Horror/Cthulhu-ish RPGing, Is anyone else tired of it. Options

[The Question Man]

I have been experienceing a trend lately in all three gaming groups that I play. They all involve Horror/Cuthulhu themes as part of the settings.

Is it just me he find's it old and tired?

New gaming materials always seem to involve some of these elements.

As a GM I have dropped them from my campaign.

Has it worn out it's welcome in you games?

QM

[FrostyNSO]

Yes. Our group has reverted to good old fashioned underworld politics. After all the whole horror/cuthulhu things, it is a breath of fresh air.

[Crimson Jack]

I don't really like the horror element all that much... maybe its the name. Horrors. Just sounds stupid to me. Plus, I'm not an ED gamer/GM and don't really know all that much about them (outside of the Harlequin module). I used them once to good effect, but got more mileage out of the UB and Bug City than anything else.

I find that horror is a nice tool to use in other ways in my games. I implemented a haunted house 'red herring' in a standard run once that had nothing at all to do with the mafia run that I wrote. Took my players by surprise when they kept seeing dead victims tied up in chairs with burlap bags over their heads, breathing heavily... only to disappear a second later.

But as to Cthuluish GMing... I stay away from it. Horrors collect dust now too... until the next module including them.

[Tanka]

Well considering my current game is Earthdawn... That's the entire basis. You really can't have ED without Horrors of some form (even the Chompers, heh).

It really depends on the game, though. Horrors (as in Vejigorm) only really work in certain games, whilst horrors (you know, the ones that are just scary as compared to being able to eat your soul) are rather commonplace in a lot of games.

[Crimson Jack]

So the Horrors are rampant in ED? Are they Cthulu-ish creatures essentially? They seemed rather shell/spider-like in Harlequin although I haven't opened that module in quite some time.

[Tanka]

Not really "rampant," per se. Just... There. Some of the major ones are still around, and a lot of the minors are.

The ones in Harlequin's Back are minor by far. The big ones like Chantrel's Horror and Vejigorm still have a bit of time before they even send any meaningful heralds of their imminent arrival.

[shadow_scholar]

I don't see anything wrong with a horror-based campaign. Just keep changing the flavors of your campaigns as they move from one to the next. When I say campaign I mean a set of runs/adventures with a common theme tying them all together. Once that final, major horror based conflict is finally solved jump into a mafia war campaign, or a corp war one, or finally bring back one of the character's enemies from the past (every group has at least one character with a dark secret/major enemy), or start pulling out the special genre stuff like a cyberpirates campaign. Keep feeding your players the same flavors and they're going to get tired of eating it more than you get tired of serving it to them.

[Bandwidthoracle]

As a GM I have dropped them from my campaign. Has it worn out it's welcome in you games?

I totally agree! I really hope the next round of books goes away from the horrors/earthdawn stuff.

[Tal]

One time my darling runners took it into their heads to try and summon Cthulu. They died, of course. I'm beginning to find a rather self-destructive pattern in their actions.

But aye, I'd much prefer gritty underworld politics to chasing a ghost around, SCooby-style.

[DocMortand]

I never was one to go for the Horrors myself. Yeah they are nasty - but there is enough nastiness in the current world to incorporate old-time horrors.

Heck, a dystopian world shouldn't need outside influences anyways - it can destroy itself on its own.

[TeOdio]

I have it in my overall view of the 6th World (Mainly because I thought ED was the absolute Shiz!) I ran only one run that dealt with something outside of the "normal" Shadowrun Magical paradigm and draped it in a 4th world connection, but that was a while ago with players that "knew" too much and had a hard time keeping what they knew from what their characters knew so I threw them a curve ball. It's still a part of my game, but I use it only once in great while, more of an In House joke for those of us that played or ran ED. There is so many other great ideas in the SR world, I would get bored just by focusing too much on one thing, so I throw in the mix of Corp, Street, 6th World to keep myself from getting too wrapped up in one plot. I've found that the ED/SR connection only works well anyway if you've got a really good mage in your group anyway. Your average Street Sam or Decker could give a rat's ass less about ancient theoretical history, but since Magic is (at least believed by most) to be cyclical, it adds some depth to a powerful reality that has only been around for 50 some years in the 6th world.
:nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen:

[SirKodiak]

[Tal]

The general idea was to get Lofwyr into a fight with Cthulu and make off with as much of the treasure as they could carry. I really need to start hitting them with something large and blunt soon.

[Grinder]

Most players (as well as the GM) of my shadowrun group play a weekly ED-campaign with me as GM for three and a half years now. So we have no lack of horrors and their influence there. When playing SR we use corp and underworld politics. Having Horror in SR would be kinda boring.

[nezumi]

I'm with shadow_scholar, it's all about moderation. If you have one job out of five involve horrors (or something spooky), it's fun. If you have an entire campaign about it? They stop being scary and just get stale.

Horrors are great, but I use them very sparringly. Just a pinch for flavor. There really is enough stuff already out there, but that doesn't mean I don't grab everything I can possibly get on them.

[torzzzzz]

i used to play cthulhu all the time as a game its self it ok if you GM it right. but i must say it only works as a game not used in other if you know what i mean, shadowrun douse not need any help on the twisted side of things!

torz :rotfl: