GOING FROM AD&D TO CALL OF CTHULHU
(c) Ricardo J. Méndez Castro
rmendez@sheertalent.com


For almost a year, I've been trying to reconcile an old group of AD&D 
players with Call of Cthulhu, which I love but they seem to just partially 
like (well, one of them loves it too, but it's one out of five).  I never
thought that the transition would be so difficult for them, so I started
looking for what might be wrong.  Like the proverbial investigator, I came
up with more than I had bargained for, and I thought I'd like to share it
with other unwary ex-DMs.


WHAT DO YOU MEAN, JUST 8 HIT POINTS?

I guess that one of the things that struck them was their own vulnerability. 
AD&D players are used to get tougher as they get more experienced, which
just doesn't happen in real life nor in Call of Cthulhu.  

In Call of Cthulhu, a well placed blow can send you to bed for weeks, if
not kill you.  The characters regenerate something in the order of 3 hit
points for a full week's rest, while that was the hit points gained with 1
day's rest in AD&D.  Also, gunfights were deadlier than any AD&D encounter.

For the first time on their gaming experience, combat was something to be 
avoided as a rule, not sought after.  That was a something tough to swallow.  
They just couldn't go around free of worries, since a simple mugger could waste
you.

And boy, that was before you even got to the monsters.  Those you couldn't
even look upon without having a chance of going insane.  I know that there is
no need to use creatures a lot, but even one small Deep One, the first time
he/she/it appears, can drive one of your characters insane.

They accepted their frailty after realising that in Call of Cthulhu you're 
more or less a real-life average Joe/Jane, not some kind of Miskatonic 
paratrooper.  The problem was that afterwards they became overly cautious, and
lost some opportunities because of it.


GONE? GONE WERE?

The real time aspect of some Call of Cthulhu campaigns was something that 
made them crazy.  On AD&D you usually have some time to do your stuff.  Well,
not always, since I've run campaigns were a lot of things are happening in
real time, and they have to decide what show they attend.  But in CoC the
world goes around its business, not mattering if you got the bad guy or not.

That was also tough for me, since I was used to be a little lax with them.
The first time we played we ran into the problem.  It was with this short
adventure, "Dead Man Stomp".  I assume all of you have played it already.
Near the end, when all hell breaks loose, they were something like a block
and a half from the house, debating about if going in or not.  They didn't
see the end.

The timing aspect of most campaigns is something that will haunt an ex-DM
at least for the start of his transition.  No matter if the players are there
or not to stop something evil from happening, the stars will be right all the
same.



PLEASE BOSS, I HAVE TO GO SAVE THE WORLD

Hell, as if that wasn't enough, there are a plethora of possible occupations
to take.  How do each affect the investigator?  Unfortunately, it isn't 
specified of the 5th Edition Rulebook.  It wasn't until later that I learned
that it was specified somewhere else.

But hey, that's not even the start.  For our first CoC adventure, we asked 
someone I know to do the Keeping for me (in the end we didn't like the way
he put things, so we summoned a Dimensional Shambler that took him away).  
When we started playing, he insisted that we were investigators and not,
for example, an English Literature Professor, as was my case.  Why? I asked.
Well, you are a RETIRED professor, that now investigates.  And you are a
RETIRED reporter, and you...

That approach took most of the fun out of the game.  Not as much for me, but
it really bothered a friend who was playing a gangster.  What the hell does
a retired gangster does, anyway?  Investigate, he answered.

After that, we decided to summon the Shambler.

Next session I was the Keeper.  That time we didn't have that much trouble
with their jobs getting in the way, since it was a small adventure ("Dead Man 
Stomp") but some time after we played "Horror on the Orient Express" and ran
against the job wall.  How do the characters convince their bosses to let
them go?  For the gangster that was a specially tough one.  The problem is,
how will they go about it in the future?  I hope that wasn't their last campaign,
since some of them survived, and perhaps one of the trickiest things here is
to get a bunch of dissimilar characters to meet with each other, but that
will be a point we'll have to go over.  By popular demand, I'm now running a
Dark Sun campaign, so it can wait until February.


WHY IN HELL WOULD I LIKE TO SAVE THE WORLD AGAIN?

Another gripe is the whole "saving the world" approach.  I specially liked the
way characters are handled in "Horror on the Orient Express", and think
that's an approach that should be used more often: get them in with a small thing,
and don't present something that even might look like half a chance to back up.
The future of the world shouldn't matter as much as their own selfish hides.

I've decided that the best thing I can do to sucker them in is design an eternal
campaign, made up of small, apparently disconnected stories, use something to 
sucker them in (well, the survivors have their reasons already) and keep them 
going week-end after week-end.

That would solve another of my player's complaints, which was that in CoC things
are just too slow at the start.  It will help because we wouldn't have to start
over with each campaign or adventure.  The problem is that I don't wan't the 
adventures to become a 1920's Ghostbusters or X-Files, so I will have to space 
the campaigns.

But my job is beckoning me, so that will have to wait for the next time.