CthulhuTech?

[Jkeown]

Anyone had a look at this? I was thinking of a conversion. (Then again, I was thinking of converting Dark Heresy as well, and we ended up playing right out of the book!). This is a different sort of Mecha setting, based on Lovecraft... but the system itself is awful. My players liken the dice conventions to Yahtzee. HERO makes everything easier IMO...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Pretty boy: "Hey, you got chocolate cookie-dough ice cream on my pickled herring!"
Cute girl: "Hey, you got pickled herring on my chocolate cookie-dough ice cream!"
Voiceover: "Pickled herring and chocolate cookie-dough ice cream. Two great tastes that go... oh, the heck with it."
Seriously. Cthluhu and mecha?

[BobGreenwade]

Seriously. Cthluhu and mecha?Well, why not? Not that long ago people would have scoffed at the idea of a mighty warrior from another planet teaming up with a master wizard, but then you had the guy with the big red "S" on his chest working with that guy with the yellow helmet....

[Supreme Serpent]

Haven't looked at the game, but the basic concept seems fine to me. A lot of alien things like the Invid are only a step or two away from Cthuloid anyways. And if I were going to be fighting giant star-spawned nightmares, I sure as heck would like a mecha to do it in.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Voiceover: "Pickled herring and chocolate cookie-dough ice cream. Two great tastes that go... " Seriously. Cthluhu and mecha?

Well, I like pickled herrings, and I like chocolate cookie-dough ice cream, but I don't eat them at the same time.
Mecha is, to me, the ultimate empowerment fantasy --coming fairly close to solipsism. Cthulhu, on the other hand, is the ultimate disempowerment nightmare. Fantasies and nightmares do not go together. If Cthulhu were ever to show up in real life, I would love to see him pasted by a giant mecha.
But that is so not the point of the Mythos.

[Jomster]

Yog Radio 28 has an interesting interview with the authors which is well worth a listen.

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/docs2/yog-radio-28.mp3

There were a few technical issues but they re-animated the interview very well! :)

[Clonus]

Well, I like pickled herrings, and I like chocolate cookie-dough ice cream, but I don't eat them at the same time.
Mecha is, to me, the ultimate empowerment fantasy --coming fairly close to solipsism. Cthulhu, on the other hand, is the ultimate disempowerment nightmare. Fantasies and nightmares do not go together. If Cthulhu were ever to show up in real life, I would love to see him pasted by a giant mecha.
But that is so not the point of the Mythos.

You could say the same thing about Cthulhu plushies. Fortunately, nothing obligates us to actually care about the point of the Mythos.

[pinecone]

You could say the same thing about Cthulhu plushies. Fortunately, nothing obligates us to actually care about the point of the Mythos.

Yeah, in a contest between "purity" and fun....I'll be choosing fun...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Don't get me wrong. I am no fan of the Mythos. In my preferred take on the whole thing is still Paul Edwin Zimmer's Dark Border setting, the eldritch horrors from beyond are not only beatable, but profoundly handicapped by their very evil. I could certainly see mecha in a Dark Border-like setting, or 40k.
It's just that now you've taken the "Cthulhu" out of Cthulhu.

[Kristopher]

Well, I like pickled herrings, and I like chocolate cookie-dough ice cream, but I don't eat them at the same time.
Mecha is, to me, the ultimate empowerment fantasy --coming fairly close to solipsism. Cthulhu, on the other hand, is the ultimate disempowerment nightmare. Fantasies and nightmares do not go together. If Cthulhu were ever to show up in real life, I would love to see him pasted by a giant mecha.
But that is so not the point of the Mythos.

Whereas I look at mecha from a much more "walking tanks", military-esque point of view (The 08th MS Team series was the only Gundam version I could stand, the rest appearing to be mainly DBZ with mechs).

If extradimensional aliens are invading, I can think of worse things to fight them with than military mechs.

[Clonus]

Don't get me wrong. I am no fan of the Mythos. In my preferred take on the whole thing is still Paul Edwin Zimmer's Dark Border setting, the eldritch horrors from beyond are not only beatable, but profoundly handicapped by their very evil. I could certainly see mecha in a Dark Border-like setting, or 40k.
It's just that now you've taken the "Cthulhu" out of Cthulhu.

So did more mythos stories than the Lovecraft fans like to admit. Not only was Lovecraft not the only mythos author (Robert E. Howard was a mythos author for cryin' out loud), but Lovecraft himself wasn't always writing "mankind is uncomprehending, helpless and doomed in a hostile universe" stories. Cthlulu is not merely a philosophical perspective of the universe from a xenophobic shut-in. It's also an awesome resource for original aliens and critters.

[Beast]

CthulhuTech

maybe kinda like the Shadow enhanced Destroyers in Babylon 5

[bubba smith]

CthulhuTech

maybe kinda like the Shadow enhanced Destroyers in Babylon 5
OR THE COLLEGE FROM HELL
wouldn't you hate to see their sports mascot?

[Kelcyron]

OR THE COLLEGE FROM HELL
wouldn't you hate to see their sports mascot?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miskatonic_University



The Miskatonic University is said to have its own competitive swimming team, The Fighting Cephalopods. Their slogan is "Go Pods!".

Kelcyron

[Jkeown]

We played a long drawn-out Miskatonic University campaign from c.'87-'93 it was... different.

I think I'll shelve this idea until the core book becomes available again. Meanwhile, I think Space:1889 needs a HEROfication.

[Lawnmower Boy]

We played a long drawn-out Miskatonic University campaign from c.'87-'93 it was... different.

I think I'll shelve this idea until the core book becomes available again. Meanwhile, I think Space:1889 needs a HEROfication.
Now that I can get behind 110%.
Or stand around cheering. Y'know. Whatever's less work for me.


Seriously; that I would love to see.

[Jkeown]

I've a bit of it done, actually... I have etherflyers done, some vehicles, races (kinda bashed together, since race in S1889 meant only stat changes), and skill conversions. I've yet to do the professional package deals or the exclusively Martian packages. RPGs from that age make me just a little nostalgic and prone to sitting and reading them instead of doing actual work. But that will change.

[DusterBoy]

You could say the same thing about Cthulhu plushies. Fortunately, nothing obligates us to actually care about the point of the Mythos.

I have a Cthulhu plushie.

So I'm sad like that. Sue me.

(But my nieces love him)

[bubba smith]

they really MAKE cthulhu plushies?

[DusterBoy]

they really MAKE cthulhu plushies?

Sure, do you want yours in small, medium or large?

There's MIB, Dracula, Super Hero, Santa and Gothic versions.

I got mine from my local gaming store.

They have Nyarlethotep and Godzilla as well, plus the Mad Rabbit from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and a Red Dragon.

Mad and sad, I'm finally rumbled.

[Captain Obvious]

... races (kinda bashed together, since race in S1889 meant only stat changes)...

High Martians and Venusians had quite a bit of racial differences besides stat changes. Selenians, too, for that matter, but they had more in the way of disads than powers.

And yeah, Space: 1889 was an excellent background. The system was painfully "old school" though.

[Nyrath]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

[Clonus]

they really MAKE cthulhu plushies?

Of course. I wouldn't have used them to make my point otherwise:

http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/plush_cthulhu.html

Aren't they cute?

[bubba smith]

i saw them and iSTILL can't beleve it and i thought cthulhu was a floating brain i must be con fusing him with marvel's shuma-gorath

[Clonus]

i saw them and iSTILL can't beleve it and i thought cthulhu was a floating brain i must be con fusing him with marvel's shuma-gorath

Shuma Gorath is an eye with tentacles. Maybe you were thinking of the tentaculat from X-Com: Terror From the Deep? Which was incidentally Mythos-inspired.

[Badger]

You could say the same thing about Cthulhu plushies. Fortunately, nothing obligates us to actually care about the point of the Mythos.

Yeah, the Mythos makes for great reading, but IMO, crappy gaming. (or at least a IMO a self-defeating mindset to make it work)

[Captain Obvious]

I've never really understood how Call of Cthulhu became so thoroughly seen as a suicidal game, since every adventure I've ever seen for it is winnable. How the suicidal meme carries over into a Mythos game with giant robots is beyond me...it's a whole new ballgame. The playing field is leveled. If there was no automatic lose before, it's even less there now.

[Clonus]

Yeah, the Mythos makes for great reading, but IMO, crappy gaming. (or at least a IMO a self-defeating mindset to make it work)

No, it makes great gaming, as long you chuck all that "We're doomed, we're doomed" stuff from the Lovecraft fanbois and start kicking kazoot.

[Kristopher]

I've always rejected the whole concept of "anything you know or understand about what's really going on will invariably and inescapably make you more and more insane". :idjit:

[Captain Obvious]

I've always rejected the whole concept of "anything you know or understand about what's really going on will invariably and inescapably make you more and more insane". :idjit:

That's also a mischaracterization of the CoC rules. Learning that all you've known is a fragile tissue in a whirling vortex of chaos can make you more insane, but knowing that that chaos can be beaten can allow you to recenter. Defeating enemies gives SAN rewards.

[Clonus]

That's also a mischaracterization of the CoC rules.

But then he wasn't characterising the CoC rules.

[Captain Obvious]

But then he wasn't characterising the CoC rules.

Maybe so, but if that's the case, he was characterizing a common mischaracterization of the CoC rules...

[Acme]

Mecha is, to me, the ultimate empowerment fantasy --coming fairly close to solipsism. Cthulhu, on the other hand, is the ultimate disempowerment nightmare. Fantasies and nightmares do not go together. If Cthulhu were ever to show up in real life, I would love to see him pasted by a giant mecha.
But that is so not the point of the Mythos.

Having played CoC and Cthulhu Now, the impression I got was that the tech was irrelevant to the adversaries you fought. Modern weapons make a bigger boom, but the monsters are still scary. Space Horror is a subgenre where even with shiny toys, there are still things out there which can kill you (or worse). I refer to movies such as the Aliens series, Starship Troopers or even (shudder) Jason X. I think a CthulhuTech campaign could work with mecha. Hitting a Great Old One with a railgun would hurt/annoy it, but that's about it.

[Curufea]

I've never really understood how Call of Cthulhu became so thoroughly seen as a suicidal game, since every adventure I've ever seen for it is winnable.

D&D thought processes - kill the monsters, loot the bodies.

One of the points of having a genre with invulnerable monsters is to attempt to get players to realise that the monster is not what they should be fighting. The monster is what they should be avoiding - or it signifies they have failed in their adventure.

[Agent333]

Having played CoC and Cthulhu Now, the impression I got was that the tech was irrelevant to the adversaries you fought. Modern weapons make a bigger boom, but the monsters are still scary. Space Horror is a subgenre where even with shiny toys, there are still things out there which can kill you (or worse). I refer to movies such as the Aliens series, Starship Troopers or even (shudder) Jason X. I think a CthulhuTech campaign could work with mecha. Hitting a Great Old One with a railgun would hurt/annoy it, but that's about it.

A good friend and rpg player recently asked me about Call of Cthulhu after I laughingly told him about Cthulhutech. Surprised that he never experienced the game I had to dig way back in my memories to describe it and explain why it was fun despite the lack of "Kill stuff. Get loot!" In doing so I recalled that as bad as the eldritch horrors from beyond were, the worst part of the game was the cult conspiracy. You never knew who you could trust, you constantly had to hide your "eccentric" or even illegal activities. You can't tell anyone the truth and if you did you only helped the conspiracy further their ends. I mean, flying fungi from Pluto? He must be mad! Humanity at large simply will not accept these things.

It was then I saw that Cthulhutech is merely a future Earth that has "awakened" to the realities of the universe and is desperately (and dramatically) dealing with it. The conspiracy is real, monsters go bump in the night and the boogey-man really will get you in your sleep. A quick glance at sci-fi and horror movies from the past decade might lead one to think mankind is sub-consciously preparing for such a future. It would be sweet irony that after the great enlightenment defined a more rational reality, mankind meets the fact of an irrational universe with the same reaction: overreaction.

So, naturally, if 50 foot monsters are battering down your city walls you gotta build 50 foot robots to fight them off (at least until the Elder Sign ritual is finished). That's reasonable, right? And if civilians are becoming possessed by ravenous horrors that warp their shapes into carnivorous beasts you need to make a living symbiote that can shape your own body into an equally dangerous killing machine. I mean, that makes sense. I'd do it. And if a man attacks me with a knife, I want a gun. So, when a cultist sics his bound demon against me guess what? I'm gonna go bind a bigger demon and sic it on him. It's only reasonable. Rational in these times, I'd say...

That's what finally sold me: this vision of a tricked out, slick as snot future where Humanity is fighting back against the unnameable horror and seemingly holding its own. But it's not. These people are INSANE! Their desperate attempts to preserve their way of life and the very idea of what it means to be human is being destroyed by their efforts. It's a dramatic game where you get to play out humanity's last days (whatever form that takes). The philosophy of "Careful when fighting monsters that you don't become one yourself" is in full swing here.

I doubt I'll ever get to play the game, but it seems like it would appeal to the World of Darkness crowd that didn't get their sci-fi "emo-rush" from Trinity/Aeon. I think this game stands in contrast to CoC the way James Cameron's Aliens contrasted to Ridley Scott's Alien. Alien is a mostly straight horror film while Aliens is a drama-drenched survival horror story with guns. If you want to weep for fallen comrades (or your lost humanity) while pumping rounds of explosive ammo into Ghouls and Deep-ones and the Star-spawn of Cthulhu, this is probably the game for you.

[Clonus]

Maybe so, but if that's the case, he was characterizing a common mischaracterization of the CoC rules...

That's because it's an accurate characterisation of the actual mythos in most of the stories. There are no winners in it. The game fudges that because it has to. But speaking of horrifying:

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

[Captain Obvious]

That's because it's an accurate characterisation of the actual mythos in most of the stories. There are no winners in it. The game fudges that because it has to. But speaking of horrifying:

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

Few of the stories end in anything like a TPK. True, there are situations like at the end of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, where the main character escapes the monsters, only to find later that he's one himself, but they're not the rule either.

[Clonus]

Few of the stories end in anything like a TPK.

They almost all end with a sole lucid survivor, so that someone can tell the tale. IAlthough often he doesn't expect to survive for too much longer. I'd say that's something close to a TPK. In fact the only exception I can think of is The Dunwich Horror.

[Captain Obvious]

They almost all end with a sole lucid survivor, so that someone can tell the tale. IAlthough often he doesn't expect to survive for too much longer. I'd say that's something close to a TPK. In fact the only exception I can think of is The Dunwich Horror.

Well, aside from the necessary collateral deaths that make them horror stories, I don't see them that way. The overall background is one of alienness beyond mankind's comprehension, and if one of the heavy hitters ever took a particular interest in the Earth, that would be it, but the standard nasties that people actually encounter either in the game (in the published adventures) or in stories are not inescapable doombringers. Most of the stories have a party size of one, to put it in game terms, and most of the stories have at least that one survivor, with a few, as I mentioned earlier, who are doomed at some point after the end of the story. There is even a recurring character, Randolph Carter, appearing in several of HPL's stories.

Now granted, in order to be horror, there almost (almost) has to be a fairly sizable body count. But Lovecraft's main characters (as opposed to the non-speaking or off-camera NPC types) aren't particularly more likely to die than any other horror author's characters.

[Clonus]

Well, aside from the necessary collateral deaths that make them horror stories, I don't see them that way. The overall background is one of alienness beyond mankind's comprehension, and if one of the heavy hitters ever took a particular interest in the Earth, that would be it, but the standard nasties that people actually encounter either in the game (in the published adventures) or in stories are not inescapable doombringers. Most of the stories have a party size of one, to put it in game terms,

Mm...not so much. In Call of Cthulu they have two Investigators, both of whom die. In At the Mountains of Madness, the team who discover the Elder Thing die to the last man. The two guys who come after them survive by never actually encountering anything, but the one who goes insane, goes insane because he saw something for a moment. In Dagon, the lone protagonist sees something and is a wreck for the few years before they catch up with him and kill him. In the Lurking Fear, the protagonist goes through 3 other Investigators before the end of the story, and he was investigating something that was essentially mundane.

[Captain Obvious]

I'll concede At the Mountains of Madness, in that half of the "player party" went insane, but the original team was window dressing for the story.

I'm not sure who you're talking about for Call of Cthulhu. The only "investigator" per se is Investigator Legrasse, who survives. The deaths I see are some cultists killed in the raid led by Legrasse, a bunch of psychics (window dressing), Professor Angell (died of mysterious causes after being jostled by a "nautical looking negro"...this is also pretty much window dressing), and four sailors of Johansen's crew.

At any rate, obviously, I see some deaths as almost necessary to set the feel of a horror story. I don't count all of them against the deadliness of the story to the protagonists. They give the main characters a reason to do what they do. And when I read a Lovecraft story, I don't get that the main characters are dying off in the same way that most gamers seem to. For the most part, it seems to me that the average Mythos protagonist is better off than the average member of the Special Forces team in Predator, or the average crew member of the Nostromo in Alien, and while those monsters are held in high enough regard, they don't carry the same aura of dread that the Mythos creatures do, even when the Mythos beasts have their hindparts handed to them.

[Clonus]

I'll concede At the Mountains of Madness, in that half of the "player party" went insane, but the original team was window dressing for the story.



Only because they start the story already dead. But note that the original team are the ones who actually encounter a mythos creature. The two people in the story never do and that's why they are still alive. There may be a Cthulu GM who has run his Lovecraft campaign so the PC's never encounter anything. They always just find the bodies of the people who did. But I think the players would find that frustrating.

"Investigators" are what CoC calls PCs. In the case of Call of Cthulu the PCs are Angell and Johansen both of whom die.

[Captain Obvious]

Only because they start the story already dead. But note that the original team are the ones who actually encounter a mythos creature. The two people in the story never do and that's why they are still alive. There may be a Cthulu GM who has run his Lovecraft campaign so the PC's never encounter anything. They always just find the bodies of the people who did. But I think the players would find that frustrating.

"Investigators" are what CoC calls PCs. In the case of Call of Cthulu the PCs are Angell and Johansen both of whom die.

Johansen dies, yes, but he dies at home in bed, years after driving his ship through Cthulhu's head. That's hardly an argument for excessive lethality.

And Angell was assassinated...maybe by magic, or maybe by poison, but he was not caught in a situation where a reasonably fit person with a reasonably powerful weapon and with a reasonable number of similarly armed friends would have been totally overwhelmed by one overpowered creature.

At any rate, I'm done. Every published CoC adventure I've ever seen is winnable. The game and the stories it derives from have a certain level of lethality that is part and parcel of the horror genre, and the Mythos has the added background of a universe that isn't merely indifferent to mankind, but actively hostile, however, I stand by the assertion that the stories and the published adventures are no more lethal than others in the same genre. I suspect that it's entirely due to the kill-the-monster-take-the-treasure mentality of many gamers, especially early gamers.

[Kristopher]

It was then I saw that Cthulhutech is merely a future Earth that has "awakened" to the realities of the universe and is desperately (and dramatically) dealing with it. The conspiracy is real, monsters go bump in the night and the boogey-man really will get you in your sleep. A quick glance at sci-fi and horror movies from the past decade might lead one to think mankind is sub-consciously preparing for such a future. It would be sweet irony that after the great enlightenment defined a more rational reality, mankind meets the fact of an irrational universe with the same reaction: overreaction.

Niven's Known Space setting...

Short version, humanity gets rid of war, most people can't even imagine taking violent action against another thinking creature, all the ships are unarmed.

And then the super-aggressive aliens show up.

[Maelstrom]

And their poor telepaths keep telling them, "The humans are unarmed! The humans are unarmed!"

[Kristopher]

And their poor telepaths keep telling them, "The humans are unarmed! The humans are unarmed!"

Of course, the "pathologically aggressive" (ie, normal by today's standards) character "goes insane" and remembers that the ship's main drive is pretty much a giant laser that takes up a good part of the ship's mass...

[Maelstrom]

I loved the Known Space tales.