***
Later on, Jerry plays in FMA Sheep, an event of such soul-rending,
mind-wrenching proportions that it rolls 2dSQRT(105). Both dice exceed
his sanity rating, so he loses a SAN and also gibbers frantically when in the
presence of mint jelly.
***
Looks to me like Jerry's not the only one to fail his SAN roll... ;->=
Just out of curiosity, as I didn't get in on the FMAS playtesting, is there a
morale system? Simple roll? Could you hang SAN off of that? I'm sure Cthulu
treats it differently, but I always thought of it as an extension of the same:
first you lose your nerve, then your mind.
However, I suppose it has to mesh with the basic RPG format, or it won't fly
as a warmup for the RPG players, right?
Also, I think this started as Allan looking for FT players, so perhaps if we
craft a way for the lesser gods to be Von Danikan visitors, as I'm sure Beth
can help with the appropriate flying saucers, to be met by the investigator's
garage ships rising to do battle amidst the... er, no, huh?
The_Beast
> Just out of curiosity, as I didn't get in on the FMAS playtesting, is
Well, we could tell you... but then we'd have to kill you.
There are rudimentary parts of a morale system in what we've playtested, but
not a full morale system per se. There _will_ be one in FMAS, Jon just
isn't there yet.
> Could you hang SAN off of that? I'm sure
_Call of Cthulhu_ and _Delta Green_ are roleplaying games. Morale is for
people to roleplay. Sanity, however, is a separate sub-system.
For a miniatures game, you need both. I thought of doing sanity as a part of
the morale system, however you need to have two stats: a Fear stat and a
Sanity stat. Why? Because you have insane cultists with zero sanity who may or
may not be affected by morale. Some will, some won't. You can't have low
sanity meaning you run screaming into the night whenever someone yells
"Boo!"
because then the insane cult leader would be the biggest chicken in the game.
It's a tricky concept, one that I think I've got a pretty good handle on in my
own Call of Cthulhu miniatures game (which is mostly just a collection of
notes).
> However, I suppose it has to mesh with the basic RPG format, or it
That isn't necessarily so. A lot of players want a miniatures game for
Cthulhu. Meshing with the RPG would be a bonus, but it isn't crucial.
Besides, now there are essentially two main flavours of _Call of
Cthulhu_:
Chaosium's Basic Role Play (BRP) system, and D20 _Call of Cthulhu_. The
new
edition of _Delta Green_ is dual statted for BRP and D20. There are also
a
number of people who have ported CoC and _Delta Green_ to GURPS. I tried
that for a while, but gave up because there's a problem with the GURPS Fright
Check system.
I have about a half dozen scenarios thought up for this, with more percolating
in my brain. The idea of using FMAS for Cthulhu was one of the primary reasons
for me wanting to playtest it. I'm still very interested in FMAS, and it's the
reason I'll probably keep the 25mm SG2 figures that I have instead of
converting wholesale to 15mm, but for Cthulhu I think the best bet is to keep
producing my own game.
> Also, I think this started as Allan looking for FT players, so perhaps
_Delta Green_, which is sort of X-Files meets Cthulhu, but is far, _FAR_
better than that description implies, has Grey aliens. Half the scenarios I
thought up are _Delta Green_ inspired, and make use of Greys. I haven't
found Grey figures that I really like. I bought a bunch of Gomi Design figures
from Jon, but they are a little comical. There's another company that makes
some really good looking Greys (the URL was posted here) but all the Greys
carry weapons, which isn't what I want either.
> agoodall@att.net wrote:
Did you ever see or play R. Talsorian Games Cyberpunk, and it's combat system
Friday Night Firefight? IIRC, FNFF used a smaller set of stats, including a
"Cool" stat for morale, while Cyberpunk expanded the list to include an
"Empathy" stat for PCs.
The Empathy stat itself multiplied by ten to give "humanity points" which were
lost as people corrupted themselves with bionic parts ("cyberware"). To much
bionics led to "Cyberpsychosis",
complete loss of all fellow-feeling for humanity (and removal from
the game).
> From what I saw the min-maxers descended on the game and played it
with the cyberware subbing in for magic items and every PC just naturally
started with the absolute maximum Empathy stat, so as to be able to play with
the maximum amount of upgrades. It was like a
whole generation of fluffy, touchy-feely, granola-eating poets all
spontaneously decided to have all their limbs cut off an their eyes poked out
so they could hit the mean streets and rob people with their gigantic guns and
monoblade katanas.
Nevertheless, I thought this was a reasonably compact set of mechanics for
psychology (to the extent that the idea isn't laughable). Quite a few people
crossed Cyberpunk over with CoC and mapped SAN points directly on to Humanity
points, which I thought missed the point a little. The classic result of SAN
loss, whether in a CoC game or in Lovecraftian fiction is fearfulness,
paranoia, catatonia, and a great list of phobias and neuroses. In short, you
are damaged permanently from losing your Cool, blowing your morale, getting
the Fear. Your cultists, however, have lost all their Empathy, has no
conception of the feelings of others. They are psychotics and sociopaths.
So, anyway, I think it's fair to use morale checks as SAN checks. I don't know
that the loss of humanity leading to
fearless-but-batty cultist behaviour is going to happen over the
scale of a wargame.
> David wrote:
> Did you ever see or play R. Talsorian Games Cyberpunk, and it's
<<snippage>>
<
> Nevertheless, I thought this was a reasonably compact set of
That's an interesting idea, the two stats offsetting each other. I'll have to
think about this. I think there's something vaguely similar in Atlas Games'
_Unknown Armies_. I'll look through that, too.
> So, anyway, I think it's fair to use morale checks as SAN checks.
This is what makes modelling sanity difficult. While a figure isn't going to
go from normally sane to completely and totally loopy in a single scenario
(unless he sees one of the Great Old Ones), there are still things that I want
to model that require a separation of Sanity and Fear.
I mentioned the fearless-but-batty cultist. There's also the
cowardly-and-
batty cultist, who cringes every time a bullet flies past him but who isn't
going to go catatonic at the sight of a shoggoth.
As another example, there's the brave, upper crust Englishman on safari. A
Dark Young appears and his mind snaps. As the Dark Young (think ambulatory
plant/tree thing with large tentacles sprouting out the top) advances,
he turns to his trembling bearer and says, "Look, Mbutu! Pythons! Hand me my
machete!" In this case the player probably _does_ wish his figure would
turn tail and run, but due to him becoming temporarily insane he doesn't see
the lurching monstrosity as anything more than a swaying tree with pythons
hanging from the limbs.
Handling these various situations is difficult. Failing a sanity roll but not
losing a lot of sanity in the process will be the same as failing a fear
roll. I'm not sure how to handle a figure that becomes temporarily insane. I'm
toying with the idea of letting the other player handle the figure until it
"snaps out of it", but I'm not sure how to go about limiting the other
player's influence on the figure. Having the player move the insane hunter
towards the Dark Young is fair, but it gets boring if all insane characters
ever do is march forward into the open so that the other side can get a clean
shot at them.
> _Call of Cthulhu_ and _Delta Green_ are roleplaying games. Morale is
> game.
It's more a case of *what* they're afraid of, though. Joe Cultist might not
flinch from gunfire, but will cower away from an Elder Sign. A couple of
different tracks, maybe...you mention Unknown Armies, which has four different
kinds of "Stress Checks": Violence, Self, Isolation, and the Unnatural.
Something similar might do the job here, without having to keep track of two
different mechanics.
Having toyed with this subject myself -- I wrote a Call of Cthulhu
suppliment for the ShockForce game, which was never actually published
-- I
know where you're coming from, at least.
> _Delta Green_, which is sort of X-Files meets Cthulhu, but is far,
> found
Have you seen Copplestone's Greys? Wonderful, they is; I just picked up a pack
last week.
Me, I use the Lance and Laser versions. They're all "armed" with probes, which
works for my purposes.
My grand plan with FMA is two interrelated games:
FMAH -- Full Metal Action Hero, for playing games of cinematic combat.
Special abilities like "I Don't Got Time To Bleed", and "One Day Left 'til
Retirement", and such. All very tongue in cheek, obviously.
And, of course, Weirdwars. Skirmish gaming based on urban legends and
myths. Sewer-gators, Men in Black, Greys, Sasquatch, and so forth.
> John C. wrote:
> Unnatural. Something similar might do the job here, without having to
I'm definitely going to have to look at this, maybe tonight while I'm doing my
exercises. My current idea has Sanity and Fear mechanics that are very
similar, but not exactly the same. I'd prefer mechanisms that were essentially
identical.
> Have you seen Copplestone's Greys? Wonderful, they is; I just picked
I just found them online. They are pretty much what I'm after! Any idea where
you can get them? I noticed a couple of places online where you can mail in a
form, but that's a bit of a pain. I'd prefer to order online than to have to
mail something.
> agoodall@att.net wrote:
When SAN breaks (either temporarily because of the 20% rule, or on
a more long-term basis because of complete breakdown) isn't the
Keeper supposed to get involved in the interpretation? A zero-SAN
cultist is simply a tool to be used as the situation requires. Sorry to tear
the umpiring curtain and all that.
> From: ~ On Behalf Of David Brewer
> Did you ever play RTG Cyberpunk? <snip Empathy description>
> From what I saw the min-maxers descended on the game and played
Not very bright. Even the denser members of my group (who played the game
mainly for skirmish) worked out that one saved one's EMP
for must-haves and made the rest of the necessary "edge" up by
acquiring external equipment that didn't cost irreplacable EMP.
> and every PC just naturally started with the absolute maximum
I refer the honourable list member to VFtE pg 11 col 1 para 6. The same note
appears in the 2020 edition pg 15 col 2, and don't put up with them ignoring
the enemy to join in a scrum for the fallen character's equipment!
Nathan "CAWS is RARE, dammit, RARE!" Girdler
> Nathan wrote:
> When SAN breaks (either temporarily because of the 20% rule, or on
I mentioned "temporary insanity" at one point, but what I really meant was
indefinite insanity. Indefinite insanity is the 5 point drop in one sitting
(or in a relatively close period of time). _Call of Cthulhu_ 5.5 has two
Indefinite Insanity tables, one short term and one long term. They are a
little bit open to interpretation, but not a whole lot.
I've always played it that Temporary Insanity (I always thought that the
terms "temporary insanity" and "indefinite insanity" should have been
reversed), the drop in sanity by 20% or more is usually accompanied by
Indefinite Insanity. After all, you can only lose 20% of your sanity and
_not_ hit the indefinite insanity threshold of 5 points if your sanity
is currently less than 25 points. For wargame purposes, Indefinite Insanity
would manifest. Temporary Insanity would only show up after the battle.
While a zero sanity cultist is used as a tool of the Keeper, zero sanity
cultists could appear a fair bit in wargames based on the Cthulhu Mythos. For
that matter, you might have your typical 20% or 10% sanity cultists in a
scenario. There's no reason why they should be scared of their shadow at that
level of sanity. They have a very poor grip on reality, which may actually
embolden them. After all, the sane person is the one that ducks when a machine
gun opens up.
> > A couple of
I believe that most of the rules are even available on Atlas' website. I quite
like the Stress Checks mechanics, and in fact prefer them to the
Cthulhu sanity rules. When/if I run CoC again, I'm swapping them in.
> > Have you seen Copplestone's Greys? Wonderful, they is; I just
> where
In the US, they're available from RLBPS
http://www.rlbps.com/rlbpscop.htm
...but I've found that it's actually cheaper, shipping and all, to get them
directly from Copplestone. Fortunately, Abington now carries the Copplestone
stuff, so I'm saved the trouble....
> John C. wrote:
> In the US, they're available from RLBPS
Thank you John (and Jon!) for information about Copplestone. I may buy them
directly from Copplestone. I did some checking and I see that Spirt Games in
Britain also sell Copplestone figures for the same price as Copplestone has
them listed (UKP 6.50 for a set). I've had good luck with Spirt Games in the
past, buying Kroymek resin and a whole bunch of Dixon samurai weapons. That
was to Canada, but I imagine their service to the U.S. won't be bad either.
As for _Unknown Armies_ sanity rules, I didn't get a chance to look at
them
yesterday but I will over the weekend. I have a _Delta Green_ game on
Saturday. It would give me a chance to try those rules and the regular
Cthulhu sanity rules side-by-side and see what the players think.
> agoodall@att.net wrote:
I have had good experiences both with Spirit Games and with Copplestone
himself. I see no reason not to buy directly from Copplestone (except shipping
maybe?), and this way he'll earn more on the figures than when you buy through
a reseller.