Inspired by the comments on my previous post, and my own experiences in DF and CoC:
In CoC:
You hear about Cthulhu from moldy books that sear your grasp on reality away, or from the gibbering of insane cultists.
In DF:
You hear about Cthulhu in a bar, from a veteran adventurer who says it ate 1d6 of his hirelings automatically per turn.
In CoC:
Cthulhu has cultists, and, except for their warped magic-using leader, are all degenerate sub-humans who threaten you with illegal firearms and disregard for your life.
In DF:
Cthulhu has cultists, but like their warped magic-using leader, are all degenerate sub-humans with extra powers because Degenerate and Sub-Human are power-increasing monster prefixes, and who threaten you through sheer numbers.
In CoC:
If you see Cthulhu, or even a minor tentacled horror, you lose SAN and then start to lose PCs, too. Any damage suffered is basically permanent.
In DF:
If you see Cthulhu, you make your Fright Check and then start casting buff spells. It's going to be a rough fight. You might lose some PCs, but they can be brought back with Great Wish or Resurrection.
In CoC:
Cthulhu cannot be destroyed. He can barely even be countered. Victory is keeping him from fully awakening.
In DF:
Cthulhu has HP. You may not be able to kill him just by whittling off his HP, but you can kill him or at least his physical form. Keeping from fully awakening is the key to making the fight easier.
In CoC:
The reward for "defeating" Cthulhu is that some of your investigators still have some of their sanity.
In DF:
Cthulhu has treasure. Lots of it - he's a boss monster!
Because I am a shameless pedant, I should point out that Cthulhu can be destroyed, at least temporarily, if you hit him with a sufficiently large ship.
ReplyDelete(I don't know if that's actually true in CoC, but given its frequent fidelity to Lovecraft, it should be the case.)
And now I must consider what treasure type Cthulhu is. Probably listed in the first edition of "Deities and Demigods."
Sure, if by "destroyed" you mean "temporary defeated, at least for a couple of minutes." That's a very generous definition of "destroyed."
DeleteAs long as he stays dead long enough to gather the loot, I'll take it!
Delete”He's dead. You find this mouldy old book . . . want to read it?"
DeleteJust to be more of a pedant, even after being hit by a ship running at full steam power - Cthulhu's head "ruptured" but also managed to regenerate instantly (nebulously recombining itself, even).
DeleteSo really it only stunned it for a bit. Which was enough to let it get dragged back off to its native chthonic resting place somewhere under the oceans and across the stars.
Trying to take out any of the Old Ones with mundane weaponry will really only cause superficial "damage", and might cause them to pause for long enough to miss their window of opportunity to force their way back into our world.
Unless you're fighting something which is only partially from "outside" like the Dunwich Horror (which still needed forgotten spells to "vanquish", and even then just sent its power back to Yog-sothoth) you really can't just HP grind *true* Lovecraftian horrors.
Very George Carlin Football vs Baseball
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks! That's high praise. Carlin was the master.
DeleteIf you think Cthulhu is too tough for players to deapoPl with then don't include it in your world. For me, I really like Lovecraftian horror. Nyarlathotep is a major force in my gameworld. He subverts temples dedicated to demon lords and uses the energy they obtain through ritual and sacrifice to allow him to try to enter into the Prime Material Plane. If he succeeds the all of reality including the supernatural realms are toast.
ReplyDeleteI think you're missing the point. In a horror genre game, the horror is important, and monsters are there to bring the horror. In a DF game, monsters are there to be fought and potentially defeated. If Cthulhu shows up in my DF game, it's because I want people to fight him. His power level is merely a technical decision about stats.
DeleteIf the Horror wins because it's sanity-destroying, it's a horror game. If it wins because it's too tough, it's DF.
MH is basically the horror equivalent of DF, but its not cosmic horror by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you put high powered mythos monsters into it then they are something the players can eventually beat up on.
DeleteGURPS doesn't use mental hit point so I think that is why going insane is no good for DF. A game called Chill had willpower points and your PC had an attrition of what your mind could take just as hit points were what your body could take. With GURPS if your PC fails a Fright Check then the results are immediate but with Chill you could do stuff until your will power points were too low and then you had to try to seek safety.
DeleteIt's more than a lack of SAN or mental HP. It's a stylistic thing. DF games are aspirational - a powerful enough hero can win over anything. Horror games, especially cosmic horror games, are not. The best you can aspire to is discovering the cosmic despair of the world and doing something to shield the world from it.
DeleteIt's not a question of stats or Cthulhu or not. It's a genre decision. A troll in a CoC game isn't a bag of regenerating HP that collects treasure, it's a cosmic sanity-blasting horror. Cthulhu in a DF game is a boss monster. There is a fundamental difference in game style there that no amount of stat changes is really going to address.
Oh well I like dark horror fantasy.
DeleteI definitely prefer the Dungeon Fantasy method, though personally I prefer to keep the Lovecraftian style of stuff out of my dungeon world for similar reasons to those I have for wanting to keep rayguns and flying saucers out of it.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, dangerous scary boss monster + exploitable weakness to make the fight a little easier but still very tough + lots of treasure.
That makes sense - I keep sci-fi out of my DF game even though I love sci-fi and love magic-sci-fi crossovers. It's not always the taste you're going for.
Delete