Tag Archives: Call of Cthulhu

2018 in gaming (for me)

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It’s time to reflect upon this year.

2018 was a bit of a game changer (pun intended). I made a conscious decision to avoid roleplaying since I had felt a major burnout on that subject. I have been roleplaying for about 25 years so it is a big part of who I am and how I perceive myself. And I have to admit that taking that break has been one of the best ideas I have ever had.

Since roleplaying has been my main way to see my friends I felt that I wanted to fill in that void. And luckily our Guild has a vast number of players willing to play different games.

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“You are not playing Lovecraft right!”

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After starting Arkham Horror the Card Game I have yet again heard the all too familiar comment about not playing true to the Lovecraft’s vision. So on this post I’m going to discuss my opinions about how Lovecraftian games and the stories linked to Cthulhy Mythos are linked.

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Use It or Lose It

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You remember that time you got an excellent idea? The one you were certain you wanted to try in a rpg when the moment was just right? Yes. That one you never actually got around using.

In all likelihood this is a thing for GMs. At least I know it is a thing for me. I watch a show on tv (Netflix, what ever) or read a book or just randomly toss thing around in my mind and it hits me. “This is something I want to incorporate to my game!” I might even write it down so that I’ll remember it when the setting, characters, theme or what ever is right.

And when the moment comes I either have forgotten about it or just can’t find it from my notes. Continue reading →

Lovecraft, Buddha, and Me: On the Relevance of H. P. Lovecraft’s Vision

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buddha2-l

(The source of the image. Those statues are all sold out.)

Lovecraftian horror is a staple of horror roleplaying, but it has its detractors as well. They don’t see anything frightening about Cthulhu and some also try to argue intellectually that no one else should either. I raise some questions about it, offer some answers — including one that says that questions are the answer — and venture into a territory I’ve not seen dealt with before: what happens to a Buddhist who meets a Lovecraftian monstrosity? Continue reading →

Horror in Dungeons

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With all the OCR-stuff going on dungeons are getting better rep than in ages. Dungeon World is a certain classic and a game I would be willing to play at any time. Almost a year ago I talked about making dungeons on the fly and this subject raised its ugly head last Tuesday when the party descended into an ancient underground city in Egypt. Granted I was pretty tired then but I still think I had something good going on.

We are going to continue our descend into this forgotten tomb tomorrow and while I was searching the web for ideas and made notes about how to get it right I came into a conclusion that what I am actually doing is building a dungeon while I thought I was making a scenario for Call of Cthulhuish game.

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The difference between CoCian and BWian philosophies of skills

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Roleplaying games can represent stuff about real life that you don’t necessarily stop to think about. I’ll write about one here, the difference between how Call of Cthulhu and Burning Wheel handle skills, and what those differences say about human capabilities. And why it matters quite a lot to me, personally. Continue reading →

Creating an Archipelago Game

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About a month ago I managed to get into Jason Morningstar‘s Archipelago game “Love in the Time of Khavarner“. I really liked the setting and the style the game worked and began immediately to think how I could hack it. Jason himself said that it is not as simple as it seems. And after working on a game I have to admit he was right.

Without going into details about what is needed for an Archipelago game I must admit that I used the two existing games Love in the Time of Seið and Love in the Time of Khavarner as the starting point. I did not have high ambitions about a truly original masterpiece but an idea about a game I really wanted to take part in. Continue reading →

Trying Out: Fall of Magic & Archipelago

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During last weekend I was lucky enough to get into two games ran by Jason Morningstar at Ropecon; one of which I was not even thinking to get into but managed to get a seat when a player did not turn up. Too bad for him. It was an excellent game and pretty much shook up my whole view of roleplaying (in a similar way that AWengine did a few years ago). In essence this post is about testing Fall of Magic and Archipelago.

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[Door of Shadows] Creating the Campaign Setup

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The Pull

Randomizing the characters

We started a new campaign at the beginning of the year (as discussed in my previous post).

This campaign is linked to the Wayward Sons-campaign I ran last year though it takes place 40 years earlier. And even though I jump started this “discussion” about the campaign with the experiments I have had with a Mythos Tome I decided that our first session also deserves to shared.

As first sessions go it wasn’t an actual playing session in a traditional sense but more like a conversation of what we were going to play. Vincent Baker‘s Apocalypse World advices you to do something similar but we took it a bit further.

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Experimenting on Mythos Tomes

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We have been playing my AWengine hack for a few months now. There is a lot to talk about this game but I make my return to blogging by discussing the use of Mythos Tomes in roleplaying games.

A Mythos Tome is most likely found in horror games but should by no means to be limited to them. Mythos Tomes are ancient books filled with most eldritch secrets no man was ever to know. Or at least that is the main assumption. Continue reading →