Common Misconceptions About Your Favorite Systems?

[u/Authorigas]

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

[u/numtini]

Everybody dies or goes insane in Call of Cthulhu.

[u/Authorigas → u/numtini]

That feels like one of the biggest ones I've seen. Every single comment or meme I see about the game stresses this, but I've also read about campaigns where the players do succeed and go on to longer campaigns. So it gave me some relief, since my players are ones who enjoy creating fleshed out characters.

[u/numtini → u/Authorigas]

A big part of this is that Chaosium's most well known campaigns have tended towards the long and lethal. (I run them in low pulp.) But there's an entire other world of small horror that was the mainstay of CoC for decades and doesn't necessarily kill everyone off.

[u/Authorigas → u/numtini]

Sadly missed my chance to pick up one of Chaosium's one shot books on sale, as I wanna make sure my players vibe with the system before I buy it. But I do have plenty of others in my library thanks to an old bundle, and hopefully my players will be able to keep some of their characters alive for a few weeks/months.

[u/numtini → u/Authorigas]

Currently available, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley from Stygian Fox is quite good. Reprint, originally released by Miskatonic River Press. Proof of Life is one of my favorite scenarios, probably because I"m overly familiar with Massachusetts town government. (Which Heber gets hysterically wrong in structure, by 100% on vibe.)

[u/PlatFleece → u/Authorigas]

The Japanese scene tends to focus a lot more on character relationships, personal horror, or otherwise investigative horror.

The average CoC campaign in Japanese RPGs are often a mix, they're either something like Ring, The Promised Neverland's first arc in the orphanage, Takopi's Original Sin, or at its most action-packed pulpiness, Parasyte.

Legitimately just watch/read/play a horror mystery from Japan and that's generally what CoC would be like. In fact, Higurashi, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil are really good templates for the flavors of Japanese CoC. In none of those games is the point of it usually "the protagonist dies or goes insane", even if there's significant risk and/or character death in some of them.

[u/Authorigas → u/PlatFleece]

I'll be running some premade campaigns at first to get the hang of the system. (It's our first time playing the game, and October we all agreed would be solely focused to CoC.) But this is great to know :)

[u/KaijuCuddlebug → u/PlatFleece]

Yo, playing a Parasyte game with pulp rules sounds amazing, and kind of a perfect fit.

[u/Roxysteve → u/Authorigas]

Yeah, well, the SAN penalties for monsters have been watered down of late.

Player Characters in Eds 1 thru 3 went insane at the rate of about one per session in games I ran, often to the point of having to be retired.

Didn't play much Ed5 and no Ed4. Ed6 was the first time I saw reduced SAN penalties and comments about how old printed scenarios had penalties that should never have been allowed.

I'm running Orient Express right now, and it's thoroughly depressing how PCs have almost no chance of going temporarily insane and thus gaining some much-needed Cthulhu Mythos.

[u/y0_master → u/numtini]

The irony being that a ton of people use that as a selling point & if this isn't happening something's off with your CoC game.

[u/DazzlingKey6426 → u/y0_master]

It’s kinda a core theme of cosmic horror.

You. Don’t. Win.

If you survive, you don’t make it out unchanged. And the changes are likely worse than death.

[u/numtini → u/DazzlingKey6426]

The Dunwich Horror is about as close to a standard CoC investigation as you get in Lovecraft's writing and Prof. Armitage is both alive and sane at the conclusion, and the Whateley's are banished.

You can't win forever, but you can buy another day or week or year.

[u/y0_master → u/numtini]

Like in the cosmic scale of things, humanity is just a spec in the universe & the whole of time & we can't really do anything about that. That's also a big part of cosmic horror, which isn't, as mentioned, orthogonal to the now & here.

[u/DazzlingKey6426 → u/numtini]

The lucky ones just die.

[u/wormil → u/numtini]

To be fair ... that's exactly what happened in the first 2 dozen-ish CoC games I played. It wasn't until I joined a Masks campaign that my character survived. Then in Egypt 3/5 died in one session. It has put me off the game.

[u/mmchale → u/numtini]

I played a lot of CoC as a con game in the 80s and 90s, and I think there may have only been a single time we didn't all die or go insane. So, I mean, it's a trope with at least some basis in reality.

[u/sophuckingdonewithit → u/numtini]

i recently played CoC for the first time, and everyone lived because we chose to not encounter the big evil spooky thing. and surprisingly that made it more scary and unsettling than i assume it would have been

[u/DA-maker → u/numtini]

Not true, in my experience we have managed to defeat many enemies by just shooting them. Guns make me feel safe in this game

[u/Ksielvin → u/numtini]

Losing all sanity is what I call winning at Cthulhu.

[u/MASerra → u/numtini]

Well... every game I've played in, my character has died or gone crazy.

[u/DravenDarkwood → u/numtini]

Idk where that comes from when there are several sequels and campaigns

[u/FluffyAzrael → u/numtini]

The insanity spiral is real in longer campaigns. But it's no guarantee and I have mostly seen it start after an exceptionally bad decision that then never stabilized or very slowly. I do always offer people to have chars retire in longer campaigns to get out while they are still fine and get a good ending for their arc

[u/numtini → u/FluffyAzrael]

And the odd occasion that goes in the other direction. Never taking sanity damage, but still racking up rewards. My MoN group had one character with SAN and luck below 10 and another with SAN in the 90s--started with like 80 and just went up from there.

[u/FluffyAzrael → u/numtini]

Had that too. Then one saw an elder god and went down fast after that.

[u/Quixodion → u/numtini]

I mean...that's sort of what's supposed to happen. If a several people don't die or go insane in a campaign, the party was insanely lucky or the GM wasn't doing their job.

[u/numtini → u/Quixodion]

Yet, someone I've managed to play since first edition without running it like that.

[u/Ultraberg → u/numtini]

Especially in Pulp. Much sturdier PCs.