How do you Cthulhu?

[fmitchell]

Just curious how those who play or run Cthulhu use the system. Please check all that apply.

[Moritz]

I've never run a straight Cthulhu game. However, I have many of the modules and the monster books just because they were excellent resources for a dark world (not WoD - just a game that was placed in a tainted world) game I did run.

[PhishStyx]

Actually, I've never played a straight-up Cthulhu game either. I have played Delta Green, and it was one of my all time favorite TPK's.

For future reference, if I say that there's a sniper across the lake with a Barrett .50 cal, don't ask a bunch of stupid questions about how I know it, just duck. Otherwise, the entire affair will end in flaming badness. Trust me in this matter.

Thank you,
Your friendly neighborhood Horrible Mod

[Ed Zachary]

[Stormcrow77]

He's had my vote since 92

[tesral]

I don't exactly play CoC. I play Bureau 13 with guest appearances by the Lovecraftian horrors.

[Igbutton]

Any way I can get it is how I play. I like to have a game of it rather than just a one shot every now and then.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

He's got my vote.

Thoth-Amon

[gdmcbride]

How do I Cthulhu?

As a diehard, Call of Cthulhu and BRP fan, anyway I can. It seems that the Cthulhu Mythos leaks into just about any campaign I run.

I notice I'm not alone. Cthulhoid monstrousities are common place in D&D. The first published 4ed module had a distinctly Cthulhu-esque flair about it (evil cultist, portal to another world, a thing from beyond).

RPGs and horror often go hand in hand and was there a more influential horror writer of the 20th century than H.P. Lovecraft?

I think not.

Gary

[Webhead]

How do I Cthulhu?

As a diehard, Call of Cthulhu and BRP fan, anyway I can. It seems that the Cthulhu Mythos leaks into just about any campaign I run.

I notice I'm not alone. Cthulhoid monstrousities are common place in D&D. The first published 4ed module had a distinctly Cthulhu-esque flair about it (evil cultist, portal to another world, a thing from beyond)...

And if you have CoC d20, you can even port Cthulhu directly over to your (3.X) D&D games!

You can even have your party fight Cthulhu if you want (though they'll lose)! I remember reading the playtest notes somewhere about the WotC developers running a combat with four level-20 PCs facing off against Cthulhu. When one of the PCs died, they were allowed to bring another one in on the next round. If I remember correctly, they said that they went through about 12 PCs before they finally managed to get Cthulhu to fail his save against an Imprisonment spell. This ended the combat, but was a "temporary" solution at best.

[fmitchell]

RPGs and horror often go hand in hand and was there a more influential horror writer of the 20th century than H.P. Lovecraft?

Possibly Anne Rice, who popularized the whole "tragic vampire" trope ... admittedly with antecedents in various retellings of Dracula.

Stephen King has written a whole lot of books. While there's no one trope that stands out, everybody knows Carrie, Children of the Corn, The Shining, and other works, if only from movies. Most people will recognize pop cultural references to pigs' blood at the prom, children in a corn field, or creepy twin girls more easily than eldritch horrors (or telltale hearts, sad to say). Whether that fame will fade, or last as long as Dickens, no one can say.

Also, stretching the definition of writer, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and sequels created a new kind of monster with an old name which has also filtered into pop culture, other movies, and novels from World War Z to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

[MikeS]

...clip...
Stephen King has written a whole lot of books. While there's no one trope that stands out, everybody knows Carrie, Children of the Corn, The Shining, and other works, if only from movies. Most people will recognize pop cultural references to pigs' blood at the prom, children in a corn field, or creepy twin girls more easily than eldritch horrors (or telltale hearts, sad to say). Whether that fame will fade, or last as long as Dickens, no one can say. ...clip...

Many people don't realize how pervasive HPL's influence is in modern horror, much the same way most people don't think they're drinking flavored water everytime they pop open a coke, beer or wine bottle.

Like the water, HPL's influence is the basis of so much in the genre that it's often forgotten that it's there.

S. King's Jerusalem's Lot is an homage to Lovecraft, it's very nearly a pastiche.

Wiki Article -- HPL
"Many modern writers — such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, F. Paul Wilson, Thomas Ligotti, T.E.D. Klein, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, and Brian Lumley, — have cited Lovecraft as one of their primary influences."

The article also notes the influence on John Carpenter, Del Toro, Leiber, Bloch, H.R. Giger and Robert E Howard.

Edgar Allen Poe comes in a close second. But HPL has to be top of the list.

[tesral]

RPGs and horror often go hand in hand and was there a more influential horror writer of the 20th century than H.P. Lovecraft?

I think not.

Gary

I would say Edgar Allen Poe, but he was firmly 19th century (1809 to 1849). Among those you have to add Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker.

It's not so much that Dracula was that good, but it has been endlessly adapted.

Don't forget the other writers who dealt in the mythos, many directly as friends of Lovecraft. August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber among others formed a small writing circle that exchanged bits and stories and they could be said to have built the mythos as much as Lovecraft himself.

[Moritz]

I'd vote for him.

[Farcaster]

At least we'd know what we were getting.