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Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:49 pm
by mushgnome
^---- Listen to this guy; he gives good podcast recommendations! :D

Season 3 of Cthulhu Mystery Program is in post production and I've heard a demo clip. It's a one-shot, stand-alone adventure where the PCs are kids trying to survive a night in a haunted house. Then Season 4 they plan to revisit the characters from Season 2.

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:19 pm
by ehiker133
mushgnome wrote:^---- Listen to this guy; he gives good podcast recommendations! :D

Season 3 of Cthulhu Mystery Program is in post production and I've heard a demo clip. It's a one-shot, stand-alone adventure where the PCs are kids trying to survive a night in a haunted house. Then Season 4 they plan to revisit the characters from Season 2.
The first two seasons are SOOO good!!

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:22 pm
by mushgnome
For those of you who don't have HBO, Lovecraft Country Episode 1 is now available (legally and non-pirated) on YouTube (must sign in to confirm age):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvVmlDyJ6BA

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:17 am
by waysoftheearth
You guys are awesome :)

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:04 pm
by mushgnome
Awww thanks, we think you're awesome too. You doing okay? ***Group hug***

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 1:18 pm
by mushgnome
One of the questions everybody asks when I mention my D&D games have a "Lovecraftian" influence is this: Do you use a Sanity mechanic?

For the past few years, my answer has been this: My sanity mechanic is simply, "the players are crazy!" That's right, in my experience, the DM doesn't need to coerce the players into acting insane; it's going to happen organically, whether the DM orchestrates it or not. If we look at the actions of the typical D&D party, from the perspective of an ordinary commoner living in that world, they would seem completely bonkers! For example imagine what a human resident of Hornpipe might think about Hobbets: All their life, they've seen a constant parade of scruffy-looking Hobbets, who come to town for pancakes and then leave a few days later with broken noses and missing teeth (or sometimes vanish into thin air). They probably think the Hobbets are running some kind of "fight club" at the House of Pancakes!

That said, I have a simple and fun Sanity mechanic that I would like to playtest with you all. If it doesn't work out, we can discard it and go back to our current "the players are crazy" method. I'll fill you in on the details when the time comes (no spoilers!!) but I want to preview two key features of my Sanity house rules that I think are pretty special:

1. Insanity is opt-in and reversible. Nobody is forced to use my new sanity mechanic. If you want to continue playing a level-headed and unflappable Hobbet, that's perfectly fine with me. Or if you do choose to become insane, but then get tired of it in the future, there are in-game ways to bring your sanity back to normal levels.

2. Insanity is almost like a type of treasure. There are tangible in-game benefits to losing your grip on reality; for example you can understand certain books that seem like gibberish to sane Hobbets. But you can't just wake up one morning and decide to become insane. You have to actively seek out insanity and collect it, like the pieces of a puzzle.

By total coincidence, but confirming my instincts on this topic are on-point, I stumbled on this blog post today: "Goblins are Halflings gone mad."

https://magickuser.wordpress.com/2020/0 ... -gone-mad/

(If any of you have have strong objections to playing in a game with a Sanity mechanic, now is a good time to speak up. I promise this is not going to devolve into a backstabbing, player-vs-player campaign. That's not what I'm all about as a DM, these days.)

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:09 pm
by acodispo
mushgnome wrote:My sanity mechanic is simply, "the players are crazy!"
:D

I resonate with this. I've had some fun NPC reaction moments when dungeon critters' only reasonable response to the PCs is basically: "Wow, what are you people doing down here??"

This from goblins and sentient slime-molds...

Anyway, both points of your Insanity Plan sound very intriguing indeed! I'm on board!

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 6:09 pm
by mgtremaine
No problems here. Even when I run Chaotic I don't go after party members, it's just not my idea of fun. Go it alone, make self serving choices, make off with treasure, sure all the above. In mushgnome's last game Waymon Peck was Chaotic and I'd argue he totally won then game :). Voluntarily ensalved by an Alien Wizard to unlock the dark secrets of the Universe, yes please sign me up.

:D

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 10:04 pm
by mushgnome
Good old Waymon Peck! If I recall correctly, he voluntarily became a minion of the Bone Invoker and retired from active play to spend his life contemplating the mysteries of the Slime Pool. And you managed to do it without ever becoming antagonistic toward the other players, which I really appreciated as the DM.

That campaign was a lot of fun. I tried to pull together a lot of different influences. It was hit or miss but really helped me find my "voice" as a DM. I want to go back and re-read it all someday (if they ever lift my ban, heh).

My original vision for that campaign was that Arkham would be "Kansas" and Carcosa would be "Oz." The PCs would discover how to cross back and forth using various portals and rituals, or project themselves mentally through the process of lucid dreaming. But Kansas ended up being so strange and convoluted, that we only caught a few glimpses of Oz before things petered out.

Re: Out Of Character

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2020 9:30 pm
by ehiker133
That Carcosa game was soooooo much fun!! I'd forgotten all about it. Shoot, what was my character's name? Pretty sure he made it all the way to the end of that game. Or close to it.

I'm in for insanity, btw, in case you needed my input. Or in case you didn't think I'd be in for insanity...