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09:19, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Posted by Twist
Twist
member, 5 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:03
  • msg #1

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

I love horror stories, and always thought Call of Cthulhu was the ideal TTRPG for me because of them--the BRP rules are generally pretty intuitive and the focus is always on the characters and story rather than calculating rolls and rules. It also seems like should adapt, for largely the same reasons, to PbP gameplay really well.

Looking at it here, though, it looks like freeform games are a lot more popular than CoC is. They seem to emphasize the same things I like, so I'm wondering if maybe I should adapt my Cthulhu adventures to pure RP/freeform games. Anyone have thoughts on that?
Gilren
member, 74 posts
Don't be mad because the
voices don't talk to you
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:08
  • msg #2

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

To be honest with you, I think whatever way you think you could tell a better story is the way to go. Some people crave structure and want rules in place. Others like the way freeform games let you express more creativity and give you a more relaxed way to do things so they more resemble stories than gaming sessions.

But at the end of the day, it's your game to keep alive. So whichever way you choose, make sure it's one you can have as much fun as you want your players to have.
liblarva
member, 759 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:20
  • msg #3

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

I’ve run Call of Cthulhu 7E on here a few times. If I were to do it again, I’d use free-form with a few rolls to keep things surprising and interesting.

But, as said, it’s your game so whatever works best for you.
Gilren
member, 75 posts
Don't be mad because the
voices don't talk to you
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:21
  • msg #4

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

liblarva's hybrid idea sounds like an amazing idea for playing by post like this.
Twist
member, 6 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:23
  • msg #5

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Yeah, it sounds like it might be exactly what I'm looking for. Do you have any advice on how/when to use rolls, as someone who's done it before?
tibiotarsus
member, 263 posts
Hopepunk with a shovel
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 21:38
  • msg #6

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Seconding the "whatever best suits your story" but CoC ought to be low-rolling anyway, since it's investigative - if you want to ditch the system but have a functional horror game (I cannot think of a way that freeform horror would work as horror), may I recommend Dread, or a similar "pass/fail when you get to a significant point" system?

Dread is intended to be played with a Jenga tower, but the dice roller here lets you roll any hypothetical die, so I start players off at a d52 and if they fail (get under half) it "wobbles" to a d50 etc. etc.
Twist
member, 7 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 22:02
  • msg #7

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

A...jenga tower? That's incredible; I've never heard of that system. I'll check it out--thanks for the recommendation!

I'm pretty sure I won't go far from Call of Cthulhu though; it's very much in my comfort zone. I've run several over on Myth-weavers but came back here recently because I prefer everything about this site. I mention the free-form/hybrid idea just because it looks like more people here might be interested in that, and overall I don't care about systems, only the story itself.
Gilren
member, 76 posts
Don't be mad because the
voices don't talk to you
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 22:33
  • msg #8

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

As a developer, I'd say that the easiest way to determine when to roll dice is to decide if the outcome needs to be random.

For example, a normal person would likely need a roll to see if they could force down a standard stuck wooden door. But someone with superhuman strength shouldn't fail that simple a task. Superman doesn't need to roll to fly under normal situations. Namor breathes water automatically. Normal people don't roll to do simple tasks like opening a standard unlocked door, or need an agility check to use a fork.

If the roll is vital to the story, why chance failure? An obvious clue is obvious. The one piece of info that the players cannot continue without should be there. Anything that would stop the story can be handwaved or should be written in as something that would happen.

What should be rolled are things that can fail. Attacks are the best example. Anything that has a chance to fail should have that chance to fail.

Another thing that you can do with random rolls is to offer your players a chance to "fail forward". In a nutshell, let a player chance a failed roll to a success with strings attached. Maybe a missed shot actually ends up hitting, but the gun jams as soon as the bullet leaves the chamber, rendering it useless until the jam is cleared. A failed dodge becomes successful, except that the character trips and falls to the side rendering them prone. Deflecting the killing shot means that someone nearby now gets hit. Etc. And this need not be in the same action. A get out of jail free card might mean that the GM gets to make a similar success later on for one of their NPCs. The potential is endless...

But I digress. My real rule of thumb in designing games is simply this: If the outcome should happen, why risk a roll?
tibiotarsus
member, 264 posts
Hopepunk with a shovel
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 22:40
  • msg #9

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

^ Good explanations up there, and also why I don't believe you can freeform horror.

Dread is great fun played live! I recommend the (free) quickstart version, the book's more about how to GM for people just getting into gaming than providing ideas.

A tip, though: going for popularity over best fit means you'll pick up more taste-it-and-vanish types, and the expectations of freeform aren't generally for a contained story, more a sandbox 'area', which amplifies the 'drop in/out' expectation.

If you want interested folks likely to stay the course of a contained story, you want people invested in a system with the expectations that go along with it. There is a pool of very able CoC players on here and several others who'd like to learn - I honestly don't think you need to hack anything off for very low-dice play, but that's just my opinion.
liblarva
member, 760 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 22:50
  • msg #10

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Dread can be a lot of fun with the right group. A bit hard to do in PbP though.

If you want rules ultra-light Call of Cthulhu I’d start with a game called Cthulhu Dark. You can run any Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green scenarios with it easily. Last I checked it’s still free.

>any advice on how/when to use rolls?

As others have said, roll as little as possible. Don’t roll to find clues, etc. But things like combat, machine guns, etc will cause you a lot of headaches or you’ll have to house rule Call of Cthulhu 7E quite a bit to avoid rolling a lot. You can cobble together systems and subsystems to make Call of Cthulhu 7E easier to handle, but to me it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Better to start with a simple system and go from there.
liblarva
member, 761 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 23:00
  • msg #11

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

In reply to tibiotarsus (msg # 9):

>I don't believe you can freeform horror.

There are currently nine active free-form horror games on the site. With about 50,000 posts between them.
This message was last edited by the user at 23:03, Thu 23 June 2022.
Twist
member, 8 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 23:12
  • msg #12

Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

This is all really helpful--I appreciate everyone's thoughts enormously!

I'm going to look into Cthulhu Dark. In the meantime, I have a pre-written 7e adventure I wanted to run, and I feel like I could strip out a lot of the slower elements of the system de facto--there are no guns in it, for one--and make it more or less the low-rolling, motile experience you're recommending. In particular, while I had already been pretty comfortably with the old "only call for rolls if there's a significant downside" idea, it somehow hadn't really occured to me that for things the investigators more or less need to know, they shouldn't have to roll for it.
If anyone's interested, I have an old post over in recruiting I'm going to update.

Under thought, a lot of classic CoC adventures utterly fail in that regard. RIP to my entire party who failed to locate Walter Corbitt's body before they were murdered by a magic knife. Our GM maybe should have let us know to look again, somehow?
tibiotarsus
member, 265 posts
Hopepunk with a shovel
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 23:20
  • msg #13

Re: Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

liblarva:
Dread can be a lot of fun with the right group. A bit hard to do in PbP though.


? I've never had any issues with it on here, running or playing - were you modelling the 'tower' differently, or is there some problem I/Twist is likely to run into in future with uncertain rolls or similar?


quote:
There are currently nine active free-form horror games on the site.


People use "horror" to signal/mean "has vampires in" and similar, though; that doesn't necessarily mean any fear and dread is going down. You could be shooting said vampires like arcade dummies or they could be hanging out drinking goat blood in cute little cafés, neither of which would be horror gaming, but could easily be tagged such to attract people looking for, say, the equivalent of Night Vale as a sandbox.

I am fairly certain my definition and the freeform players' don't overlap, but if you have an example of how one could put characters in certain peril of uncertain/terminal badness with no random element whatsoever, you are welcome to lay it out as an example, I'm sure it'd be helpful to the original question.


Twist:
Under thought, a lot of classic CoC adventures utterly fail in that regard. RIP to my entire party who failed to locate Walter Corbitt's body before they were murdered by a magic knife. Our GM maybe should have let us know to look again, somehow?


Oh no! Your Keeper probably lost the rest of their notes to implement (or hadn't heard of) the Three Clue Rule, that wasn't very fair to anyone. Then again, Keepering is mostly developing the skill of trying to divert Investigators from beelining straight into the most lethal pickle available whilst maintaining an aura of threat...seriously, they're like small children that way...
Twist
member, 9 posts
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 23:32
  • msg #14

Re: Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

quote:
Oh no! Your Keeper probably lost the rest of their notes to implement (or hadn't heard of) the Three Clue Rule, that wasn't very fair to anyone. Then again, Keepering is mostly developing the skill of trying to divert Investigators from beelining straight into the most lethal pickle available whilst maintaining an aura of threat...seriously, they're like small children that way...


I'm trying to remember how the scenario went down; it was a few years ago, back in 6th edition days. I know I read the whole thing afterwards and I want to say there was really only one clue that he was

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
buried in the house but behind a false wall
in the scenaro and I suppose we missed it somehow. It seems fairly obvious in hindsight, but I was like, a literal child at the time. (It probably didn't help that I was essentially table-GFing the whole game. I didn't really get my character sheet, but it did look exceptional by the time I was delicately ventilated. I don't mean to throw my keeper under the bus!)
This message was last edited by the user at 23:34, Thu 23 June 2022.
tibiotarsus
member, 266 posts
Hopepunk with a shovel
Thu 23 Jun 2022
at 23:44
  • msg #15

Re: Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Ah, no shade intended: no-one starts out getting everything right, especially when it comes to patching up holes in published materials. Still, that's a good example of what's the Keeper's job (give a fair chance of getting info to players) versus the dice's, so in hindsight it's a useful experience to have had.

If you get folk from crunchier systems, they might need reminding that even if the dice say "you don't see anything looking about in general", there's still the option to RP "I look specifically in the grand piano" and fetch a clue that way, but I've found most CoC players are pretty aware that the more things/people/hollow walls they poke, the more bodies fall out, so to speak.
achmed_the_mad
supporter, 76 posts
Think Terry Pratchett
...and migraines!
Fri 24 Jun 2022
at 06:27
  • msg #16

Re: Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

To add to what others have already said, make rolls about interpreting clues, or even pointing them out, rather than finding them. Or make a failed roll 'success, but at a price'. The number one rule of all investigative games is that, no matter how obvious a clue seems to the GM, the PCs will either miss it, misinterpret it, or ignore it in favor of a baroque conspiracy based on a random detail :)

I prefer a system-based game to a freeform one, even if the system is a light one like FATE. My best memories of CoC games have been where events were driven in an unexpected direction by a bizarre dice roll, good or bad, which is hard to replicate in freeform.
Gaffer
member, 1738 posts
Ocoee FL
45 yrs of RPGs
Fri 24 Jun 2022
at 11:40
  • msg #17

Re: Call of Cthulhu or Freeform?

Always glad to hear of another potential Lovecraftian horror GM coming along.

As others have said, rolling is down to the game runners discretion. In my CoC games I tend to lean more on narrative than mechanics, especially in PbP. My current game has been running about 18 months with 4-5 players and has amassed almost 3000 posts (about 25% by the Keeper). There have been only a little over 200 dice rolls by Keeper and players (excluding character generation).

Hope to see you recruit for a CoC-ish game soon.
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