The Cthulhu RPG is celebrating its 25th birthday!

:greatcthulhu: :cheerleader: :greatcthulhu:

And without a doubt there is much greatness to recall. CoC has been one of the most enduring RPGs out there: it theoretically has had 6 editions, but since these were all really just reprints with some collected material and not a REAL edition change at any time, you can say that (unlike even D&D), its basically the same game system now that it was 25 years ago.

And it has seen some of the absolute best material any RPG has ever seen :Masks of Nyarlathotep, Beyond The Mountains of Madness, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Horror on the Orient Express, Delta Green, and so much more.

And yet, one has to wonder two things:

1. It seems like its best days are behind it. Corporate mismanagement over the last decade or so has taken CoC from being one of the brilliant and innovative gamelines to being, frankly, pathetic. Can this be fixed? Would it require someone other than Chaosium getting hold of the game?

2. Is there anything new that can be done with Cthulhu that hasn't been done yet, that would be worth doing?

RPGPundit

CoC was released on my 25th birthday. I am exactly twice as old.

-clash

Happy Birthday! IA IA FTAUGN!!!!

Shit, that makes me feel old. It's nice to know that it's still essentially the same game. What do you get Cthulu for his birthday? Oh, right, a world full of screaming terrorized sentient snacks.

I don't know enough to say if it can be fixed. They are slowly increasing output.

I think there is much more that can be done with the basic setup if you're willing to go beyond Lovecraft and canon.  Cthulhu Dark Ages had some nice stuff but was put out without much fanfare.  

What would be nice is more stuff like Delta Green, that takes the basic concept and runs with it in a new way.  Isn't there a Cthulhu detective game coming out? - that might be just what the brand needs.

It would be nice if someone cleaned and tweaked the rules before the next edition.  Not a new set of rules, just add in the minor fixes that most companies add with new editions.

Nicephorus is right: CoC should move past Lovecraft.  Something tells me that in 25 years of gaming, New England is all fished out.  Problem is most gamers (myself included) freeze up a little when we hear about CoC games set anywhere but backwoods Rhode Island. (When confronted with a CoC game set in a 1970s Indian reservation in the Southwest, my brain could only sputter "Abort, Retry, Fail?")

The most memorable campaigns have been the ones that take us places HPL never did (BtMoM, Masks, tSaR.) I think we should spend more time there, less time dealing with One-Eyed Zekkle Epright.

Quote from: fonkaygarryNicephorus is right: CoC should move past Lovecraft.  Something tells me that in 25 years of gaming, New England is all fished out.  Problem is most gamers (myself included) freeze up a little when we hear about CoC games set anywhere but backwoods Rhode Island. (When confronted with a CoC game set in a 1970s Indian reservation in the Southwest, my brain could only sputter "Abort, Retry, Fail?")

The most memorable campaigns have been the ones that take us places HPL never did (BtMoM, Masks, tSaR.) I think we should spend more time there, less time dealing with One-Eyed Zekkle Epright.

There isn't much backwoods to Rhode Island. It's basically one big bay and the land within spitting distance of it. If you want New England rednecks, you need to go to Maine.

As a true New Englander with more Hebrew names in his ancestry than most Jews, I'm right at home in CoC's world. OTOH, a fresh start would make CoC a mite more interesting even for me.

-clash

By sheer coincidence, I'm running a Cthulhu game this evening!

In terms of improving the game: I would like there to be more room for differing interpretations of the Cthulhu mythos. The genius thing that Lovecraft did was that he made sure his stories were inconsistent - he was going for a loose mythology, not a consistent world. As such, sometimes the Old Ones and allies are very much flesh-and-blood aliens (At the Mountains of Madness and The Whisperer In Darkness are good examples of this style), sometimes they are ethereal otherworldly gods (as in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror), and sometimes they're something in-between (as in The Call of Cthulhu itself). The RPG tends to go for the "powerful aliens from space" interpretation.

The current problem with Cthulhu is that, erm, everyone knows Cthulhu. You know exactly what you're getting into (alien gods from space) and you know what the big secret is. If there were guidelines and rules for changing the interpretation of the Mythos, so effectively every Keeper had their own interpretation of the Big Secret, that would make a big difference.

Quote from: WarthurThe genius thing that Lovecraft did was that he made sure his stories were inconsistent - he was going for a loose mythology, not a consistent world.

Lovecraft: The universe is unknowable, strange beings beyond our comprehension could be right next to us.

Derleth:  Here's a detailed breakdown of the Lovecraft's mythology.

Derleth did a bunch to promote Lovecraft's writings but I feel like he and many of the post-Lovecraft Mythos writers don't get it on some level.

To further what Warthur said, CoC has become like 1920's D&D with tough monsters among long time players.  If they can go "Oh, looks like we're dealing with a Dark Young here."  it just doesn't feel right.  But this is as much a problem among some players/keepers as it is for the game - they need to go less by the book and loosen up.

Quote from: NicephorusLovecraft: The universe is unknowable, strange beings beyond our comprehension could be right next to us.

Derleth:  Here's a detailed breakdown of the Lovecraft's mythology.

Derleth did a bunch to promote Lovecraft's writings but I feel like he and many of the post-Lovecraft Mythos writers don't get it on some level.

To further what Warthur said, CoC has become like 1920's D&D with tough monsters among long time players.  If they can go "Oh, looks like we're dealing with a Dark Young here."  it just doesn't feel right.  But this is as much a problem among some players/keepers as it is for the game - they need to go less by the book and loosen up.

Bingo. I never go by the books with the Cthulhu monsters. They need to be - at the core - inconcievable by the players. They need to be non-euclidean.

-clash

It should be a contemporary game. Lovecraft wrote stories about his own contemporary times. I think all the 1920s foodaddy just gets in the way -"Hey, I'm a flapper! Let's go to a speakeasy and listen to some jazz!"

I'd like to see a system-based solution to the "I run a fucking mile!" problem. You know, "You hear a creepy noise in the attic." "I run a fucking mile!" In the fiction the protagonists are often highly rational and sceptical, but gradually get worn away, but that's different for players in CoC.

On the whole, it's not a rpg I enjoy very much, as it seems very top down. There's too much mystery and working out in the scenarios (in my adittedly limited experience) and not enough "what are you going to do about it?" Too often "what are you going to do about it" is "cleanse with fire" (or "run a fucking mile") which makes the game a bit samey. There should be some way to make a real difference.

When our group tried to get a CoC campaign going one of the big complaints was that PCs are too samey, as well. I've read that the difference is that the stats aren't as important as what the player brings to the table and, while I've some sympathy for that, it's not good enough for a lot of players (those guys level the same criticism at HeroQuest, btw).

I once jotted down a page of notes reworking The Dying Earth RPG as CoC. I think that Temptations and Persausion are closer to the action of a CoC story than the current system.

I must admit, I've been playing it off and on since it was released and never really had a stand-out session with it, so maybe I'm just not the audience.

Ned

Quote from: NicephorusLovecraft: The universe is unknowable, strange beings beyond our comprehension could be right next to us.

Derleth:  Here's a detailed breakdown of the Lovecraft's mythology.

Derleth did a bunch to promote Lovecraft's writings but I feel like he and many of the post-Lovecraft Mythos writers don't get it on some level.

Oh, hell yes. Especially with the elemental correspondances (where on Earth did he get that from?) and the benign role of the Elder Gods. I'm glad that the Cthulhu designers scrapped those aspects for the game, but they still ended up fixing the game in "powerful aliens from before the dinosaurs" mode.

For what it's worth, I think Ramsey Campbell was one of the few post-Lovecraft Mythos writers to get it right - especially in his later work. His "Cold Print" compilation is well worth picking up - the earlier stories are blatant pastiches, no more than cheesy fun, but it's the later ones which get truly interesting.

And don't get me started on that rat bastard Brian Lumley.

Quote from: RPGPunditHappy Birthday! IA IA FTAUGN!!!!

Thanks, Pundit!

-clash

Don't forget your cake!

Quote from: JongWKDon't forget your cake!

That looks just perfect!

-clash