Re: [DL] scenarios (OT)

["Ashley Smith" <ratqueen13@hotmail.com>]

Lisa Kenison <lisa.kenison@asu.edu> wrote:
>I am not sure that is what you
>meant by "difficult to run", but I run my regular group thru some of the
>published stuff without any problems.  What is it that you find difficult,
>as I am curious. I have never had a problem with running it.

Caveat:  I do not run Call of Cthulu, but I have played it for quite while.  
It's one of my favorite games.

I think I can understand what the original poster meant when he described 
CoC as a difficult game to run.  The rules are almost secondary to a CoC 
game; the story's the thing.  CoC (much like Lovercraft's own writing) 
relies upon the mood and the settings to generate the real meat of the 
story.  A well-run CoC game needs a Keeper with good descriptive skills, a 
good vocabulary list of words to evoke the necessary moods (why use 
"unnatural" when you can use "eldritch"), and the imagination to throw in 
the occassional unrelated-to-the-plot unsettling encounter.  In other words, 
you need the ability to tell a good story.  And you need players who are 
willing to ride along with that story and immerse themselves so far that you 
can scare the bejesus out of them.

It takes just one joke at the wrong time (not that there isn't room for 
joking in CoC, but there are some points where it just pulls people too far 
out of the story) or one difficult player ("What?  That's stupid.  What's 
the big deal?") to ruin the Keeper's hard work.

Invoking an immersive mood strikes me as the hardest thing about running 
Call of Cthulu.  Without it, there's little point - you're just some people 
floundering against something that can't be killed and will eventually drive 
you insane.  I'm sure there's more to running the game than what I've 
mentioned here, but I'm at work and shouldn't be typing this anyway.

Back to my books,
Ashley





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