How do I warn my players enough that this is NOT like anything else they've played and get them into the system without giving away just HOW deadly it can be? I don't want them to run in guns blazing, but I don't want to destroy the atmosphere by causing them to never leave the house either.

I'm new to GMing, so maybe one of the veterans here will prove me wrong, but I've done this two ways.

During character creation, I make sure to explain why the hit points are so low. You're a normal person, just like you are in real life. Do you think you could just walk in to a life-or-death fight and survive?

If they still don't seem to get that, I insert a dream sequence somewhere in the early part of the adventure. If they're taking a train somewhere, thats usually where I place it. If they don't take transit, I'll make it unavoidable that they get a night's rest before going out. During that night's rest I'll do a combat round. They wont be fighting beings of the mythos, maybe it's a flashback to WWI or a break in or something. This usually gets the point across that combat is not the best strategy for this game.

Hope that helps!

It's an uphill battle when dealing with those who think it's just another combat RPG. I have GMed for many new groups to CoC. I start with my motto:

"In Call of Cthulhu, don't carry a weapon you can't survive a hit from."

Some will pick up on that pretty quick, but if they ask why, I say that you will beat the bad guys through knowledge and courage rather than weapons and many times the only thing that can even be hurt by your weapons is you. Mind control, etc.

"The Haunt," which should be still in the rulebook should be a good starting place. There are plenty of ways to show the fragility of the character's before they meet anything really bad through falls, etc.



Someone mentioned the Corbitt story from "Mansions of Madness." I recommend that adventure highly as well for a starting adventure. It is fairly easy and can give a quick intro to what lies in store for those who want to play Call of Cthulhu. It can even be done with one investigator, as can "The Haunt."

Another thing you might try is to make a bunch of pre-generated characters to hand out. They won't be attached as much to those characters as if they spent time to roll them up. Tell them you want them to try out the system before they take the time to roll up characters. Then hit them hard with something tough. There are lots of convention modules out there that are pretty harsh, making them near impossible to use for campaigns, but good for this purpose. It'll illustrate how tough the system is and give them a chance to figure out if they don't like how tough it is without all the character generation time wasted.

Find the Banshee progam to help you come up with pre-gens if you need them. Or there are some in the back of the rulebook.

Good luck! It is a different kind of game and not for everyone. Know going in they just may not like it.

Well they all love the IDEA. I'm just not sure how it'll go when executed. I'll look at the Haunting when I get the game in the mail.

I really do hope they enjoy it because this still stands as one of the greatest games I was ever a PC in, and I've been wanting to run it for years.

The other suggestion I have is two words: Red Shirts. I mean this in the full-on Star trek meaning of the term. Want to set the tone for the party. Have an NPC get gobbled up by a semi-mobile Shrubbery with a set of chompers like Cujo. Describe the screaming, describe the rending of the flesh. Let the players sweat out how ineffectual their bullets seem in dealing with the Miscreant Moss. Do this early in the adventure and make them realize that the Universe is a lot weirder than they imagined and dealing with it will take focus and thought or they will end up as Fertilizer.

The problem for me is that alters the balance of the story in my mind. I prefer games where you slowly realise that the universe (and the various bad things from outer space) just doesn't notice humanity*, that it is a mere insignificant speck of dust. That one of the main problems are the cultists and warlocks who may attract the attention of that uncaring gaze.

My games work off a building sense of unease before the PCs finally realise what they are up against. Try and create a feeling of disorientation amongst the characters, work on all their senses (including stuff like sense of time and temperature).

Yes eventually they will realise that whatever weapons they can lay their hands on are generally ineffective against other worldly evil. But to do that at the start undercuts the buildup of tension IMO.


* Okay there are a couple of do want a slave race (although that may be in much the same way as we keep bees) for some unknown reason.

Perhaps knocking a couple of people CLOSE to insanity/death early on will be enough of a smack to the head for the group. We shall see...

Y'know, one crazy thought is to have their goofy characters from the other games appear as insane counterparts in your Lovecraft games. This basically gives the players more of a stake in your game, and makes them suitably disoriented. The Great Race is well-known to have psychic mind transfer "across time and space". You begin an adventure with the players finding out a madman (or two) who behave uncannily like the player's characters in the other games. You can let a player roleplay his character's Lovecraftian counterpart in the asylum scenes. The meta-game is that your players don't know what you will do to these characters when you play the other system again. Indeed, if a player is absent for a game session of the other system, play his character as a very disoriented 1920's gentleman (or a 9' tall conical thing!).

You *can* tie this in with The Haunted House:



To some extent, instilling fear of the Mythos is just (bleeping) with the player's minds. This is one step further. With your gamemastering experience, you should be able to do it!

Y'know, one crazy thought is to have their goofy characters from the other games appear as insane counterparts in your Lovecraft games. This basically gives the players more of a stake in your game, and makes them suitably disoriented. The Great Race is well-known to have psychic mind transfer "across time and space". You begin an adventure with the players finding out a madman (or two) who behave uncannily like the player's characters in the other games. You can let a player roleplay his character's Lovecraftian counterpart in the asylum scenes. The meta-game is that your players don't know what you will do to these characters when you play the other system again. Indeed, if a player is absent for a game session of the other system, play his character as a very disoriented 1920's gentleman (or a 9' tall conical thing!).

You *can* tie this in with The Haunted House:



To some extent, instilling fear of the Mythos is just (bleeping) with the player's minds. This is one step further. With your gamemastering experience, you should be able to do it!