The Spoony Experiment - Because bad movies and games deserve to be hurt back!

http://www.facebook.com/philipp.wanderer Philipp Wanderer

thx for the frequent cm episodes, love them, even the rambling!

http://www.facebook.com/ChusterMerino Chuster M. Merino

Yay! More “Counter Monkey”!
Keep doing what you´re doing, Spoony!

http://twitter.com/dzsolidus Nate gervais

Well Spoony, I’d argue that having a gun in CoC is useless. I mean against ancient monsters it won’t due shit, but when you say end up fighting like cultists or maybe bandits/mobsters it can be usefull. There is a 1920′s CoC which takes place in Chicago an does involve human enemies, so I think a gun against those can work.

http://twitter.com/Yadokingu Moritz

You have a sanity meter in Eternal Darkness for the Gamecube and go slowly insane when monsters look at you.
That game is basically about the Cthulhu Mythos without mentioning Cthulhu.
There are 4 old ones (3 in a cyclic conflict with each other and one caught in the middle).
You can use their powers for spells and stuff by combining runes. Great game.

http://twitter.com/ScurvyDave Binny Rexis

I’m still depressed that they never made a sequel to Eternal Darkness, it was a really fun game and story.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Sulkowski/1063430223 Mary Sulkowski

Ironically, even interracial relations gave Lovecraft the heebie-jeebies. Who knows what terrible nightmares modern hentai would give him.
- draxo
  
  1d3 sanity loss.
  - http://twitter.com/mlp_VelvetFog Velvet Fog
    
    Oh come on, Some of the Hentai I’ve seen would rate at least 1d4 sanity loss.
    - http://twitter.com/NevixAstari Herman Cillo
      
      1d12 for some of the fetish art out there. The worst of it is the only reason Cthulhu doesn’t break the borders of reality and devour the universe.
      
      Well, that and Cthulhu is still watching and rewatching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s a sucker for the Buffy/Angel relationship tragedy.

http://twitter.com/BeruserukuGX Corey Mcintyre

Great video Spoony love your counter monkeys! never stop making videos dude!

Fan_the_Flames

“Face Tentacles that can grab up to 4 Investigators and Penetrate Small Openings”

Yeah…probably didn’t think when they wrote out that sentence about the future. Great CM again, keep them coming!

http://www.facebook.com/erik.efterkla Erik Efterklang

It’s still around in the newer versions. I think they are very well aware.

NuraMike

I’d hop on that death train. Sounds like fun.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Hall/100000745849532 Joe Hall

Hey Spoony if you really want to play Call of Cthulhu that bad, I can probably get a GURPS game of it together. Assuming you wouldnt want to DM of course, but regardless think about it =P

http://www.facebook.com/daniel.heiding.5 Daniel Heiding

Reminds me of “Terror-robot version: Annihilator” from Mutant: Undergångens arvtagare(Mutant: Heirs of the apocalypse).

This guy… or bot… this bot… was armed with Thermonuclear bombs… was the size of godzilla… had EMP-immune and also had a armour that would take rpg-s and cannons and anything really… but it had stats. The difference between him and Cthulhu is when he dies… he dies… but he has a self-destruction sequence… that wipes a d100 miles from the face of the effing earth… and burns another hundred miles… and radiation and fuuuuuck… I will find my books and post this fucker… and the retarded thing is that these robots guard like… things no longer there… because they survived when the bunkers and bridges and what ever did not.

Cthulhu07

I miss the days when we used to play Call of Cthulhu. What fun adventures we had… even though my character spent most of his time inside the asylum eating flies and such. But still, I would give anything to play the game again….

Guest

Have you ever done a Cthulhutech campaign?

CorpseFactor

Have you ever done a Cthulhutech campaign?

Skolex

Oreo looks so comfy laying across the arm of that chair! Looks like she’s used to Dad sitting and talking to the camera now :)

Gildedtongue

Listening to Spoony drool over the Insanity table is akin to any other DM when they see a new “Critical Fail” sheet. Pure child-like wonder.

Drakedragon

I get the same kind of feeling whenever I go through a monster manual or a bestiary and see a monster I’d never seen before or forgot about. I just want to play with it! I want to throw it at the party and see what happens! SO BADLY!
http://twitter.com/NevixAstari Herman Cillo

Critical failure charts are the stuff of evil, spawned from the depths of hell by Satan himself.

I played one D&D game with a critical fail rule of “Self, Friend, Break, Drop”, where if we rolled a natural one, we’d roll a D4 and it would sync up with those four results.

It showed just how ridiculous it was when a WATER ELEMENTAL bashed itself to death. With its own slam attack. And the DM defended it because “If you’d ever tried martial arts you’d know that there are plenty of ways you can hurt yourself throwing a punch.”

Good God that was a stupid rule. I HATE critical failure/success charts. They’re some of the most random sadistic BS in tabletop games with few competitors for being as cheap and cruel in the annals of gaming.

http://twitter.com/MrSirDrDaddy Rev. Cameron Burge

Now I want to play Call of Cthulhu again too. Last time I played, I went nuts, but I accidentally killed a plot critical creature in the process.

Kendotuxedo

hahaha, how
- http://twitter.com/MrSirDrDaddy Rev. Cameron Burge
  
  I was playing a past-his-prime detective who got it in his head that all the shit going down was his last chance at being something great. So, after threatening a bunch of cultists, they sicked some monstrosity on us. While it was eating the old man next to me, I was able to shoot it to death with a pistol because I maxed all of my die rolls every time. I then promptly checked myself into a bar and drank myself to death.
  - Kendotuxedo
    
    cool story bro. That’s a good way to go.
    My character would probably be the unlucky guy to become insane after confronting something and if he narrowly survived, would go to a McDonald’s, crawl into the Play Place, and bleed to death on the slide.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew-Wenke/1156556418 Matthew Wenke

last game I played,I ended up leading the cult,so a win? lol.join ‘em,you last longer
- http://twitter.com/kyleg1461 Kyle Glover
  
  Your best bet is always to be part of the cult and ensure that you’re the first to be devoured…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Henry-Walsh/100001272892039 Henry Walsh

Heh my last character the GM just outright hated after the first session. It wasn’t that he was a bad arse or anything, but it was the D20 game and my character, by pure dice rolls, couldn’t lose sanity.

Character was named Sam Spade… Yes… Cheesey name… I played him with a great speech impediment (so it was Sham Shpade)… And the justification was that he was a flailing private detective who, in his youth, saw a lot of “scary stuff” (ala mafia type stuff) and he only carried a .38 revolver.

But dear god… I don’t wanna know what Sam saw as a kid… Ghost? No sanity loss. Reanimated corpse? Didn’t faze him. Floating dagger trying to run us through? Nope… Nothing… Saw a minion of an elder “thing” … Nope… Totally fine with it.

I actually retied the character after 4 sessions (1 story) because I couldn’t possibly justify the character and was disturbed by what he wasn’t disturbed by. :P

http://www.facebook.com/angel.llera Angel R. Llera Padro

I’d be in for a Call of Cthulhu game, now it’s easier than ever with roll20.net

http://www.facebook.com/erlecoz Erwan Le Coz

I really like this kind of review. In fact, i’ve never played any of this games you spoke about, but after listening to you, I really have the urge to try ! you’re good !

http://sbkmulletman.deviantart.com/ sbkMulletMan

His tentacles can grab 4 people and penetrate small holes?

Holy shit, this quickly turned into a Something*Positive comic! http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07172003.shtml

See, all roads eventually lead to Cthulhu!

doresh

I think there’s actually at least one cthulhu hentai parody around Oo

http://www.facebook.com/jannick.hverkeltoft Jannick Hegelund Hverkeltoft

only played call of cthulhu once, we were all noobs and didn’t know a lot about it. I think we were all killed by a Displacer Beast, if theres something called that (or i’m just mixing stuff up). We haven’t played it since then even though we all liked it. It’s too bad really cause i wanted to play it again.

Renaissance_nerd

Spoony, honestly at that Con bravo game, you ruled the table. no other player was half as inventive or simply bad ass. It was great to watch.

Vismutti

I agree, though I kinda find it sad how others tend to be left behind. I think the same happened in Wyrmwick: when Noah was playing, he pretty much dominated the game to the point that I barely remembered the others were around. (Not to say the others were bad, they just couldn’t keep up and I don’t think Noah’s the kind of guy who’d hold himself back) The thing is, the best games to watch are the ones where all the players are great, obviously, but I prefer games where the players are on equal levels in general. But that’s just me of course and even I enjoy watching Noah rock, solo or not. I just feel bad for the others.
- Renaissance_nerd
  
  Linkara i think was new to tabletop gaming. The others seemed nervous, maybe it was playing in front of a crowd. Noah is a ham and doesn’t mind a crowd.
  - http://twitter.com/NevixAstari Herman Cillo
    
    Linkara was also cosplaying The Sniper from Team Fortress 2. The Sniper is NOT known for being a chatty guy.

http://twitter.com/shadowbird712 Jeremy K.

I’m sorry, but I’m puzzled as to how vestiaphilia would work as a fetish.

I mean, what would you do? Put on /more/ clothes?

doresh

No, you keep your clothes during sex ^^
- Gildedtongue
  
  That’d explain the sex scenes in Phantasmagoria 2…
- http://twitter.com/shadowbird712 Jeremy K.
  
  That makes sense, but I feel my imagery is funnier.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Andreas-Tornqvist/605088298 Andreas Törnqvist

Actually, I read the Call of Cthulhu-story not long ago and the reason that he didn’t ‘awake’ fully was only because the Norwegian sailors had killed the cultists who had to perform some kind of ritual to fully free the Great One. The boat that hurt him (a steam boat whose propeller made his head into minced meat, if I recall correctly) was unhurt, but Cthulhu’s head just grew together almost immediately. Great series btw Spoony!

穂高松本

the ending was kinda disturbing…

zhellas

Spoony’s got an Eldritch Husband Bulge.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Fergus-Macpherson/100000315189369 Fergus Macpherson

They made Cthulhu even more nasty in 6th Edition.

1D6 investigators per turn are killed.

CthuLoon

I try to be a relatively nice gm when running CoC. I give back sanity points and what not, but if you’ve ever tried to run a continuous campaign (not just a one-shot), you know how hard it can be to keep investigators intact, even when you want to. The longest I’ve ever kept players alive is about three scenarios. That wasn’t even all the players either, two of them died along the way and had to role new investigators. One of the survivors only made it because he played ultra-conservative and rarely did anything that put himself in physical danger. The other was just plain lucky. He kept rushing into danger and somehow making it back. He even set a house on fire to kill a zombie-type creature while he was still inside of it. He received major burns, but still made it out alive.

Il Principe

It’s actually not that uncommon to have weapons in COC from Chaosium, especially if you play original Lovecraft time era (i.e. 1920s/30s). My group consisted of a Swedish archaeologist that was part of the Carter team that discovered Tukankhamun’s tomb, a German medical doctor (with severe drinking problem), a New Orleans white jazz musician with a smack habit, and an English classical philologist that started out with severe phobias. Since most of us were of upper class families/nobility/part of Fraternities, we all had at least some weapon skills from hunting, skeet shooting, fencing etc. Combine that with a hunting rifle or double barrel shotgun and you feel very secure for most of your journey.
Until you meet your first Horror and promptly lose most of your sanity and spend at least some time in the looney bin. But it’s fun! Well, not the insanity part, the game I mean…

http://twitter.com/Mandrew3Grand Andrew Henderson

Pet peeve of mine, but when you say that as a DM, you love to kill off players in a descriptive fashion, the image comes to my mind of a Mazes and Monsters-esque game with you as the DM with all sorts of hand axes and daggers behind the screen, ready to literally kill off the players.

doresh

I think it’ll be worse if the “dead” player would be forced to watch something like Wing Commander or Dungeon Master. This might actually result in some rea-life SAN loss.

http://www.facebook.com/Kyle.S.Robichaud Kyle Robichaud

You see what you’re doing Spoony. You’ve made me start up a game.

Hah, no but seriously these videos are awesome, man. Counter Monkey is one of my favorite series of yours, and it’s awesome to hear about Call of Cthulhu. That’s my favorite tabletop game.

http://twitter.com/CreamCoffey Mason Coffey

I used Call of Cthulhu d20 to run an X-Files game. It worked ok. I agree that CoC itself shouldn’t be a combat game though.

MrRuse

Fun fact: in Dark Heresy the critical hit tables are rather detailed and gruesome, with 10 results each. Most of them range from removal of skin to death starting on an 8+, with the 9+ ones allowing no saves and the 10 freaking out the party. There is a table dedicated to the head, the torso, the arms and the legs, and have different results depening on the nature of the attack: rending, impact, explosive or energy. That means there are sixteen tables with 10 unique results each.

Because that’s how Dark Heresy rolls.

Jessica Clarke

A little off this specific topic, but I went to a tabletop roleplaying club for the very first time this past Sunday after watching all these Counter Monkey videos and finding a local club (apparently been around for 30-odd years!). Got to play a Lord of the Rings game and played an elf scout out trying to capture some criminals: shot one through the eye and another through the heart, killing them instantly. We were supposed to be bringing them back alive, but whatever, my character was just proud of his skill and showing there was no messing with him.
So thank you, Spoony, for having introduced me to an awesome new hobby and some potential new friends. Long may these videos continue!

http://www.facebook.com/CarlOscar.Bergqvist Oscar Bergqvist

Oh my. Spoony is on a roll now. I’m so happy I might go insane.

http://www.facebook.com/leeann.monds Lee-Ann Monds

I remember a CoC game I was RPing at a convention there was a cult trying to summon Nyharthotep. They succeeded and the whole group died, except one guy who went batshit insane and attacked the Elder God in his monster form with a ball peen hammer. If it had been any other Outer God he would have died, but since Nyharthotep actually has a sense of humor, he let him live. Insane and completely convinced that he’s immortal. (And he is, the God cursed him with immortality so that he can bring more people towards chaos and insanity. He’s fun ^^ )

Kendotuxedo

I GOT A FEVER,
and the only prescription… is more Cthulhu

http://www.facebook.com/joshua.w.hastings.5 Joshua William Hastings

My personal favourite rule, which isn’t in the book, was on a forum where they asked the game designers ‘what if we nuke Cthulhu’

The response was ‘Well, he dies, then comes back, and now he’s radioactive’

The fact that the game was primarily designed to be a horror game is great, and it makes a change from gauntlets of monsters that one would have to wade through.

I know of a variety of instances where people have been able to troll each other with the sanity effects, and I have a story or two that stem from the great events that took place in our Call of Cthulhu games. All in all, it was a great system, both for serious and silly play.

banned_guy

“uh, yeah – my guy was an engeenier working with Russian scientists on
Nuclear Warfere during cold war. When project was closed – he stole some
enriched uranium, and to keep radiation down he build a small container
for it, from a briefcase – and he keeps it with him all the time… so practically he has a snuke on him… yeah, DM why are you looking at me like that?”

http://twitter.com/SnarkDaWark SnarkDaWark

Goddamn if I don’t wanna play a session of CoC with you now, Spoony, if just to hear the gory descriptives. You should totally do some kind of interview/auditioning session or some shit where you pick out potential tabletop candidates to play with.

Anyone00

Huh, Spoony had a gorgasm.

smaco

Can a player develop “cuthuluphilia”? Lol.

Forte

Lol at the end. Spoony was getting his hard on describing a character death while Oreo was looking like he was rolling a Sanity Loss from hearing it.

http://www.facebook.com/randall.bohannan Randall Bohannan

Back in the dawn of gaming (the 80s), I recall having the 1st edition Deities & Demigods handbook. They shamelessly used the Cthulhu mythos and printed stats for the various Lovecraftian gods–such as Cthulhu, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and all the rest. In that publication, Azathoth was the size of a star, in the center of the cosmos, in deep space. He was orbited by satellite-like creatures that played crazy, madness-inducing music (each the size of a planet). Even by the standards of that book(it was like a monster manual for overpowered players), it was basically unkillable. How do you attack, must less kill something the size of a star?
My players did try to summon Hastur the unspeakable-and were upset when he stomped them flat (the dude stands like 600 feet tall!)

doresh

I wouldn’t call it “shameless”. TSR believed that the mythos was public domain, not realizing that Chaosium had the gaming license.
http://www.schadenfreudestudios.com/ Amesang

Well, the Transformers took out the Chaos-Bringer, Unicron, an entity who had once succeeded in wiping out the old universe (although he’s anywhere between moon-sized and Saturn-sized depending on the particular cartoon or publication).

lightice

What’s with the silly excuses for sword canes? Those were perfectly common for basic self-defense back in the late 19th century, and it wouldn’t be too difficult for an eccentric or inheritor of grandpa’s estate to get their hands on one without raising any eyebrows even in the early 20th century. There was even a martial art developed for men fighting in formalwear, using canes — with or without swords inside.

Also, the funny thing is, in Lovecraft’s own novels people sometimes pack improbable heat. Read the Shunned House some time. The characters stake out a haunted house with what basically amounts to a ray gun! In the Dunwich Horror the protagonists pack some monster-destroying spells and an elephant gun when they go after the Horror. And in Beyond the Wall of Sleep the main characters just happens to have a mind-reading device that he built in his college years just lying around.

doresh

I think the safest character in any CoC game is an illiterate and myopic coward who forgot his glasses.

I think there’s a similar game (well, it basically hints at the same setting, with Deep Ones and stuff) to CoC called “Nemesis” (based on the One Roll Engine) which has a different take on insanity. Basically, horrifying and supernatural stuff desensitizes you, making you more resistant to it (since you’re getting used to it), but basically removing parts of your humanity in the process (since the people around you get slightly creeped out by a guy who doesn’t even flinch when he sees a guy splattered all over the room). Oh, and you might develop a few triggers that make you go apeshit. Fun :D !

Lol, Lovecraftian horrors can turn you into a furry XD ?!
(Then again, if I had to flee from a slimy, tentacled nightmare, I guess I’d need something soft and fluffy to cuddle…)

Oh, this is a Counter Monkey Quadrology? Neat OO !

http://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew-Wenke/1156556418 Matthew Wenke

man,the more of these I watch,the more I see how much you would fit in at my table.depth and realism in gaming,mixed with good storytelling…

Guus van Voorst

Watching people suffer and describing their follies… delicious… I love it! And to be fair, its a good way to get off some stress sometimes (and not wanting to kill people XD). This is why you become a DM in the first place… >:)

http://www.facebook.com/malice936 Malcomb Bell

-rolls 1d100 and loses 100 sanity- o.o hmm I feel about the same as usual I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m gonna go bitch slap Cthulhu now.

http://www.facebook.com/Kakemanz DavidJohn Oberhofer

Holy crap lol, 4 parts? Maybe more? You must really need the money, Spoony. XD Oh well I don’t mind, I kind of like this style where you just go off on a tangent like that, but yet you still have useful things to say. Then of course the fact that it’s organized into parts kinda makes me happy.

Alex Stockwell

Does it have Sphecksophobia – fear of wasps? I could see some interesting use of that in this game.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Collier/100000597249968 Michael Collier

I’d play. Although I think you’ve got the case of TPKophelia.

Arrow

Damnit, these shows are giving me the itch. I need to find a group.

Aiddon

did…did you just come describing that horrendous death at the end?

Cutler Fortner

So, when he mentioned ballistaphobia, if every phobia also has a fetish, then there’s a possibility for ballistaphilia. You’d potentially be playing a middle-aged anthropologist or something who likes reenacting the gun sex scene from “The Man Who Fell to Earth”. I think I need to play this game.

Neena Thurman

Talking about it is making me want to play CoC.

UmmonTL

Honestly, statting monsters that are pretty much immortal isn’t that bad an idea. At least in Call of Cthulhu because you might never actually face these enemies but you might be unlucky enough to see them or be touched by them because some cult or other fucked up a ritual. And then it is nice if the GM can kind of describe what is happening to you.
As for weapons, having a weapon in Call of Cthulhu can be a great asset because you face humans a lot, insane people, cultists or others. The problem is that you are just as likely to shoot yourself or your party as soon as you loose some sanity or face something that likes to screw with your head.

Shaka Zulu

Remember when Counter Monkey was cool stories and tales, not reading books and tangents over tangents?

doresh

What part about “Attacking Cthulhu with rocket launchers, TNT and a katana” or “Cthulhu eats 1d3 investigators per round” is not cool?

http://www.facebook.com/sean.williams.7583992 Sean Williams

actually in the Call of cthulhlu xbox game you dont actualy kill the shoggoth, you just shock it to get it out the way, then you run like hell cause that thing is PISSED.
it was a very clever bit actualy, all you hared was the thing scream and dramatic music start, if you actualy too the time to turn around and look it catches you.

http://twitter.com/Das_Bass Das_Bass

It makes me happy to see Spoony so active these days. Long live the Avatar!

http://twitter.com/AlKusanagi Al Kusanagi

To be fair, the Cthulhu entities are included in that D20 book not for the actual game included, but in case you wanted to incorporate them into a D&D game.

And, yeah, weapons aren’t that useful against unnameable horrors, but they’re pretty effective against the cultists trying to summon them.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6EVM3F2U7HDWHYC7LO7TETE2KA MichaelT

Okay, I’ll admit, if I was in that game I would SO go after Cthulhu one-on-one. Getting face-raped by the Great One: Best. Death. EVAH!

Joshua Roberts

Spoony if I lived in Arizona I’d drive across the state to join you for a game of Call of Cthullu because you’re making me wanna try it.

http://www.facebook.com/pedro.freitas.9421 Pedro Freitas

An adventure that my friend had:
DM:The ritual to bring cthulhu is just about to end, what you guys do?
Player 1:We need to delay it just enough for the day to rise any ideas?
Player 2:Dont worry i got this covered.
DM:So what do you do?
P2:I wait.
Everyone:Are you sure of what are you doing?
P2:Look man, i got this.
DM:You can hear a monstruosity rising from the hole
P2:I wait for it to reach the surface
Everyone:DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?
P2:Jus watch this!As soon it emerges i jump in front of it and start my cat impression!
EVERYONE:….what?
then the player 2 showed his phone and episode of south park which eric tames cthulhu by imitating a cat.

Now i want an adventure to do the same.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-DArbonne/24411028 Paul D’Arbonne

The episode where Spoony gets a boner.

adam france

I used to play a private eye in a CoC game, who carried a Colt M1911A1 automatic – which was reasonable … and a mills bomb hand grenade he carried around hidden under his fedora – which isn’t so much.

adam france

I also recall another players character (in a fairly recent CoC game) who somehow talked the GM into allowing him to own a BAR (automatic rifle) from his WWI service, which was carried around in the boot of his Model T Ford. Drum mag tommy guns were ubiquitous too.

adam france

My Private Eye was squashed by Cthuhlu himself iirc, but it was pretty much a GM grudge killing after a long argument about whether cultists would really check under his hat for guns.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Johan-Eriksson/1373557107 Johan Eriksson

Damn that sounds fun. I have actually had a collection of Lovecraft stories called “Necronomicon” on my bookshelf for the past year but never opened it (I’m not into horror normally, I only bought the thing because it was surprisingly cheap and Lovecraft was something I figured I might use in my English-class). Hearing Spoony talk about how fun it is to gruesomely kill players and inflict fun insanity status’ on them makes me want to read it. I guess now I know what my Halloween project will be this October.

likalaruku

Last night I felt I really needed to visit this site & the site was down. I have to guess that the site was being updated at the time. Coincidentally, I was hoping for a new Counter Monkey…& got 3 :D

PhilthePenguin

Amateur Call of Cthulhu Keeper (GM) here. You’re right, it is actually in the rules to give investigators sanity back if they defeat the evil cultists or complete other goals, the idea being that defeating horrors will reinstill some confidence into your players. (I use the Chaosium rules, not the D20) The other way to restore sanity is psychotherapy.

Also, I do tend to have some combat in my games. Not a lot, but obviously weapons come in handy when fighting cultists and insane, aggressive hobos. There are also some creatures such as ghouls, Mi-go and even zombies which the players (if they have blunt weapons in the latter case) can theoretically take. At the very least, players can slow those down as they run away from them, as I once had them do when fleeing a group of ghouls.
I always discuss with my players what weapons they are allowed to start with (I’ve ran a one-shot where they started with no weapons).

Robert Collins

So what do you think of the crazes in Rifts? Ever play one spoony?

amishman

i sense a streaming session of call of Cthulhu coming and i cant wait the watch it

likalaruku

Followed by “Cthulhu Saves the World.”

http://twitter.com/mlp_VelvetFog Velvet Fog

In all honesty, I’ve only recently gotten into the whole gaming thing again with Pathfinder, but I really want in on a CoC game now. I love that Lovecraft is Public Domain and the Mythos is being reused all over the place. I’d love to play in a game in modern times where we have to take out the “Church of Scientology” before they cause Xenu to arise from his Mountain Prison.

Will_Z_Macht

“…and can penetrate small holes”?

Tentacle hentai anyone?

Kyle Rybski

Honestly, I think the point of statting things like Cthulhu is to give the DM crunchy fun ways to fuck the players. A really good DM could do that without the rules, of course, but having the stats there makes the inevitable defeat more ‘real’ for most, I think.

http://twitter.com/Cocolito187 Cocolito

That Call of Cthulhu game does sounds a-lot like Eternal Darkness. I loved Eternal Darkness and Call of Cthulhu sounds like alot of fun. I’d love to play a game if anyone in here lives near Phx, AZ.

jnywest

Why don’t you put together a CoC game demo for us, maybe there are some old friends from you RPG club days, spoony, that would like to help you demo the game. A CoC LP you could call it.

Justin Alexander

I’ve always wanted to play in a Call of Cthulhu game that was actually inventive, psychologically stimulating, and also action-packed. The problem is, DMs either go full-out party-killer mode and just want to see you become jabberingly insane or they do NOTHING.

See, as someone who has grown up on American horror stories, I enjoy there being some sense of accomplishment, some sense of…win-ability. I don’t mean I WANT to be the guy who kills Cthulhu “because he’s there,” but in my opinion, games where your character goes ass-slapping nuts the first time he sees a corpse are overkill in the wrong direction.

Maybe it violates every single tenant of the Cthulhu Mythos to say so, but I think sometimes, a guy and a shotgun could put down a whole lot of cultist shenanigans. It doesn’t all have to be a race to the bottom of the sanity barrel.

Aiddon

Also, I love how this episode went from stumbling and directionless to Cthulhu

doresh

Lovecraft would be so proud XD
Adell

Just like the books. HEY-OOO

http://www.facebook.com/ShiKageMaru Erik Perez-Alard

Okay, I will say this, It occurred to me as I was watching this that one could use the rules for Call of Cthulu to create an Eternal Darkness RP. The monsters would have to be scaled back for the sake of realism to the source material, but it could be epic. I’m already thinking of ways to do it. I’m also thinking of the terrible things the agents of Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth and Xel’lotath would do to the players and what penalties they would incur simply from reading the Tome of Eternal darkness would be. I’m as giddy as Spoony is over it.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Reese/1053353261 Jim Reese

A pet peeve of mine as both a player and GM is people describing a CoC game as you either die or go crazy. That’s just lazy GMing or a one off game. While difficult a lot of things in CoC can die it’s just not very likely. It’s like any other game build the characters up and keep ratcheting up the stakes.

http://twitter.com/ravenwoodwitch angela

What’s that phrase used for settings meant to kill characters off, Meat-Grinding? Something like that…
That’s basically what it sounded like to me when My Ex described the game too me. It’s like reading a choose Your own Adventurer novel, you just wanna see how insane someone’s death could be.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Martin/1596700226 Stephen Martin

It sounds like you saw these things a few times, Spoony. The numerous phobias and the near fetish desire to play the game and inflict insanity on others. You’re one of them. And seriously, at Con Bravo you were the game. I actually wish there were televised D&D games with how entertaining you were.

GyroMan

Beating Azathoth? Have Paula use ‘pray’ each round.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mursa-ArtDragon/100001067306478 Mursa ArtDragon

I would love playing a game of CoC with you Spoony. You sound like a very interesting GM.

Also hate to see a guy with doraphobia walk into AnthroCon or any of the others. now that you say that, it gives me a legitimate concern over some of these outside viewers of conventions. I try to see other peoples views and often found the worst ones are the irrational.

http://www.facebook.com/christopher.tyrson Christopher Ari Tyrson

I’ve never played Call of Cthulhu before…but listening to this right here, really, REALLY, makes me want to

millenomi

This reminds me of the oWoD; in their last manual, there is a box that says what happens if your vampires go up against Cain: ‘You lose’.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Edward-Graham-Peeler-Jr/1602215514 Edward Graham Peeler Jr.

I get where your coming from about the Call Of Cthulu. It’s supposed to be horror and it’s supposed to be reflective of the Lovecraft Mythos where humanity is beyond fucked however…

I know how to do it.

I know how to kill Cthulu and his ilk.

First of all, Call Of Cthulu is D20, meaning you can cross it over with other D20 games. So that’s what you do. Have your investigators team up with DND characters, Modern D20 characters, Future D20 characters, Star Wars and Farscape characters, and just any other D20 supplement and have them bring an army. Then when Cthulu or Azathoth come at you, have at least one epic level wizard cast the wish spell on him. Basically, treat the mother fucker like the Tarrasque. In order to kill the Tarrasque you have to knock it down to -30 and cast a wish spell to make sure it stays dead. So have him cast a wish spell negating Cthulu’s resurrection powers and if your smart have several epic level wizards at the table who can cast wish spells in case the first one fails or if they are lucky they can use to weaken his abilities further. Then have this army of cross genre mother fuckers jump him and drop his ass to -10. And if that doesn’t work have a bunch of Future D20 Dreadnaught Starship captains in orbit of the planet they are fighting on and have them destroy the planet Cthulu’s on and that should kill him dead. AND IF THAT DOESN’T WORK, through a copy of Deities and Demigods at your players head and let them play gods. Just say fuck it, fine, you can play Thor. And then have them kick his ass. And if that doesn’t work, well, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that mortal men faced the darkness and fought it and they didn’t give up and they fought and died with honor. Much like the Asgardian gods, they fight a war that they know they will lose and with them the universe will die and yet they fight regardless in the hope that they will have a chance in saving us all or dying with honor their spirits unbroken. For in the words of Kamina from Gurren Lagann, We will make the impossible possible! We will overcome impossible odds, for ours is the drill that will pierce the heavens!! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!!! ROW!! ROW!! FIGHT THE POWER!!!

http://www.facebook.com/people/Christian-Charlton-Träsk/1190425036 Christian Charlton-Träsk

This reminds me of my first CoC game… My char was already slightly insane, had Affinity For Rats (“talks” to rats, befriends them) with two rat familiars (yeah, the DM was very kind for first-time players) and he survived…. 5 minutes.
“You hear a noise in the next room”
“I go to investigate”
“You see a fire and hear a monstrous growl somewhere beyond the smoke”
“I toss my first rat at it”
“It dies!”
“I toss the second rat at it”
“It dies, the skeleton of the first rat hits you in the eye, you are now blind on the right side”
“I scream”
“You caught its attention, [gory details of my character getting probed in all sorts of body-openings that I didn't even know existed followed]”

To this day I don’t know what that was or why I even tossed rats at it >.<

http://www.facebook.com/people/Cody-Ward/100001744038901 Cody Ward

Spoony, I would totally play Call of Cthulhu with you. Eternal Darkness really amused the fuck out of me, and this sounds like a D&D equivelent. Torture my psychology professor, Spoony!

http://twitter.com/Tentaklingon The Electrodemon

Aw man, I’ve been craving a good Cthulhu game for months. I actually rather like the system, even if it’s a bit clumsy.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=516165279 Adam Allen

thanks spoony… now i want to play CoC so badly…

LoneWolf343

I always laughed at the ending of Call of Cthulhu. If he ever wakes again, you know that the USA would put the USS Ronald Reagan right up his ass.

GunsmithKitten

Actually, I am a CoC GM and I’ve never had the “sword cane I learned how to use from the Orient” argument. In fact, my group is quite armed to the teeth. Tommy guns and at one time a Vickers-Maxim water cooled MG (aquired in game from some arms dealers but lost in a landslide while investigating a deep south Yig cult) are the order of the day. Easy to justify too since half of my party have organized crime backgrounds (A loan shark, a “torpedo”, and an ex bodyguard to Bugsy Moran). Still, like I said earlier, they’re smart enough to keep their gunplay to very minor monsters like Deep Ones and Byakhee or cultists. Anything bigger, they know to either try mystical means or just run like little girls.

TreWolfie

Plz to insert 1D4 adventurereres kthx. I can haths penny to eat ur thoughtshch?

http://www.facebook.com/infit4 Nick Godbout

The “so he has that” justification at the end of every explanation just cracks me up.

http://www.facebook.com/niceguybuddha Jeremy Andrew Zitnik

Man I wish I could find a group for Call of Cthulhu in Chicago.

Driscol

I would love to play this game with spoony. It would never work here. The reason I quit playing d&d is because my particular group of acquaintances had one man-child that would get violent if his character was ever faced with an obstacle. Keep in mind this is AFTER they made it so you can reuse a character after it dies in game. They wouldn’t dare play a game like Call of Cthuhulu.

greyjoy

I think a remember an interview with the author of the Call of Cthulhu rpg (Sandy Petersen) where he said that in the original concept for the game creatures like Cthulhu and the Old Ones didn’t have any stats. They were treated in the same way you described the Vorlons in the B5 rpg – if you have to fight them face-to-face you lose.

But because the game was coming out in the early 80s the publishers Chaosium felt that everything had to be statted. So I think the CoC authors made the Old Ones so powerful that despite their stats fighting them in direct combat was an exercise in futility.

sam burns

Any idea what edition Spoony plays? I’ve never played CoC but I’d love to get started, I just don’t know which edition is generally accepted as the best.

Garret02

All I want for solsice is my sanity…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvILFVJMPvY

http://www.facebook.com/kyle.white.7547 Kyle White

Hey Spoony I’ve heard of Call of cthulhu for years and I’ve always wanted to try it. It sounds soooooo much fun. I was wondering if you could do a counter monkey episode based on one of your Call of cthulhu memories. That would be great!

Love your work man!!!

Guest

I recall one

http://twitter.com/mike__fang Mike Fang

As someone who’s a big fan of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos (I own two Lovecraft anthologies with all his works as well as a collection of his revisions) I think that a common fallacy is that all mythos monsters are unbeatable. Honestly, that’s not entirely true. There are a number of Cthulhu creatures that are beatable by direct combat; Herbert West’s zombies, the creatures from The Lurking Fear, the Deep Ones, to name a few. Others, namely the more powerful beings of the mythos like Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlothep (I know I’m probably spelling that wrong) might not be beatable through combat, but they could be thwarted; mess up their plans, interrupt their minions’ rituals, and so forth. So while I think a Cthulhu game shouldn’t be combat FOCUSED, it can have some combat in it.

As to weapons, I can see having them in the game, but players really do need to have a more plausible reason for having them. Admittedly, in one of Lovecraft’s stories he had his protagonist get his hands on a flamethrower just by ordering it from a military armory, but for the sake of being reasonable, no Cthulhu game’s party should be kitted out like a damn military squad unless that’s what they are. I can see cops and even average citizens carrying hand guns for protection. A person may carry a heavy walking stick that can be used like a club or maybe a knife if they’re an outdoorsman. If they’re a hunter or a target shooter, I can see owning some long arms, though not carrying them everywhere they go.

But carting around dynamite? Hand grenades? Military ordinance? Pfff, no way. At least not carrying it around all the time. I can see using it (even in Lovecraft’s stuff he talked about how things would get demolished and torn down to eradicate the threat it posed) but only when the time comes. Like…when the group realizes just what they’re up against and they now know that they need to find the ritual chamber of this evil other-dimensional monster and destroy the monolith that can open his portal, THAT is when they should be going to a hardware store and buying dynamite under the lie that they need to clear some stumps on a farm or large boulders or something.

And yeah, towards the end right there….I think Spoony started developing his own insanity-induced fetish…

http://twitter.com/kyleg1461 Kyle Glover

I recall one of the many effects of total sanity loss in Dark Corners of the Earth was that Jack claws his own eyes out.

Smoke Fumus

How about ghost buster proton accelerator packs?
Hell, how about 4 ghostbusters in call of Cthulhu
Try justifying that, and stat it for ghosts :D

Guido Jacobs

Get everyone on Skype or something and run a Call of Cthulhu game. Show us all how epic that game is. lol

Daniel Kay

I played the Call of Cthulhu game (Dark Corners of the Earth, quite neat game but bugged to no end), to be fair the shogoth you killed was small, you had to blow it up TWICE before it was dead (and even then bits of it were still twitching) and it was finally buried under the rubble of a factory… and no the shogoth is not the final boss :P

Segatron

You are just like a Kid reading those Sears “Wish Books” that used to be as regular as the yellow pages. With like three pages of transformers, or whatever favorite toy kept you pouring over it again and again!

“Necrophilia! I Want that! Oooh Claustrophobia! I want that too!”

You almost look like you are ready to put cthulu in the next game you DM, and it doesn’t matter what setting it takes place in. The poor souls.

lockark

They stated AZATHOTH?!?!?! Azathoth isn’t just the god of the outer gods. All of reality is his dreams… Everything from humans to Cthulhu are crated from his dreams. If Azathoth ever woke up, all of realitiy would come to a end. Hell if you logicaly think about it, even the other Outer Gods would be trying to keep that guy asleep. Their is a reason in the board game, if Azathoth awakes, the game end. You don’t even get a chance to try and fight him back to wear he came/put him asleep agien.

wiliamsn

Roo deserves a lot of credit for felling that Dragon as well…
This is what happened…

Spoony

- Called the Dragon out from behind a tree, calls him “Puff”
- Tries an illusion of himself to walk around the tree, causing the dragon to waste his acid breath

- Rolls 2 Damage with shortbow

- Misses with shortbow

- Jumps on the back of his neck with a rapier, rolls 10 damage to the spinal column and crits, weapon stuck in spinal column

Roo

- Critical Hit, Two Lighting Bolts through the wings, rolls 22 damage, cripples the Dragon’s flying ability, unspecified bonus damage when Dragon lands

- 17 damage with a Fireball in the wounds

- Rolls 23 damage, lightning bolt to the spinal column through the Rapier

Linkara

- 2 Points of damage with a longbow

- Crits, rolls 1 damage to the eyes, dragon takes a roll penalty that may or may not have caused it to fail its roll and fall prone in the following round
– Rolls 5 to the spinal column

Birdman

- Drinks the Bane Potion and falls down in pain
- Vomits and gets ill

- Gets up in time for a shot, rolls 11 damage and crits

Turcano

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this yet, but probably the most famous Call of Cthulhu internet story is the story of Old Man Henderson. The character was created as revenge against the DM with the sole purpose of derailing the campaign, and was a crazy old hobo looking for his lost garden gnomes. The campaign ended when he summoned and killed Hastur (and himself) by blowing up a building packed with explosives.

http://www.facebook.com/sean.williams.7583992 Sean Williams

actually thinking about it, stating cthulhlu isnt that insane since (as i understand it) he isnt a great old one himself, he is their high priest given some of their ability’s (Being made of a strange sort of non matter, being able to reform at will ect ect) of course, fighting him would still be suicide.

Soul5

I think I understand the purpose behind vitality vs health points. Think of a boxing match or the Fight Night Champion game, when you’re fighting in fight night there is a certain amount of damage that you can withstand and regain the health on between rounds(vitality), but if you take more than that amount of damage you can’t recover and your fighter becomes more and more measurably wrecked until they are stopped(health).

—
All it seems to be is a way of differentiating damage.

Nicolae Carpathia

Was that “Nothing but Flowers” at the end?

http://twitter.com/Gerkuman J. Adams

If a party went to face Azatoth… why don’t they just kill the flautist?

Astrolounge

Hey Spoony, have you heard of or seen this before? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiyore!_Nyaruko-san

sprezzatura15

I’m kind of an exceptionally squishy DM- I always feel bad picking them off, and I try to cut them breaks… but I do live for the shenanigans, Critical Fails are the best… so that Insanity Table mostly sounds like it would make for a really awesome game lol.

http://twitter.com/LoveFNDeluxe Love!

spoony was your character also the last of the freelance hackers

http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Moyer/1090242482 Stephen Moyer

He keeps pronouncing Azathoth wrong :P

Haakon Løtveit

I wonder if everyone has read the Old Man Henderson story?
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson

It seems oddly relevant to the topic at hand.

http://www.facebook.com/alexander.horbach.5 Alexander Horbach

The rant on characters trying to justify having outrageous weapons reminds me of the H.P Lovecraft story The Shunned House. In it a man and his uncle combat a pervading evil presence that dwells within a seemingly simple farm house. They devise two weapons to fight the entity; A large and specially fitted Crookes tube operated by powerful storage batteries and provided with peculiar screens and reflectors, and a pair of military grade flamethrowers like those used in the Great War. Guess which weapon helps them prevail…

buzzNact

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia – fear of long words :)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jesse-M-Danielson/6028162 Jesse M. Danielson

I once made a “Critical Wound” table for a D&D game just so I had a reason to hack players’ limbs off ^^ What’s the point of the regeneration spell if there are no rules for getting maimed?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Wright/220301062 Joe Wright

I’ve watched this about half a dozen times; every time Spoony says “You see Great Cthulu, you’re fuckin’ nuts now!” I laugh every time.

http://www.facebook.com/ChusterMerino Chuster M. Merino

I think Spoony was a little… “turned on” when he was ending this video.

josh martyn

I know a RPG you will hate but i have to let you know about it FFX D20 it exist I found it so you know i picked it up played it i was to dark for it

Zipper Dragon

In my oppinion, The Fuck you stat is that he reforms in 10 minutes. Thats not even enough time to get out of his attack range.

godofplague

so seeing cthulu could turn you int a furry by making you hot for fur lol

Zipper Dragon

1-2 scar’s you for life!? What happens if you get higher? Like 50-100.

kamrom dechu

Your character goes permanently insane, and spends the rest of his life in a mental institution, no hope of recovery. If youre lucky. And if you’re playing call of cthulhu, then your character is by default really unlucky just for existing in that world.

G-20

I was running a Zombie apocalypse CoC campaign and one of my friends ended up getting Necrophilia, canabalizm and anorexia. He was a russian construction worker and ended up in a weird 69 position with a zombie when he had tried to kick the zombie away and tolling a natural 1, so both of them ended up eating the crotch of each other. Needless to say he went bonkers and died there.

http://www.facebook.com/dtilson1 Daniel Tilson

lol at the face tentacles and their ability to penetrate small openings… Anyone else go to a creepy hentai place at that one?

kamrom dechu

“Uh, yeah, see my guy was in the military and he…. He somehow got a satellite laser…”

kamrom dechu

Maybe if your insanity score goes past 10,000 (like, 1 minute of fighting cthulhu would probably do it) and manage to ultimately beat cthulhu… They’ve understood so much about him in that time that they actually become him, thus DOUBLE-losing!

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