Rise of the Old Ones, shadows of Cthulhu Options

[shadowfire]

So i was wondering if anyone out there has thought of doing some cthulhu stuff in shadowrun or with the shadowrun rule set?

If so how did you set up the mythos?

[Ravor]

I think I'd just add them as relatively tame Horrors myself. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[shuya]

i've never done an obvious cthulhu mythos crossover, but shadowrun is RIPE with lovecraftian hooks.

MASTER SHEDIM mo'nukkah (if you don't get that word, replace the "n" with an "f")... seriously, the introduction of master shedim in Threats 2 is so obviously begging for some sort of cthulhu take on it. I'm trying to work the Yama Kings from Runner Havens into something like that, even if they are just Shadow Spirits or whatever... or even some sort of potential aquacology run, ala the -Shock series (system shock, bioshock, etc)... mmm, cthulhupunk... ^_^

[Ancient History]

I'm reasonably fond of discreet mythos references, like a ghoul photography contact named Pickman or an Esoteric Order of Dagon across the street and competing with the Church of Gaia, Inc.

[psychophipps]

Ran a great Cthulhu crossover a bit ago. Got to eat a PC with a Shogoth, had a Force 7 Servitor of Yig possessor spirit-into-giant snake thingy after the host body (that the PCs found alternatively retching and moaning in near-carnal pleasure as it ate a homeless person raw) died, and a wild orgy of sex, death and madness in an attempt to bring about an Avatar of Y'Golonac.

It was truly glorious to behold... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[PBTHHHHT]

Recently bought the cthulutech book, interesting read. I wonder what sort of materials other cthulu type rpgs have such as delta green that could be used as inspirations for shadowrun.

[hyzmarca]

The thing about the mythos is that it just isn't scary anymore. Existentialism, Godzilla, and cruise missiles have armored the modern popular psyche against the terrors of non-euclidean geometry.

[Zhan Shi]

Shameless plug:

The Cthulhu Mythos Tradition

[the_real_elwood]

The thing about the mythos is that it just isn't scary anymore. Existentialism, Godzilla, and cruise missiles have armored the modern popular psyche against the terrors of non-euclidean geometry.

Well, it certainly won't be scary to the runners if they know they're in a cthulu mythos game. The scariest thing is the unknown (preferably the unknown that can kill you without too much trouble). If you're going to run a game like this, don't tell your players beforehand, and watch their horror as they learn more about the unknown monsters out to cause havoc in the world.

[psychophipps]

The thing about the mythos is that it just isn't scary anymore. Existentialism, Godzilla, and cruise missiles have armored the modern popular psyche against the terrors of non-euclidean geometry.

My group is a former US Army Ranger Marksman, a long-time gamer, and a horror flick/anime freak. They repeatedly told me that I scared the piss out of them and they often had no clue if their characters were going to make it or what was going to get tossed at them next. If you can get the mood correct, use the right scenes at the right times, and pick the baddies to match what's going on then you'll do just as well with a Mythos threat as you would with any other.

I picked the underneath of the docks by Pike Place Market for the bum buffet. I figured the combination of cramped spaces, rotting marine life, and the huddle of societies lowest rung would work well here and I was right. Be sure to describe things not only graphically, but also with a bit of a "and this random whacked out bit" as well. The part they thought was the scariest was how the host was in control at the moment but was still compelled to keep eating the bum. By adding satisfied moans,a nd random retching noises into the speech, it really drove the point home.

I used a large underground sewer junction/holding area as a former cult ritual location for the Shogoth. Limited escape routes, twisted altars and sexually-based glyphs exulting the Great Old Ones, and the sound of running water inside the dank, damp tunnels lit only by their life-giving hand-held lights. Add the cliched "something is moving against the current underneath the filthy waters of the sewer to your right" and having the Shogoth lunge out at a full move of 15 screeching "TAKELI-LI!" in an inhuman tone, the multi-ton multi-orificed pulsating, writhing, morphing glistening black freight train of insanity and death (which had been summoned by accident and had eaten a bunch of the cultists before) surges across the pavement with joyous cries of a meal soon to consumed by it's alternatively opening, closing, toothing, fanging, vaginizing, and rectaling orifices.

I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks of the big cult ritual scene as it would probably break the rules of use to describe it here.

[hobgoblin]

Recently bought the cthulutech book, interesting read. I wonder what sort of materials other cthulu type rpgs have such as delta green that could be used as inspirations for shadowrun.

while it looks interesting, i find that cthulhutech lacks in the magic department. ok, so maybe they dont want to turn magic into another glass cannon. but even good old coc had spells like shriveling.

all in all, to much new age-y dancing around the cauldron, to little mad cultists speaking the forbidden language on a hilltop to rain down devastation on the group below.

on that note, didnt gurps have a book called cthulhupunk?

probably long out of print tho.

[knasser]

I think over-familiarity hampers Cthulhu Mythos ability to scare many players. At least it can. There are only so many times you can make people look aghast at an island that shouldn't be there filled with strangely proportioned stone buildings. Eventually the players start asking themselves what "Cyclopean" bloody well means anyway: "Wait, you're saying the buildings only have one eye?"

Of course, the characters can be obligingly scared, run or scream - that's called role-playing. And it's useless. The point of running a horror game is to scare the players. And that's pretty hard. I've done it., but it required some thought. If anyone hasn't seen it, I wrote a fairly full horror adventure for Shadowrun here: Carnival. So much depends on presentation though. As a rule (meaning there are exceptions), you need to be very lavish on the descriptions and very controlled on the pacing. Things must be both drawn out and at the same time, never feel slow. You also need to trick your players out of complacency.

I've written on this before, but one of the successes I had with scaring players was in a certain cancer causing game. Knowing that the players assumed any given encounter was there for them to fight and defeat, I realised I needed a way to break them of that mindset. So I set up some encounters with some reasonably challenging beasties. Let them battle one to get it into their heads that this was an appropriate level of challenge, something dangerous but survivable. And then I let them stumble across the shredded remains of several of these beasts with heavy implication that something had taken them apart without too much concern. They got the message and they ran. I call this technique "the Unexpected Dragon." Establish a level of expectation, then violate it. Of course you need a lot more to achieve real fear, but then building fear is a steady process. The above is a preliminary step - introduce risk and uncertainty. Then you start building on it with pacing, mystery, lavish description and increasing turns of the screw. I have successfully scared players and it's very, very rewarding. It takes effort though and their being familiar with the material is unlikely to help.

Cthluhu reached the point where it is too familiar, I think. You can use that familiarity for humour, but not so much horror. I once ran a "Scooby Doo vs. Cthulhu" one-shot in which the Mystery Machine arrived near an old, closed down amusement park and every one got pregenerated characters with their own Major and Minor motivation goals to achieve. For example, Fred had to convince everyone that there was nothing really supernatural going on as a major goal and the player came up with increasingly good rational explanations for everything, whilst Velma had Minor goals of seeing Daphne naked, feeling Daphne's boobs for a period of more than two minutes, etc. Daphne's aim was to persuade Fred to settle down and get a real job and to prevent any physical harm coming to him. It was ages ago and I can't remember the rest, except that my fond hope that Fred would try to pull the "mask" off a serpent man worshipper of Yig never happened, but Velma did try and convince Daphne that the vat they fell into was probably toxic and they should both remove their soaked clothes immediately and dry each other off. Oh, and they had a rival investigative team in the form of a paranormal obsessed FBI agent and his skeptical, red-headed assistant. Fred and "Sally" hit it off, leading Daphne to lock her in a room with a Nightgaunt that tickled her to death. Ah, good times. I should probably write it up as a proper adventure sometime.

Sorry, what was the topic again.? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[hobgoblin]

that "unexpected dragon" sounds a bit like what hitchcock would do, hint at something like a bomb but not let it explode onscreen.

[knasser]

that "unexpected dragon" sounds a bit like what hitchcock would do, hint at something like a bomb but not let it explode onscreen.

No - I see why you say that given my example, but it's a completely different principle and the "dragon" doesn't need to be hidden. Yours is a stylistic approach which is useful to get people's imaginations working for you. I.e. leave blanks for the players to fill in with something worse: you can't get into the room to see what's happening, but you can hear the villain's steady clubbing of your friend. You can't quite see what the ghoul is doing as it squats over the corpse's face, but you spot it pop a couple of gristly white and red orbs down its throat. That sort of thing.

The Unexpected Dragon can be perfectly visible. It's a means of getting around player's expectations from a role-playing game. Particularly if they have come from someone else's game where they were accustomed to meeting all challenges head on. Let's say I have a particular type of spirit in my Shadowrun game that I call Rain Dogs. They only appear in the falling rain (convenient in Seattle) and can only be seen as a kind of hollow, a void in the falling water, carving the rough shape of a monstrous hound. I want these to be sinister creatures that will stalk the players until they (hopefully) find the key to sending them away. My immediate problem is that I plonk the players in a street and have these things appear lurking in the alleys around them, stealthily creeping forward. The troll immediately charges into melee, the sam goes into autofire and the mage lets drop some elementals. We're in combat, I'll likely lose a PC or two and fear was never really achieved.

But knowing that the players have these expectations of Meet Monster, Fight Monster, I decide to pull the Unexpected Dragon. I set up some opposition that the players can gauge (or think they can) as appropriate for their level of power. Something that they consider a normal or reasonable threat to them. They're having a fight with a couple of troll samurai and their fire mage master. I have now satisfied their expectations for balanced encounters and they have appropriately calibrated their threat level. They fight a round or two of battle, taking some minor hits, when one of the trolls tumbles down set upon by heavy, unseen forms tearing into his flesh. The magician screams, spinning round and hurling elemental flame at an assailant that is momentarily outlined as a dark, man-sized beast crouching to spring, before it lands upon him extinguishing both flame and life in one savage blow. Now the players know they're in danger, because I let them callibrate their scale of threat first so that they could accurately judge the real threat to be as terrifying as it is. They thought they were fighting goblins, but they got an unexpected dragon. Additionally, you get shock value. You've pulled the ground from beneath their feet and they're in uncertain freefall.

It's not always necessary to do this, or even recommended. But it's a strong way to get past the mindset that certain cancer-causing games tend to foster. Players believe that they are playing a game and therefore expect the game to be fair. But their characters aren't playing a game at all and they know that the world isn't fair. You have to get the players thinking like the characters if you ever want true emotion in a game, and that's true of fear just as much as it is of any other emotion.

There are many useful tools and techniques for establishing horror in a role-playing game. Regarding your players expectations as a toy that you can break, is a oft-neglected one. Dragons are scary when you see them swoop down on you. But far, far worse, when you hear them breaking into your house at night. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hermit]

One of the adventures in CthulluhTech's Base Book can reasonably easily be adapted to SR4. The setting can remain mostly the same, you just have to swith the Eldritch Society with the Mystic Crusaders (or something like them) and decide which corp is horror infested (I'll take Horizon). The rest can mainly remain, though I'd propably have Darke have a cameo, just for the hell of it.

[Snow_Fox]

Some have touched on it already but I'll add to it.
The thing in Cthulhu books is surprise. more often than not the protagonist is in denial as the world closes in on them and they only realize the truth when it's too late. The trick with Cthulhu is surprise. If you know what the moster is, you load for bear and open season no problem. Get surprised by it, like suddenly finding out everyone in the Stuffer Shack between you and the door is a zombie who wants to eat your brain and all you've got is your back up Colt Asp and you're gonna get scared.

Remember in Lovecraft's books most protagonists are achedemics and shcolars and people of gentile learning. You rarely get a man who fought in Belleau Woods or a John Dillenger level thug. Runners are by their nature, combat experts use to dealing with the unexpected in violent ways. I mean would the Dunwich Horror or the Whisperer in the Darkness have caused a problem as much if the protagonists had brought out his Mini-gun? Would the Colour Out of Spac[/ie] have gotten such a foot hold if the local Shaman could have seen the porblems before hand?(and if you're a purist yeah I know in [i]The Terrible Old Man some hard cases are cut to pieces but they weren't expecting much opposition.)

A few years back we did a Cthulhu run but didn't realizre it until too late. We thought we were chasing down an old antique and maybe a weird cult were out for it too, like Catholic's after s relic but we were too deep in, and so under armed when we realized how bad it really was.

An affect might be that getting near an Old Ones site really screws the magic over. Not only a back ground count, but supposethe local spirts are twisted too? Like the protagonist in Shadow Over Innsmouth. suppose he was a shaman and when the locals try to break into his hotel room he summons up a spirit to escape, but instead of being a usual friendly spirit he gets some decayed Cthulhulian horror that turns on him? eeek!

[Trobon]

Not only surprise though. The Lovecraft books were never well written. They were not a great literary masterpiece. However, the one thing that he knew how to do better than anything else was keep the reader in suspense. A lot of this comes down to pacing as has been mentioned before. However, part of that pacing is the delivery of the punch line at the end of the cruel joke that is the madness. The monster doesn't jump out of the window and yell BOO. Instead the players have a slow and creeping realization of what is really going on.

The key here is to give the players some of the clues in the beginning and as they progress and make a nice story, with some minor twists or turns to throw the players off. Then as the adventure reaches its climax you give them the pieces to the puzzle that finally unlock the real horror behind the entire game. It takes some planning, but it can certainly give your players a huge shudder during the game.

I won't spoil it for any of you, but if you are planning on GMing any part of Ghost Cartels there is a nice bit in there that could potentially be played in a Lovecraftian manner. While it is not presented as one, it has all of the elements that could shape one.

[Snow_Fox]

I'd disagree that they were not well wirtten. 70-80 years after the fact they are still being read, enjoyed and inspiring. Heck look at this thread. But yeah, it's never booga booga but the creaping realization that gets ya.

[hobgoblin]

also, futility.

you dont kill cthulhu, you only make him go back to sleep a couple of 100 years more...

humanity cant win, it can only try to ride out the inevitable...

[Trobon]

I'd disagree that they were not well wirtten. 70-80 years after the fact they are still being read, enjoyed and inspiring. Heck look at this thread. But yeah, it's never booga booga but the creaping realization that gets ya.

Well we could argue over that point all day and it wouldn't get us very far. I, personally, have never found his stories to be great writing or surprising. However, I have enjoyed them just as I can enjoy a TV show (which almost never have good writing) and I certainly find them suspenseful. However, I know there are people who will disagree with me so I don't really try and argue the point too much as its all a matter of opinion.

[knasser]

Lovecraft was a dreadful writer who was very good. And I think that's the best description I can come up with.

Anyway, no comments on my guide to horror? : (

[Trobon]

Lovecraft was a dreadful writer who was very good. And I think that's the best description I can come up with.

Anyway, no comments on my guide to horror? : (

That's a good description.

I liked your guide a lot. I have to read the adventure still, but all in all it was a good description of how horror can work in an RPG. I don't agree that Cthulhu can't do that still, but I do think that it takes a special GM to be able to do it right. The "Unexpected Dragon" is a very nice technique that can be used to set the mood and I've seen it used before to a good effect.

Now I have to steal your idea of Scooby Doo versus Cthulhu though... I hope your proud of yourself. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[knasser]

That's a good description.

I liked your guide a lot. I have to read the adventure still, but all in all it was a good description of how horror can work in an RPG. I don't agree that Cthulhu can't do that still, but I do think that it takes a special GM to be able to do it right. The "Unexpected Dragon" is a very nice technique that can be used to set the mood and I've seen it used before to a good effect.

Now I have to steal your idea of Scooby Doo versus Cthulhu though... I hope your proud of yourself. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Thank you. I'm afraid the Scooby Do vs. Cthulhu was someone else's though I've long since forgotten whose. I'll take credit for the X-Files cross-over, the Major and Minor goals for each character to see who wins and my quite brilliant Scooby impersonation, however. You get bonus points if you can persuade one of your players to play Scooby and stay in character and voice through the entire game. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

If I said that Cthulhu actually can't be scary any more, then I retract that. I'm sure it can. But it's getting a little familiar for many of us.

[Trobon]

If I said that Cthulhu actually can't be scary any more, then I retract that. I'm sure it can. But it's getting a little familiar for many of us.

I do agree with you that he CAN not be scary. Especially if you tell the players before hand that this is a Cthulhu-Mythos type campaign. The problem is that preparation is the enemy of horror. Horror comes from the unknown and the unexpected, but Cthulhu is part of our gamer culture so much that if the players are aware of what's happening then it becomes not scary.

Basically, there are three options to running any sort of Cthulhu type game:

1) "That's no Elder God... That's Farmer Jenkins!" Tell your players its a Cthulhu game and use the knowledge that everyone has to make a very fun and comedic game.

2) "The Cult of Dagon is rising and I must do what I can to stop it." Tell your players that its a Cthulhu game, but let them know that you want it to be serious. Play the game as you would any other game, but don't expect horror.

3) "OH GOD! That thing just ate the damn stars!!" Don't let your players know that you are working with Cthulhu's presidential campaign. Make sure to study the description of the creatures and not the basic ones either. DO NOT describe anything as having tentacles on its face or you will lose it quickly.

[Fix-it]

Lovecraft was a dreadful writer who was very good. And I think that's the best description I can come up with.

Anyway, no comments on my guide to horror? : (

most of Lovecraft's stories are of a first person narration, from characters who are barely sane after what they have supposedly witnessed. YOU try using proper grammar after seeing a cannibalistic cult summon unspeakable horrors from the great unknown.