Call of Cthulu, nWoD Style

[Measure Zero]

If you do run this, would we get super powers that do more harm that good?  For example, the ability to call really lame spirits and have them possess us to do stupid things.

[Thomas Kerwin]

Yes.  Also powers that make you think you have some amount of control against horrible monsters when you really don't.

[kenada]

Did you get powers in the original Call of Cthulu?

[Thomas Kerwin]

Yeah, the PCs could learn magic spells from books and perhaps learn them from people or things that knew how to work them.

[kenada]

Ah, well as long as you go insane using them, powers should be in the nWoD one.

[BobChuck]

so... Second Sight Thamurges? Or are they not crazy enough?

The rules for "Things from Beyond" in that book could work here as well.

Finally, my Mozilla Firefox spellchecker is awesome. It turns Thamurges into Hamburgers. I think it's a sign.

[Measure Zero]

Thaumaturgy is pretty lame, but it actually gives the users some control over spirits and stuff.  Not any major control, but it's still something.  Some of the sample splats might work well, like Ceremonial Magician, Disciple of the Dark One, and possibly Voodoo.

[Thomas Kerwin]

Yeah, stuff like the second sight thaumaturges would work fine.  It's not really that powerful, but rituals to summon and bind monsters is key to the Call of Cthulhu magic system.  Other spells like "elder sign" and "brew space mead" I'd have to come up with.  I'm not sure how to integrate the sanity system I came up with into casting spells though.  Spells should tax your sanity.

[BobChuck]

well, casting spells drains your willpower... if your sanity system requires a willpower point to be spent, that'd work. Or if your system has difficulties that would cause an average person to fail most of the time without spending willpower, that would also work.

[Measure Zero]

You could make a rule that some Resolve + Composure rolls are going to be based on the current number of Willpower points a character has instead.  For instance, if my character had a minor derangement, he would normally need to succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll to not act in accordance with it when an event triggered it.  Forcing him to succeed at a Willpower roll would mean that he would be much more likely to act crazy when the trigger event occurred.

[BobChuck]

that could also work, but it seems ... iffy. There's nothing anywhere in NWoD that I know of which requires characters to roll their CURRENT Willpower or CURRENT Health.

It could definately work, it just feels a little off.

[Measure Zero]

The rules say that low willpower individuals are more susceptible to mental influence, but this susceptibility only has direct significance in a few places: a character's ability to remember magic, and a character's ability to resist Lunacy stand out here.  In my opinion, my insanity mechanic is better than the existing one, because it is too easy for crazy people to not act crazy the way it is currently set up.

[Eldmor]

If Willpower was to be used this way; I think it would be appropriate to lower the regeneration rate for it. Instead of 1 per night of rest 1 per week seems like a good benchmark since someone constantly driven insane by Cthulians would have at the very least weekly exposure.

[Thomas Kerwin]

Actually, having willpower act like that makes it kind of like the POW stat in Call of Cthulhu, which works out ok.  Of course, you can still be insane and have a high willpower.

[BobChuck]

yeah, but the PCs shouldn't necessarily go barking mad at the first exposure in a given night. The roll would kick in whenever a critter was encountered (though hopefully not every round) and whenever a 'Maddening' power was used on, by, or around the PC. I expect those things to happen over and over again, and the temptation to burn willpower will always be there.

Honestly, regenerating one per day doesn't seem like enough. With this, Willpower becomes a second Health Bar, that's constantly being attacked. It should take weeks or months of therapy to remove derangements and the like caused by Cthulhu Madness, but recovering enough to go out and fight again shouldn't take that long.