Here’s a fun thing to do with a mythos tome. Once the tome has been read, any time the investigator enters the room the tome is in, state “(enter tome name here) is on the desk and open.” Use the same type of voice and try to say it the same way every time. The first time, the player probably won’t even notice or care. The second time they will and will probably say something like “yeah, I left it like that” or something similar. And every time they say something like that, just wave your hand nonchalantly and go “if you say so” in a voice that basically tells them you know they’re wrong and are humoring them. Again, try to say it the same way each time. If the player isn’t the type to get angry at you for doing it constantly, they will eventually start doing more and more elaborate ways to put it away and keep it in it’s place, but when they re-enter the room “the tome is on the desk and open.” This will drive the player just as batty as the investigator may be, so after a while make sure you also add in the occasional “no, you distinctly remember taking it out earlier, though you don’t remember why” just to mess with them further. I know, this one’s pretty evil.
The attention to detail with the melting candles is surprising and commendable. Can't think of many review shows that would go through the effort of melting candles, either through blowtorch or actual time, for a small segment in a review show.
You know, I think you're the first person to even mention that little detail. Thank you. I like to add small gags like that and sometimes wonder if anyone even notices them. Overall, I want people to find the video information helpful, but it always feels good to hear when people notice and like the little things, too.
GOD I miss playing CoC... I was a 60 year old war vet who was once part of a cult, gained a fear of spiders, dropkicked a cop in my insanity frenzy, and then BOTLED... FOR 6, MILES, and then passed out on the road and got sent to the hospital... and eventually went insane and became afraid... OF MY OWN SYMBOL! I swear, that old man was comedy Gold lmao
There's a couple things you kinda glanced over I'd like to expand on: First, a lot of the magic stuff is based on rituals, there are some pretty strong instant spells but the real powerhouses are the rituals where you need more than one person, usually other people need to give you magic points to cast some spells as a requirement. Some rituals by themselves might also have a requirement that could make your character go through sanity losses besides the cost of the spell itself, like having to perform a sacrifice, or do something terrible to someone in order to get special ingredients. Some of the components and rituals themselves are quite gruesome and only mad men might endure it's costs. Second, which is more of a recomendation, don't turn your game into D&D. The game itself has an atmosphere and way of facing the cosmic horrors from beyond the stars and beneath the earth. If you start giving your players too much magic spells they'll eventually be able to sort your challenges easier than you think. Always be mindful on how the magic knowledge will affect their characters and warp them as they dwell deeper into the unknown and arcane powers. Also, the adition of magic adds a new economic variable to the game for your players, as they have a resource they have to spend (via magic points and or sanity) and you'll have to take them always into consideration, since it can make or break the game too easily. Lastly, a lot of the spells in Call of Cthulhu are utility spells, and those might be the best kind of spells you'll ever get. Since it's an investigation game more than anything, casting a spell to rot your enemies limbs has its uses, but the ability to detect if there's a living thing behind a door, be able to see further than normal distance, or even have the ability to read books with no light by swiping your hand over the text can be infinitely more useful. Always be creative with the resources you get, and just because you're not casting a fireball doesn't mean you're dealing with useless powers.
Good job, you touch on one of the bigger systemic issues in the D&D game as well... Atmosphere... Mission and theme. A lot of Players and GM's make the mistake of assuming everything was designed as a combat game turned adventure roleplay... When the variety of utility spells added practically insists that the game be expanded to consider other kinds of theme, story, and mission-atmosphere. I know this is more about being in-game for CoC, but there's nothing wrong with occasionally flipping the table and turning D&D into CoC for an adventure or two! ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 i agree. just finished a *long* investigation adventure in D&D. We went a good 5 sessions without any combat, and even when we did, it was a single encounter rather than a series or dungeon crawl. My players had a blast working through the mystery. We are now back in a traditional dungeon crawl, which frankly is now a lot more interesting since there is a much stronger roleplaying hook to for the PCs to be there. Don't underestimate the value of non-combat play in D&D. By the same token, though, sometimes it can be fun to bring a combat-heavy adventure to CoC, as well. Sometimes, it is just satisfying to have an opponent you can just pump full of lead to beat! I mean, look at Masks of Nyarlathotep. That campaign is hella-combat heavy, which is a big part of why it has a reputation as a meat-grinder of a campaign.
@@jonathonbartos5420 That goes without saying. I took up GURPS because it lends mechanics or supplements for nearly anything... and you can just muddle together what isn't available or is unaffordable (not justifiable by budget?)... I enjoy throwing my Players a curve-ball rather than rely on spectacle creep. They generally seem to enjoy and engage just as much. ;o)
In the space between this video and the previous overview, I got my copies of the Investigator's and Keeper's Guides. I'm excited to run this, and it's all your fault, Seth!
God, this and the sanity episode have been so helpful, I really screwed both up for my first campaign. I took almost no sanity from the players, gave almost none back, gave one spell for next to nothing way too easily... That summon dimensional shambler was used hilariously though... Especially when an elder demon thing subjugated it and turned it back on it's controller
Of all the existing magic systems across RPG’s, this is the one I think has the most apt framework for how I’d like the Force to function in a Star Wars homebrew… the importance of study in unlocking higher levels of a power… spontaneous use… attaching a sanity cost to using dark side powers unless you’re a true believer… sacrificing health to make up for a lack of adequate force points… even the possibility of failure or unintended adverse side-effects… psionics from Pulp Cthulhu is very very analogous as well. Also, having a framework for chase scenes was something I didn’t even know my homebrew needed. Needless to say it’s gonna end up pulling a lot from Call of Cthulhu, but also obviously Traveller and Cyberpunk 2020… your extensive collections of videos have really helped me explore these games as I have far less if any experience with them in some cases. Thank you.
I believe both forms of pronunciation are correct. According to the Oxford dictionary it can also has a third accepted pronunciation which sounds just a little bit strange to my ear.
Love your videos, Seth, thanks for introducing me to COC! Just ran the Haunting last night as my first foray to COC. My players loved it as a break from usual 5e DND. One of my players ran Jack Mallone and he really fell in love with the character. Jack was the last one standing to deliver the killing blow while the others were unconscious or insane.
Ok. The one guy who did a thumbs down obviously failed his INT roll. Great vid as always. Your content is the best for new keepers. Thanks for putting in the effort! Much appreciated.
I love how in Skyrim The Dragonborn DLC there were those black tomes that swung a tentacle around your head and pulled you into the apocrypha upon openning. If you had Teldryn Sero as a follower and you'd open the book in front of him for second or more time, he'd usually comment "I can't believe you'd do that on purpose" :D :D :D
Hi Seth, great work! I really appreciate the series, You present it so coherently and easily to follow that I have actually got a grasp on how the game is played. Thanks a lot!
How the heck did the characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer stay sane? They spent hours a day in Giles' occult library looking up the monster of the week.
Serious answer: ordinary occult tomes generally have low SAN costs compared to actual Mythos tomes. 0/1 SAN here, 0/1 SAN there does add up, but Xander and Willow both strike me as having started the series with fairly high SAN for teenagers.
oh my, really! you make these incredibly informative videos and then jack comes and just CRACKS ME UP at the end! I sure hope you'll make a best of compilation of his shenanigans at the end of the year ;) thanks for making these wonderful in-depth videos, they're worth so much to me as a person, who desires to become a keeper!!
Your comment about not making them role language every time gave me an idea. What if the tome is actually easy to understand in content, but changes languages every time you open it? I thank you for the idea!
Thankyou so much for this series. I bought the keeper book and this seriously helped me decide what parts to focus on for my first scenario. Cant wait to drive my players to insanity.
How do call spells work? What hapens AFTER you successfully called a god or great old one ? The book doesnt specify what the god/ great old one does or for how long it stays or if its free to leave the summoning area and go to Paris or Las Vegas. I like to think i'm pretty imaginative but i have no ideea how to deal with players/cultists calling Shub-Niggurath. The call spell descriptions in the book suggest that its very easy to call any of the mentioned entities and i'm left wondering : how come humanity still exists? All it takes is 10-20 cultists to call Azatoth .
I haa an idea for a house rule when talking about spontaneous spells: The player CAN learn the spell they cast that way to use it later. But they don't learn it automatically and since they are essentially making it from scratch they make a roll to see how many weeks they need to put that spell together, make a cthulu mythos roll to see if they made the spell and then make an intelligence roll to see if they memorised it. After that their scribblings count as a tome for the purpose of learning that specific spell. This way a character that has a really high cthulu mythos (occult expert concept for example) could make some spells with their knowledge but it is simply difficult to do so and consumes a bunch of time
Finally! Thank you! Hmm. Magic is about what I expected. Question: As a Keeper and Player - what is the real advantage to using magic? It seems way too dangerous to me to even bother with. Sad these videos are coming to an end.
Magic can be a huge game-changer, but only when used sparingly. Walking in like a D&D wizard and blasting every cultist in the room with a Whither Limb will end your character's career very fast. But spells like Summonings, Banishments, are huge deals. Flesh Ward (a armor spell) will make a huge difference. If your characters are getting SAN rewards at the end of each adventure, then hopefully they lose less San from spells and they gain in rewards. Casting more than 1 or 2 spells a game is probably a bad idea. Then you also have the Mythos Tipping point. Many spellcasters are going to have some Mythos skill. If you remember from the Sanity video, that if the character's San is ever lower than their Mythos, then forever after that, they only lose half-San (rounding up). So as characters go deeper and deeper into the Mythos and adventures, they hit this point to where spells just don't hurt them like the used to. So in our game, we ran for 2 years (one year regular, one year Pulp) this group. There was this occultist who read many of the Mythos Tomes and learned a lot of spells. One was Dominate. It costs 1 San and 1 Magic Point. Not too bad. She kicked a lot of ass with that spell. Also, her POW went up because it's a POW vs POW type of spell. So she's going along, kicking ass, and hits that point of no return and her Mythos goes above San. She's casting a lot more spells now. The trade-off is that it still doesn't take much for her to hit that 20% mark and throw her into Indefinitely Insanity, but she's formidable as hell, including resurrecting other characters. Now, we all know that she's going to end up Permanently Insane (we're looking forward to it, actually). That is very likely. Her personality has changed a lot since she started as Bouts of Madness have altered her. Her Mythos skill is over 50. We've dropped her San down into the single-digits more than once, but she made it out. She ended the last adventure with her San maxed out at 48 or whatever it is. She probably cast 5 spells that game and still made more San than she lost.
Bought your books. They better be good, or Jack Malone may have a visitation from something with teeth, claws, and tentacles. And eyes. Lots and lots of eyes....
Question on Spontaneous Magic; if a character tried to cast the exact same spell, without knowing it, could they roll a luck roll after an3rd or 4th time to catch snippits or what was done, and then record them over time to try and build it on their own? A couple sanity checks to get the thing in the first place, but could that be something in a sorta homebrewy fashion to allow?
Honestly, if I had a PC who managed to Spontaneously cast the same spell multiple times, I'd give them a chance to learn it. If you think about it, that's probably what many of the spells in Mythos tomes are like. They're not nice and neat instructions like a brownie recipe, but notes full of crossed out sections and journal entries about how some person 500 years ago kept trying a Spontaneous spell over and over until they got it memorized. I'd probably let it be an Extreme INT Roll to do, but only after the 2nd or 3rd time they successfully cast it.
Seth Skorkowsky Understood; I’ve only played the game a few handful of times, and I honestly cannot wait until he next time lol... I miss it a lot to be honest
Why the hell did I write MMI instead of WWI? Anyway, we went last year when I was up in KC visiting a buddy and catching the eclipse. We thought we could swing by and see it all in 2 hours or so. We were terribly wrong. Incredible museum. Being the only WWI museum in the US, they got their choice off all the best artifacts. Wonderfully laid out and very cool. Sadly, I discovered no photographs of Wonder Woman cleverly hidden in the exhibits.
Seth Skorkowsky I knew what you meant. Lol. It really is amazing, you need several hours to do it justice. I didn't see any Wonder Woman references either. Too bad.
Finally went to the WW1 museum in KC a few months ago. It was packed with visitors, which was good to see despite slowing down our tour. The place was also packed with so many artifacts of all sizes. I could've spent ten hours in there examining everything in detail, but the rest of my group didn't have quite as much enthusiasm.
I think if you wanted a nice example of what the audio of Mythos Tome would sound like if it was that kind of medium then I would point you towards revolution nine by the Beatles.
I'm a fan of the idea of mythos tomes that aren't necessarily collections of forbidden knowledge, but rather....conceptual vessels might be the best way to put it. They vary wildly in content, style, and format, and in theory they'd just be very bizarre but ultimately mundane books. But their contents express certain ideas and themes in a way that's just right to give them power.
Your playlist has been super helpful, but I have just a small question. How best can I present the cost of spells without breaking immersion? I feel it really breaks the illusion of the investigators tampering with cosmic forces that are otherwise dangerous and truly alien, the antithesis to human comprehension, only to say at the end, "If you wanna do it, it'll cost you 5 points of sanity, and 10 magic points." I can understand how to describe the cost of sanity without giving the exact amount away, possibly having warnings in the instructions similar to something like, "Initiates who wish to invoke such forces are to beware of their minds, for they are ever fragile as glass," but I'm not so sure as to how to explain away magic points in an immersive manner, especially when the magic point cost is variable.
👹 *The magic system in Call of Cthulhu is closer to Warhammer Fantasy Role-play then it is to Dungeons & Dragons .* *To cast a spell in Warhammer Fantasy role-play is unreliable and if botched and/or used to much , and it will change the player's character(s) .* 🌟 *Please do character creation guides / overview for other systems you & your groups play .* *Just like you did for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition .* *I really want to learn more about RuinQuest RolePlaying in glorantha , Conan , aliens , delta green & Advanced Dungeons & dragons 1 & 2 .*
Wow magic is so costly in this system :o I hope I'll still be able to get some players to try it knowing the risks Also Seth I was wondering, when a player wants to consult a tome, should we let them know the exact value of CMI CMF and the MR before even reading it or should we let it kind of vague?
Consulting a tome requires they've already done a Full Reading first (I'd planned to put that in the vid, but only noticed during editing that I missed it). That being said, I'd probably make the GM call that only making an Initial Reading was OK. Either way, they'll have done at least 1 reading of it. Now with CMI, CMF, MR, and all that, the players shouldn't know this until after the Initial Reading.
Thanks! I ended up buying the keepers guide but I do have some problems with reading (something similar to dyslexia but not quite, it's complicated), and having your videos as a second source of information makes the reading way easier, thanks a lot for those!
Does anyone know where Seth is getting that you can only gain Mythos from a tome up to the Mythos Rating? I've read over the book a couple times now and can't seem to find that limitation. I do find a section that states very clearly that if CM is greater then MR you gain CMI instead of CMF.
I'm not finding it either. I was sure I'd read that, but maybe I'm wrong. Seems like a weird thing to make up, but I'm talented that way. Essentially, let's say you have a Mythos Tome with a CMI +1, CMF +5 and a total Mythos Rating of 20, then you can't raise your Cthulhu Mythos Skill more than 20 total points from it, no matter how many times you read it because it's only got 20 total points of Mythos information to give. You can't get 2 gallons of milk out of a 1-gallon jug. If you want more milk you gotta find another jug. But if you still can't find that rule, feel free to ignore me. Chalk it up to yet another mistake I made in the video series. My bad.
@@SSkorkowsky It makes so much sense is the trouble. Which is why I was surprised to find it wasn't true. So even if I can't find it I'm gonna use your explanation as a house rule.
Hey Seth could you do a video of the starship troopers RPG and tell me what you think I like it and the only flaw I found is the bugs don't give you xp when you kill them
PS if you could convince your ground to agree to stream or record a game that would be really cool I love watching people play I learn by watching thank you
The real hurdle with reviews is that I play them before I review them. So picking up a system to review requires not just committing the time and energy to learning the system, but sufficient time playing the system with other people in order to form a proper opinion of it. This makes me very unlikely to take review requests, and both my weekends and my players' weekends are pretty limited and test games get slotted into those rare weekends when we're all free and not playing our normal campaign. Unfortunately Starship Troopers just doesn't interest me enough to commit that much energy toward when I have many other games I only wish I had time to try. Recording a session is also very unlikely. Game days are our days to hang out as friends. No kids, no jobs, just us laughing and spending time together. We only get 1 definite day a month to do that and having a camera in the room would feel weird and intrusive.
@@SSkorkowsky it's alright man I'm a fellow youtuber and I ik how hard it is to do videos with everything else in the background but thank you for replying
Loved the video as always, but as someone who loves the National WW1 Museum I was so distracted (in a good way) by your shirt! Are you from the KC area or did you get it just visiting? It's an amazing museum; my brother used to work there. No one cool is ever from my neck of the woods so I couldn't help but ask. :)
OK, if the blade hungers, then you don't have much time. Here's what you need to do. First, if the blade is already out of the sheath, you can't put it back. They get pissed if you draw them and that'll bring all sorts of curses down on you and your decedents. So place a quarter between the blade tip and your abdomen (I've found that the South Dakota state quarters work best). As long as the quarter is in place, the blade can't cut you, but you can't just live your life with a knife pressed against a quarter against your abdomen. This just buys you some time. Next, go to a local bar, the seedier the better. Walk in all casual like nothing is wrong. Order a drink, maybe buy a song on the juke box. Eventually someone is going to ask you why you're holding a knife to your belly. Just laugh and play it cool. Be all like, "Its a trick to exercise my muscle control. See this blade is holding the quarter in place and as long as I keep it there it works out like 87 muscles. It's a killer workout." They're going to say they don't believe you. You shrug, sip your drink, try not to look too desperate because you're only moments away from death. You're sweating bullets and your hands are getting slippery. Offer to let them try it. So they're going to say yes, because there's no way that pinning a quarter with a knife against yourself is working out 87 muscles. Have them take the blade and the quarter from you and the moment they're out of your hand, you run the hell out of there. It's no longer your problem. Trust me on this, I've used this trick on 12 separate occasions.
@@SSkorkowsky so that's how you get rid of a hungry blade! This is why I watch your channel. So very informative. I've just appeased it with chicken blood, but it seems to be losing it's appetite. It calls out to me while I lay in the dark of the night. It's muffled cries haunt my waking hours. It's in it's sheath though so it might be saying burrito instead of blood. Chile relleno burritos are really good so I wouldn't be all that surprised.
There an error in this video regarding the Mythos Rating as a cap for the Cthulhu Mythos you gain. The rules say that if your CM is below the book's MR, you get the full CMF, but if your CM is at or above the tome's MR, you still get a value equal to the CMI. Still hardly worth the years of study for just a few more points of CM, but there it is.
That's how I do it. Might not be all at once, either. Let's say you finish a session and when the next session begins it's supposed to be 6 months after the last adventure. Keeper goes around asking what everyone did. Some went to their jobs, some went to therapy, school, or visited their favorite persons/places. One of them reads a tome. They say they probably spent a third of that 6 months reading the tome between all their other stuff. They then apply 2 months (8 weeks) toward that 48 week requirement. Of course they can say they spent 100% of their time reading the tome, not going to therapy or any of that. That comes to 24-26 weeks spent toward their required 48. Maybe after the next adventure they'll have the time to finish off that tome they've been working on.
One of my players threw his mythos tome out of a window. As he sat down immediately after doing so, he ended up sitting on the same book he just threw out.
Sorry, I may have missed it or just don’t understand. The Mythos Score helps identify anything Mythos the Investigators encounter. I can understand the use - knowledge is power and all that - but is it necessary? I mean, I’d understand if identifying a Mythos monster accurately was an automatic Sanity success, but it seems like one gives up a lot to just understand. What’s the compelling reason to study the Tomes and increase your Mythos score? It can’t only be for identification and spells, right? Is it required for gathering clues, or is Magic just that good? Is Magic required? What if you don’t care about Magic? Many questions.
It's not necessary to read Mythos Tomes. Many characters choose not to. Knowledge of Mythos entities is rather helpful in overcoming them. But it's something available to them. So while you might not ever make a character that wants to read them because you don't see the cost worth it, that doesn't mean other players won't. It's simply something that's there.
@@SSkorkowsky Wow, thanks for the response! That makes sense that it’s just another tool. I think I was making it more pivotal in my head than it needed to be for, say, a non-academic character or a low POW character. Not everyone needs the skill, so it came out as a moot point, haha. Thanks for the hard work on the reviews. Very informative for branching out to new systems.
Is there any impact on an NPC, such as a cult leader, casting enough spells to reduce their sanity to 00, or is sanity primarily a measurement for how much a PC can take before becoming unplayable? Its always seemed weird to me how much spells cost when in literature and such, the baddies are forever performing rituals, casting spells etc yet the rules in the 7e book seem to indicate that if someone casts even a handful of spells their mind will melt.
IIRC SAN is primarily for the PCs. For example Mr. Corbitt in the Haunting has 0 SAN, since he has more or less become infused with the house and uses his magic to conjure various effects to ward off people he sees as invaders. You also have to keep in mind that the cultists and whatnot are demonstrably insane and "true believers" of Dagon or Azathoth or whatnot. Their minds are already gone so any SAN loss from casting things isnt going to bother them.
So, sounds like a person's Mythos skill cannot go above the books mythos rating as a result of reading it. Does that mean that reading a book with a lower rating thereafter will not increase mythos skill? Am I misinterpreting what he (you) said? Thanks!
If a reader has a Mythos Skill above the book, they still gain the initial Mythos points from the Initial reading a new book (because it has some new information), but giving it a Full Read only grants them the Initial read points again, rather than Full Read points (because there's some info they already knew in it). So let's say you have a new book that's got a Mythos bonus of +4/+9 and your Mythos Skill is higher than the book's MR. An Initial Read still grants you the +4, like normal, but then a Full Read only grants you a +4 instead of the +9 that a person with a lover Mythos Skill would receive. (see Keeper's Guide pp 173-175)
@@SSkorkowsky Aha, bottom of 174. Thanks for pointing at it for me. I've run "Amidst the Ancient Trees" and "The Haunting" so far and am still catching up with the in-between adventure stuff. Lots to learn. Thanks again!
Ok, do your games “feel” scary? I’ve played a few games with friends and while I may have been worried for my character’s health and sanity... I just wasn’t scared. Are we doing it “wrong” or is that a typical experience.
Usually not. At least not with long, multi-session campaigns. One-shots, is a totally different story. Those are easier to get the real horror vibe going and keep the mood going, but with seasoned characters on their third adventure, not at much. At least that's been my experience. But that requires everyone in the room be willing to go for it. One jokey player can kill a good horror mood. It's like a good horror movie. You can watch one in the dark with your friends and get caught up in it. Or you can have that one person who just doesn't get into it for whatever reason and now everyone is just laughing at the bad effects. Both experiences can be fun, but having it be scary requires group participation.
*whispers into earpiece* "He's onto me, i'm going to need immediate extraction" Listen Seth, it's been nice and all, but i uh... I just remembered I have another engagement, so I'll have to see you later.
I’m not sure I agree with the whole loss of sanity at becoming a believer thing... I think it would depend on the mind and personality of the character. If they already had a lot of spiritual/mystic beliefs they would be able to remain far more well adjusted with their new knowledge compared to a straight laced atheist scientist learning the same. Some people might even think learning such things is “cool” and makes their world more mysterious and interesting lol.
Brian Cline but, typically a non-believer in the game is described by being a scholarly, mostly cold unbelieving individual, a person with faith in God or Allah, or whomever, might believe in the Mythos as beings and entities of their own theology, like demons or angels. In order to be a non-believer, you’d more or less have to be a hard line atheist.
Nick Manzo but could a non believer not simply just be a person who has never been exposed to evidence of the mythos being true before? Suppose it IS actually true in our world... if so you can make no preconceptions about people who are non believers because they could just be people like us who have seen no evidence for it being true (or have not even heard of it before).
Brian Cline I agree with you on the principle of the idea, but in terms of rules and mechanics, typically being a non-believer implies wholesale disbelief in anything intangible. Such a person being completely exposed to the concept that their entire worldview is wrong, and being that they’re suddenly exposed to such things could be massively traumatizing. You’re certainly free to homebrew it however you want, but I believe that personally, I like the rules as written here.
You mentioned incorporating modern technology in mythos tomes and it reminds me. Not CoC but I played in a Mutants & Masterminds game that us going to an old castle in the Alps that had been a Nazi stronghold and a lone Nazi occult scientist had toiled for decades after the war to create a massive super computer possessed by evil ... the NECROCOMPUTRON!!! lol.
Look it at this way: you read a book once. Since you know the contents fairly well, you will take extra time to make sure you didn't miss anything. And repeat ad nauseam.
Khas: don’t even have you’re own mythos tome, water damage and all? Me: yes, I do, I’ve even written in it. I have a lot more books on botany now. Khas: what about your bio scrapbook from middle school?
I'm not to keen to take Sanity just for reading a tome. It's like when atheist reads a bible, for him it would be same as reading Lord of the rings. However, once that person witnesses a demon, or and angel or whatever - is that reading tomes should be considered to cause insanity. Same goes if the investigators already encountered a monster and then start reading tomes to figure out what it is they are dealing with. Otherwise, well, those are just words on a paper. At least that's how I run it.
That's taken into account by "Belief". A PC that doesn't believe doesn't suffer San loss until they believe. Once a ghoul walks out in front of them, and they realize ghouls and the Mythos are real, that's when the San loss from reading Mythos tomes occurs.
Many of the the spells are very powerful and extremely useful. But PCs will need to learn to use them intelligently and in moderation. Using a spell or 2 every adventure won't harm them too much, providing the Sanity rewards at the end are decent and they're regularly visiting their friendly neighborhood Psychologist. Cultists on the other hand, who usually already have a SAN of 0, can feel free to use magic to their heart's content. Magic is far more likely to be in the hands of the bad guys and be used as an obstacle the PCs have to overcome.
Simon Simons I had a character in my first campaign who learned to summon Dimensional Shamblers and Nightgaunts. They were very useful entities to have around whenconbat happened as they were good attackers and good at sneaking around.
Here’s a fun thing to do with a mythos tome. Once the tome has been read, any time the investigator enters the room the tome is in, state “(enter tome name here) is on the desk and open.” Use the same type of voice and try to say it the same way every time.
The first time, the player probably won’t even notice or care. The second time they will and will probably say something like “yeah, I left it like that” or something similar. And every time they say something like that, just wave your hand nonchalantly and go “if you say so” in a voice that basically tells them you know they’re wrong and are humoring them. Again, try to say it the same way each time.
If the player isn’t the type to get angry at you for doing it constantly, they will eventually start doing more and more elaborate ways to put it away and keep it in it’s place, but when they re-enter the room “the tome is on the desk and open.” This will drive the player just as batty as the investigator may be, so after a while make sure you also add in the occasional “no, you distinctly remember taking it out earlier, though you don’t remember why” just to mess with them further.
I know, this one’s pretty evil.
_excited note taking intensifies_
"THIS IS NOT *REALITY*!!!"
Leaving a comment here so I can refference this one
This is absolutely brilliant, and I had a similar idea as I was starting to watch the video, but MAN this is well explained. Thank you for this.
My players are going to hate you. =P
The attention to detail with the melting candles is surprising and commendable. Can't think of many review shows that would go through the effort of melting candles, either through blowtorch or actual time, for a small segment in a review show.
You know, I think you're the first person to even mention that little detail. Thank you. I like to add small gags like that and sometimes wonder if anyone even notices them. Overall, I want people to find the video information helpful, but it always feels good to hear when people notice and like the little things, too.
Jack Mallone’s descent into madness on 6:12 is just pure gold
GOD I miss playing CoC... I was a 60 year old war vet who was once part of a cult, gained a fear of spiders, dropkicked a cop in my insanity frenzy, and then BOTLED... FOR 6, MILES, and then passed out on the road and got sent to the hospital... and eventually went insane and became afraid... OF MY OWN SYMBOL! I swear, that old man was comedy Gold lmao
"And then bolted for six miles" lmao
When I read “I was a 60 year old war vet who was once part of a cult”, I briefly thought you meant in real life and had to do a double take
There's a couple things you kinda glanced over I'd like to expand on:
First, a lot of the magic stuff is based on rituals, there are some pretty strong instant spells but the real powerhouses are the rituals where you need more than one person, usually other people need to give you magic points to cast some spells as a requirement. Some rituals by themselves might also have a requirement that could make your character go through sanity losses besides the cost of the spell itself, like having to perform a sacrifice, or do something terrible to someone in order to get special ingredients. Some of the components and rituals themselves are quite gruesome and only mad men might endure it's costs.
Second, which is more of a recomendation, don't turn your game into D&D. The game itself has an atmosphere and way of facing the cosmic horrors from beyond the stars and beneath the earth. If you start giving your players too much magic spells they'll eventually be able to sort your challenges easier than you think. Always be mindful on how the magic knowledge will affect their characters and warp them as they dwell deeper into the unknown and arcane powers. Also, the adition of magic adds a new economic variable to the game for your players, as they have a resource they have to spend (via magic points and or sanity) and you'll have to take them always into consideration, since it can make or break the game too easily.
Lastly, a lot of the spells in Call of Cthulhu are utility spells, and those might be the best kind of spells you'll ever get. Since it's an investigation game more than anything, casting a spell to rot your enemies limbs has its uses, but the ability to detect if there's a living thing behind a door, be able to see further than normal distance, or even have the ability to read books with no light by swiping your hand over the text can be infinitely more useful. Always be creative with the resources you get, and just because you're not casting a fireball doesn't mean you're dealing with useless powers.
Good job, you touch on one of the bigger systemic issues in the D&D game as well... Atmosphere... Mission and theme. A lot of Players and GM's make the mistake of assuming everything was designed as a combat game turned adventure roleplay... When the variety of utility spells added practically insists that the game be expanded to consider other kinds of theme, story, and mission-atmosphere.
I know this is more about being in-game for CoC, but there's nothing wrong with occasionally flipping the table and turning D&D into CoC for an adventure or two! ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 i agree. just finished a *long* investigation adventure in D&D. We went a good 5 sessions without any combat, and even when we did, it was a single encounter rather than a series or dungeon crawl. My players had a blast working through the mystery. We are now back in a traditional dungeon crawl, which frankly is now a lot more interesting since there is a much stronger roleplaying hook to for the PCs to be there. Don't underestimate the value of non-combat play in D&D.
By the same token, though, sometimes it can be fun to bring a combat-heavy adventure to CoC, as well. Sometimes, it is just satisfying to have an opponent you can just pump full of lead to beat! I mean, look at Masks of Nyarlathotep. That campaign is hella-combat heavy, which is a big part of why it has a reputation as a meat-grinder of a campaign.
@@jonathonbartos5420 That goes without saying. I took up GURPS because it lends mechanics or supplements for nearly anything... and you can just muddle together what isn't available or is unaffordable (not justifiable by budget?)...
I enjoy throwing my Players a curve-ball rather than rely on spectacle creep. They generally seem to enjoy and engage just as much. ;o)
Nice Excalibur reference there at the end. The “charm of making” iirc
0:58 - That should be MythOS, the operating system that runs on the Mi-Go gadgets...
In the space between this video and the previous overview, I got my copies of the Investigator's and Keeper's Guides. I'm excited to run this, and it's all your fault, Seth!
Have fun with it.
God, this and the sanity episode have been so helpful, I really screwed both up for my first campaign. I took almost no sanity from the players, gave almost none back, gave one spell for next to nothing way too easily... That summon dimensional shambler was used hilariously though... Especially when an elder demon thing subjugated it and turned it back on it's controller
Having my first call of Cthulhu session tomorrow, this was a great clean up of my misconceptions when reading the rules!
Have fun with your first game.
I have watched this video six times, and I am still learning things. But I keep losing sanity. Not sure if it's worth it. Thank you Seth, great video!
Would love to see a breakdown like this regarding the rule differences in playing Pulp Cthulhu
Of all the existing magic systems across RPG’s, this is the one I think has the most apt framework for how I’d like the Force to function in a Star Wars homebrew… the importance of study in unlocking higher levels of a power… spontaneous use… attaching a sanity cost to using dark side powers unless you’re a true believer… sacrificing health to make up for a lack of adequate force points… even the possibility of failure or unintended adverse side-effects… psionics from Pulp Cthulhu is very very analogous as well.
Also, having a framework for chase scenes was something I didn’t even know my homebrew needed. Needless to say it’s gonna end up pulling a lot from Call of Cthulhu, but also obviously Traveller and Cyberpunk 2020… your extensive collections of videos have really helped me explore these games as I have far less if any experience with them in some cases. Thank you.
Also, Song of Pain is totally something a Sith could use the Force for.
I believe both forms of pronunciation are correct. According to the Oxford dictionary it can also has a third accepted pronunciation which sounds just a little bit strange to my ear.
Love your videos, Seth, thanks for introducing me to COC! Just ran the Haunting last night as my first foray to COC. My players loved it as a break from usual 5e DND. One of my players ran Jack Mallone and he really fell in love with the character. Jack was the last one standing to deliver the killing blow while the others were unconscious or insane.
Awesome. Glad you guys had fun with it.
You say, "sanity loss from believing in the Cthulhu Mythos" like it's a bad thing.
Nice quoting of Merlin from the movie Excalibur at the end there! (at about 21:22)
Never had clicked a video so fast in my life.
I broke my mouse. Gonna have to get another one. Still worth it.
"...necktie...nectar...nickel....noodle...it was an n-word. It was definitely an n-word."
Clatu verata nehufude
There I said the words I'll just take this book and go.
I got it! I got it!
LMAOOOOOO
I love these videos! Picked up one of your books to binge tonight. :D
Thanks. Hope you enjoy the book.
Ok. The one guy who did a thumbs down obviously failed his INT roll. Great vid as always. Your content is the best for new keepers. Thanks for putting in the effort! Much appreciated.
I love how in Skyrim The Dragonborn DLC there were those black tomes that swung a tentacle around your head and pulled you into the apocrypha upon openning. If you had Teldryn Sero as a follower and you'd open the book in front of him for second or more time, he'd usually comment "I can't believe you'd do that on purpose" :D :D :D
Hermaeus certainly has a Mythos feel to him. Hoarder of Forbidden Knowledge that causes Madness in the Minds of Mortals and all.
Hi Seth, great work! I really appreciate the series, You present it so coherently and easily to follow that I have actually got a grasp on how the game is played. Thanks a lot!
Even if someone has no interest in the game the video was worth it for the jack karaoke. ha
Loving these videos.
I have been waiting for this for a while. Thank you.
How the heck did the characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer stay sane? They spent hours a day in Giles' occult library looking up the monster of the week.
Are you sure they stayed sane? Normal Again suggests otherwise ;)
They used Pulp Cthulhu rules?
Were probably just playing 'Monster Of The Week', oddly enough.
Serious answer: ordinary occult tomes generally have low SAN costs compared to actual Mythos tomes. 0/1 SAN here, 0/1 SAN there does add up, but Xander and Willow both strike me as having started the series with fairly high SAN for teenagers.
You are the man, thanks for these guides!....also I've bought so much Call of Cthulhu RPG material lately because of your videos, it's bad.
Excellent. Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.
Great video again! Keep on. Remember to support Seth.
Thank you so much again for a great video Seth! :)
oh my, really! you make these incredibly informative videos and then jack comes and just CRACKS ME UP at the end!
I sure hope you'll make a best of compilation of his shenanigans at the end of the year ;)
thanks for making these wonderful in-depth videos, they're worth so much to me as a person, who desires to become a keeper!!
Seth: "Cthulhu"
TH-cam autocaptioning: "Scootaloo"
I'm loving that Sith Holochron on the table.
Your comment about not making them role language every time gave me an idea. What if the tome is actually easy to understand in content, but changes languages every time you open it?
I thank you for the idea!
or maybe you need a certain sanity level or loss to understand it..
@@thothheartmaat2833 Only an inmate at Arkham Sanitarum could understand the mad ravings of a lunatic...
You should make a series about the different gods and deities of call of cthulhu.
This is a great series Seth! Keep'em coming!
Thankyou so much for this series. I bought the keeper book and this seriously helped me decide what parts to focus on for my first scenario. Cant wait to drive my players to insanity.
Happy to help. I hope you and your players have a blast.
The montage of Jack at the end had me rolling.
How do call spells work? What hapens AFTER you successfully called a god or great old one ? The book doesnt specify what the god/ great old one does or for how long it stays or if its free to leave the summoning area and go to Paris or Las Vegas. I like to think i'm pretty imaginative but i have no ideea how to deal with players/cultists calling Shub-Niggurath. The call spell descriptions in the book suggest that its very easy to call any of the mentioned entities and i'm left wondering : how come humanity still exists? All it takes is 10-20 cultists to call Azatoth .
Thanks so much for these videos!
Another excellent video Seth. You have a good grasp of CofC.
Seth's acting when Malone is reading the tomes totally cracks me up every time.
Been a while I live these videos
Great video.
Yes! I love your channel!!!
I can be a Mage! And, it only costs my sanity, some blood and my immortal soul? Where do I join?!
Oh right here.
(once you are gone)
Hello, is this the technocracy? If so, you have another potential reality deviant to deal with.
I think the price is actually *a* soul, not necessarily *your* soul.
I haa an idea for a house rule when talking about spontaneous spells:
The player CAN learn the spell they cast that way to use it later. But they don't learn it automatically and since they are essentially making it from scratch they make a roll to see how many weeks they need to put that spell together, make a cthulu mythos roll to see if they made the spell and then make an intelligence roll to see if they memorised it. After that their scribblings count as a tome for the purpose of learning that specific spell.
This way a character that has a really high cthulu mythos (occult expert concept for example) could make some spells with their knowledge but it is simply difficult to do so and consumes a bunch of time
Another great video.
Finally! Thank you!
Hmm. Magic is about what I expected. Question: As a Keeper and Player - what is the real advantage to using magic? It seems way too dangerous to me to even bother with.
Sad these videos are coming to an end.
Magic can be a huge game-changer, but only when used sparingly. Walking in like a D&D wizard and blasting every cultist in the room with a Whither Limb will end your character's career very fast. But spells like Summonings, Banishments, are huge deals. Flesh Ward (a armor spell) will make a huge difference. If your characters are getting SAN rewards at the end of each adventure, then hopefully they lose less San from spells and they gain in rewards. Casting more than 1 or 2 spells a game is probably a bad idea.
Then you also have the Mythos Tipping point. Many spellcasters are going to have some Mythos skill. If you remember from the Sanity video, that if the character's San is ever lower than their Mythos, then forever after that, they only lose half-San (rounding up). So as characters go deeper and deeper into the Mythos and adventures, they hit this point to where spells just don't hurt them like the used to.
So in our game, we ran for 2 years (one year regular, one year Pulp) this group. There was this occultist who read many of the Mythos Tomes and learned a lot of spells. One was Dominate. It costs 1 San and 1 Magic Point. Not too bad. She kicked a lot of ass with that spell. Also, her POW went up because it's a POW vs POW type of spell. So she's going along, kicking ass, and hits that point of no return and her Mythos goes above San. She's casting a lot more spells now. The trade-off is that it still doesn't take much for her to hit that 20% mark and throw her into Indefinitely Insanity, but she's formidable as hell, including resurrecting other characters. Now, we all know that she's going to end up Permanently Insane (we're looking forward to it, actually). That is very likely. Her personality has changed a lot since she started as Bouts of Madness have altered her. Her Mythos skill is over 50. We've dropped her San down into the single-digits more than once, but she made it out. She ended the last adventure with her San maxed out at 48 or whatever it is. She probably cast 5 spells that game and still made more San than she lost.
Excellent series of videos! Do you think you might do something similar for the Pulp variant of the rules? Thanks for the great content
Once the next one is done and the core series is wrapped, the next one will be Pulp. That should only be a single episode.
Bought your books. They better be good, or Jack Malone may have a visitation from something with teeth, claws, and tentacles. And eyes. Lots and lots of eyes....
Thanks. Hope you enjoy them, for your sake and for Jack's.
Question on Spontaneous Magic; if a character tried to cast the exact same spell, without knowing it, could they roll a luck roll after an3rd or 4th time to catch snippits or what was done, and then record them over time to try and build it on their own? A couple sanity checks to get the thing in the first place, but could that be something in a sorta homebrewy fashion to allow?
Honestly, if I had a PC who managed to Spontaneously cast the same spell multiple times, I'd give them a chance to learn it. If you think about it, that's probably what many of the spells in Mythos tomes are like. They're not nice and neat instructions like a brownie recipe, but notes full of crossed out sections and journal entries about how some person 500 years ago kept trying a Spontaneous spell over and over until they got it memorized. I'd probably let it be an Extreme INT Roll to do, but only after the 2nd or 3rd time they successfully cast it.
Seth Skorkowsky Understood; I’ve only played the game a few handful of times, and I honestly cannot wait until he next time lol... I miss it a lot to be honest
Another great video man, after you finish this series you should do an overview of cyberpunk 2020.
Greetings from Kansas City! Nice shirt!
The MMI Museum is absolutely amazing. I loved that place.
I need to visit the WW1 museum in KC. Ashamed to say I lived there for a number of years and never got around to it. :_(
Why the hell did I write MMI instead of WWI?
Anyway, we went last year when I was up in KC visiting a buddy and catching the eclipse. We thought we could swing by and see it all in 2 hours or so. We were terribly wrong. Incredible museum. Being the only WWI museum in the US, they got their choice off all the best artifacts. Wonderfully laid out and very cool. Sadly, I discovered no photographs of Wonder Woman cleverly hidden in the exhibits.
Seth Skorkowsky I knew what you meant. Lol. It really is amazing, you need several hours to do it justice. I didn't see any Wonder Woman references either. Too bad.
Finally went to the WW1 museum in KC a few months ago. It was packed with visitors, which was good to see despite slowing down our tour. The place was also packed with so many artifacts of all sizes. I could've spent ten hours in there examining everything in detail, but the rest of my group didn't have quite as much enthusiasm.
I think if you wanted a nice example of what the audio of Mythos Tome would sound like if it was that kind of medium then I would point you towards revolution nine by the Beatles.
Favorite film tome? The professor's recording in Evil Dead 2
I'm a fan of the idea of mythos tomes that aren't necessarily collections of forbidden knowledge, but rather....conceptual vessels might be the best way to put it. They vary wildly in content, style, and format, and in theory they'd just be very bizarre but ultimately mundane books. But their contents express certain ideas and themes in a way that's just right to give them power.
Your playlist has been super helpful, but I have just a small question. How best can I present the cost of spells without breaking immersion? I feel it really breaks the illusion of the investigators tampering with cosmic forces that are otherwise dangerous and truly alien, the antithesis to human comprehension, only to say at the end, "If you wanna do it, it'll cost you 5 points of sanity, and 10 magic points."
I can understand how to describe the cost of sanity without giving the exact amount away, possibly having warnings in the instructions similar to something like, "Initiates who wish to invoke such forces are to beware of their minds, for they are ever fragile as glass," but I'm not so sure as to how to explain away magic points in an immersive manner, especially when the magic point cost is variable.
okay great, so what's the CMF for the keeper's handbook
👹 *The magic system in Call of Cthulhu is closer to Warhammer Fantasy Role-play then it is to Dungeons & Dragons .*
*To cast a spell in Warhammer Fantasy role-play is unreliable and if botched and/or used to much , and it will change the player's character(s) .*
🌟 *Please do character creation guides / overview for other systems you & your groups play .*
*Just like you did for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition .*
*I really want to learn more about RuinQuest RolePlaying in glorantha , Conan , aliens , delta green & Advanced Dungeons & dragons 1 & 2 .*
Wow magic is so costly in this system :o I hope I'll still be able to get some players to try it knowing the risks
Also Seth I was wondering, when a player wants to consult a tome, should we let them know the exact value of CMI CMF and the MR before even reading it or should we let it kind of vague?
In most cases, players turn to magic as a last resort: like they have to complete a ritual to banish a Mythos creature.
Consulting a tome requires they've already done a Full Reading first (I'd planned to put that in the vid, but only noticed during editing that I missed it). That being said, I'd probably make the GM call that only making an Initial Reading was OK. Either way, they'll have done at least 1 reading of it.
Now with CMI, CMF, MR, and all that, the players shouldn't know this until after the Initial Reading.
Thanks! I ended up buying the keepers guide but I do have some problems with reading (something similar to dyslexia but not quite, it's complicated), and having your videos as a second source of information makes the reading way easier, thanks a lot for those!
Does anyone know where Seth is getting that you can only gain Mythos from a tome up to the Mythos Rating? I've read over the book a couple times now and can't seem to find that limitation. I do find a section that states very clearly that if CM is greater then MR you gain CMI instead of CMF.
I'm not finding it either. I was sure I'd read that, but maybe I'm wrong. Seems like a weird thing to make up, but I'm talented that way.
Essentially, let's say you have a Mythos Tome with a CMI +1, CMF +5 and a total Mythos Rating of 20, then you can't raise your Cthulhu Mythos Skill more than 20 total points from it, no matter how many times you read it because it's only got 20 total points of Mythos information to give. You can't get 2 gallons of milk out of a 1-gallon jug. If you want more milk you gotta find another jug.
But if you still can't find that rule, feel free to ignore me. Chalk it up to yet another mistake I made in the video series. My bad.
@@SSkorkowsky It makes so much sense is the trouble. Which is why I was surprised to find it wasn't true. So even if I can't find it I'm gonna use your explanation as a house rule.
6:05 You can tell Jack is going insane, because he's wearing his fedora indoors.
The surprise Charm of Making at the end cost me 1D6 SAN!
For decades, I thought it was the book of Dyzan. Wasn't until I heard you pronounce it that I realized I been reading it wrong for so long.
Keep in mind, I'm also notorious for terrible mispronunciations. So take any pronunciations of mine with a grain of salt.
Hey Seth could you do a video of the starship troopers RPG and tell me what you think I like it and the only flaw I found is the bugs don't give you xp when you kill them
PS if you could convince your ground to agree to stream or record a game that would be really cool I love watching people play I learn by watching thank you
The real hurdle with reviews is that I play them before I review them. So picking up a system to review requires not just committing the time and energy to learning the system, but sufficient time playing the system with other people in order to form a proper opinion of it. This makes me very unlikely to take review requests, and both my weekends and my players' weekends are pretty limited and test games get slotted into those rare weekends when we're all free and not playing our normal campaign. Unfortunately Starship Troopers just doesn't interest me enough to commit that much energy toward when I have many other games I only wish I had time to try.
Recording a session is also very unlikely. Game days are our days to hang out as friends. No kids, no jobs, just us laughing and spending time together. We only get 1 definite day a month to do that and having a camera in the room would feel weird and intrusive.
@@SSkorkowsky it's alright man I'm a fellow youtuber and I ik how hard it is to do videos with everything else in the background but thank you for replying
Loved the video as always, but as someone who loves the National WW1 Museum I was so distracted (in a good way) by your shirt! Are you from the KC area or did you get it just visiting? It's an amazing museum; my brother used to work there. No one cool is ever from my neck of the woods so I couldn't help but ask. :)
It's an incredible museum. I was visiting a friend in KC and we spend a few hours there.
@@SSkorkowsky Rats. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the museum, and thank you for making these funny and informative videos!
6:32 my face when a new Seth Skorkowsky video comes out
Did you try to sneak this past me when I was sleepy!!!
Seth try realms of cathulu it's savage worlds call of Cthulhu it's great thats what we play
I've been pronouncing mythos wrong for so long! I am a disgrace. Seppuku is the only honorable action at this juncture.
Pshh. I gave the proper pronunciation of it, and then wen't straight into a 20 minute video where I pronounced it wrong 300 times.
@@SSkorkowsky but but but....my hara-kiri blade hungers.
OK, if the blade hungers, then you don't have much time. Here's what you need to do. First, if the blade is already out of the sheath, you can't put it back. They get pissed if you draw them and that'll bring all sorts of curses down on you and your decedents. So place a quarter between the blade tip and your abdomen (I've found that the South Dakota state quarters work best). As long as the quarter is in place, the blade can't cut you, but you can't just live your life with a knife pressed against a quarter against your abdomen. This just buys you some time.
Next, go to a local bar, the seedier the better. Walk in all casual like nothing is wrong. Order a drink, maybe buy a song on the juke box. Eventually someone is going to ask you why you're holding a knife to your belly. Just laugh and play it cool. Be all like, "Its a trick to exercise my muscle control. See this blade is holding the quarter in place and as long as I keep it there it works out like 87 muscles. It's a killer workout." They're going to say they don't believe you. You shrug, sip your drink, try not to look too desperate because you're only moments away from death. You're sweating bullets and your hands are getting slippery. Offer to let them try it. So they're going to say yes, because there's no way that pinning a quarter with a knife against yourself is working out 87 muscles. Have them take the blade and the quarter from you and the moment they're out of your hand, you run the hell out of there. It's no longer your problem.
Trust me on this, I've used this trick on 12 separate occasions.
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks Jack!
@@SSkorkowsky so that's how you get rid of a hungry blade! This is why I watch your channel. So very informative. I've just appeased it with chicken blood, but it seems to be losing it's appetite. It calls out to me while I lay in the dark of the night. It's muffled cries haunt my waking hours. It's in it's sheath though so it might be saying burrito instead of blood.
Chile relleno burritos are really good so I wouldn't be all that surprised.
There an error in this video regarding the Mythos Rating as a cap for the Cthulhu Mythos you gain. The rules say that if your CM is below the book's MR, you get the full CMF, but if your CM is at or above the tome's MR, you still get a value equal to the CMI. Still hardly worth the years of study for just a few more points of CM, but there it is.
How do you practically allow a PC to read a tome for say 48 weeks during a campaign? Will they read it off game between sessions?
That's how I do it. Might not be all at once, either. Let's say you finish a session and when the next session begins it's supposed to be 6 months after the last adventure. Keeper goes around asking what everyone did. Some went to their jobs, some went to therapy, school, or visited their favorite persons/places. One of them reads a tome. They say they probably spent a third of that 6 months reading the tome between all their other stuff. They then apply 2 months (8 weeks) toward that 48 week requirement. Of course they can say they spent 100% of their time reading the tome, not going to therapy or any of that. That comes to 24-26 weeks spent toward their required 48. Maybe after the next adventure they'll have the time to finish off that tome they've been working on.
One of my players threw his mythos tome out of a window. As he sat down immediately after doing so, he ended up sitting on the same book he just threw out.
Sorry, I may have missed it or just don’t understand. The Mythos Score helps identify anything Mythos the Investigators encounter.
I can understand the use - knowledge is power and all that - but is it necessary? I mean, I’d understand if identifying a Mythos monster accurately was an automatic Sanity success, but it seems like one gives up a lot to just understand.
What’s the compelling reason to study the Tomes and increase your Mythos score? It can’t only be for identification and spells, right? Is it required for gathering clues, or is Magic just that good? Is Magic required? What if you don’t care about Magic?
Many questions.
It's not necessary to read Mythos Tomes. Many characters choose not to. Knowledge of Mythos entities is rather helpful in overcoming them. But it's something available to them. So while you might not ever make a character that wants to read them because you don't see the cost worth it, that doesn't mean other players won't. It's simply something that's there.
@@SSkorkowsky Wow, thanks for the response! That makes sense that it’s just another tool. I think I was making it more pivotal in my head than it needed to be for, say, a non-academic character or a low POW character. Not everyone needs the skill, so it came out as a moot point, haha.
Thanks for the hard work on the reviews. Very informative for branching out to new systems.
Does your little yellow 4-door Matchbox car have red blood/paint dripping down from the windows? Are my eyes deceiving?
It doesn't, but the seats are reddish in color. Though in the video they look more red than they really are. They're really just a orange/pink.
That Charm of Making turned me into the Dragon mid-coffee.
Look into the eyes of the dragon and despair!!!
Is there any impact on an NPC, such as a cult leader, casting enough spells to reduce their sanity to 00, or is sanity primarily a measurement for how much a PC can take before becoming unplayable?
Its always seemed weird to me how much spells cost when in literature and such, the baddies are forever performing rituals, casting spells etc yet the rules in the 7e book seem to indicate that if someone casts even a handful of spells their mind will melt.
IIRC SAN is primarily for the PCs. For example Mr. Corbitt in the Haunting has 0 SAN, since he has more or less become infused with the house and uses his magic to conjure various effects to ward off people he sees as invaders.
You also have to keep in mind that the cultists and whatnot are demonstrably insane and "true believers" of Dagon or Azathoth or whatnot. Their minds are already gone so any SAN loss from casting things isnt going to bother them.
So, sounds like a person's Mythos skill cannot go above the books mythos rating as a result of reading it. Does that mean that reading a book with a lower rating thereafter will not increase mythos skill? Am I misinterpreting what he (you) said? Thanks!
If a reader has a Mythos Skill above the book, they still gain the initial Mythos points from the Initial reading a new book (because it has some new information), but giving it a Full Read only grants them the Initial read points again, rather than Full Read points (because there's some info they already knew in it).
So let's say you have a new book that's got a Mythos bonus of +4/+9 and your Mythos Skill is higher than the book's MR. An Initial Read still grants you the +4, like normal, but then a Full Read only grants you a +4 instead of the +9 that a person with a lover Mythos Skill would receive. (see Keeper's Guide pp 173-175)
@@SSkorkowsky Aha, bottom of 174. Thanks for pointing at it for me. I've run "Amidst the Ancient Trees" and "The Haunting" so far and am still catching up with the in-between adventure stuff. Lots to learn. Thanks again!
No problemo. Have fun and good luck.
Huh. I didn't know that the Elder Sign takes that much POW to cast. Better stick to the Voorish Sign.
Ok, do your games “feel” scary? I’ve played a few games with friends and while I may have been worried for my character’s health and sanity... I just wasn’t scared.
Are we doing it “wrong” or is that a typical experience.
Usually not. At least not with long, multi-session campaigns. One-shots, is a totally different story. Those are easier to get the real horror vibe going and keep the mood going, but with seasoned characters on their third adventure, not at much. At least that's been my experience.
But that requires everyone in the room be willing to go for it. One jokey player can kill a good horror mood. It's like a good horror movie. You can watch one in the dark with your friends and get caught up in it. Or you can have that one person who just doesn't get into it for whatever reason and now everyone is just laughing at the bad effects. Both experiences can be fun, but having it be scary requires group participation.
But the short answer is: If you and everyone else playing is having fun, then you're not doing it "wrong" at all.
Thanks, and there were jokesters
*If you love Dungeons & Dragons and Skill based role playing systems .*
*Look into Warhammer Fantasy role-play .*
I really like Jack
wow, been a while since i've seen a video >1minute after release
Holy crap. Were you just sitting there, waiting to pounce like a trapdoor spider, or were.... wait... * looks around * Do you have me bugged?
*whispers into earpiece* "He's onto me, i'm going to need immediate extraction" Listen Seth, it's been nice and all, but i uh... I just remembered I have another engagement, so I'll have to see you later.
Deeper Magic aka How Aslan came back from the dead in Narnia :)
I’m not sure I agree with the whole loss of sanity at becoming a believer thing... I think it would depend on the mind and personality of the character. If they already had a lot of spiritual/mystic beliefs they would be able to remain far more well adjusted with their new knowledge compared to a straight laced atheist scientist learning the same.
Some people might even think learning such things is “cool” and makes their world more mysterious and interesting lol.
Brian Cline but, typically a non-believer in the game is described by being a scholarly, mostly cold unbelieving individual, a person with faith in God or Allah, or whomever, might believe in the Mythos as beings and entities of their own theology, like demons or angels. In order to be a non-believer, you’d more or less have to be a hard line atheist.
Nick Manzo but could a non believer not simply just be a person who has never been exposed to evidence of the mythos being true before? Suppose it IS actually true in our world... if so you can make no preconceptions about people who are non believers because they could just be people like us who have seen no evidence for it being true (or have not even heard of it before).
Brian Cline I agree with you on the principle of the idea, but in terms of rules and mechanics, typically being a non-believer implies wholesale disbelief in anything intangible. Such a person being completely exposed to the concept that their entire worldview is wrong, and being that they’re suddenly exposed to such things could be massively traumatizing. You’re certainly free to homebrew it however you want, but I believe that personally, I like the rules as written here.
Jack sanity rn 📉📉📉📉📉📉
How many SAN points did I lose after watching this video?
Jesus Christ, another! thanks!
14:30 😄
You mentioned incorporating modern technology in mythos tomes and it reminds me. Not CoC but I played in a Mutants & Masterminds game that us going to an old castle in the Alps that had been a Nazi stronghold and a lone Nazi occult scientist had toiled for decades after the war to create a massive super computer possessed by evil ... the NECROCOMPUTRON!!! lol.
doubling the time it takes to read again makes no sense. i would say they get increased insanity and half the cthulhu mythos points.
Look it at this way: you read a book once. Since you know the contents fairly well, you will take extra time to make sure you didn't miss anything. And repeat ad nauseam.
I would've liked some examples of what the spells actually do.
How is mythos a mispronounciation?
These Outros are killing me...
the cthulhu mythos is about...cthulhu. you meant the mythos.
Firs... dammit
Khas: don’t even have you’re own mythos tome, water damage and all?
Me: yes, I do, I’ve even written in it. I have a lot more books on botany now.
Khas: what about your bio scrapbook from middle school?
I'm not to keen to take Sanity just for reading a tome.
It's like when atheist reads a bible, for him it would be same as reading Lord of the rings. However, once that person witnesses a demon, or and angel or whatever - is that reading tomes should be considered to cause insanity.
Same goes if the investigators already encountered a monster and then start reading tomes to figure out what it is they are dealing with.
Otherwise, well, those are just words on a paper. At least that's how I run it.
That's taken into account by "Belief". A PC that doesn't believe doesn't suffer San loss until they believe. Once a ghoul walks out in front of them, and they realize ghouls and the Mythos are real, that's when the San loss from reading Mythos tomes occurs.
@@SSkorkowsky I stand corrected.
Bullshit! It's pronounced with a hard o sound, I'll not hear a word otherwise!
Super good explanation, but it begs the question: why the hell would anyone ever use Magic?
Many of the the spells are very powerful and extremely useful. But PCs will need to learn to use them intelligently and in moderation. Using a spell or 2 every adventure won't harm them too much, providing the Sanity rewards at the end are decent and they're regularly visiting their friendly neighborhood Psychologist. Cultists on the other hand, who usually already have a SAN of 0, can feel free to use magic to their heart's content. Magic is far more likely to be in the hands of the bad guys and be used as an obstacle the PCs have to overcome.
Simon Simons I had a character in my first campaign who learned to summon Dimensional Shamblers and Nightgaunts. They were very useful entities to have around whenconbat happened as they were good attackers and good at sneaking around.