From: robert@cs.anu.edu.au (Robert Cohen)
Subject: Re: CoC Campaigns (Was: Re: Call of Cthulhu Archives?)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Australian National University
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 05:35:47 GMT

maxson@cerl.uiuc.edu (K R Maxson) writes:

>In article <92241.095312BJP108@psuvm.psu.edu> BJP108@psuvm.psu.edu (Brian Panulla, MooCow) writes:
>>Has anyone out there ever written their own campaigns? I'm in the process
>>of doing so right now, and wouldn't mind swapping ideas.

>I don't think the atmosphere of Call of Cthulhu lends itself to campaigns,
>although I've tremendously enjoyed running a number of cosmetically-
>linked Call of Cthulhu scenarios.  (Well, sort of CoC scenarios; I don't
>actually use the CoC game system.)

>There is a severe problem in CoC with character mortality, both physically
>and . . . otherwise.  I've never seen a satisfying role playing campaign
>survive the kind of character turnover that CoC begets.  Having some turnover
>is alright, but considering what you normally get with CoC -- in the last
>scenario I ran it fell out such that:

I don't really understand the problem people have with CoC and
campaigns. Or why people have such high character turnovers.
Sure combat with Cthulhu entities is deadly. Don't do
combat. The combat is pointless anyway. With the minor entities you
could successfully combat, it makes very little
difference to the world if they are killed. The major entities
you are not going to be able to effect anyway so don't bother to try combat.
If the scenario requires frequent frontal assault on nests of Cthulhu
monsters, I believe it's a bad scenario.
The scenario's I run, I carefully make sure that the frontal
assualt is unnecessary, there is always another way to advance.
Even further, direct attack will generally be doomed to failure.

I have always found the most enjoyable aspect of the game to
be deduction and detective work. The problem is not applying force.
The problem is working out where to apply it. The entities in
CoC are tremendously powerful. So why haven't they taken over
the world already. They always have a weakness. Weaknesses are commonly
connected with the fact that the powerful entities generally 
can't act without a human agent performing a spell except in exceptional
circumstance (oh no, not a conjunction, arrghhh).
Generally their human servants can be thwarted.
But how is not necessarily obvious.

In the last campaign I played in, the game lasted for over a year
played fortnightly. In that time we had I think two combats.
We lost one character to monsters and one too insanity.
It was the most enjoyable game I have ever played in.
The enjoyment came from working out the wheels within the wheels
not from vicarious combat.

People might say we're not playing the "one true Cthulhu"
and missing out on the atmosphere. I agree the atmosphere
of a long game is very different from a shorter game. You
just can't sustain the atmosphere for that length of time.
Hopefully you can intersperse the relatively mundane detective
work with "atmospheric scenes". It's not easy but it can be done.

Shorter games concentrating on atmosphere can be very enjoyable and
certainly have their place. However it is very easy to descend
to hack and slash "shotguns and shoggoths" style of play.

So I believe it all comes down to balance. In the end we're doing
it for enjoyment. Find out what your players want from the game.
Then balance it with the sort of game you want to run.
Problem solving, combat and atmosphere all have their place.


Robert

-- 
Robert Cohen		email: robert@cs.anu.edu.au
PhD Student,  Dept of Computer Science
Australian National University
Neuron not responding, still meditating.  - "BrainOS" error message