It Came from Cthulhu...

[adgramaine]

So, I have some local gamers wanting me to run Call of Cthulhu, and I think I want to use DFRPG's Fate rules to facilitate this. My primary concern is Sanity/Mental Stress: In CoC, Sanity hits are unavoidable. Does it match up evenly enough (in your opinions) to Mental Consequences or would Sanity be better measured by Sanity Stress. I'm afraid that if I were to run it 'as is', it may be too easy to start sliding out of one's mind.

Thought? Concerns? Feedback?

[luminos]

Use something like the Hunger stress track for sanity.  That way, even the small hits will tend to stick with you, but you'll last a little bit longer than if you just had to take consequences.

[babel2uk]

There's another Cthulhu system out there (that's very good in its own right - I can't recommend it highly enough) called Trail of Cthulhu. The way it handles things is by having two separate attributes - Sanity and Stability. Stability is how normally you relate to everyone around you. Sanity represents your understanding of the way the universe really works and your exposure to the more alien concepts. This was designed to get round one of the nonsensical things about the original Call of Cthulhu rules - namely that to be a cultist you must have 0 Sanity, but at 0 Sanity you are a dribbling idiot with no ability to do even simple tasks, let alone complicated magical spells. For the most part interaction with the supernatural causes loss of stability. If the thing you're exposed to is mythos related and you fail your Stability check you not only lose Stability, but also an amount of Sanity.

Stability can be regained, by rest, by therapy, by beating the bad things and by exceptional performance on a skill. Sanity never recovers. When it's gone, it's gone. Generally speaking if you have more than 8 points in either you are doing well.

If you allow most of the minor encounters to be based off mental stress and save the Sanity track for the really serious ones that should give your characters a little more longevity. And I'd go with Luminos's idea of making Sanity work like a Hunger track.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Just for another option, if you like the Savage Worlds system, Realms of Cthulhu is pretty fun. It gives you options on how to run it and keep it gritty or pulpy as you desire, and the small adventure I have played in it was a blast.

Not sure about it for the Dresden rules, but if I was going to have to, I would do something like the hunger stress track rules for sanity, as represented, though you will have to decide how you take sanity stress to begin with. The Discipline roll to overcome it at the end probably makes sense. One recommendation, lifted from the aforementioned Realms of Cthulhu: When the sanity stress track causes them to take a consequence/insanity, keep it separate from the rest instead of having it take up an available consequence, and then reset the stress track. They now have an insanity. When they take another consequence, they have another insanity, or ramp up the first one.

If they are ever taken out from too much stress/lack of available consequences, then they are stark, raving mad/full on cultist, and no longer playable, at least not without a LOT of time in an asylum.

The real question is, how lethal do you want the system to be? Cause the usual answer in Cthulhu games ranges from, "very," all the way too, "how on earth did you even get to the table??"

[adgramaine]

I usually run my CoC games towards "how on earth did you even get to the table??' Dangerous from word 'Go'. I've looked through Realms of Cthulhu, but I can only buy some many books at one time...   

I think we're all in agreement that the Stress track might be best. I'll start fooling around with that today. I'll let you guys know how tomorrow goes.

[Esoteric Wombat]

I'm afraid that if I were to run it 'as is', it may be too easy to start sliding out of one's mind.

No. In my experience fate is a much more heroic and lenient system compared to CoC. If these are hardcore CoC players then they will expect nothing less than total brutality. It's part of the genera.

My advice:
Put a low cap on stress related skills- stress tracks should be short. CoC has a very different pace compared to Dresden. If you get hurt you need medical attention. To bad the doctor is a cultist.
Give players the option to clear out serious mental consequences by making them permanent aspects. That way players can stack up on loads of fun phobias and delusions. Embrace the insanity.

[adgramaine]

No, these guys are from the Delta Green side of things. So I think allowing 3 Stress should be sufficient. Believe me, brutality and terror are already par for course. No one likes to come to my games without three characters already made. I just really want to try the Dresden-esque creation process, as well as phase aspects and Fate points. I think I will use the suggestion of clearing out mental consequences by taking permanent Aspects - I like that a lot.

[babel2uk]

No one likes to come to my games without three characters already made.

With that rate of mortality, using anything other than the 'on the fly' creation rules for Dresden would seem a complete waste of time. The level of detail in Dresden character creation really demands better character longevity. For normal Call of Cthulhu the character is frankly just a set of percentages waiting to be put through a shredder, the full Dresden Files creation process requires a lot more commitment to the character. Bear that in mind when setting the lethality of your Sanity rules.

[Esoteric Wombat]

No, these guys are from the Delta Green side of things. So I think allowing 3 Stress should be sufficient. Believe me, brutality and terror are already par for course. No one likes to come to my games without three characters already made. I just really want to try the Dresden-esque creation process, as well as phase aspects and Fate points. I think I will use the suggestion of clearing out mental consequences by taking permanent Aspects - I like that a lot.

Oooooh, it's been a while sense I last played me some Delta Green. You guys have fun for me  
Please do work on the insanity mechanic. I'm thinking it will need a bit of tweaking for a proper Cthulhu feel, but my hope is that giving players a bit of control will create a dynamic where they can chose to either fight the insanity (keep short term consequences, take the risk of filling all consequences and going off the deep end) or embrace the madness (Take an insanity aspect, increase overall chance of survival). One kind of character would stay generally sane, until they go out in a blaze of mad fiery glory, and the other character could last an entire campaign, but by the end would be a total dysfunctional wreck.

[adgramaine]

I think the Fate points are going to curb the lethality at least somewhat. Plus, I am expecting group Aspects like "MOUT Training, Airborne Ranger", etc. We'll get started in just a few hours. I think things are about to get interesting....   

[Belial666]

I'll go against the current here and say you don't really need a new stress track to represent CoC. Just add the following stunts and powers to monsters in your game;


[-1] Unnatural Presence Your presence is unsettling to mortal beings. Move the "first impressions" trapping to your intimidate skill. Success against them applies fear/madness aspects. (stunt)
[-1] Living Nightmare As per living dead, only you are a nightmarish creature instead of undead. (power)
[-1] Cloak of Terror Your unnatural presence (see above) can be a mental attack instead of applying aspects. You get +2 to intimidate checks. (power)
[-1] Eldritch Horror Against humans - or creatures limited to a mortal's mental ability and reason - you are utterly alien. +2 to intimidate and +2 to deceit checks. (power, maybe stunt)



Use that and assign Mythos creatures a suitable Intimidate rating. The average human could, maybe, have a discipline of Fair and 2-3 mental (or social) stress. Let's see what happens when they encounter various Mythos creatures;

1) Mythos Zombie. Fair Intimidate, Unnatural Presence, Living Nightmare. Average human takes a fear-related aspect outright, maybe even a sticky aspect. Facing more than a couple of them? They'd run screaming.

2) Deep One, Fair Intimidate, Cloak of Terror. Average human takes a fear-related aspect or 2 mental or social stress. Facing a few Deep Ones is a good way to acheive a social or mental takeout... just from meeting them. And mental or social takeout can mean dying from fright, becoming insane or catatonic or whatever.

3) Shoggoth. Great Intimidate, Unnatural Presence, Living Nightmare, Cloak of Terror. Average human is taken out immediately from the Shoggoth's "first impression" of +8 intimidate mental attack. Even submerged characters with high discipline get stress and could easily take consequences too.

4) Cthulhu. Legendary Intimidate, Unnatural Presence, Living Nightmare, Cloak of Terror, Eldritch Horror. Average "first impression" upon seeing him is a +14 madness attack. Submerged characters can be taken out on an unlucky roll and even with maxed discipline still take serious consequences. And even if you don't die from just seeing him, he is a supernatural heavyweight. You die.

[finnmckool]

I don't know if Eldritch Horror is numerically high enough for some of the big boys on that block. You may need several ramp up options. EH +2, +4, +6...

[sinker]

Hey, random thought but you could always use something like the lawbreaker power to denote permanent sanity damage. Then they become an NPC when they go off the deep end.

[Belial666]

Mortal humans, even world-class in mental health and resilience, don't go higher than Superb (+5) discipline. Something with all those 4 stunts and legendary intimidate - which would be at the low end of supernatural heavyweight - has a +14 horrific first impression. That's 9 mental or social stress, which means serious consequences even for the most powerful mortals.


Anything higher than low-end supernatural heavyweight simply doesn't have stats in DFRPG. So what would be the point of higher levels of Eldritch Horror?

[MyNinjaH8sU]

I'm really curious to see how this game went!

Don't forget to post a report, adgramaine!