Chaosium Digest Volume 2, Number 6 Date: Sunday, May 23, 1993 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: Special Effects in Call of Cthulhu (Alex Antunes) CALL OF CTHULHU Sanity and More Sanity (Alex Antunes) CALL OF CTHULHU Pendragon First Edition Reviews (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON Family Trees (Heidi Kaye) PENDRAGON Editor's Notes: After several weeks of downtime, finally a new digest. A couple of short notes, to start off with. In Volume 2, Number 5 of this Digest, Jason Corley reviewed Escape from Innsmouth. The next issue of The Unspeakable Oath (issue 8/9) contains a review of the same book by Liam Routt. If you'd like to see another person's view of the supplement, you're encouraged to pick up a copy when it hits the shelves. Liam also noted that the Castle of Eyes (which was recently released, as I mentioned in the last issue) was based to some extent on a Stormbringer campaign. Finally, Sam Shirley asked me to announce that Chaosium's email address has changed. All electronic correspondences to Chaosium should now go to: chaosium@netcom.com, and not the old American On Line address. Shannon -------------------- From: Alex ANTUNES Subject: Special Effects in Call of Cthulhu System: Call of Cthulhu In-Reply-To: V2.5 Comments on Grace Under Pressure One issue with Call of Cthulhu is "How necessary are special effects in creating a terrifying mood?" Most gaming relies on words and descriptions to achieve its effects, with special props and lighting optional. It seems CoC is the most natural candidate to move closer to live role playing/improvisational theater. All the live games I've run or helped run have been Cthulhoid in nature, and it seems that at least one scenario out there requires special effects and advanced staging, "Grace Under Pressure". Recently, John Tynes wrote an eloquent reply to my review of "Grace Under Pressure", bringing up the issue (to use his words) that "the same game doesn't come off the same way with all groups." I think this is especially true of prop-heavy scenarios. Without the necessary extra effects, the scenario cannot create the proper mood. When we ran GUP, we had to make due with a single keeper, one room with a choice of light or dark, and a voice modulator to mimic the connection with the surface ship. Mr. Tynes's group ran "in a dark room lit only by green glowsticks and penlights. Two tape decks run in the background; one has a long tape of whalesong, the other a short endless loop tape of sonar pings. A pair of walkie-talkies is used to keep the two groups in touch when they split up...We use a separate room for the minisub..." (He mentions that the reprint of GUP will include more staging information, btw.) Pagan Publishing's run of GUP seems to be bridging the border between regular CoC and live role playing, or at least improvisational theater. I think that "production notes" are a good idea, and clearly required. As a sit-down adventure, GUP exemplifies the worst of the spectrum: a very forced scenario, characters who initially are very limited to a specific role (role, character class, your choice of expression), the very reasons I gave up D&D. On the other hand, this is the perfect setup to run a more theatrical production, where the focus is less on free action and exploration and more on reaction and survival. Clearly there is much room for roleplaying in that context. So, to bring this ramble to a conclusion, I find the possibilities for CoC for more theatrical role-playing are a strength for the game, and would be interested in knowing how many keepers out there are doing "CoC + theater" games/campaigns. Cheers, Sandy alex@astro.isas.ac.jp -------------------- From: Alex ANTUNES Subject: Sanity and More Sanity System: Call of Cthulhu One issue in Call of Cthulhu is "what is Sanity". It seems there are two definitions, both concurrent, both held in one little statistic. First, we have "societal sanity", ie how well can this character fit into the mainstream world. Most investigators start off high in this, able to meet associates for breakfast, go to work, etc. As they experience more and more of "the darker side of reality", however, they lose the ability to fit in. Breakfast starts to become a challenge-- "are those REALLY just... eggs? Why is the waiter staring at me? Perhaps he is a cultist who has poisoned my food! I should strike first!" Second, we have "individual sanity", or grace under pressure. This is the ability of the investigator to remain in control of their actions in a given situation. As the slimey tentacled mass moves forward, a "sane" character will have the necessary self-awareness to climb the rope and escape out the trapdoor. An "insane" character may pick up a nearby lamp and charge the slime. CoC rules suggest that magicians have low sanity, since the way they perceive the world (ie magic works) is at odds with the mainstream approach. Also, the more weirdness one encounters, the more one realizes just how off the mainstream view is. But this is difficult to balance with individual sanity, which is contained in the same character statistic but measures how able the investigator is able to deal with the oddities. One can argue that the more horror one sees, the less is able to deal with it, until eventually one surrenders to the horror (a classic Lovecraftian ending is "and so now I commit suicide", after all.) However, I find this difficult to work with. As keeper I enjoy having characters who are able to face cumulatively greater amounts of weirdness without automatically going to pieces. Thus I use sanity as a measure of "individual sanity" and let them roleplay the "societal sanity" instead of just applying a number. This works out very well. The players are certainly paranoid enough after a few sessions that their attempts to mix with mainstream society clearly show their sanity loss, without any numbers being consulted or any dice being rolled. Sanity loss and the resulting rolls measure only self-control, or whether their character is stable enough to remain "sane" for the given situation. Insane characters (temporarily or not) lose control of some or all of their actions. This allows a richer variety of characters. Some like to be "normal" and fall to pieces when facing monsters (traditional Lovecraft hero/victim), some like to be very offbeat and really only at home in the weird world (Randolph Carter types). When it comes to regaining sanity, well, it is very difficult to undo the effects of discovery, but it is easy to gain self-confidence. As we play it, a character who regains a few points of sanity hasn't generally thought "It didn't happen, that thing didn't exist" but more "Well, it may have been a putrid gob of sentient goo, but it's nice to know it wasn't totally indestructable". To give an example of the two types of sanity, my SO Emma has suggested the Ghostbusters. (Unfortunately, I could only remember one character name, the rest are listed by actor's names) Character Society interaction Self control Egan: clearly low sanity for society very high self interaction-- he sees the world control, quite as too weird a place for most sane as regards people to understand him his abilities Acroyd: low sanity for society interaction, low self control, again he is a bit too weird to thus low personal fit in sanity Murray: high sanity for fitting in with high sanity for mainstream society most self-control situations Weaver: high sanity for fitting in with medium-low sanity for mainsteam society self-control, i.e. she doesn't quite have an easy time dealing with things Okay, so you have here the four possible varieties: low social but high self-control, low social and low self-control, high social and high self-control, high social and low self-control. Difficult to model with just one number, no? I would be interested in knowing how other Keepers and Investigators deal with the two faces of Sanity. Cheers, Sandy alex@astro.isas.ac.jp -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: Pendragon First Edition Reviews System: Pendragon One of the pieces of mail that I've gotten since the last digest was a request for reviews of the out-of-print items for Pendragon. So, I've written up some comments on them below. Pendragon First Edition (2701-X) Pendragon Second Edition (? 2701-X) The first couple of editions for Pendragon are pretty similar to the most recent one. There have been some changes in how glory works, and some changes in holdings, but besides that, almost everything else is identical (besides the fact that the original editions of Pendragon were in boxes, of course). There are a couple of things in the first edition not in later ones that made it worth picking up. These included an eight page booklet of 27 of the most famous Round Table knights and lots of interesting margin notes throughout the books. I've never actually seen a copy of the Second Edition, but I've been told that it's identical to the first (which I've described above), except for the fact that the arrangement of the books and their contents is different. Clearly, Pendragon has evolved since the first couple of editions, and the latest edition is indeed better than the first ones for this evolution. However, the first couple of editions of Pendragon still have several pearls which can be used by the Pendragon gamemaster. The Pendragon Campaign (2702) This is a useful book. I hadn't realized quite how useful it was until I went back and picked it up again. It includes lots of notes on the setting of Arthurian Britain (some of which has been expanded upon in more recent supplements, some of which has not), several pages on magic in Pendragon (less than will be in the fourth edition, surely) and stats for many creatures. There are also a few pages of notes on the knights and clans of notes and lots of chronologies, both for individual knights and the campaign as a whole. Finally, there's a nice bibliography and some interesting designer notes. Overall, the Pendragon Campaign is somewhat of a miscellany. However, there is a tremendous amount of useful information in it. Noble's Book (2703) This is one of the two truly great First edition Pendragon supplements. It's much more coherent than the Pendragon Campaign and the result is a book that is even more useful. There are three sections to the Noble's Book: Nobility, Economy and War. The nobility section has an excellect section on heraldry, and also some notes on titles and tournaments. The economy section has a fun (much more detailed) system for controlling a knight's holdings. There are also notes on taxes and castle defenses. Finally, the war section has yet another set of rules for battles. A lot of the stuff in the Noble's book is really good. If you can find a copy, buy it. The King Arthur Companion (2704) Absolutely, the King Arthur Companion is the best of all of the First Edition Pendragon supplements. It's an Arthurian encyclopedia broken into three sections, on people, places and items. Minor characters just have a paragraph of notes, while major knights have several pages. The Companion is an excellent reference book for Pendragon. The Grey Knight (2705) This was the first of two adventures written for First Edition (and, the better of the two). It's set in 515 and interweaves many elements of the history to form an interesting background. I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice to say, this adventure is very well done. Tournament of Dreams (2706) This is actually a set of two adventures, the Tournament of Dreams, and the Circle of Gold. They're both designed to be set in Phase 2, like the Grey Knight. The adventures are both somewhat linear, and I only found the first (the Tournament of Dreams) to be truly interesting. This is probably the weakest of the First Edition Pendragon supplements. All told, there were a lot of fun things published for the first edition Pendragon. If you're an avid Pendragon player and you don't have them, you might want to look into used game stores around you. Shannon -------------------- From: Heidi Kaye Subject: Family Trees System: Pendragon Some of the Arthurian figures have quite complicated family relationships. I've drawn up some family trees with the help of Ronan Coghlan's ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ARTHURIAN LEGENDS (1991). Key: = married ~ unmarried Marhalt, King of Ireland = Iseult King Hoel of Brittany | Melodias, King ___|______________ | of Lyonesse | | | | _______________________ = 1/Elizabeth = 2/ | Kahedrin | | | | | Runalen Marhaus Mark = Iseult ~ Tristram = Iseult Blanche Mains | | _________________ ___________________________ | | | | Amoraldo Golistant Tristan = Maria Ysaie the Sad = Martha the Younger | Marc = Orimonde These are so complex I'll have to do them in sections: Amlawdd Wledig = Gwen | | 1/Gorlois = Ygraine ~ Uther/2 | | | Arthur ______________________________________ | | | Lot = Morgause Morgan = Uriens Elaine = Nentres, | | King of | | Garlot (See next part) _____________________________ | | | 1/Esclados = Laudine = 2/Owaine<-(twins)->Morfudd Marine Lot = Morgause | | _____________________________________________________________________ | | | | | | | Gawain Eries Agravaine Gaheris Gareth Soredamor = Alexander Clarissant = | Laurel = Lynette = Lyonesse | (Byzantine) Guiromelant | (Damosel Cliges | | Savage) Guigenor = ______________________________________ Aalardin | | | | | Guinglan Wigalois Florence Lovel Biausdous = Biautei, (See below for more detail) daughter of the King of the Isles Lynette and Lyonesse were sisters, their brother was Gringamore, and Laurel was his daughter, their niece. Gawain was a real ladies' man and had several wives and mistresses: King Joram's niece, Florie = Gawain = Ragnell (loathly lady) | | Larie = Wigalois Guinglan (Le Bel Inconnu) = Blonde Esmeree a.k.a. Lybius Desconus Other marriages and relationships: Amurfine = Gawain ~ Ydain ~ Brandiles' sister It is not clear who the mothers of his two illegitimate sons, Florence and Lovel, were. Nor is it clear whether Biausdous is legitimate or illegitimate. All of Gawain's sons tend to come to the King's court unaware of who their father is, even the legitimate ones, so presumably he never spent any time with them. Lancelot's family is also complicated: Lancelot the Elder = King of Ireland's daughter | | ____________________________________________________ | | | | | King Ban King Bors Nestor Guinebaut Ivoire = King Constantine (See below) (See below) | (wizard) | of Britain | | ____________ _____________________ | | | | | Blamore Bleoberis Ivoine Pandragon Uther ~ | (Constans) (Ambrosius) Ygraine Nestor | Arthur Elaine = King Ban ~ Agravadain's wife | | | | Pelles ___________ \_____ | | | | Elaine = Lancelot Liban ~ Pandragus Ector de Maris = Perse | | Galahad _________ | | (twins) Evaine = King Bors | ______________________________________________________ | | | Lionel Bors ~ King Brandegoris'daughter Helain the White (son) | Elyan the White (son) Elaine and Evaine were sisters who married the brothers Ban and Bors. That's all for now. -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is a Discussion Forum for Chaosium Games which do not have another specific area for discussion. 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