Yeah, I didn't know about this fix until tech support told me, and was locked out of the site for a couple of days.
Finally made it back in. Dang. Between busy at work, and a bad time of year for me. Not being able to log in didn't help.
Welcome back everyone! Just in time to enter the Pit of Doom!
So we're in the middle of a state-wide migration to a new software platform at work. Things have been hair on fire crazy for a couple of weeks, and will probably stay that way for a couple more.
Sorry for the scant posting. If you need to bot Louise during this time by all means go ahead.
Okay! Good luck.
As a sysadmin who deal with constant software support issues, I sympathize, good luck indeed.
Just a small thing for everyone, since I know we're all new at this and I'm open to interpretation for things.
Sanity rolls usually dictate how your character sees something; passing it means that you rationalize the horror somehow and some way. It lessens the trauma to your mind since the Mythos is anathema to our minds. Failing it means you don't succeed at it at all; you are forced to see the truth and something breaks for just a moment.
With all of us passing, now that we're up on the top, we may begin to rationalize what that horrid thing was. Maybe is was a swarm of snakes? Maybe some kind of unknown animal, the jungle is infested with new species after all? Maybe there was unknown toxins in the air released after the stone was destroyed and we all had a hallucination.
Father Antonio knows what he saw because he failed the Sanity roll. His mind recognized that that man was no man and, for a moment, it broke before it adjusted.
Of course, this is how older editions of Call of Cthulhu went and I totally leave it up to our Keeper to decide what is an appropriate reaction.
Which is how Antonio will probably rationalize this. It was something like the soldier, maybe just a bigger not-man. Not that it was truly a Horror. Surely there can't be two kinds of demons here...
Makes sense, although Enoli's history (and access to occultism and magic) might mean he does believe what he sees, despite his 90% sanity.
Father Antonio made his Sanity roll. You all did.
I’m 4 days without power now due to the big ice storm. I’ve no idea when it will be back on. I’ll return when possible. Bot me as needed.
Take care of yourself Louise.
I've been fortunate enough to have a friend with power and water here in Texas, so I totally understand. Take care of yourself and keep you and yours safe and warm.
Wow. Four days! Stay safe, rdknight!
Meanwhile, my kids are sad because the 3-6" of snow we were supposed to get here in Northern Virginia resulted in about 1 inch, plus about another half an inch of ice. It's so little that my snowblower just goes over the top of it! I remember being thigh-deep in snow in 2010, but thank God we never lost power.
We got a foot or so here in Washington, but I'm from Alaska, so it's meh to me. But the loss of power and water is horrible and hope everyone stays safe.
Family has been coming to my parents' house because their power and water have been stable. They come and cook and eat, take showers, etc. My brother has power, but is under a boil water directive. And one of the breaks is down the road from him, so he's trying to stockpile (non-potable) water.
Folks, I'm overwhelmed preparing for a major jury trial this week. I probably won't be able to give this game any attention until the middle of next week. My apologies.
Hey everyone, I'm sorry to say I'm going to have to drop from the game. My circumstances have changed. I've moved to a management position at work and I don't have the spare time that I used to, so I'm cutting back to just a few of my long running games.
Have fun everyone, it's been great playing with you all.
Folks, I'm feeling that this is a failed experiment. I'm excited to run this campaign, but I'm not feeling that it's a universal sentiment. Shall we pack it in?
I'm open to:
A) Continuing.
B) Stopping.
C) Playing Pathfinder.
Thoughts, please.
I'm still super into it. I am good for continuing personally. If we decide to do Pathfinder, I'm tentative on it. Depends on the game and character creation rules we go with for it.
I'm good to continue. We have seemed to have lost our momentum. I think we're still not quite sure how to approach this game, especially since in-game, our characters don't know why they're doing this.
I think the big part of it is you need to foster your character's curiosity. Something wrong is happening here and you know it is. You could look away but you still know something bad is happening. Abraham is drawn to this because of how inane is all appears at first. Snake men, monkeys with flame guns, an abominable creature from the depths of the earth, it is all horrendous and it must be solved somehow.
I'm not hearing anything from two of our four remaining players. I'll give it another day.
I'm good to continue, or start something else, I love the creative aspects of the playing by post, the time to think of the text.
I apologize I've been dormant. I'm a sysadmin and the recent Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities have caused be about 40+ hours of overtime in the last couple weeks.
I'm sorry Tarandor. Work is currently kicking my rear. I'm loving this game, and I would love to keep going.
Saying that I can't promise that I'll have a whole lot of time for the next couple of weeks to devote to PbP. I have to populate a database and get expense data in to a report for VA Central Office by April 15. I have the data but it's in so many different pieces it's keeping me up at night figuring out where I can find it all, and how I might be able to automate the data collection.
Looks like we have 4 willing to go on, so go on we will. I'm afraid Louise isn't going to make it!
What I'd really like when you're too busy to post regularly is just a note that you're busy. Real life takes complete precedence, of course, but wondering if you've quit kinda sucks, so a short note ("Busy, will be back") would go a long way.
I must say that it's much harder to GM this game than one with which I am more familiar (say, Pathfinder, D&D, Traveller, The One Ring or any number of others), but the stories are good and so are the mechanics. The limit is my ability to read through multiple rulebooks and make sense of it all. I find that lack of facility frustrating, but I suppose I'll get more used to it as time goes by.
What I'm really not used to is the lethality. Even in Pulp Cthulhu, a monster like a Formless Spawn should really just kill everyone who doesn't run away and there are SEVERAL of them in this first part of the adventure. So, pull out all the stops if you want to live!
As for motivation, well, you're heroes in a pulp story. Evil weird cults and death monsters are supposed to be the motivation. The world-spanning threat to humanity will rear its head (two heads?) later.
Well there's been a twist of fate. A game that I was planning on keeping since it's been going for quite some time is going into a hiatus, and honestly will probably not be coming back out.
That gives me a slot, so if it's alright I'll stay in. My time will still be tight so there may not be many long florid posts, but I should be able to contribute steadily.
Sure! Happy to have you.
Louise is still grabbed. Still, you're full up on luck.
Yay! I am super excited to keep this game going. A lot of Call of Cthulhu is avoiding the really bad monsters or eliminating them with something clever (explosives, electrified water, burning a building down on them, etc.) or magic.
I always thought the first adventure in any Call of Cthulhu game is the most dangerous because you have to roleplay your characters having no idea what is going on. That lack of knowledge that there are terrible things is super dangerous. I adore Abraham but I am also already resigned to the fact that I'm probably going to die horrendously.
The pulp action changes are really big though, to be honest. We are far sturdier than any CoC characters have the right to be :P
I think one thing that could help with momentum in the game is to have a little more guidance on what is possible in some cases, or what options we have in the game environment when it's very sandbox like at the field hospital.
I mean of course the reply is that our characters can try doing anything. But until we have some grasp of gameplay that's not a very useful stance. PbP tends to place barriers on "throw stuff against the wall until something sticks" approaches. The extra time and work involved with posting, waiting for replies, asking about rules or what skill covers what action if a roll will be needed, etc. is very inhibiting to blue sky play-styles. There's a reason Kingmaker is both beloved as a Pathfinder AP, and notoriously impossible to successfully run as a PbP. Sandbox situations generate lots of posts about deciding on actions and taking them with a low useful results return.
I'm not suggesting this will always be the case in this game. But until we better know the ropes it could really help keep us moving. I know I've spent lots of time in a state of choice paralysis because I didn't know what to do, or what I should be doing because I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish anyway.
Does CoC have any form of faith magic in it? Or do items like crucifixes or holy water have actual power? I don't think I want Antonio to know actual spells (I could even see the Church forbidding that), but maybe he could activate religious items of power when the chips are down? Probably costing him sanity...
There's a reason Kingmaker is both beloved as a Pathfinder AP, and notoriously impossible to successfully run as a PbP.
GM Tarondor's Kingmaker Campaign.
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I understand the concern. I try to give hints here and there (like the pistol), but I'm not going to say "you can do X, Y or Z."
So I was right that there is a roll called an "Idea" roll. It is a straight Intelligence roll. You use it whenever you and the rest of the investigators are stuck or miss a vital clue. You use it to keep the story moving but if you fail the roll, "bad stuff" happens. It is in the GM section for what that bad stuff can be.
As for magical religious items, I don't think there are bit I could be wrong. Most "real" magic takes sanity to use since it requires you to change how you think about the world and/or creates awful effects afterwards. Of course, somw real magic could be written in a way tjat makes it appear holy or divine?
There is a reason the 5 spells I know are very very basic and situational :)
Oh, I definitely think religious magic should cost you sanity. You don't think opening yourself up to the energy of God would blow your mind away? Both the Ten Commandments and Raiders of the Lost Ark agree on that one. One way to think about sanity loss is that it destroys your mind. Another way to think of it is that you're just a bit less human and your body/brain can't handle it.
It really depends on the source. I don't really know what crazy stuff Pulp Cthulhu may add but in a traditional sense, there are no holy items or faith-based powers. It is based in existential horror; you come to find out that the universe is much bigger than you and in turn, cares little of you. The rules of Earth only apply locally and Man is not equipped to have the light shone on the horrors that truly exist out in the beyond. If God is real, he is utterly cruel for allowing entities whose mere existence could annihilate Earth by happenstance.
It isn't a very happy picture at all.
That being said, some hold onto faith even more tightly but it offers no real protection outside of therapeutic help. Like I already said though, there may be stuff that Pulp Cthulhu adds that I don't know about.
It also wouldn't be far from the theme of the world for Antonio to learn magic in order to turn it against the enemy. In the great battle, when so heavily outnumbered by fiends, what is worth sacrificing to protect the world?
Yeah, what I know is called Folk magic from the Grimoire, it was the closest to "shamanism" and even in that book it's described as "diluted" magic.
Ha! Well maybe you've found the secret sauce. But in my own couple of experiences, and from what I've heard from others the more 'directionless' nature of Kingmaker usually leads to entropy in PbP as players try to figure out how to move forward.
I wasn't suggesting making things multiple choice like a choose your own adventure book or something. To turn it into an equation of sorts that would be: 'there is X, you can either A, B, or C. What I mean is more like There is X, Y, and Z. What do you do? With X, Y, and Z being more concrete pathways we could pursue.
I mean it's entirely possible I'm missing the whole point of a CoC game, which is more 'wander about and do things until something happens, I'll let you know when it does', but I have a hard time seeing that as viable in PbP for reasons I've already mentioned.
I'm not trying to be contrarian, and maybe I'm speaking for myself alone, but there have been several points so far when I've literally had no idea what to do so I've decided to wait to post and see if anything would happen so I'd have some footing upon which to post.
If momentum in the game has been a problem, and it seems it has somewhat, I'm offering a suggestion based on what I've encountered.
@Abe: The Idea roll thing is good to know about. It could really help.
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Oh, and one thing that sort of fell by the wayside a while back. I went back through the last number of posts to refresh my memory of what's happening and came across the medical roll thing. It turns out that medical treatment can be done once per day rather than only once.
I think it is one day of medical treatment that we could have done but didn't. Two questions about it:
1. Can I retro those rolls?
2. You'd said they would be done with penalty die due to the jungle, which makes sense. But they're also being done in a medical facility, which I think normally gives a bonus die on medical. Wouldn't the two cancel each other out?
1. Can I retro those rolls?
Yes.
2. You'd said they would be done with penalty die due to the jungle, which makes sense. But they're also being done in a medical facility, which I think normally gives a bonus die on medical. Wouldn't the two cancel each other out?
Makes sense.
I'll make the rolls over here so they don't interrupt the game posts.
So successes for everyone except the good Father, sorry Antonio! Minerva and Louise both got hard successes. I don't know if that means anything for healing but I figured I'd point it out. As for the HP healed, not too bad!
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Does CoC have any form of faith magic in it? Or do items like crucifixes or holy water have actual power? I don't think I want Antonio to know actual spells (I could even see the Church forbidding that), but maybe he could activate religious items of power when the chips are down? Probably costing him sanity...
Short answer: no.
Long answer: maybe.
Lovecraft himself was an atheist and in his version of the stories man was alone in a universe filled with uncaring and incomprehensible beings of immense power. Other Mythos writers (most notably August Derleth) included many Christian themes into their stories. The question for us isn't what any given writer wanted, but what we want. Tim/Antonio wants a game where Antonio's faith has real consequences and I think we can accommodate him. Here's how:
I think that Pulp Cthulhu is much more compatible with the existence of a holy deity. Tim has already pointed to the best evidence: Indiana Jones. As I mentioned, Derleth also had witches recoiling from crucifixes and the actual Devil as a character, so I think we're on safe, if pulpy, ground. That said, I'm mostly going to draw my inspiration from the Indiana Jones movies.
So Tim, I can't have Antonio shutting down otherworldly horrors by merely presenting a crucifix. Theology aside, it would destroy game balance. But I don't see why all the religious paraphernalia of pulp stories (crucifixes, salt, holy water, silver bullets, etc.) might not have real effects on -some- monsters. If fire can harm a formless spawn, why not holy water? Just don't expect it to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. And the obvious limit is when you try to go outside the genre and use holy water squirt guns or crucifix cannons or something. The problem is, what about other symbols? Will an Anasazi swastika work? What about a Daoist symbol? Maybe they work on different stuff, but that's getting complicated!
What I think should be of more frequent use to Antonio is his faith in the power those objects represent. God, for Antonio, represents a source of significant strength. Now we'd be perfectly correct to say that this is already modeled in the game by Antonio's "Steadfast" background. He is steadfast because his faith sustains him. But there are other ways to model this. Some may go too far.
The lowest level of these are something perfect for Pulp Cthulhu, and that's talents. You already have two talents (Tough Guy and Linguist). If at the end of this encounter you'd like to retcon one to be "Psychic" instead, I'll allow it. We're all still getting used to the game.
More or less on the same level are "Insane Talents." When driven mad by the mythos, Pulp Cthulhu characters can take on inexplicable abilities. We can certainly Christianize these for Antonio.
The next level, one with a big "CAUTION" sign on it, is spells. First of all "spells" are not at all Christian. Second, most spells in the game are occult or downright evil in nature. And most of the more benign ones (like Enoli's folk magic) are relatively minor. Third, there is Enoli. I don't want to shoehorn Antonio into Enoli's role of minor spellcaster. All that said, I think some spells -could- be reskinned as Christian rituals (exorcism and hallowing come to mind), but I don't see Antonio as a spell-slinger.
So if you really want to be a spell-using priest, Tim, I suggest changing out Antonio's "Steadfast" background for "Mystic" and altering his backstory to fit the more mysterious trope. Again, in these early days I'll allow anyone to re-do their characters when they see it doesn't fit the ideal they had hoped for.
Final thought: At the end of the "Bolivia" chapter (which we are not near to finishing), I'm going to allow some character development. If you don't want to change things now, you could lobby for picking up "Psychic" then. Choose your psychic abilities with care and presto! Magic Christian. As I said, once Antonio realizes he lives in a big and scary world, perhaps he gets read into super-secret Vatican programs that give him more resources, including certain rituals.
But no heal spells!
No worries. I'm not looking to remake Antonio as a spell-caster, just wondering what the effects of things like holy water or crucifixes might be. I might consider a spell that could let me enhance the effects of religious items, but that would likely be the extent of it. I like Antonio as a man armed with just his faith (mostly) against the darkness. His high amount of sanity is already his faith giving him armor.
And I can see that there certainly should be a difference between "ordinary" holy water and that blessed by St. Paul when founding the Church. Holy relics are different than things you find in the church shop.
I do like the idea that after the Bolivia chapter (if we survive), the Church pulls back the veil a bit. But I'm sure there's far more for us to learn about Caduceus too.
I had a brief conversation with CariMac, who plays Minerva. She's slammed at work and won't be able to post for a few weeks. I'm hoping that you, the players, will pick up the slack and post for Minerva for awhile.
Sure thing, although wed have to be careful posting twice
Your thoughts?
We have four PC's, the player for one of whom is too busy to play just now. Should we recruit a fifth?
I am totally fine with recruiting a fifth, if that is what the group wants to do.
I feel like we're going to need all the help we can, and maybe some replacement characters as well :)