MU Podcast 068 - The New Hotness

[Keeper Dan]

In episode 68, Jon, Chad and Dan get together and geek out about the beautiful horror contained within the eldritch electrons of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition! There's a lot of general discussion about the Core Rulebook as well as narrowing the talk to a few of the key new or modified features we can play with.
This episode was recorded on December 14, 2014.


Campus Crier

• Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Wars is now multilingual! Auf German! En Spanish! En French!

• Arkham Gazette Issue 3 -- is funding through Kickstarter!

• Apocalypto DooM vs The Great Old Ones -- A comic book project that features a former wrestler discovering he is the key to an ancient prophecy that will bring about Cthulhu

• Portal to Hell!!! -- Roddy Piper vs. Cthulhu? Co-starring in a short film? Yes please!

• Weird Detective -- A modern investigative roleplaying game where you act as detectives in a world of weird and paranormal horror

• Tales of the Crescent City from Golden Goblin Press, International Backers Update 12/01/2014 -- trouble with overseas distributor Angus Abranson with Chronicle City.
• And only fair to mention the 7E apology letter
• Puppetlandhas funded!
• Silent Legions has funded! (There's even a few days left to get in on this one.)
• Dracula Dossier has funded!
• The Delta Green Shotgun Scenario Contest is underway. Entries are in, and voting for members of theDelta Green Yahoo mailing group may now vote. Voting closes at the end of the year.

Cryptocurium Spot
The Blackest Friday items are still available! Go take a look and get yourself something tentacley.


Main Topic
This episode, we finally get to crack open a copy of the 7th Edition rules and delve into the details. Just to get our hands dirty, we each picked a section to cover. Jon talks about the new Push mechanic, as well as bonus and penalty dice. Dan talks about Chase mechanics, and Chad talks about some of the new nuances in the Sanity mechanics.

[fallingtower]

Great Show!!!

I have been playing in 7e mode since the first backer pdf release.

Have you read the revamped rules for mythos tomes and the Cthulhu Mythos skill?

Very cool...I really like how the new rules handle being a believer or not.

It's possible to be a well read, non-believer with 65% in Cthulhu Mythos with no sanity loss...that is until they are forced to believe, that's when they get hit with their full Cthulhu Mythos score as a sanity hit.

[Keeper Jon]

I've only been skimming through the PDFs, (I'm trying to protect my own sanity), but once the physical book arrives, I'm diving in deep.

[fallingtower]

I've only been skimming through the PDFs, (I'm trying to protect my own sanity), but once the physical book arrives, I'm diving in deep.

I am one of those people who can't handle reading pdf's.....the scrolling or something confusticates me.

But I've been running 7e so I have to read some and I keep finding things very different from previous editions...like I said, the way they handle tomes, Cthulhu Mythos skill and sanity. Tweaked very nicely and definitely in ways that a Keeper will find entertaining.


I really love the bonus and penalty die rules. I am a big fan of using luck as a commodity and the new damage/wound rules are great and will add to the drama.

Brilliant work Chaosium!!

[Shannon Mac]

I am also blending 7E into my games and have read a quarter of the PHB. No substantial changes IMO so it reads fast.


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[PirateLawyer]

I am currently running a group through the classic Delta Green campaign The New Age and I've been trying out 7E's luck and push rules. So far I am willing to continue experimenting with the former as it seems well-suited for extended plays (not one-shots) but am not at all willing to continue using the push rules. I guess I am a purist - I just want there to be one roll and adjudicate the results however the dice may fall. Player agency is I would argue very overrated in horror games - sure you want to give your players the illusion of it, but I never want my players to feel as if they are in control of a situation. And psychologically (perhaps falsely) the push mechanic was making my players feel too secure knowing that they had two bites at the apple if they wanted and needed it.

[Keeper Jon]

I am currently running a group through the classic Delta Green campaign The New Age and I've been trying out 7E's luck and push rules. So far I am willing to continue experimenting with the former as it seems well-suited for extended plays (not one-shots) but am not at all willing to continue using the push rules. I guess I am a purist - I just want there to be one roll and adjudicate the results however the dice may fall. Player agency is I would argue very overrated in horror games - sure you want to give your players the illusion of it, but I never want my players to feel as if they are in control of a situation. And psychologically (perhaps falsely) the push mechanic was making my players feel too secure knowing that they had two bites at the apple if they wanted and needed it.

I can see the hesitation to use the Push mechanic, but I think that hesitation is rooted in the belief that you're getting two bites of the apple... a redo of the first bite. But, in reality, the character took the first bite, and failed, and then decides to take a second shot at another bite, (a totally separate bite), and the Keeper forecasts with the player that if this second bite also fails, then your teeth fall out.

[PirateLawyer]

I can see the hesitation to use the Push mechanic, but I think that hesitation is rooted in the belief that you're getting two bites of the apple... a redo of the first bite. But, in reality, the character took the first bite, and failed, and then decides to take a second shot at another bite, (a totally separate bite), and the Keeper forecasts with the player that if this second bite also fails, then your teeth fall out.

Maybe I did not express myself clearly enough. I don't think there should be second chances of this sort, period; but I wanted to test this mechanic out to give it a fair shake to see if my theoretical misgivings were trumped by a fantastic play experience for my players.

This was not the case (small sample size alert of one, obviously). It mainly came up in a situation where the players were frantically trying to prepare an infiltration of the Enolsis compound. And get away clean after things went pear-shaped. Getting to re-roll Mechanical Repair and other such skills ... it just didn't improve the scene.

Finally, the push mechanic had an adverse effect on the pace of the game, which is a Bad Thing as it can spoil the immersion, so even if I were not philosophically opposed to the concept, the costs of employing the mechanic are not insignificant.

[SamS]

I don't look at it as a second chance I look at it as another attempt a short time later.

[MikeM]

Hi

That's correct - a pushed roll is a second attempt - not merely another go attempt, but that you are doing something extra, something more than the first attempt, throwing yourself at the task completely, and so the result of failure is all the worse.

The mechanic plays in the horror trope as it increases tension, increases the consequences of failure, and essentially builds upon the overall horror. In practice, once players are used to the idea, after a few uses of pushing rolls, it becomes second nature and does not impede play - in fact the overwhelming response to the rule has been that it streamlines play and works well in the game, without drawing players out the experience - with many players saying it actually draws them in closer to the story.

But if it doesn't feel right in your game then leave it out.

Mike