personal taste thing. EDIT: Just because it's not my thing right now, doesn't mean years from now I won't change my mind... :-)

Quote from: RPGPundit;622962That's kind of the point; true evil is something you can feel, a wrongness that is absolute and needs no explaining. It is evil by its very presence.  
And of course that doesn't jibe well with our post-modern decadent values where we want to explain that hitler just had a bad childhood and its not his fault and people are campaigning to save the endangered pubic crab because its a living thing too; but in a way that makes it even MORE impacting, if you can get the sensation across.

Objective and absolute evil can be a great thematic tool, and useful setting tool. It does have to be handled well, however, as contrasted to earlier Dungeons and Dragons or especially Blue Rose.  The Mythos needs a pretty hard tweak to avoid having similar problems: the constant themes of inherited guilt (see The Shadow over Innsmouth) and outside compulsion  (almost the entire Mythos) are pretty repulsive when mixed with obvious and fundamental evil, in addition to being mechanically obnoxious in a game.

QuoteSo yeah, I think that the Mythos CAN be saved, by turning it on its head: it used to be about finding out that the things you thought were real didn't turn out to be so; now it has to be about finding out that there ARE real (inescapable, objective and absolute) things, when you thought nothing was.

That'd be an interesting take.

Quote from: Simlasa;623002Still, his brain-stealing MiGo aren't any more prejudiced than our modern surplus of cannibalistic rural folks.

That says more about the modern surplus of cannibalistic rural folks, rather than the MiGo.

QuoteSpeaking for myself I know that I've said and done horrible things that my current persona is shocked to recollect.

The only way to avoid regretful mistakes, is to either never act, or never learn better.

Quote from: The Butcher;621739Better still, have you seen Mr. Chandler's OSRIC conversion of the Barkeresque demons from his Pandemonium RPGs? I am sorely tempted to pick it up.

Also, Kult. OOP and nearly impossible to track down, but our go-to game for Hellraiser-like horror back in the day.

Heh, seen it?  Check the credits.  I edited it, and it is awesome.

Quote from: beejazz;622976Absolutism is kind of an obvious boogeyman for a relativist worldview isn't it?

Yup. The idea that there can be absolutes is absolutely terrifying to anyone who is firmly entrenched in the post-modern relativist paradigm; which includes most semi-educated people in western civilization.

There's no greater coward than the person who wants to desperately believe that "you can't really know anything"...

RPGPundit

I guess one thing to consider is that Lovecraft himself was not working with a tidy "mythos". If the broad themes still inspire ideas -- as they have for many writers besides HPL -- then, yes, there is probably about as much new to be done as in any other perennial field.

What is there, really, that is new under the sun, except in the approach of yet another unique person?

Quote from: Phillip;623309What is there, really, that is new under the sun, except in the approach of yet another unique person?

Yes, I think saying 'I'm bored of it' is basically 'I've run out of ideas'... which doesn't mean the source concepts themselves are boring... just that person.
 
I mean, are goblins 'boring'? They're in practically every fantasy game since when... but I still think there are creepy/nasty/horrific things to be done with small supernatural humanoids.

Quote from: Simlasa;623313Yes, I think saying 'I'm bored of it' is basically 'I've run out of ideas'... which doesn't mean the source concepts themselves are boring... just that person.
 
I mean, are goblins 'boring'? They're in practically every fantasy game since when... but I still think there are creepy/nasty/horrific things to be done with small supernatural humanoids.

Good point.