Cthulhu in GURPS 4e

[GodlessRose]

I'm planning a GURPS Call of Cthulhu game, set in the modern day. (Or possibly 1920s, but I'm not much of a history buff.) I've run the Basic RolePlaying version of CoC before, but never with GURPS. I have CthulhuPunk, Horror 3e, most GURPS 4e books, and the BRP CoC core book, 6th edition.

The first adventure will be The Haunting, which is part of the CoC Quick Start download. (I've wanted to run that for a while, but never had a group who hadn't already played it till now.) Using the guidelines in the back of CthulhuPunk, it seems simple to convert.

I've been pondering a few things, and thought I'd see what you guys think.

1) Power level: I'm leaning toward 100 point characters, on the theory that will give a sort of classic CoC feel - exceptional, but not larger-than-life heroes. I also plan to uncouple Will and Per from IQ, and charge the full 20 points per level for IQ. Which means characters will tend to cost a little more than by RAW, so 100 points might be more restrictive than I think. Any thoughts?

2) I haven't played a game with Mythos/Sanity-Blasting Fright Checks yet, but the rules seem a little harsh. Won't characters often wind up stunned and helpless as The Bad Thing comes to eat them? (I guess that's sort of the point, but still...)

3) Mythos Awareness: In 4e, this would be Detect with Vague, Uncontrollable, and Unconscious Only, right?

4) The Innsmouth Look: My best guess is in 4e, this would be Short Lifespan with Self-Destruct and Distinctive Features, plus a zero-point feature that if the character "dies of old age" he becomes a Deep One NPC. Is there a better way to model it?

5) In CthulhuPunk, characters must make special Mythos Fright Checks per each level of Mythos Lore gained, even if the skill is a default to Occultism (it defaults at -12). But unless I missed something, it doesn't specify at what level of skill the rolls start. I'm guessing they start at skill 3. So a character with IQ 13 who spends 1 point on Hidden Lore (Cthulhu) would have to make 10 rolls...

6) In BRP CoC, characters can acquire Cthulhu Mythos skill involuntarily, as a result of failed sanity rolls. I was thinking of a house rule that when a character fails his first Mythos Fright Check, he acquires a default of IQ-5 or Occultism-4 for Hidden Lore (Cthulhu). And he makes Mythos Fright Checks for gaining the skill. Though perhaps I should be nice and let him make the rolls later, as the implications sink in, and not while the Shoggoth is still in pursuit...

Any other thoughts folks would like to share would be welcome.

[Eltharon]

Well, for #4, I'd say that's fine, but I wouldn't worry about it, since they'll probably be a) NPCs anyway, and therefore you really don't need to worry about points or b) the campaign isn't going to go on for long enough for short lifespan/self destruct to have any effect.
I'd be fine with #1, once the characters are made, you can always give them more points if they look too weak.
I really don't play CoC, so thats about all I can give you

[weby]

If you use fear rules and give permanent bad things from there, you could partly compensate by giving say 1/5 of the points of such penalty to the Knowledge skill.

Also as the characters will likely loose a lot of points to the fear rolls, you may want to think of the point award levels and what character levels you want in long run.

[David Johnston2]

Personally I find Mythos fright checks to be silly. Ordinary fright checks with sufficient modifiers are perfectly adequate to represent the mythos.

[Max Schreck]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Personally I find Mythos fright checks to be silly. Ordinary fright checks with sufficient modifiers are perfectly adequate to represent the mythos.

I am in total agreement; there is no need to introduce a new mechanic for something GURPS already handles satisfactorily with the normal Fright Checks.

Originally Posted by GodlessRose

I was wondering why they felt the funky rolls were necessary. But they must have considered using standard fright checks. I'd be interested to know why they found them inadequate.

Maybe it is the idea that some people have that in Call of Cthulhu, people absolutely have to go stark raving mad at the mere glimpse of the Lovecraftian horrors. I think a cursory reading of the source material would dispel that idea. I also think that the Mythos Fright Check is much harsher than the CoC Sanity loss mechanic it is meant to emulate. It's your call, of course, but I am not a fan of the Mythos Fright Checks, and I have never used them in my campaigns.

A long time ago, I started a thread with various 4e write-ups of cthulhoid horrors. Maybe there's something you can use for your campaign.

Link here: Happy Halloween! Cthulhoid creatures for 4e

The Star-Spawn and Cthulhu himself are incomplete, as I never got around to polishing them off, but the rest should be good to go, and with a little work, the Star-Spawn and Cthulhu are okay too. They are as complete (and probably more) as the ones in GURPS Cthulhupunk, anyway.

Cheers,

Max

[jacobmuller]

Have you considered converting an average BRP-CoC PC and finding the cp value?
My notes are faded and practically unreadable - very CoC but not much use. I also only have 1st-3rd edition CoC and no idea how much the rules have changed.

2nd ed CoC, average Journalist, is worth about 50cp. All careers? Across the board: IQ+1 and perhaps 30cp of skills; 24 career, 6 background. It's the CoC background; Joe Shmoe inherits something from previously unheard of relative and it turns out real bad for his life expectancy.

(CoC Quik Start: that's the 2nd Ed box cover art!)

[gmillerd]

Depends on how the arc of the game is planned, if its bug hunt your likely going to have disposable characters. Not something that works well in GURPS with full blown points due to the time/engergy impact of character creation on players.

I run mythos games pretty exclusively and if the characters know about the horrors and are inteligence and in sync; they likely won't try and crusade again the mythos themselves in a last stand fashion.

If the game is dealing with the cultists and the mad scientists, the sub-races and the artifacts, then your really looking at something akin to maybe a dark-cliffhangers game.

If you plotted a indiana jones movie and made it rated-r, juiced up the naz1 cult angle 500% you might have a good cthulhu arc. And why people need to be rototilled every game is beyond me.

[GodlessRose]

Sorry for taking so long to reply.

Originally Posted by Max Schreck

A long time ago, I started a thread with various 4e write-ups of cthulhoid horrors. Maybe there's something you can use for your campaign.

Link here: Happy Halloween! Cthulhoid creatures for 4e

Thanks for the link. I had missed that. The bit about Cthulhu having Telesend got me thinking. Now I'm not sure the Mythos Awareness Advantage should even exist, since the dream revelations about the Mythos could all be due to the abilities of Mythos creatures.

[GodlessRose]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Have you considered converting an average BRP-CoC PC and finding the cp value?

Actually, no. Thanks for suggesting that.

Assuming only the basic 6e character creation rules, median Characteristic rolls, and mean wealth, and ignoring Characteristics that have no clear parallel in GURPS, Joe Average Investigator works out to:

ST 10.5 [5]
DX 10.5 [10]
IQ 13 [60]
HT 10.5 [5]
Will 10.5 [-12.5]
Very Wealthy [30]
Average Appearance, no Disadvantages

Skills are a problem, though. Joe gets 270 occupation points and 130 personal interest, but the value in GURPS will vary wildly depending on how they are spent. And some BRP skills are Advantages or Secondary Attributes in GURPS, to complicate matters. But if we arbitrarily assume 32.5 points in skills (reasonable, I think), then the total comes to 130 points.

But CthulhuPunk recommends that Intelligence scores be reduced by 2, since they are somewhat inflated in BRP. Which brings the total down to a neat 100 points.

On the other hand, stats in the two systems are not functionally equivalent, so it isn't clear what this exercise proves. (Except that I have too much free time, perhaps.) And the value of the PCs from my BRP campaigns are considerably higher, since I am permissive with the dice. (I allow low stats to be re-rolled, stats to be re-arranged, and points traded to adjust wealth scores. I hate random character creation systems, so I make it easy for people to get a character close to what they want.) It's interesting, though.

[TheBrain]

Ah but will your campaign settle the ultimate question?