Re: [DL] scenarios (OT)

[Munch Wolf <munchwolf@yahoo.com>]

--- Lisa Kenison <lisa.kenison@asu.edu> wrote:
> Perhaps it is because I am biased, but I ran over 30
> hours of Cthulhu at
> Gencon and Origins for Chaosium (shameless plug).
> I was talking
> with Dustin (the guy who sort of runs the booth) and
> he said it seemed like
> this year they got a whole new fan base.  Whether it
> was from all the games
> that my friend and I ran I cannot say, but I know a
> lot of those people got
> "turned on" by the game and were really
> enthusiastic.  I found that I was
> soliciting people to play that were roaming the
> halls looking for something
> to do and at first they were unsure, but I think
> nearly everyone enjoyed the
> games. 

I can just picture Lisa wandering around the con
asking people if they want to play "Hide the
tenticle."

Seriously though, the quality of any game can only
really be measured by the Marshal/Ref/GM that runs it,
and the quality of the Marshal/Ref/GM is influenced by
the available source material.

I remember about 13 years ago when I was in High
school I played a game of CoC.  The ref at the time
was a D&D powergamer type, and in the course of one
adventure we managed to defeat a few zombies, a Hound
of Tindalass, an Old One, and we ended the session in
a nuclear silo filled with hundreds of cultists trying
to raise 'something'.  Personally that didn't feel
right to me, it wasn't horror, it was modern D&D, so I
never returned to the game (which I'm glad because I
learned later they got bored and put a hole in the
basement wall with a loaded shotgun by accident).

The biggest obstacle as a player to overcome is moving
from the mindset of one system (like D&D), to a less
hack-n-slash type.  CoC was unique for its time in
that while everyone else was going for body count, it
was trying something different.  Now with the trend of
more 'Role'-playing games being popular I can see
Cthulhu making a comeback except for one flaw, it
really isn't interesting enough.  It's simply horror. 
It seems for modern games 2 or 3 genres need to be
mixed together to catch people's attention.  I
remember there was a horror by gaslight to play
victorian era cthulhu.  I havn't looked in a while,
but maybe if they support other genres they might be
able to increase their following (Cyberthulhu,
WW2ulhu, Cowboythulhu ... oh wait Deadlands has that
one, etc), and I'm not talking about 1 source book,
but some metagame info and a few additional
suppliments to get a Ref going.

-Munch Wolf

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