Running the Game - How to Play Call of Cthulhu 7E (Tabletop RPG)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- This is the final episode of the How to Play Call of Cthulhu 7E series. Find the playlist for the series and other useful links below.
#CallOfCthulhu #RPG #TRPG
🎥How to Play CoC 7E Playlist:
• How to Play Call of Ct...
⏱️TIME STAMPS⏱️
0:56 -- Setting Expectations
1:56 -- One-Off vs Campaign
3:36 -- Published Scenarios
5:46 -- Secret roles
7:14 -- Handouts
9:32 -- Concealing Information
11:26 -- Killing Characters
15:05 -- Why is COC So Hard?
16:37 -- Best Condiment for Evil
👤CHARACTER SHEETS👤
Lucille: imgur.com/3x4aI3X
Scott: imgur.com/w9wd91Y
Phineas: imgur.com/3kD5bbl
Rosalind: imgur.com/0iZSwag
Empty Character Sheet (Chaosium): www.chaosium.c...
📚BUY CALL OF CTHULHU📚
Call of Cthulhu 7E: www.drivethrur...
🖼MERCH👕
Redbubble: www.redbubble....
🎥PLAYLISTS🎥
Learn How to Play CoC 7E series:
• How to Play Call of Ct...
Learn How to Play D&D 5E series:
• How to Play Dungeons a...
Link to the D&D 5E Class Guide playlist:
• Dungeons and Dragons 5...
How to Dungeon Master playlist:
• How to Dungeon Master ...
The Channeler Class video: • New D&D 5e Class - The...
🚨Buy at DrivethruRPG 🚨
www.drivethrur....
Free cheat sheet infographic: imgur.com/a/iu...
Pdf version of the cheat sheet: tiny.cc/t87s6y
🖥WEBSITE & SOCIAL🖥
Website: dontstopthinkin...
Facebook: / cjleungdst
Twitter: / cjleung_dst
Patreon: www.patreon.co...
Minds: www.minds.com/...
Cultist: "Your future self is talking end times about you."
Lucille: "Jokes on her. I'm gonna ruin her life!"
*cultist suffers 1d6 sanity damage thinking of how that'd work out*
"Boats are weapons of mass destruction"
Seeing as how this and the stories of old man henderson are the only 2 CoC stories I know, I'm inclined to agree
Don't forget the original The Call of Cthulhu story.
@@DontStopThinking @L0rd_of_cows *Clears Throat*
*But Johansen had not given out yet. Knowing that the Thing could surely overtake the Alert until steam was fully up, he resolved on a desperate chance; and, setting the engine for full speed, ran lightning-like on deck and reversed the wheel. There was a mighty eddying and foaming in the noisome brine, and as the steam mounted higher and higher the brave Norwegian drove his vessel head on against the pursuing jelly which rose above the unclean froth like the stern of a daemon galleon. The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but johansen drove on relentlessly. There was a bursting as of an exploding bladder, a slushy nastiness as of a cloven sunfish, a stench as of a thousand opened graves, and a sound that the chronicler could not put on paper. For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.*
F=MA
Boats have a lot of both.
Cthulhu: Evil elder god of destruction
Also Cthulhu: Is roadkilled by a boat
Don’t you mean “mast” destruction 🙃
"Staying alive is overrated anyway"
This quote describes the investigators well
Note to Self:
-Never let Rosalind use a gun. It apparently causes nightmare faces
-Never let Scott drive a boat. It’s like riding a nuclear warhead.
-Never let Lucille become the scion for an Eldritch God.
Never let ANYONE become the scion for an eldritch god. And ESPECIALLY best waifu.
@@2010AZ I mean especially Lucille. Besides if she can't stop herself from doing it once she gets old enough, their's the ultimate contingency someone can resort to.
2010 AZ always let best waifu become the scion for an eldritch god. We already worshipped her before, now she’s literally omnipotent. She’ll take care of you.
@@tylerhylton4927 maybe. I'd just worship them normally
@@Master_E444funny thing regarding the ‘ultimate contingency’, it nearly happens at the end of this story but you don’t realize until the crisis is over
"Why is coc so hard?"
Hehe
Or sock or cos idk
I came looking for this comment
Note to self: never let Rosalind handle guns
More like: ALWAYS let Rosalind handle guns
"Oh yes Daddy, Disembowel Us!" Ok, that had me rolling in stitches. Seriously though, thank you for this series. I am currently running my very first CoC game tonight with my home-crew, often times having to reference your videos for consideration. Absolutely love your use of delayed dice-rolling, and will probably bring it back to my Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons and Dragons games. This has been amazing work, and a fantastic series.
"Boats man, in CoC they're like weapons of Mass destruction"
Especially when they're dropped onto a penthouse by a helicopter stolen by the army by some angry stoner who just wants his lawn gnomes
Interesting
What the hell?
@@randomguy6679
Old Man Henderson. I'll let you learn the rest from there.
I knew. I knew this was Call of Cthulhu, I knew it wouldn't have a happy ending.
(Spoilers after read more.)
Yet somewhere along the way I started to HOPE that at least Lucile and Scott would somehow make it out alive...
I genuinely got attached to these characters and the fact that Scott died in the end.. and that Lucile spend the next couple years likely alone and trying to give meaning to the dead of her friends by fighting her future self... To then just.. disappear, likely for new adventurers to face, someone familiar, yet completely different from the character they played before themselves...
Tragic, I know.
This is call of Cthulu. There are no happy endings.
I have never played but this story really ignited a desire to play a game of CoC for myself. I also got attached to the characters and was sad to see them die but as he said, the best moment to kill a character is when the character had time to develop and the players got time to attach themselves to him
@@paocut9018 If everything goes accordingly, yes. But there's always a variable you cannot control as the keeper. And that is the players' actions. If they make bad decisions their characters will die. You can somewhat try to manage what kind of actions they can make. But you shouldn't let them get away with doing stupid decisions unless they are very well contextualized. Balancing this is quite tough, so it's important, if your players are new, to always communicate what the point of the game is, and which mind set is required for this type of game. It's not a game for everyone but it can deliver quite powerful experiences.
I had a happy ending, was playing in a 1980s setting, ended up wiping out the local cultists with a gun fight in a movie theatre, Even if my character was forever traumatised by shotguns and her girl friend had unhealable nerve damage to her right arm and a traumagenic head mate.
What a good/sad story. I may just have to make a next part to this story.
Honestly, you could have a whole new game starring Lucille twenty years later where you play out that ending.
@@handlebarfox2366 maybe I was thinking like after she becomes a full deep one she would try to help humanity in what ever way she should. And maybe if she could get some deep ones to follow her start some form of deep one civil war.
@@willnorman-bargo The story ideas never end... and you're more acquainted with the lore than I am on that one!
@@handlebarfox2366 well tell you what, if I ever play this game or come up with how it would work or something like that I will tell you about it.
⏱️Here's a time stamp list for those you watching this on mobile⏱️
0:56 -- Setting Expectations
1:56 -- One-Off vs Campaign
3:36 -- Published Scenarios
5:46 -- Secret roles
7:14 -- Handouts
9:32 -- Concealing Information
11:26 -- Killing Characters
15:05 -- Why is COC So Hard?
16:37 -- Best Condiment for Evil
i realy wanted to see scott and lucile get out of there and living a happy life together ;-; god darnint, screw the kobaiachi scenario, i would captain kirk the shit out of it, and find a way to cheat into victory.
pra caralho ne
@@leonardoribas9237 Koroi, tem 4 BR aqui?
Something that I'd note, death is not a guarantee if the game is being played correctly it is fair in its own brutal way, I and two other friends went through the suggested starter one-shot module. One friend was the keeper, and the other played a mob boss and I played as their butler/enforcer (think Max from Cats Don't Dance). We ended up actually successfully defeating the cultists and the horrible threat at the end of the story without dying (barely of course), and only mild sanity loss. My friend's character developed a phobia for corpses due to the monster we encountered, and some hearing loss after helping shoulder a shotgun to steady my character's aim to help blast the horror back to kingdom come. We weren't even running the Pulp Cthulhu rules, but after the insane stunts we both pulled off, our Keeper agreed he might as well just use that setting modifier from then on haha. Remember kids, be like Old Man Henderson AND PUNCH THE MYTHOS IN THE FACE HAHAHA!
"Yeah, staying alive is over rated"
I was just going to leave this great quote and then you got all deep with Hope being at the bottom of Pandora's Box.......
:-/
Great series. I'm going to get CoC now and force both of my groups to play.
Side note: Half way through, I was watching more to see the story's end than learn the game.
“Great series. I’m going to get coc now”
(Insert Lenny face here)
Kinda unfortunate it ended cause I liked the characters. Still, good job.
get your lube, its Call of Cthulhu
@@MalekitGJhuh what why
goddamnit cj got me a punch in the gut and a kick in the feels this christmas. R.I.P. Scucille
i swear i have to be cursed because EVERY TIME there’s a ship that is both borderline canon AND one i like, this EXACT SHIT happens
my bad y’all i keep getting everyone killed
Rest in Peace, Investigators.
Ahhh~ I was waiting for this. Thanks for "How to play Call of Cthulhu" series I realy enjoyed while watching even I rewatch it time and time again just for fun and they were worth it.
I'm curious if this dude has a PDF of this campaign somewhere.
This series was amazing.
You said that we should go out and play it.
Honestly, we should decide on that.
But let me tell you this.
You efforts were not wasted.
For you planted the seed of hope into the future generations of "COC enthusiasts".
You layed the ground work for introducing COC to MANY players.
I will share this. I will tell my friends about it. But in the end, it is all about interests. Do players like the dungeon crawler style game with alot of action? (Which many of my friends do), or do they like the horror story, which your characters might/might not die, and therefore you have to tread carefully?
Your introduction to COC is very thoughtful and well put. For that I thank you.
Granted, COC CAN support a more dungeon-crawl style game with plenty of action through the Pulp Cthulhu rules. Seth Skorkowsky has a video on the Pulp Cthulhu rules if you're interested in seeing how those work.
@@DetectiveBarricade that I did not know. Thank you for the recommendation
@@commentatorboy Seth also has a number of COC scenario reviews that could be handy if you're looking to run a campaign or a one-shot for your friends to get a taste of the game. (and I think Chaosium, the folks behind COC 7e, might have free basic rules on their site)
16:48 Agreed. I love how this game makes it super obvious that you have the option to do nothing while being attacked. It means that there is both running and fighting. Both are hope. Running is also a symbol of hope. No hope means you understand there is no point in running. No point in fighting. You do nothing. You let things happen. Even the cultists you made had hope. They hoped that by the end of their lives, they would be different from the rest of humanity that just crumbled away without doing anything. They hoped that maybe whatever was left when these cosmic horrors arrived would have their mark on it. They would continue to exist through that mark.
Never heard the expression "less deadly" besides the cover of Masks. Funny
Amazing conclusion. It’s rare that a tutorial video series comes with an equally gripping narrative throughline! Your work is amazing
Pro tip: have a death playlist with cool and evocative songs for characters deaths for extra emotional points. Later, you can use the death songs in critical moments to elicit emotional reaponses from the players.
I want to rewatch this series not only to learn how to play/manage a game, but also for the story.
I also know that if I do, I'll start crying because these I'll start reminiscing and grieving for the characters.
I watched this searies to learn how to play for a Halloween one-shot but I was in love with it because you explain the game in conjuction with the telling of a game. I loved that story and it game me even more eagerness to be Halloween so I can play with my friends
I really cannot thank you enough for making this series. It introduced me to a gripping narrative disguised as a tutorial and an awesome game system. I ran my first session (one-on-one with a friend, to get him into it) three weeks ago and it was amazing, but a little difficult at first. The one-shot we played was "Der Nachtexpress" and I constantly kept forgetting some details which led to me having to "roll back" the narrative sometimes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this ride and the end, while slightly unexpected, was amazing too; although Rosalind going in guns blazing wasn't something I thought would ever happen. And that "Happy Birthday"... kind of a d*ck move. Her companions for the last few months or so are gone and- I don't know, makes it seem like a sarcastic present. I almost expected an "I love you" "I know" situation.
Hopefully, the poster I ordered arrives soon.
Once again, to round it all off: Thank you very much for producing this amazing, high-quality series, it is very much appreciated and at least won me over to the CoC side of things.
Honestly, if I had been in her position, I would’ve just offed myself when I learned what my future self was gonna do.
I can’t destroy the world in the future if I don’t live to see it.
that’s the easy route, but lucille knows what she’s doing damn well
Just wanted to say, I started running Call of Cthulhu for some friends over Discord during quarantine and I had almost no GM experience before this and besides the Keeper's handbook this video series is the one resource I keep coming back to the most. Thanks man!
my first session of CoC is literally tomorrow! this series is a godsend thank you so much for making it!
You got me to run a two part coc one shot. Thank you
Best Cthulhu mechanics tutorial hands down...seriously going to miss it.
15:07 most relevant question/title ever, "Why is CoC so hard?"
If your open to suggestions maybe do a how-to-play of Vampire the Masquerade next? That should be interesting.
Great episode, great series. Would love to see more on CoC, especially on game mastering. I'd also be interested on a series about Starfinder. That would be really great!
It's really nice having this series to refer to. I recently started getting into dming 5e(with limited success only to the fact that I had 5 experience players) but I recently picked up CoC to start playing around with and trying it out and I love running it. It's amazing getting to play devil's advocate to get your players to make dumb life choices or risking they're lives for something as small as a single cup of coffee(yes that was a thing that happened....no I won't go into more detail). My only regret in it is I moved it too fast, I planned a 5 week campaign and it ended up ending in three, oh well live and learn. But this series help me immensely with the set up and some of the more finnese of the game and can't thank you enough for making it.
PS. I love your animation style and it is very pleasing to watch.
Please, I need more info on the coffee thing!
Go into more detail or death
"but they're so many and they have magic spells, how could we stop them?"
Rosalind: "G U N"
Scott: "B O A T"
I bought some of your merch CJ! Thanks for contributing this great series to the community! I think it is so important that you bring up the distinction between one-off and campaign play. Even within the community you can tell whether people have more experience with one or the other. And that is fine. What isn't ok when people start dolling out advice from a one-off perspective when people ask questions about how to run campaigns effectively. Keeping style is very different between those two major approaches. Really strong Keepers understand the distinction between them and how style needs to adapt.
If certain doom is everything I'd rather read the books than play the game. The uncertainty is the thing for me in CoC, you might be a puny human but the ones you contend with is only the servants of the end not the end itself.
Great series CJ. Thank you very much for your efforts. I refer all my new players to your channel.
I knew it was unlikely. But all I wanted was for Lucille and Scott to marry, and have chubby-cheeked babies.......
What is the song in the end of the video? I really like It, but i dont know the name, does anyone know It?
Gaia in Fog - Dan Bodan
Cj I want that keeper screen so bad! I wish you sold it in your online store 🤣
I got so attached to this story and it ended with a melancholy but hopefully end. Plus I learned alot about this system.
Thank you very much for this series! It was extremely helpful and interesting!
>Happy Birthday
...Hold on, I think there's something in my eye... _[sniffs]_
…don’t worry, i think it’s just onions…
maaaan that was so goood. Specially the conclusion and the tid-bit about hope, really well done! Respect
What a great ending to an excellent series. I feel so much more confident in my abilities to run this behemoth of a game.
This series is amazing. I’m running my first CoC game this New Years Eve, and your work has made me feel a lot more confident! Thanks so much
Nice I thought doing the same .
This story was great, and VERY sad!
Rosalind used the classic move of "when in doubt shoot it out."
Spray and pray
Lucille for Waifu of the Century! Amirite?
Wow you are a really good digital artist
BTW: as a guy that played CoT scenarios by D&D rules (though madness, brutality of wounds etc were a thing, DM kept teaching us rules slowly) I have to say - never aim for PC death as a DM. Patryk, after our year long campaign with only 11 PC deaths (6 players, two of which kept one character entire time) stated to us after the finale, after we complimented him for suspense and drama that kept being there entire time - "No deaths make players negligent, too many deaths make you stop caring for PCs so in that one case I stopped tying deaths into storyline, building drama on attaching you to NPCs while always giving your PCs either a chance to win or run" (though running itself was quite a puzzle we could screw up).
I don't think he meant targeting PCs for death per se, but trying to time your breaks for the players such that they don't wind up dying for no meaningful or dramatic reason. There is a lot of leeway in CoC for cutting the players a break, failing forward and all that. The story and the horror are everything. CoC is deadly, players should know that, but a dramatic, cinematic death can be a satisfactory end to a character.
@@robhamper6001 oh, almost all of our deaths were "meaningless" but, funnily enough, that ended up working in atmosphere's favor - drama was basically reached by roleplay while death disconnected from cosmic horror (f.e. we have to interrogate a dude, his security opened fire on sight due to dude's paranoia) kept us in higher suspense as everything was out to kill us, not just some cultists or rare monsters.
I have written about 22 pages of notes spanning each of the 10 videos so that I will be able to start and keep a COC game with my friends. Over this time I have been brainstorming and planning out a new campaign that I will officially be starting with my friends tomorrow night. I hope all goes well and I can create a fun, yet terrifying, story that each of them will enjoy. Thank you for all of the help! Without these videos, this campaign would have taken months to set up. :)
I really wished I had had some things about this game explained better to me before I went out and bought several modules for Fantasy Grounds about this game. I REALLY want to play more tabletop games, but hearing the way this story ends here, and how this is the norm for games like this, makes me reconsider my stance of CoC. I like happy endings, and hate tragic ones with a burning passion. The idea of a no-win scenario is an instant turn off for me in all the media I consume. I can understand some people enjoy that kind of drama, but I have to say: It's not for me.
Obviously, if you become the keeper, you can create your own ending.
“Happy Birthday” was the biggest twist in the story. Talk about subverting expectation.
Hey, this was a great tutorial! Have you heard of the new ALIEN: The Roleplaying Game by Free League? It has something similar to the Sanity meter but instead they call it “Stress.”
it is so sad they all die except Lucillle
Would you consider making a guide for Stars Without Number next or even a Paizo game?
This has been an awesome series. Thank you for making it, CJ.
10:45
Scott: But how?
Rosalind: *enters berzerker mode*
What song is being played at the end? The guitar sounds.
Gaia in Fog - Dan Bodan
I have been experimenting with other games and actually played a 9 sessions of Delta Green and loved it. I saw your videos and smiled and enjoyed what you did for this game. I’m picking up the starting set but I bet I’ll enjoy running it. My question is this: my former GM and I both wanna run the game and play. Without spoiling it for each other(one of us would run the climax and end) could we run pre written campaign like masks of nyarlathotep and switch GMing on and off? Is it a bigger overarching story but mini sessions in between?
@CJ
"Necessity is the Mother of Invention"
Thank you, and Good Job, creating the thing you wish you had.
Now I'd love for you guys to cover Free League Publishing's Alien: The Rokeplaying Game that came out earlier this month.
The video thumbnail drawing recalls me a lot to Final fantasy artwork, for example FFXI. Would anyone point me to the author, please?
Came for the rules, stayed for the story. Great job man, I really enjoyed it.
I mean if there weren’t people with hope willing to go against the lovecraftian monsters, the world would just end faster, yes you’d only stretch the world’s lifespan for like a few more years or months if you go against them, but by doing so, someone else’s dreams might come true in that time, maybe a parent finally finds their missing child or an intern getting a permanent paying job, yes insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but that’s what humanity is in the end afterall.
Hope you cover Mutants & Masterminds 3e next
Hahahahaha, death is not an escape in my CoC games. Death is just the beginning of a new more miserable existence, which helps slowly drives humanity to extinction as nightmarish monsters.
12:14 is this just for killing them with plot? Or like, should I be trying to save them if they die in combat at a bad time? Should I make combat easier to avoid until a good time, and then only require roles when I want them to fight/die to get out?
CJ, have you considered doing a how to play series for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars Ttrpg?
WOOOH what's next my good sir? :3
"Oh, yes, Daddy. Disembowel me."
Please teach us how to play dead lands next. Please,please,please...
I'll probably never gm this game, but I wanted to see how the story would end between the characters.
Shot in the dark, is there a full version of the music used in the end? It sounds eerie but weirdly relaxing
You really need to turn Lucile's story into a full-length story or web series.
As for Pandora's box, I believe the reason why hope was at the bottom was because it was the one thing the Olympians, and elder gods, feared. To them hope was a disease, a plague, something they could not fully comprehend, all that they knew it was something that frightened them. But what is poison to one, may be medicine to another. Cronus overthrew his own father and in turn was overthrown by his children the Olympians, mankind was seen as the children of the Olympians. Hope gives one the power to face the impossible, to do the impossible. Hope may not give one power equal to a God, but any being who fears hope is no God.
And monsters can be killed by man
So how many people noticed his slitted eyes and realized that CJ is a serpent person from the beginning?
Thank you DST. You have successfully gotten my wife and I into COC we finished our first scenario out of Monophobia. Many thanks CJ!
Thank you for this series! Incredibly helpful and I loved the background story to go along with it 😊
The best call of cthulhu tutorial on youtube
I'm currently waiting on my books to come in the mail. I found these videos before I bought them and you convinced me. Lol
It was a great series, C J.
Thank you for making it.
What’s the sound effect that’s been playing at the end of these videos?
I'm so glad that this series happens to exist. I'm running a game for the first time ever and one of my players recommended Call of Cthulhu, but I had a hard time parsing the rulebooks until I came across this. Jt helped me absorb the basics enough that I can now understand the rulebooks better!!
Thank you so much for making this
This How to Play really got me in the mood to play Call of Cthulhu, I thank you! I'm thinking about trying to find a group of friends and see if I can play a ex-Russian white Officer who escaped Russia when the Red army took over his home town.
Well... at least the best girl didnt die... xD
Can we get a video on Pulp Cthulhu before we fully move on?
New to the game. Thank you so much for this series. I recently ordered the books, but this series has definitely given me a hefty head start to learning the system and I already have a couple groups of friends wanting to play! Keep up the great work with future series!
Great series! It has been really useful to give to my players so that they get a hang of the game's rules without me having to explain them!
This was such an awesome series. Love the way you structured the series, the information you delivered, the wonderful story and the animation. Great job CJ! Looking forward to your next videos, as always. Keep up the great work.
Somebody needs to run a homebrew call of Cthulhu game based on the madoka magica universe.
@@rafaeldelimacampos4524 think about it, they trade their humanity to be able to use "magic", yet they drain their sanity each day until they become witches, who in turn are hunted by other magic girls
Thank you for all your hard work. This was a very informative and entertaining series that makes CoC easier to learn and get excited about.
Lucille is best girl, change my mind
Lucille is Waifu of the Century, and she is so petite she easily fits into any 1920's steamer trunk...
No one can do it
Amittedly thougt Lucille was going to kill herself
Hey cj I've started masks of nyharlthep what can I expect
There's lots of backstory, try not to info dump. Also, certain places are super deadly. So prepare spare characters.
lucil was such a good and cute character. great job and thank you for teaching me how to play this game.
Is it okay to laugh on “why is COC so hard?”