Okay.
I'd like to see what you guys think hypothetical.
You have signed up for a horror game, which you have been told ahead of time is being run in the Purist mod of Lovecraftian gaming.
During the game you discover that the best possible outcome of the scenario, is your characters death or incarceration at an asylum. That one of these outcomes is the intended ending of the scenario, and was from the start.
Now would you mind letting me know how you would react if:
A, it was a one shot game.
B, the intended outcome of a scenario run in the background of an ongoing campaign.
A: Cool, like a good horror movie with a logical ending.
B: Depends, is it foreshadowed? If yes, then cool. If not then bye bye game.
The whole body of the scenario is basically "learning about the hundred and one ways you are screwed", so it should not come out of nowhere.
sounds like run of the mill Call of Cthulhu to me.
got to say, that I can't off my head think of any CoC scenario that explicitly treats death of a PC as the victory condition of the scenario. Sure, plenty of scenarios will casually kill the whole group, but very few set out to kill drive made one character, especially not without some sort of way out or possible victory. That latter, no way out of this, is one of the things that in my experience scenarios like "the dying of st margaret's" so apart from thes standard fair.
I don't think that such scenarios would fly in today's more selfish crowd though.Okay.
I'd like to see what you guys think hypothetical.
You have signed up for a horror game, which you have been told ahead of time is being run in the Purist mod of Lovecraftian gaming.
During the game you discover that the best possible outcome of the scenario, is your characters death or incarceration at an asylum. That one of these outcomes is the intended ending of the scenario, and was from the start.
Now would you mind letting me know how you would react if:
A, it was a one shot game.
B, the intended outcome of a scenario run in the background of an ongoing campaign.
That is my concern.
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I don't think that such scenarios would fly in today's more selfish crowd though.That is my concern.
Hey, you know your own group better than people on a forum. No need to make sweeping judgments of everyone else in the world and hard for everyone else to make judgments about your own.
Personally, I always liked at least the slim chance of success without the end being predetermined. My predetermined doom or failure isn't too hot unless its something I decided for myself. A game where my success and/or choices are predetermined before I even sat down takes away a lot of the fun and enjoyment.
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I don't think that such scenarios would fly in today's more selfish crowd though.That is my concern.Hey, you know your own group better than people on a forum. No need to make sweeping judgments of everyone else in the world and hard for everyone else to make judgments about your own.
Personally, I always liked at least the slim chance of success without the end being predetermined. My predetermined doom or failure isn't too hot unless its something I decided for myself. A game where my success and/or choices are predetermined before I even sat down takes away a lot of the fun and enjoyment.
Oh I know how my group would handle it. They'd be fine.
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sounds like run of the mill Call of Cthulhu to me.got to say, that I can't off my head think of any CoC scenario that explicitly treats death of a PC as the victory condition of the scenario. Sure, plenty of scenarios will casually kill the whole group, but very few set out to kill drive made one character, especially not without some sort of way out or possible victory. That latter, no way out of this, is one of the things that in my experience scenarios like "the dying of st margaret's" so apart from thes standard fair.
Staying alive or sane as long as possible is the goal for us so I assumed incorrectly about what you are asking. So you are saying you want to say "you die at the end being a hero" and the game is figuring out how that happens?
This is the main reason why I don't like Coc. No problem with self sacrifice but there are too many suicide runs including sacrificing party members without everyone being in on it.
Basic premise of the game is this.
A character is born into a 'cursed bloodline', without action on the part of the players he will be come a 'monster'.
The body of game is uncovering the details of the curse, and the monster that you will become.
The question that the scenario seeks to answer is: how will your character react to an unavoidable fate worse than death.
So my question you you guys, re-phrased is this.
How would you feel about playing in a game where the best possible outcome for your character is death, and where that death is the focus of the whole scenario's narrative.
More specifically how do you feel about it in a one shot, and how do you feel about it as part of a campaign.
This is the main reason why I don't like Coc. No problem with self sacrifice but there are too many suicide runs including sacrificing party members without everyone being in on it.
If everyone isn't signed up for it, then that is a problem with the keepers you've played with, not the game. CoC, and the scenarios written for it, have always been very upfront about what they are.
Not a fan of it myself. Noting personal of course. I like more than anything for my players to have agency and although its perfectly acceptable for 'bad things to happen' to pcs, a campaign where, before your stats are even rolled has the phrase 'unavoidable fate worse than death' as the punchline... Change that phrase to 'nearly unavoidable' so the player has some sense of agency about his fate...
I mean... To rephrase it another way the campaign could be sold to players by saying
'This campaign is so awesome and so deep and so rich and touching... The campaign is about your character coming to grips and peacefully, poetically becoming willing to embrace his inevitable death.'
Which sounds a lot better than 'By the time the campaign is over your character will truly wish he was dead...'
And therein lies the question. If your character knows its going to die... And is expected to come to terms with it and end his life willingly... What's going to keep him around till the denoument... The campaign may be about the journey through the 7 stages of grief... or even about distracting oneself from going through those stages by immersing oneself in the study of one's own nature until... the moment... but controlling the 'when' of that moment to make sure it happens at this really meaningful point instead of a player just going "yeah... But if its a death I can't possibly avoid then why exactly am I, as you say 'uncovering what I will become and why...'" or is the notion that the character won't have a clear idea that his death isn't avoidable until 'time's up'... in which case you'd either have to have some players capable of epic levels of non meta or you'd have to sell it to the players as an avoidable fate when in fact it is not.
The point of the journey is indeed to give the journey meaning... But I'm wondering what the meaning of the journey would be that would prolong it to a significant degree past the point of 'nope. I'm definitely definitely screwed.' and if it did inexplicably feature a character that was 'just so darn curious and determined to understand the nature of his condition for as long as possible'... at what point would we let him know... uh... time's up.
I mean. When you ask players to sign up for a campaign that is just wall to wall grimtooths traps... they do pretty much *know* they're gonna die... They *hope* to live... but anyone who's read grimtooth knows they're gonna die. The 'goal' is to see who survives the longest and to laugh at the horrible atrocities that will befall your teammates.
In this campaign they 'know' they're gonna die... and are going to consider dieing a 'victory' but what's the carrot for them to achieve... What onus do they have once it's obvious theres no way out... of sticking around?
Seems.. Very tricky. Unless you are playing with guys who play cthulhu and are used to such stuff I suppose. I think the campaign would be over the second someone said yes to it... Because I'd ask them why they agreed to it, and then they'd look deep into my eyes and put their hand on my shoulder and say 'It's not about how I die... It's about how I lived.'
And I'd be like yep. That was beautiful.. Campaigns over. You won.
I suppose its not a horrible premise. If done right it could be a wonderful touching campaign... But in this instance I truly think its the sales pitch itself thats horrible.
You don't advertise the M Night Shyamalan movie by telling people what it's *actually about*...
I mean sure... Your campaign is *about* a character coming to terms with his own death in the same way that the truman show is 'about him finding out his entire life is a lie' but thats not *really* what the truman show is about... It's about him fighting against the walls of fear and doubt surrounding his life in pursuit of a girl he met a decade ago and couldn't get off his mind... It was about love overcoming irrational fear, and irrational fear thats been steeped in a lifetime of making that fear seem rational, and throwing caution to the wind anyway. Rebelling against the gods themselves, daring them to smite you for at no greater cost would you give up your free will.
But the truman show ended well and was able to fess up to the nature of its plot and still be able to sell tickets...
On the other hand you know a shyamalan movie is trying its level best to be good only as a result of you not 'knowing' the truth ahead of time. Which might be a better way to sell the campaign... In the beginning all you needed to know was you were going to see a movie about a boy who see's ghosts and a therapist who tries to help him through it.... Or a movie about an amish town fighting the faceless monster in the woods. That's plenty of plot... You have to sell a shyamalan movie not by saying what its about but by saying what 'else' it's about. And then hoping the characters decide that your 'shyamalan moment' is a cool and poignant one only after they're deep into the campaign already and the moment of discovery is the part of the campaign that's awesome and then solidifies the character's fate as unavoidable and wonderful and all that.
Yeah. As a way of 'measuring a non cthuluans' reactions to a campaign that is pitched so raw, I wouldnt dog on pathfinder players for not taking a shining to the sales pitch... and they're not worse gamers for wanting to play a campaign thats a whole lot less of what you're pitching...
If you pitch it as 'lovecraftian' and 'you will die' then at least your players know what to expect.
I would not at all be surprised to find an even spread of pathfinder players who either like the idea just fine or would say nah. not for me.
Not being a cthulhu or lovecraft fan is what would make it a no for me personally.
Only thing I like about lovecraft is that he was also a fan of Ambrose Bierce... Which I am.
But grimdark aint really my cup o tea.
Granted if your table plays a lot of cthulhu then maybe:
'By the time the campaign is over your character will truly wish he was dead...'
Is plenty of sales pitch... But if thats true you wouldn't have much need to find out how other people on the forums feel about such things...
Just be glad your particular table likes marching bravely to their inevitable doom.
As I said, I know how my table deal with this sort of thing (they buy me 7th edition CoC hardbacks as a thank you, mostly). How others might react to it is of both interesting to me, and of practical use to me. I'll read the rest of your comments later.
As long as we, the Players know OOC that this is a COC "style " game, where "winning" isn't really the same, then sure. I would have fun. To have it be a surprise after I invested a lot into my PC- no.
As a one-shot, awesome.
For a campaign, it really depends on the length of it. If it were a fairly short campaign, say 6 months or less, that's cool. Much longer than that though, I don't think I'd be down for that. That is a pretty significant time investment in my ever-dwindling free time, and I'd probably feel a bit cheated. I'd much rather play a long term game where I get to feel like a Big Damn Hero in the end.
Edit: It should be noted I've never played a CoC style game, and don't know a whole lot about Lovecraft outside of it dealing with themes of madness and the elder gods. My gaming experience is strictly 3.x and Pathfinder.
I thought of setting a game up where there was a relic "like a teleporter" that made an Astral Projection to some other plane. You could use some device like that and have the characters make the choice to sacrifice themselves on that plane, but their characters wouldn't die(just loose 2 levels). For the real danger you could have some silver cord-cutting denizens lurking about that they would have to deal with from time-to-time.
It could be an easier sell - Just a thought.
sounds like run of the mill Call of Cthulhu to me.got to say, that I can't off my head think of any CoC scenario that explicitly treats death of a PC as the victory condition of the scenario. Sure, plenty of scenarios will casually kill the whole group, but very few set out to kill drive made one character, especially not without some sort of way out or possible victory. That latter, no way out of this, is one of the things that in my experience scenarios like "the dying of st margaret's" so apart from thes standard fair.
When we played Call of Cthulhu back in the mid 80's, someone survived to save the day. It was usually the most unlikely person and it was not the person with the gun or the knowledge of dynamite. On the other hand if the PCs can stop the Horror from being unearthed, or 'stop the cult', then their deaths are a victory.
I find it hard to think about this ending out of context.
How is dying/being incarcerated the victory condition? How is the Problem solved by this and this only? I can understand having most of the party dying or otherwise falling in the line of duty is sometimes the best possible outcome (as is often the case in CoC games), but the goal?
The only thing I can think of that makes the PC death the "goal" of a campaign is a GM vs. Players scenario, which is bad news. I may be misunderstanding what you mean.
I had a victory condition of tpk suicide in one of my campaigns... But it was... MID-CAMPAIGN!
The players had been travelling across the continent to get to 'the most valuable treasure in the land' and upon reaching it discovered that it was not money but a revelation about the nature of the adventure up to this point. They'd all believed they were alive up to this point but were in fact deceased and in hell, destined for an eternity of hardship and meaningless humility, and discovered the only way to escape from hell was to rebuke their afterlife... essentially the treasure was they got to have a 'matrix moment'... you talk yourself into the idea that you're in the 'matrix' and the way out is in the knowing and the believing... Basically 'having faith' was the 'key out of hell'... very a-propos... and the best 'prize/treasure' in all the world of hell. So blood ritual of total self sacrifice and voila! Self powered resurrection ritual!
It wasnt to finish the adventure... it's where the adventure starts!
It was funny because one player had a hard time deciding what to play so he tried on a lot of different classes and so his 'revelation' was that all of these different character concepts were just him, constantly brought back to hell because he believed this was the reality and wanted fervently to keep returning to it... His 'actual death' in the real world that brought him to hell in the first place was [whatever class he was playing at the time that was definitely not a druid] thinking it was a druid (one of the classes he tried out and didnt like), casting tree steed and riding victoriously through the wilderness... but since he wasn't actually a druid his character hopped on a fallen log and rode it as it rolled and slid off a cliff. Many other classic death tropes for the rest of the party like 'attempting to survive being launched from a trebuchet' and other such hilarity.
I'd never use such a mechanic to 'end' a game, but that particular version of it not only works well as a mid-component in a huge transition of a campaign from being one to another, but also as a way to transition to the 'next' campaign... whatever that is... escaping hell and making new characters in a new world destined to save it, starting as 'those who have recently excaped from hell' is a neat way to start a campaign... and to have unknowingly played through your excape from hell? Pretty epic.
I had a victory condition of tpk suicide in one of my campaigns... But it was... MID-CAMPAIGN!
The players had been travelling across the continent to get to 'the most valuable treasure in the land' and upon reaching it discovered that it was not money but a revelation about the nature of the adventure up to this point. They'd all believed they were alive up to this point but were in fact deceased and in hell, destined for an eternity of hardship and meaningless humility, and discovered the only way to escape from hell was to rebuke their afterlife... essentially the treasure was they got to have a 'matrix moment'... you talk yourself into the idea that you're in the 'matrix' and the way out is in the knowing and the believing... Basically 'having faith' was the 'key out of hell'... very a-propos... and the best 'prize/treasure' in all the world of hell. So blood ritual of total self sacrifice and voila! Self powered resurrection ritual!
It wasnt to finish the adventure... it's where the adventure starts!
It was funny because one player had a hard time deciding what to play so he tried on a lot of different classes and so his 'revelation' was that all of these different character concepts were just him, constantly brought back to hell because he believed this was the reality and wanted fervently to keep returning to it... His 'actual death' in the real world that brought him to hell in the first place was [whatever class he was playing at the time that was definitely not a druid] thinking it was a druid (one of the classes he tried out and didnt like), casting tree steed and riding victoriously through the wilderness... but since he wasn't actually a druid his character hopped on a fallen log and rode it as it rolled and slid off a cliff. Many other classic death tropes for the rest of the party like 'attempting to survive being launched from a trebuchet' and other such hilarity.
I'd never use such a mechanic to 'end' a game, but that particular version of it not only works well as a...
But is that really death, though? They aren't really "killing themselves", they're ending a dream, basically.
I need to have a better idea of what exactly the OP means, but I'm not sure that's it. I at least see that as something completely different.
Oh I see it as something entirely different as well. Thats sort of the point. If it is used as a gateway to further awesomeness it can actually work out quite nicely and give that sort of ultimate sacrifice sort of flavor without actually leaving a campaign with the 'congradulations you made the ultimate sacrifice. while you did indeed save the multiverse, you're all in fact dead... Slow clap for the brave, the fallen, the inevitable... so...
What do we play next, eh guys? Guys?
I find it hard to think about this ending out of context.
How is dying/being incarcerated the victory condition? How is the Problem solved by this and this only? I can understand having most of the party dying or otherwise falling in the line of duty is sometimes the best possible outcome (as is often the case in CoC games), but the goal?
The only thing I can think of that makes the PC death the "goal" of a campaign is a GM vs. Players scenario, which is bad news. I may be misunderstanding what you mean.
A good example of context would be "the shadow over Innsmouth", wheereafter the main action, the character comes to the realization that HE is descended from innsmouth, and also a deep one hybrid.
He has NO way of fighting back against such a reality, and is left with a choice between accepting his nature, or ending his own life before becoming one of the monsters he caught a fleeting glimpse of in that town.
I'd also far from characterize my GMing and/or writing style as GM Vs. Player. I am usually a fairly forgiving Keeper.
What I am interested in is reaction to a scenario where the answer to sorenson's first question of games design(What is your game about?), is
"How do the player characters face a certain and unavoidable doom."