Practically a clean sweep for Call of Cthulhu related products this year.
It's always impressed me how CoC manages to punch well above its weight in terms of visibility/influence versus actual number of players.
Quote from: Dimitrios;1098202Practically a clean sweep for Call of Cthulhu related products this year.
It's always impressed me how CoC manages to punch well above its weight in terms of visibility/influence versus actual number of players.
Weird personal note is, I have lived in three countries, and played with a few groups in each. CoC was the only game that was present in all the groups. And I never ran it, so I'm not to blame :D
Tradition has it that CoC is every group's second game of choice.
Quote from: Dimitrios;1098202Practically a clean sweep for Call of Cthulhu related products this year.
It's always impressed me how CoC manages to punch well above its weight in terms of visibility/influence versus actual number of players.
It's a game more admired than played. A dedicated group playing an immersive campaign of CoC is many hardcore RPGer's dream, and Chaosism puts out excellent content to fuel those dreams. So how many people actually play doesn't really factor into its stature as a critical darling.
The Woke award? ;)
Quote from: The_Shadow;1098206Tradition has it that CoC is every group's second game of choice.
I've played in numerous groups in four different areas of the country, and only one of them would even touch CoC.
It looks like a real bunch of random stuff up for awards this year.
Chaoism is fantastic. They just keep kicking out magnificent games.
I use off-brand Cthulhu in my games.
I'm happy to see some fellow Swedes winning both silver and gold. Tobias Tranell is an acquintance of mine that makes fantastic maps and once we and another guy planned on making a fantasy rpg together, a worthy heir to the Drakar & Demoner Expert crown but it fizzled out due to creative differences.
I pretty much owned every CoC product up to 6th edition...(then sold a bunch when I saw how much some of the stuff was going for)
I've played CoC twice. The idea of CoC is better than CoC itself.
I've played CoC for decades with multiple groups of players in different cities and states. It's not for everyone, but for those that enjoy something different, its great. It's the only game system/setting where I use as many published adventures as I do adventures I make up on my own.
It's a great game, but for each new product or for each "remake" of old material they seem to strive for something less horrific than found in earlier editions. I want them to make CoC pure horror. They already have Pulp Cthulhu for the ones who loves to travel the globe and blaze away with their M1911s at the baddies. I don't want to see CoC become some Miss Marple with a tad of tentacles rpg. Just look at some of their recent covers. The art isn't horrific or twisted. It's shit. If I was the art director I could easily find artists who produce more disturbing stuff. There are thousands upon thousands of talented but perhaps unknown horror artists who would jump at the chance to illustrate CoC.
Quote from: GIMME SOME SUGAR;1098291It's a great game, but for each new product or for each "remake" of old material they seem to strive for something less horrific than found in earlier editions.
Yep, it's 'action horror' now... comfortably spooky... but nothing transgressive like you'll find in Delta Green or Kult... or even the WoD games. And hey, that's what the mainstream audience prefers... and Chaosium is there to make money. So we're going to have to look elsewhere if we want something 'harder' to drink.
The only thing that caught my eye from the ENnies was Forbidden Lands, but it's sold out in the US.
Quote from: Simlasa;1098292Yep, it's 'action horror' now... comfortably spooky... but nothing transgressive like you'll find in Delta Green or Kult... or even the WoD games. And hey, that's what the mainstream audience prefers... and Chaosium is there to make money. So we're going to have to look elsewhere if we want something 'harder' to drink.
Or write our own more gruesome scenarios and adapt published ones to fit the tone we're after.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1098300The only thing that caught my eye from the ENnies was Forbidden Lands, but it's sold out in the US.
I have the Swedish version of Forbidden Lands. You get alot of quality in a box for a decent price (no dice though).The cartographers deserved the win for Forbidden Lands. It's not overpriced like the upcoming Alien rpg, that's for sure, But I must confess I haven't read it all the way through since I am occupied with other games right now. Chances are that I'll never play the game at all. Not because it's bad but because introducing new rpgs (especially retro fantasy rpgs) can be a bit troublesome in my gaming group. And I'm a bit tired of always being the GM too, even though I'm a control freak deep inside. I don't think I have been a player since I was 14 or something.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1098300The only thing that caught my eye from the ENnies was Forbidden Lands, but it's sold out in the US.
Seems like it would make a great Western Marches setting.
Quote from: Theory of Games;1098249Chaoism is fantastic. They just keep kicking out magnificent games.
They have not published a new game since the Basic Roleplaying Big Gold Book. Since then there has only been the abortion that is 7th edition Call of Cthulhu and New Chaosium's RuneQuest :Roleplaying in Glorantha which is RuneQuest 2 with some bells and whistles and is now in hibernation.
I like Chaosium, but to be honest, I'm not super interested in new stuff from them. I have more Chaosium and BRP material than I'll ever use, already. I don't need new/shiny just because it's new and shiny (especially if the new/shiny is 90% the same as the old stuff). Personally, I'd rather do my own thing with the BRP material I already own.
I really like seeing Glorantha done so well, although I'm not sure I really want to play it with RQ2 with new dials. I would have preferred if those dials had been added to a simplier, cleaner and more contemporary version of BRP, like OpenQuest.
However the Runes, Passions, and Family Background Life Gen is pretty interesting, and Glorantha itself is in the best shape it has been for years.
The artwork and general production of the Chaosium books are pretty decent these days, both RQG and CoC7E.
I actually wouldn't mind seeing a more contemporary version of the BRP generic core book, but I doubt that will be on the cards for a while, if at all.
Well I am a lot less interested in giving my money to the new Chaosium after reading Gagarth's sig there...
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1098754I like Chaosium, but to be honest, I'm not super interested in new stuff from them. I have more Chaosium and BRP material than I'll ever use, already. I don't need new/shiny just because it's new and shiny (especially if the new/shiny is 90% the same as the old stuff). Personally, I'd rather do my own thing with the BRP material I already own.
Quote from: The_Shadow;1098858Well I am a lot less interested in giving my money to the new Chaosium after reading Gagarth's sig there...
There is some context that needs to be covered, it's from a blurb for the scenario Dead Man Stomp. Dead Man Stomp is a classic in which the horrors of historical racism are front and center, and if you read each editions version they tend be more conciderate each time. If you never played or read it, here is the synopsis. A black jazz trumpet player recieves a cursed horn from Nylarthotep that raises the dead and makes them dance and draws more instances of violence to the wielder. A local mob boss finds out about this and proceeds to target this guy. To test the horn the mobster kills the one guy in his crew who has a black girlfriend, and shoots up a black funeral. Thats in the fifth and sixth edition as well as 7th edition. Its a well loved if known to be seen as problematic scenario. So Chaosium tried to handle it in the best way they thought in these times. That said they didn't change much. Now yes racism exists in every culture towards outsiders, but americans in thier arrogance think that its a thing that they or white people invented. Go study east asian cultures and look at how they view every one.
Quote from: videopete;1098868Now yes racism exists in every culture towards outsiders, but americans in thier arrogance think that its a thing that they or white people invented. Go study east asian cultures and look at how they view every one.
That would be leftist and intersectionalists that believe that and they are not all Americans.
Quote from: videopete;1098868Go study east asian cultures and look at how they view every one.
Indeed. The naivete of an America-centric view of racial and ethnic relations would be touching if it wasn't so malicious. Having lived in both north-east and south-east Asian countries for extended periods, I sometimes ponder how the American progressive "victimhood stack" would apply, say in considering the Chinese in SEA, or the myriad of Indian castes, religions and so on. If only whites can be racist, as the American anti-whites say, due to history and social structure, can Malays be racist against Chinese, or Tamils be racist against Sinhalese? Oh my, the things I've heard from Asians about other ethnic groups :-)
Quote from: The_Shadow;1099098...can Malays be racist against Chinese, or Tamils be racist against Sinhalese? Oh my, the things I've heard from Asians about other ethnic groups :-)
What I found interesting was legally enforced affirmative action enacted by the majority ethnic group for benefit of the majority ethnic group.
Just watch how Mandarins treat and are treated by other Chinese.
Just watch how Japanese treat any non-Japanese in their country.
Every country has its racism problem. Democrats wish there was more of it in the US, to better control people with.
But nor should the sins of the past be forgotten#, but not as a burrden of guilt but as a marker of not slipping back there. Heres the issue of that qoute, that adventure was expanded by the author of the Harlem Unbound, a black author in a field where it is rare to find a black author, two lets not shake bones about it and say otherwise the 1920s are fucked up time as far as race and gender relations, its when feminism were most needed and a push for racial equality. Prohibition was enforced by the KKK because one of the main supporters was pushing the idea that booze was a catholic and colored sin. So yeah the more you dig the uglier it gets, so I get the blurb, its a fucking clumsy blurb but I get it.
Quote from: Omega;1098216The Woke award? ;)
Isn't that what the ENnies became years ago?
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1098266I use off-brand Cthulhu in my games.
SILENT LEGIONS by Sine Nomine / Kevin Crawford
All the twisted Mythos you crave, none of Chaosium's SJW bullshit!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/145769/Silent-Legions
Quote from: The_Shadow;1098858Well I am a lot less interested in giving my money to the new Chaosium after reading Gagarth's sig there...
Chaosium isn't hiding its politics. If anybody gives them money, nobody can be blind to what they're supporting.
As with all purchases, every dollar is a vote.
Quote from: videopete;1099130But nor should the sins of the past be forgotten#, but not as a burrden of guilt but as a marker of not slipping back there. Heres the issue of that qoute, that adventure was expanded by the author of the Harlem Unbound, a black author in a field where it is rare to find a black author, two lets not shake bones about it and say otherwise the 1920s are fucked up time as far as race and gender relations, its when feminism were most needed and a push for racial equality. Prohibition was enforced by the KKK because one of the main supporters was pushing the idea that booze was a catholic and colored sin. So yeah the more you dig the uglier it gets, so I get the blurb, its a fucking clumsy blurb but I get it.
The same black author whose advice in Gumshoe for how GM's should illustrate racism was for GM's to have white npc's shoot black npc's first and also that every state in the union had every single Jim Crow law going.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1099141SILENT LEGIONS by Sine Nomine / Kevin Crawford
All the twisted Mythos you crave, none of Chaosium's SJW bullshit!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/145769/Silent-Legions
or Raiders of R'lyeh by Quentin Bauer https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/209168/Raiders-of-Rlyeh-Gamemasters-Guide--Complete-Rules (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/209168/Raiders-of-Rlyeh-Gamemasters-Guide--Complete-Rules)
Quote from: Haffrung;1098208It's a game more admired than played. A dedicated group playing an immersive campaign of CoC is many hardcore RPGer's dream, and Chaosism puts out excellent content to fuel those dreams. So how many people actually play doesn't really factor into its stature as a critical darling.
For what it's worth, anecdotal evidence as it is, I've had to move to new cities twice in the past three years and in both cases was able to very easily find new groups of players ready to join my CoC games. In the first group there were two experienced CoC players and one new player, the second group I just started has one experienced player and three new. I see CoC's popularity being quite relevant to actually playing the game. Wish the other games I enjoy were so easy to recruit for.