Rise of the Old Ones, shadows of Cthulhu Options

[hermit]

If you know what the moster is, you load for bear and open season no problem.

Actually, characters in one HPL story really did that - it was about space vampires, IIRC, and they bought themselves a full suit of armour, shotguns, flamethrowers (!) and nerve gas (!!) to deal with the problem, successfully at that.

I disagree about Lovecraft's work being badly written though. The stories are solid belletristic works, even if not Literature. And yes, even 80 years after creation, they're still read, and inspire current works, mainly pop culture, where threre're a number of Lovecraftian references outside the horror genre too, like Futurama's Dr. Zoidberg or the Beastie Boyz' Video Clip for 'Intergalactic'. So, while not high Literature, it's far from being crap, as crap usually is forgotten. It may well not be composed masterfully and on par with other writers in terms of the pure art of writing, but the stories and characters themselves have shown significant appeal.

[Nath]

Writing style aside, Lovecraft universe stands out in the middle of the rest of fantastic, occult and horror stories because it dropped most if not all of what was the "supernatural canon" at the time. There is no God sitting in Heaven, no afterlife, no immortal soul within the human body. No sins, either. This may seem obvious to us, who played RPG, read scifi and watched Hollywood horror movies of the late XXth and early XXIst centuries, but it wasn't in the early XXth. Stephen King for instance, followed Lovecraft pioneering. Compare to Bram Stoker's Dracula for instance, the vampire who lost his soul, is vulnerable to holy symbols... Cthulhu is no devil taking your soul away, he'll kill you or drive you insane. Lovecraftian supernatural entities are physically powerful and, I could say, "medically threatening".

Problem Shadowrun'd have to cope with Lovecraft is that it has the astral plane. There is an Essence attribute, shamans' totems "embodying" moral principles, Gaia, metaplans, corruption tainting, et al. Cthulhu is just one big alien. I mean, depending on your interpretation, you could expect the spirit of the city of R'lyeh, once summoned, would help you keeping him imprisoned.

[Wounded Ronin]

This morning, I was operating a Mosin Nagant at an outdoor range and contemplating how you could strike just about anything dead with enough 7.62x54 R cartridges.

I thought it might be fun to have a "modern" Cthulu adventure which would be a combination of gothic horror versus overwhelming firepower and destruction. I'd see it play out a bit like the Aliens vs. Predator 2 video game...in the beginning the Marines are at a disadvantage but if they survive long enough to get their heavy weapons out they then have the advantage.

[hermit]

Problem Shadowrun'd have to cope with Lovecraft is that it has the astral plane. There is an Essence attribute, shamans' totems "embodying" moral principles, Gaia, metaplans, corruption tainting, et al. Cthulhu is just one big alien. I mean, depending on your interpretation, you could expect the spirit of the city of R'lyeh, once summoned, would help you keeping him imprisoned.

I disagree. Shadowrun isn't a very moral world. Even Totems, while imposing their ideals (whatever they may be, and they're not ll very nice, even the 'clean' ones like Rat, Shark, or Spider) on the mages associating with them, are limited in power and hold no sway about the larger universe and it's morality. There's no immortal soul in SR, there's no god, and heaven, if it exists, is one metaplane among many and certainly not so very special.

Also, Spirits are shaped by the place they're called from as well as the summoner, apparently. Though I'd advise against calling on R'Lyeh city spirits in my games, as I'd give the place a very strong aspected (EOoD) background count.

But yes. Lovecraft's universe was very amoral, even though later fanfic writers expanded it into being moral (which sucked). Shadowrun, however, is amoral too. Toxics and the likes aren't evil per se, as are blood mages. They're just having an impact ont he magical environment that's pretty hostile to other beings (much like, say, the CT Migou have; that doesn't make them evil, though, just assholes from a Human/Nazzardi pouint of view).

I thought it might be fun to have a "modern" Cthulu adventure which would be a combination of gothic horror versus overwhelming firepower and destruction. I'd see it play out a bit like the Aliens vs. Predator 2 video game...in the beginning the Marines are at a disadvantage but if they survive long enough to get their heavy weapons out they then have the advantage.

Tried Dark Heresy?

[Trobon]

Let me set the record straight here. I never meant to imply that I thought Lovecraft should be at the bottom of the bargain barrel of a thrice-owned bookstore. I think that he was entertaining and the creatures he created and the stories he told were masterful pieces of suspense. What I meant was that he's not a grade A writer. Aside from his sub-par grammar his worst skill was making sentences flow in a readable order. However, I mainly wanted to point that out to underline the fact that the stories did survive until today and there is a very good reason that we are here talking about him, which is the suspense that each of his stories created.

I mean if you look at a lot of his stories can you honestly say that you didn't see it coming? The surprise twist at the end was usually as bad as an M. Night Shyamalan movie (now everyone's going to hate me for saying that too). However, what kept me reading through them was that the way he presented it made me want to see how it played out and realize the horror that the next page would bring.

[Fortune]

I never really got into Lovecraft, but then again I never really got into any horror all that much.

[Fix-it]

This morning, I was operating a Mosin Nagant at an outdoor range and contemplating how you could strike just about anything dead with enough 7.62x54 R cartridges.

I thought it might be fun to have a "modern" Cthulu adventure which would be a combination of gothic horror versus overwhelming firepower and destruction. I'd see it play out a bit like the Aliens vs. Predator 2 video game...in the beginning the Marines are at a disadvantage but if they survive long enough to get their heavy weapons out they then have the advantage.

Already been done (LINK)

Protip: Snake and Nape just makes most CoC baddies angry. it does a number on cultists though.

[Snow_Fox]

I think lovecraft only seems obvious when you can sit down and read several in a row in a single binding so you get a feel for his writing. That he survived when most other pulp writers of the day have disappeared says he touched something special.

Personally I discovered Lovecraft my sophomore year in College, in New England. my room mate lived near by so she went home most wekeends and our room was on the edge of the Campus and my window looked out on the Summit Street Cemetary. Trust me, reading back to back Lovecraftian stroies in that atmosphere...one of the few things not involving a feaver or drink that has given me distrubed dreams.

[PBTHHHHT]

it was about space vampires,

Space vampires... oh there was that one movie, Lifeforce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film)
Never seen it, but it's space vampires. Sorry for the weird divergence referencing, but has anybody seen this film? I remember seeing one brief clip of it when I was young, that's about it and always been in the back of my mind so whenever someone mentions 'space vampires'...

[ravensmuse]

Personally I discovered Lovecraft my sophomore year in College, in New England. my room mate lived near by so she went home most wekeends and our room was on the edge of the Campus and my window looked out on the Summit Street Cemetary. Trust me, reading back to back Lovecraftian stroies in that atmosphere...one of the few things not involving a feaver or drink that has given me distrubed dreams.

Yeah, you have to live in New England to get the full Lovecraft experience in my opinion. Of course, he never actually lived here (Maryland and New York City, IIRC) but he visited quite often and formed the basis of most of his writing from the architecture and old stories that we have. My tiny hometown is even mentioned in one of his stories (the Innsmouth one, if I remember correctly).

Aaanyways, what I really wanted to say is that if you're thinking Shadowrun + Cthulhu, you could start by taking a page out of Aliens. There you have a group of combat ready people getting utterly decimated by an opposition that they should by all reason be able to take out easily. Cthulhoids might not be physically tough in a one on one fight, but if a GM uses them smart and allows for the bizarre and incomprehensible abilities inherent in the Mythos, you could have that Troll sammy pee-ing in his pants.

[Speed Wraith]

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

probably long out of print tho.

It looks like SJG did a reprint not all that long ago. It wouldn't be impossible to find a copy. I know I have one sitting around in storage somewhere, but I don't really recall how useful it might be. The most important thing to remember is that it is fairly easy to stick the Mythos into SR since there are pretty dark and evil magical threats out there anyway to set the precedent. It would mostly be about mood...

[Nath]

I disagree. Shadowrun isn't a very moral world. Even Totems, while imposing their ideals (whatever they may be, and they're not ll very nice, even the 'clean' ones like Rat, Shark, or Spider) on the mages associating with them, are limited in power and hold no sway about the larger universe and it's morality. There's no immortal soul in SR, there's no god, and heaven, if it exists, is one metaplane among many and certainly not so very special. [...] But yes. Lovecraft's universe was very amoral, even though later fanfic writers expanded it into being moral (which sucked). Shadowrun, however, is amoral too. Toxics and the likes aren't evil per se, as are blood mages. They're just having an impact ont he magical environment that's pretty hostile to other beings (much like, say, the CT Migou have; that doesn't make them evil, though, just assholes from a Human/Nazzardi pouint of view).

Shadowrun world is amoral because it is corrupt. What I mean is that, there could be love, hope and all those good feelings around. You can tell they exist because they show up on the astral plane. Hate, anger, and all the bad stuff also show up on the astral, a lot more often. Humanity is going down the road of corruption, opening the door to toxic spirits, horrors and two-digits return on investment.

Lovecraft universe is amoral because love, hope, as well as hate or anger, are funny things that happen in the biochemistry of apes' brain who left the African savanna some millenia ago while the Ancients and Gods' attention was elsewhere. Humanity could go down the road of corruption, or not, it makes absolutely no difference.

[Wounded Ronin]

Aaanyways, what I really wanted to say is that if you're thinking Shadowrun + Cthulhu, you could start by taking a page out of Aliens. There you have a group of combat ready people getting utterly decimated by an opposition that they should by all reason be able to take out easily. Cthulhoids might not be physically tough in a one on one fight, but if a GM uses them smart and allows for the bizarre and incomprehensible abilities inherent in the Mythos, you could have that Troll sammy pee-ing in his pants.

Wow, and SR even has caseless rifles.

Your SR world needs to have the Pulse Rifle come out and *then* you can play awesome with Cthulu.

[hyzmarca]

Shadowrun world is amoral because it is corrupt. What I mean is that, there could be love, hope and all those good feelings around. You can tell they exist because they show up on the astral plane. Hate, anger, and all the bad stuff also show up on the astral, a lot more often.

What you're missing is that love and hope are just as toxic as hate and anger are, and just as bad, if not worse.

[pbangarth]

What you're missing is that love and hope are just as toxic as hate and anger are, and just as bad, if not worse.

Are you speaking in the karmic sense, or otherwise?

Peter

[psychophipps]

Wow, and SR even has caseless rifles.

Your SR world needs to have the Pulse Rifle come out and *then* you can play awesome with Cthulu.

Having done a conversion of the Pulse Rifle from the technical manual, it's not any better than a 7.62 NATO EX. So you could easily grab a SR battle rifle, slap a 100-round drum on it, add a GL and you'll do as well for yourself, if not better because of smartlinks in SR.

[hyzmarca]

Are you speaking in the karmic sense, or otherwise?

Peter

To any non-toxic magician, and to any non-toxic magical being of any sort ,a background count produced by love is just as damaging as one produced by hate. In that sense, love is a dangerous pollutant.

In a wider sense, love has killed far more people than hate has, by a long shot. People are apt to kill for love, and to kill the people whom they love, and the people who love them. Great civilizations have fallen because of love and love has driven a great many wars.

This isn't to say that love is necessarily bad, but neither is hate. Without context, both as neutral. With context, either can cause great joy or great suffering, often both, depending on that context.

[AngelisStorm]

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

"I mean, depending on your interpretation, you could expect the spirit of the city of R'lyeh, once summoned, would help you keeping him imprisoned."

That is a brilliant combination there. For the end of the story, you have use a big ritual summoning to call the spirit of the city to keep the big bad scary from waking up (.. but for how long!?)

[hobgoblin]

To any non-toxic magician, and to any non-toxic magical being of any sort ,a background count produced by love is just as damaging as one produced by hate. In that sense, love is a dangerous pollutant.

In a wider sense, love has killed far more people than hate has, by a long shot. People are apt to kill for love, and to kill the people whom they love, and the people who love them. Great civilizations have fallen because of love and love has driven a great many wars.

This isn't to say that love is necessarily bad, but neither is hate. Without context, both as neutral. With context, either can cause great joy or great suffering, often both, depending on that context.

"the road to hell is paved with good intentions"?

[hobgoblin]

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

"I mean, depending on your interpretation, you could expect the spirit of the city of R'lyeh, once summoned, would help you keeping him imprisoned."

That is a brilliant combination there. For the end of the story, you have use a big ritual summoning to call the spirit of the city to keep the big bad scary from waking up (.. but for how long!?)

entropy eats anything, even millennia old spells and spirits.

sometimes i wonder how it would be to have someone encounter a spell of some kind, set up to protect something, maybe a old anchoring, that now have had its "logic" fouled up by age, so that the effects and rituals are somewhat unpredictable compared to the old texts.

[pbangarth]

To any non-toxic magician, and to any non-toxic magical being of any sort ,a background count produced by love is just as damaging as one produced by hate. In that sense, love is a dangerous pollutant.

Yes, I see this point.

In a wider sense, love has killed far more people than hate has, by a long shot. People are apt to kill for love, and to kill the people whom they love, and the people who love them. Great civilizations have fallen because of love and love has driven a great many wars.

I'm not so sure I agree with this one. in the abstract, since it would be difficult to verify the truth one way or another, I can see there being more instances of individual killings sparked by something labeled as 'love', but I would think mass killings, genocides, etc. would tend to come from some other emotion. More 'bang for the buck' in those.

This isn't to say that love is necessarily bad, but neither is hate. Without context, both as neutral. With context, either can cause great joy or great suffering, often both, depending on that context.

This is the context I was referring to when I asked about the karmic sense. Anything that ties you to this plane of existence, whether love, hate, pride, shame, whatever, brings karma to your spirit. Karma that must be worked off through continued existence.

Peter

[ravensmuse]

Having done a conversion of the Pulse Rifle from the technical manual, it's not any better than a 7.62 NATO EX. So you could easily grab a SR battle rifle, slap a 100-round drum on it, add a GL and you'll do as well for yourself, if not better because of smartlinks in SR.

I'm not the only one that has a copy of that book? I'm told it's rare.

[psychophipps]

I'm not the only one that has a copy of that book? I'm told it's rare.

Not rare enough, apparently.

[snowRaven]

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 run Carnival (which is an excellent setting and plot by the way) and several elements worked very well as horror, and I did manage to unsettle my players at several turns.

[ Spoiler ]

One thing that unnerved them was the slow realization that one of the visitors was in fact Harlequin - that unsettled the players though no character knew him. The characters (and to some degree, the players) where unsettled by some wicker men, the powerful aspected background count, and the depravity of the carnival workers. Please note that due to the set-up of my team, I changed the nature of the carnival's magic into hedge magic with a dark twist - each wicker man had a pumping human heart in it's center, for instance.

[shadowfire]

Knasser- i think what you have contributed to this thread has hit the nail on the head and i thank you sir.
One of the many problems i have run into when running RPGs is the lack of assistance in how to run certain genres: Mystery and Horror being the main too. Chill was a great game that helped the GM run a good horror game- lots of helpful hints. Its very true that the unknown works the best and you do lose that when its known by the players (unless they are really good rpers) that this is a horror game. So if i did do a Cthulhu i wouldn't use a Cthulhu game to do it. Use something else- hell, use " In dark Alleys" its a horror/supernatural based game, but they don'y have Cthulhu so it wont be expected.