Trying Out a New System: Anyone Familiar with CthulhuTech?

[Needs-A-Name]

WARNING: Setting-specific discussion below. If unfamiliar with CthulhuTech, go to last paragraph.

Like the title says, I'm experimenting with a new game system, Framewerk and the CthulhuTech campaign setting. Thing is, it's quite unlike D&D 4e, which is the only system I've DMed before. Does anyone have any familiarity with the system? I have a starting point for a campaign, but I'm not sure how it'll work out. What I find frustrating is the lack of a level and Challenge Rating system. Characters get more powerful with time. The pre-made monsters give me no indication of their strength, so I don't know how to avoid a TPK. Then again, it is CthulhuTech, so monsters should be terrifyingly strong.

Anyway, here's the basic plot, as I've written it so far. Players are all on a plane for some reason. Why doesn't matter - that's up to their characters. But things go wrong, and they're forced to land (or maybe the plane is abducted). Either way, they find themselves now stranded in a city where things are obviously wrong. There are spider webs everywhere. It's like they've taken over the city. Which they have, really. Insert a fight for survival where characters will likely develop arachnophobia. These spiders are everywhere, and they've got a taste for human flesh. Among the horrors will be zombies mummified in spider webs. In keeping with the Cthulhu-meets-anime nature of the setting, they might just see a swarm of spiders sew together a few of these into an ogre-sized monstrosity, made of silk, spiders, and corpses. Mainly I just want to try using a PC as a club. I will need to create my own zombies and web titan, but that will almost be easier - I know what a PC is worth, and I can make a zombie its equal. Web titan, eh, I'll figure it out. But it's all supposed to lead up to the "final" battle. I'll reveal the source of all this - the Chiraenae, a spider-like monster that uses illusions instead of webs. That one has official rules. But I don't know if it's reasonable to pit starting-level characters against it. I don't have a challenge rating system or any such guideline to base my monsters on. And for once, fleeing isn't really a valid option. The next plot point is supposed to be the slaying of Chiraenae, and the fading of its illusions, which turn out to be much more substantial than they'd ever suspect. They were never even in a city. They're in a jungle, and now they must survive without supplies as they seek out civilization - which may be an eternity, since they're in the territory of the Rapine Storm. They basically won't find any decent human beings until they either leave Asia or find the NEG Army.

So, that's the crux of the problem. How do I figure out whether a fight won't be a TPK? I guess the system's a fair bit like World of Darkness. But monsters have hit points on the same scale as mecha: each Integrity scale hit point is worth 50 of vitality scale. I suppose the simplest solution is to scale it down drastically. If a solution is needed. Really, I just need the advice of someone with experience with CthulhuTech.

[SDJThorin]

Hey there,

I've played a few sessions of CT and find it a game of high tension terror when done right -- depending on the GM & players, of course.

I'm a long time GM, but I've decided to only play CT -- unless our current GM stops GMing it -- so that the mystery is kept for me, most of the other GMs/Players are doing the same. This allows our GM to do what he needs -- to give us a good storyline -- and not have to worry that the players know how much doodoo they're in when the bigger Migou show up. (He did let it slip that he had underpowered a mecha that we met "by mistake" -- lucky for us too, or we would have bit the dirt!)

To answer your question:

It's only a TPK if you let it be... this is Anime Horror -- anything and everything can happen.

Hell we had a "slip up", which I thought would kill us all, but our GM took our role-playing chatter and the roll and came up with a really cool (for me the player, not for the PC) thing that allowed us to slip by, instead of becoming meatsicles

Check out the game logs @ http://gamenight.wyldeside.com/ under "CthulhuTech" for the full details -- from my PC's perspective -- on how our sessions went.

[Needs-A-Name]

Thanks for the thoughts, Thorin. And I like the little blog you have going - I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on your game. But it's definitely sounding like I'll need to practice thinking on the fly - it really seems to be my weakness as a DM, adapting quickly.

[Simetradon]

It's actually two games in one, which should rarely be crossed.

First you have the common peoples, simple enough.

Then you have the tagers... which are ramped up in power (I've heard comparisons to Glitter Boys).