Call of Cthulhu, a newbies POV
Call of Cthulhu it turns out has the ability to freak me out worse than any hollywood gorefest movie. The atmosphere, the strangeness of the characters and places all have the ability to freak me out good and proper!
Why does roleplaying effect me more deeply than movies or books? Is it the fact I am “in” the game, imagining the world through your character’s eyes, using my imagination, does this bypass the normal jaded hardnose filters, thereby reducing me to a state of childish whimpering? I don’t know but this game has totally blown my perspective of what roleplaying is.
In the short game i played last night (of which we are halfway through) nothing truly wierd happened. We saw some wierd-ish things. All of which our characters explained away. But it still scared the knickers off me.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a completely unexpected hit with me. I come from a history of mini wargaming, warhammer 40ooo etc. My personal literature, movie and video game preferences are fantasy, science fiction.
I’ve never been interested in horror.
I am now!
Blog of a new RPGer 
I definitely agree with you, Call of Cthulhu is one of my favorites just because the whole setting is set up so it scares me more and as a result I feel a lot more involved in the RP aspect of it. Plus it was my first introduction to a really and truly brutal tabletop RPG where you feel as if you’re playing a completely normal human that can die from just about anything dangerous happening.
I was psyched to see the older CoC cover on this post, I was just thinking the other day about how this is still one of my favorite RPG book covers. The first time I saw it I knew nothing about the Cthulhu mythos, but that cover got me 100% interested right off the bat.
Thanks for the comment.
I hear lots of people hate the game simply because of the character wuss-ness. Its not a hack and slash, its about survival, setting, story, atmosphere, spookyness and general freakyness. Cthulhu is a “roleplayers” RPG.
in my humble opinion 🙂
I’ve never played the Call of Cthulhu RPG, but I love the mythos. I’ve read (I think) a good 75% of Lovecraft’s collected stories, and a couple of good biographies — he was a strange, misunderstood man.
It strikes me that the right Lovecraft short story might work well adapted as a solitaire RPG — many of his stories involve a single protagonist battling against unseen foes and their own sanity!
I think that would work well, however a fellow investigator is always good for a martyr. “here read this” lol
I think the real strength of COC is exactly that ‘man versus mythos’ perspective that Lovecraft more or less invented. His essay on supernatural fear makes for interesting reading and what I love about COC is that it seems to have really captured the essence of that fear.
It’s a great game to play and, I find, a great game to GM. I agree wholeheartedly with you, Gordon… it *is* a roleplayers’ RPG and one of the best out there.
Oh dear, the keeper speaks! Have mercy…..
🙂
Once when I was running Call of Cthulhu, one of my players got so freaked out and terrified that he almost attacked me with a fireplace poker. Definitely one of my better moments as a GM.
I must admit. I’m glad i’m not one of your players. seriously.