Quote from: Future Villain Band;903288Hence, "Originally" and "back in the day" in my post, which are referring to the six editions before the current one, and specifically the three or so that happened pre-Internet.

Technically speaking there were more than six editions before the current one, given anniversaries and revisions, but I'm keeping things simple since clearly even statements like "back in the day" can now result in confusion.

I don't think they started adding any actual Lovecraft to the books until maybe 5th Edition, which was already firmly into the era of the Internet and Lovecraft being pretty saturated into the culture. Basically, they started doing it when it was completely unnecessary.

Then again, even when I started playing in the mid-80s, paperbacks of Lovecraft were easy enough to find at any mall's Waldenbooks.

Quote from: Baulderstone;903289Then again, even when I started playing in the mid-80s, paperbacks of Lovecraft were easy enough to find at any mall's Waldenbooks.

That was my thought... it wasn't like Lovecraft's stories were hard to find since before CoC came out. My High School English teacher suggested I'd like Lovecraft and the first book of his stories I found at a used bookstore was from the early 70s (cool cover, nothing to do with any of the stuff inside though).

Quote from: Baulderstone;903289I don't think they started adding any actual Lovecraft to the books until maybe 5th Edition, which was already firmly into the era of the Internet and Lovecraft being pretty saturated into the culture. Basically, they started doing it when it was completely unnecessary.

Then again, even when I started playing in the mid-80s, paperbacks of Lovecraft were easy enough to find at any mall's Waldenbooks.

If that's the case -- and I have no reason to think you're wrong, my memories of early CoC have been supplanted by old age  -- my hypothesis is invalidated.

With that said, if you were like me and in a rural area and getting your RPG stuff via mail order, you might not have had access to a nearby bookstore of any quality to get Lovecraft, but I can only remember first getting ahold of the old Del Rey paperbacks from a big box of books sent by my aunt, who worked for Ballantine at the time.  (I also remember getting a lot of those early '80s reprints of the OZ books.)

Dont have the book handy. But pretty sure my 5th ed CoC does not have a story in it either.

Quote from: Omega;903337Dont have the book handy. But pretty sure my 5th ed CoC does not have a story in it either.

As I have the very Call of Cthulhu problem of not always being sure what edition is which, I just checked my shelf. I have it in the 5.5 Edition, but it isn't in the 4th Edition. Maybe you have the 5.0 Edition and it lacks it?

Alternately, you may have just gone blind to it. To back up Simlasa's point, it is just that section at the front of the book that skip past automatically every time I consult it.

I will say that if they do need to have a story in there, 7E's choice of "The Dunwich Horror" is much better than "The Call of Cthulhu" for the RPG. That's the actual model the game is built on.

As an owner of the 5.5 Edition, it isn't something I'm deeply frustrated by. It's not a huge brick of a book, so the extra page count isn't a big deal. As it placed at the beginning too, I am already accustomed to games having either opening fiction or a fluff-heavy intro that I usually need to flip past anyway.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;903233CoC 7e's Investigator's Guide has a really cool piece of game fiction called "The Dunwich Horror."  I don't know which freelancer did it, but it's pretty solid work, although it's obvious that it's about a Mary Sue GMPC who had sex with a god and had a cooler twin brother.

The Dunwich Horror is an original story by H P Lovecraft himself - I don't think Id qualify that as game fiction.

It is a better choice than The Call of Cthulhu though as you actually have a group of men who oppose the bad guys.

Quote from: Omega;903337Dont have the book handy. But pretty sure my 5th ed CoC does not have a story in it either.

5.6 at least has the original "Call of Cthulhu" story in it.

For the record, and this is purely anecdotal, I know people who've picked up the CoC RPGs who had never heard of Lovecraft, read the in game fiction in those books and went looking to see if there were other stories.  And I also personally know a couple of local long time players who thought it was all made up by they game designers until very recently, as in 2 years ago.

So just because you can find the stories, doesn't mean people will find them,

Quote from: Christopher Brady;904188And I also personally know a couple of local long time players who thought it was all made up by they game designers until very recently, as in 2 years ago.

IIRC the rulebook clearly states that it's based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft... but they thought that was a ruse?

Lovecraft invented the Necronomicon, with the pretense that it was a real book, so I guess it makes some kind of non-Euclidean sense that someone, somewhere thought the game designers had invented Lovecraft with the pretense that he was a real author.

Nikola Tesla was also a real person who didn't do all the things attributed to him in fictional appearances, and separating fact from fiction isn't really necessary to enjoy a game.

Quote from: Baulderstone;903340As I have the very Call of Cthulhu problem of not always being sure what edition is which, I just checked my shelf. I have it in the 5.5 Edition, but it isn't in the 4th Edition. Maybe you have the 5.0 Edition and it lacks it?

Alternately, you may have just gone blind to it. To back up Simlasa's point, it is just that section at the front of the book that skip past automatically every time I consult it.

Just dug out my copy.
Yep. 5e.
Nope. No story.

Wheres the story in 5.5? Might be able to determine if they cut something to make space.

My 5e is a rather hefty tome of 240 pages. Thicker than the 300+ page 5e D&D PHB due to using a thicker paper.

Quote from: Simlasa;904192IIRC the rulebook clearly states that it's based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft... but they thought that was a ruse?

Yes.  It would not be the first time that game companies did that sort of thing.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;904702Yes.  It would not be the first time that game companies did that sort of thing.

heh-heh. Last year I picked up a game that refferenced various bits of fan fiction for quotes. I looked up the stories and found out none of those fan fictions actually exist.

Quote from: Simlasa;904192IIRC the rulebook clearly states that it's based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft... but they thought that was a ruse?

Well, given how CoC fandom went through a time of "you can't ever use violence as a way to beat supernatural evils" could say the ruse was the idea that it was really reflective of the Mythos.