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Old 10-29-2018, 03:58 AM   #1
joppeknol
 
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Default Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

I GMed in an adventure based on a Call-of-Cthulhu scenario. The players confronted an avatar of a 'Great Old one' (Y'golonac, if I remember correctly)

In Coc, people would do a fright check and if they failed, they there would be dire consequences. Phobias, strange obsessions, etc.

In Gurps terms the monster would have a penalty on a fright check. The higher the penalty, the more chance of sever mental disadvantages (illusions, phobia, self-control rolls).

The problem with the GURPS method was that if I made the penalty low, no one would have ever have a serious disadvantage, even if they fail their roll.

If the monster would have a high penalty on the fright check, _every_ PC would probably at least be incapacitated for a short period, which would mean certain death for the whole party.

So I gave it a low penalty. Half of the party passed, the others joined after 2 seconds of being stunned, the monster was slain after hospitalising two PC's while the third one fled, and everybody had fun.

Still it bothers me. Confronting a monster like this should leave psychic scars. What is the best way to represent the 1/1D20 stat of a CoC monster in GURPS? In other words: You have a reasonable chance of passing the fright check, but if you fail, you have a serious problem.
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Old 10-29-2018, 05:02 AM   #2
Sam Baughn
 
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

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Horror has two different rules-sets for failed Fright Checks messing you up more: Stress and Derangement (p. 141) and Insanity (p. 142). Neither will make you instantly mad with a moderate Fright Check, but they give you a mechanism where multiple Fright Checks can erode your resistance and make mad behaviour more common.

'Mad as Bones' (Pyramid 103) gives you a system for 'mental hit points' which work fairly similar to CoC's sanity system.

If you really want a single Fright Check to have a good chance of inflicting serious issues, I'm afraid I haven't been able to find any published rules which do that, but if I was making a house rule to handle it, I would just add a larger bonus to the roll of the Fright Check Table; either double the margin of failure for the original Fright Check or reverse the penalty of the original Fright Check and add that to the roll (so a Fright Check which had a -2 penalty would add 2 to the roll on the table).
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Old 10-29-2018, 03:34 PM   #3
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

I second the rules in Horror. It's a good book on top of those nice rules.


I ended up with a different rule for my games as the ones in horror is more for horror where my game I wanted people to slip into disadvantages based on more mundane stressers.

If you don't want to buy horrors you can have my houserule for free:

Spoiler:  

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Old 10-29-2018, 03:42 PM   #4
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

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Originally Posted by Maz View Post
I second the rules in Horror. It's a good book on top of those nice rules.


I ended up with a different rule for my games as the ones in horror is more for horror where my game I wanted people to slip into disadvantages based on more mundane stressers.

If you don't want to buy horrors you can have my houserule for free:
I like that.
I use SAN as a ER and my cultists can spend points to power spells, though recovery is slow
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Old 10-29-2018, 04:07 PM   #5
Edges
 
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

You could just say, "This creature has a special feature of adding X to rolls made on the Fright Check table."

It could even be build as a new modifier to Terror.

Cheers.
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Old 10-29-2018, 04:28 PM   #6
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

The rule of thumb I use to assess the fright check penalty for Call of Cthulhu creatures is - half the maximum sanity loss.

Thus, it would be -10 for a creature inflicting a sanity loss of 1d20.

Of course, as you said it, Joppeknol, it means that every character (but the very luckiest and strongwilled ones) will miss their Fright Check roll. But it also means that the results on the Fright Check table will vary from 4 to 38, most of them falling between 16 (stun for 1d seconds and acquire a new quirk) to 26 (faint for 1d minutes plus a -10-point delusion). Five of those results still let the characters act as they want.

It's very harsh. But an avatar of a great old one is not a little creature...

Now, if you don't like that kind of results, I warmly recommand you GURPS Horror, like everybody above, or even Maz's house rule which I find bright.
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Old 10-29-2018, 05:18 PM   #7
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

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Originally Posted by Edges View Post
You could just say, "This creature has a special feature of adding X to rolls made on the Fright Check table."
This -- if you're looking for a simple extension of the Basic rule. The other suggestions are good if you're looking for gradual erosion of sanity.

It's even more or less RAW. Note that you make one roll to see if you fail a Fright Check, and a second roll to see what ill effect failure might have. The second roll takes a penalty of the margin of failure. Nothing says you can't add an extra penalty to the result roll for extra horrific monsters like Elder Things. That doesn't necessarily make it more likely to fail the first success roll the way a penalty to the first Fright Check does.
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Old 10-29-2018, 11:04 PM   #8
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

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Originally Posted by joppeknol View Post
I GMed in an adventure based on a Call-of-Cthulhu scenario. The players confronted an avatar of a 'Great Old one' (Y'golonac, if I remember correctly)

In Coc, people would do a fright check and if they failed, they there would be dire consequences. Phobias, strange obsessions, etc.

In Gurps terms the monster would have a penalty on a fright check. The higher the penalty, the more chance of sever mental disadvantages (illusions, phobia, self-control rolls).

The problem with the GURPS method was that if I made the penalty low, no one would have ever have a serious disadvantage, even if they fail their roll.

If the monster would have a high penalty on the fright check, _every_ PC would probably at least be incapacitated for a short period, which would mean certain death for the whole party. .
Yeah. Here's a hint about horror games (and horror writing). It is often a bad idea to have your monster be an efficient combatant who regards the PC group as a credible threat who must be eliminated to the last murder hobo even as they helplessly faint and puke in horror at even seeing the creature. You need to ask yourself, "What is my monster actually after and do these clown have it and/or pose an obvious threat to taking it?"
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Old 10-30-2018, 09:22 AM   #9
Sam Baughn
 
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Yeah. Here's a hint about horror games (and horror writing). It is often a bad idea to have your monster be an efficient combatant who regards the PC group as a credible threat who must be eliminated to the last murder hobo even as they helplessly faint and puke in horror at even seeing the creature. You need to ask yourself, "What is my monster actually after and do these clown have it and/or pose an obvious threat to taking it?"
I agree. I think the best attitude for a Thing That Should Not Be Known to humans is rather like that of a human to spiders or insects. Most of them find us irritating but not really worthy of attention, a few react in disgust, but often the reaction will be the tentacled hyper-intelligence equivalent of ineffectual flailing and trying to herd you into a cup to be thrown outside.
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Old 10-30-2018, 09:50 AM   #10
talonthehand
 
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Default Re: Fright check phobias, Call of cthulhu like in GURPS

When I did a GURPS CoC run, I just brought in the Sanity System wholesale. I added a POW stat to the character sheet, and treated it like any other (base level of 10, and 10 points to raise/lower it). It worked pretty well.
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