Someone explain the appeal of Old Man Henderson?

[virgil]

Hey, if everyone's down for it, sounds like fun.

I had gotten the impression that you were supposed to play CoC like characters in the books, people with more curiosity than is deemed healthy, and a profound lack of understanding of what you're up against. Like, you're supposed to lose, it's one of those "It's the journey"games where creating an interesting story to tell everyone at the store next time you go pick up your pullbox was more important than actually saving the world.

Pretty much this. All of my players enjoyed the games of CoC that were relatively bleak, and merely surviving was the win state, except that fun death stories were good as well.

[PhoneLobster]

If you are running modern horror games as "Personal Horror Survival Gauntlet" instead of "Defeat Mysterious Horror to save Town/World/X" objectives, that's fine and all.

But what the fuck makes you think that rules out shooting things, setting fire to things and exploding things I don't know.

Because those are the go to tactics of modern characters in a combative situation, and Survival Gauntlets are more combative since they remove the mystery element/phase and the only way to rule out those options is to rule out gear and players will just switch to the next best alternatives and shiv everything, drop rocks on everything and STILL set fire to it then run away when they are done.

And that's fine. But it's not the same as "Bleak" and people wanking to the "Bleak" meme really need to describe the "Bleak Despair Fun" that is somehow different to that in some significantly greater detail to explain how the hell it is different to, well, run of the mill hum drum Old Man Henderson survival action.

[virgil]

In my games, guns and explosions are not inherently ruled out, and neither is the mystery element. They still explore and discover, they just commonly die with that knowledge; and while that may be pointless to the characters, the players still get to figure out stuff. They go into it knowing that survival is a crapshoot, and therefore guns/illiteracy/arson don't necessarily improve the chances and thus not an 'obvious' choice.

[PhoneLobster]

In my games, guns and explosions are not inherently ruled out, and neither is the mystery element. They still explore and discover, they just commonly die with that knowledge; and while that may be pointless to the characters, the players still get to figure out stuff. They go into it knowing that survival is a crapshoot, and therefore guns/illiteracy/arson don't actually improve the chances and thus not an 'obvious' choice.

No.

Your motherhood statement there is not good enough.

We need specifics. You just said both guns are explosions are fine AND they are worthless. Which is it and more importantly WHY and HOW?

Also you are clearly dodging the "Is Losing OK?" question and not being sufficiently clear on what actually counts as a successful game in regards to actually defeating opponents, saving the world, and solving the mystery. Sure they "discover stuff" but that tells us shit all as to whether they meet the "some sort of victory however zany the cost" requirement of your basic scooby game doesn't it.

[virgil]

You're clearly dodging the "what is losing" question by not accepting any definition other than what you've decided.

You just said both guns are explosions are fine AND they are worthless. Which is it

You can't hold too many ideas in your head, can you? Guns and bombs are useless for ultimate survival, but not for killing some stuff along the way; fulfilling both conditions. If you don't have guns, then survival is through how long you can run and hide before dying. If you do have guns, survival is through how many bodies are around you before running out of bullets or whatever. Both scenarios you end up dead, but the game is different in both cases. In this situation, 'victory' is solving the mystery; as in figuring out the cause/reason of the weird stuff going on and having at least one player survive long enough to see the culmination of the events.

This means that relatively rules-lite system and one-shot adventures, yes. But that's not a bad thing if it's your goal. You're the one seemingly requiring that it be a Scooby game where they're expected to thwart the horrors so they can go off and take off another monster's mask next week.

[PhoneLobster]

Yeah you STILL haven't in anyway explained anything or given any specifics have you? You've just basically implied you always make your players fail at running away, and also make them fail at standing and fighting, and declare that status quo in your games is "They end up dead" anyway. Which is... bleak but you haven't in any fucking way described how that is supposed to be fun.

And then you do this...

In this situation, 'victory' is solving the mystery; as in figuring out the cause/reason of the weird stuff going on and having at least one player survive long enough to see the culmination of the events.

You are describing a SERIOUSLY non-fun railroad scenario where the GM literally has a non-interactive story and "victory" is watching him fucking tell it at you without you being able to actually influence the fucking "culmination of events" which YOU actually describe as it being his prize as a player to merely witness.

Yeah. I'm not seeing you provide any actual defense of "Bleak Despair Loser Fun".

You aren't describing the mechanic of it, and you aren't even prepared to openly man up and commit to exactly how much loss/victory you are actually even fucking talking about, the best we get is the implicit suggestion you are an incredibly crappy railroad GM.

[virgil]

You're saying my players didn't have fun?

Playing in bleak CoC is fun in roughly the same way that it's fun to read a horror story where the protagonist dies in the end. You get to interact with the story and direct the actions and reactions of your character, you know, like every RPG is supposed to. I don't see how you don't understand this point. Being nearly guaranteed survival in your expected game is just as much fun as being nearly guaranteed death (at least in one-shots), so long as that's understood from the beginning. Being expected to thwart the horror is just as much railroad as being expected to understand exactly what's going on and how badly you're doomed or genuinely lucky to survive.

Specific examples won't work with you, because you will declare it to be a railroad on the basis that only one chain of events happened (I generally don't run the same adventure twice). The adventure can and does respond to the players' decisions and will be directed because of this; but that doesn't make it a railroad any more than a Scooby adventure with guns and the expectation of their violent survival.

[PhoneLobster]

Infact.

Let me just for a second go over the reasons WHY the actual natural forces of player motivation in modern horror games naturally push the game to an equilibrium point where guns and explosions are the go to solution for your Anit-Mythos Scooby Doo Gang.

Now guns, explosions and fire are cool. Clearly. And fun. In flashy bangy action movie ways which have undeniable appeal. And in particular "Kill It With Fire!" is pretty much THE go to response for action heroes to monstrosities of the horror genre to the point of being a hilarious cliche.

So really the big thing is what forces are there acting against "Kill It With Fire!" as the go to response for life and world threatening horror?

You Don't Have The Weaponry to Kill It With Fire
Which is basically either a dicky stingy GM... or edge case scenario limitations. It's not entirely unreasonable to make guns, or at least the heavy and automatic ones, unavailable, if you are setting the game outside the USA. Maybe. But within whatever limitations your story/setting may apply when the enemy "brings out the big guns" of life threatening force the players WILL naturally bring out the biggest guns of life threatening force they can get access to. Maybe that means grenade launchers and mini-guns, maybe that means antique hunting rifles and a molotov. It's thematically and practically the same.

You Don't Know WHO to kill with Fire
Until you do. Then you kill them with fire.

Society Frowns On You Killing People With Fire
Which works very nicely right up until the players declare they don't give a fuck because clearly the stakes are high enough to trump any threat of social retribution from the justice system. And considering the basic premise of your whole horror adventure either rapidly reaches or even STARTS with "cult/monster killing people/threatening the world itself"... yeah...

It Is Morally Wrong To Kill It With Fire
Only it isn't. Because it is a horrific brain eating world destroying monster cult.

It will drive you mad to Kill It With Fire
Unless it drove you mad already. And anyway players will just try and attach their killing fire to a remote detonator, or a chump. Or they will suicide bomb it with fire. Whatever. The go to is STILL "Kill it with fire" and making that really costly in sanity terms is just going to make them use ever more elaborate and crazy kamikaze tactics and booby traps.

You Lack The Will To Kill With Fire
Having some mechanic or motivation to not kill the brain eating world destroyer because it is wearing your fiancees face like a badly stretched rubber mask, or because you are just a total pacifist who never kills even the most horrific monster because killing is just wrong or traumatic or whatever... is weird edge case and not a viable excuse in the longer term even if it occurs. But even encountering it, players in practice will just say "I try anyway" and attempt whatever "hesitation rolls", sanity costs, and other shenanigans you attempt in their perfectly rational (in character and out) quest to STILL kill it with fire.

You Lack The Skills To Safely Operate Killing Fires
Will just lead players to say "fuck it!" and risk zany fumbles due to lack of skill. While one might take the time to ask "why have adventurers utterly incapable of the basic skill requirements of the adventure?" it's largely irrelevant because regardless at some point it is perfectly rational in character AND as players to start trying to make a back yard bomb even if it IS likely to kill them because, hey... murderous world ending cult...

You Can Only Kill This One Head Of The Hydra With Fire
Sure. The cult has branches all over the world. Sure another copy of the book will one day emerge somewhere and start it all again. Sure there are OTHER shogoths out there. No one cares. The adventure is about THIS cult branch and YOUR interactions with it HERE AND NOW. If killing it with fire destroys it locally... players will try and do that. Players can totally "Think Globally, Kill Things With Fire Locally". Hell even if they themselves get to interact with further branches of the cult in future, this is an RPG, that's just ongoing hooks for more adventures in the same fucking campaign. And in those further adventures they WILL be motivated to blow more things up.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along With Unimaginable Terror ?
Yeah. It isn't reasonable to expect players and characters to rationally consider "peaceful means" of resolving differences with enemies in horror games. The whole point of the genre conventions are that the enemy is unreasonably horrific. The monsters/cultists want to eat your brains and destroy the world, there isn't a reasonable point of compromise and it's both a remarkable edge case and a really kinda silly edge case to even consider.

You Cannot Kill It Without A Very Specific Kind Of Fire
Puzzle monsters are sorta crappy. Doable. As an edge case or a minority of adventure types. Certainly more doable in mystery horror than other RPG genres. But still certainly not something you should really consider as a majority or the go to default scenario. And even if you do... the adventure then becomes all about figuring out which fire kills it... and then going and killing it with fire in the end anyway.


So all in all, the motivations for "Kill It With Fire!" are so damn strong that the entire horror RPG genre should probably be CALLED the "Kill It With Fire!" genre.

And unless you can explain how the hell the above motivations AREN'T commonly in play with every gaming group ever I don't see where any argument against "Kill It With Fire!" being pretty much the default state of affairs for functional gaming groups in the genre even begins to make sense.

You're saying my players didn't have fun?

And yes. IF you are prepared to man up and actually confirm the implications from your prior post I just went over. Then YES your players are NOT having fun, certainly not nearly as much fun as they could have if you actually DID let them survive running away OR fighting OR both and let them INFLUENCE the fucking "Culmination Of Events" instead of as you described MERELY witnessing your divine predetermined LAME ASS RAILROAD.

I am MORE than prepared to condemn any dumb fucker who literally says he makes players lose and their characters die regardless of whether they run or fight and that his players one and only rewarding victory for playing the game is to MAYBE have a character survive to witness bleak and terrible outcomes THEY CANNOT INFLUENCE.

You want to back away from that claim/implication then go ahead. But if your plan is to stick to it and say "How dare you suggest my players have less/no fun playing unavoidably fatal railroads they cannot influence!" then your plan fucking sucks.

[virgil]

You're saying my players didn't have fun?

And yes. IF you are prepared to man up and actually confirm the implications from your prior post I just went over. Then YES your players are NOT having fun, certainly not nearly as much fun as they could have if you actually DID let them survive running away OR fighting OR both

Seeing as how I've got players who have been in games where I ran both Bleak CoC and in games where it was Scooby CoC, and they had fun in both and in roughly equal amounts; then you're still wrong and damn stupid to think you know my players.

Your whole "Kill It With Fire!" tirade fails on first principles. For one, action horror is generally not the genre being emulated in these scenarios. Two, just because guns & arson is fun doesn't mean all games must use it. Fox Only. Final Destination.

[PhoneLobster]

Seeing as how ...

So... your response to "You said you like 'bleak' games where player actions don't matter, and players don't like that shit." is... "Nuh Uh"

Your whole "Kill It With Fire!" tirade fails on first principles.

And your entire response to the numerous clear motivations, both in character and as players that push the game heavily to kill it with fire... is also "Nuh uh". Apparently the basic rational story telling outcome of "oh it's a monster, yeah, better kill it with fire" is wrong because YOU say "nuh uh!". Wow.

You need to fucking ante up some real arguments or shut the fuck up. All you've done so far is basically paint yourself as a shit GM and a guy who cannot present, well, any actual argument, let alone an actual viable argument.

[virgil]

Seeing as how ...

So... your response to "You said you like 'bleak' games where player actions don't matter, and players don't like that shit." is... "Nuh Uh"

I was responding to the explicit claim that my players didn't have fun and that they would have more fun in a Scooby CoC game instead; a stance in which you have NO evidence other than obviously personal prejudices. This makes your entire argument disingenuous and irrational.

There remains my rational counter-argument that a game where you're incredibly likely to survive and that fire will thwart the horror is just as much on the rails as a game where survival is incredibly unlikely and that fire isn't the answer. That you can't or won't actually respond to this is unsurprising given your conduct thus far in this thread.

[Grek]

ITT: We learn that PhoneLobster does not understand Horror as a genre.

Let's go with a fairly basic plot that doesn't involve the players lighting anything on fire:

The curtains open on a group of people (the soon-to-be investigators) in a hallway, banging on the door of their landlord's apartment. Exposition reveals that the building plumbing has been full of a foul-smelling black liquid since early this morning and now, at six in the evening, the problem has still yet to be fixed. The landlord is not answering their knocking and eventually someone tries the door knob, finding it unlocked.

The landlord's room is covered with the filth in the pipes, dripping over every surface in the apartment save one: a pristine table in the dining room, with a certain book open on page 100. The landlord is nowhere to be found. If the police are contacted, the take everyone in for questioning before concluding that the building's owner must have skipped town for some reason. Should the investigators attempt to purchase water from the store, it turns foul as soon as they attempt to drink from it, in precisely the same way as the water in the apartment's pipes.

In order to survive, the investigators must determine the source of this curse and lift it before they die of thirst or sepsis. Of course, this being the Mythos, the spell to break such a curse is much more difficult - and costly - than the spell to cast it in the first place.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I know enough about horror to know that I'd rather be in Braindead (Dead/Alive) than Saw. One has protagonists surviving through ingenuity and proactive violence, and the other drops a quantum ogre on anyone who seems like they've outwitted the dungeon master's "hard choices".

[PhoneLobster]

Anyway, Virgils incessant baseless "nuh uhs!" aside. At least until he can either commit to actually saying something or actually denying he said something...

I feel I've missed a couple of points on the Kill It With Fire list.

Our Fire Isn't Powerful Enough To Kill It!
A common theme in the wank over Cthulhu style RPGs is "Oh monsters are just so uber mere mortals don't stand a chance blah blah blah...".

It's a bunch of crap largely. In the end "Too Powerful To Interact With" ends up just being either a Puzzle Monster with either a regular bullshit puzzle solution or the solution of "Find A Killing Fire Big Enough". Or it's a War By Proxy you can actually interact with instead.

Because actually having a foe you cannot defeat in ANY way is total bullshit and does not produce a playable game. You actually HAVE to be able to either kill the monster, or thwart the god's plans or do SOMETHING with your damn time playing the game. If not then there is no fucking reason for actual players to be at the table.

Screw Killing It With Fire, RUNAWAY!!!
Running away is all very well. But whether it's a rational choice or an irrational fear/insanity effect it boils down to two scenarios. Run Away... so you can come back to kill it with fire later, or Run Away... and if you run far enough away you are safe "forever" and win.

And scenario 2 is... rare. Especially in horror genre games where enemies tend to be a bit more determined and threatening (and mobile) than that. Hell even the sheer nature and range of the threats they represent like "destroy town, destroy world" etc... makes running away frequently not a serious final option.

We are fighting a Proxy War to thwart rising realestate prices not kill things with fire
So anyway. Proxy warring in horror games is definitely a thing. It pretty much HAS to be a thing if you pull of a "God Like Being Is Your Real Enemy" thing.

So often as not everyone goes and fights their cults and servitors and avatars and stuff instead. But the thing is the stakes involved are almost always life and death level stuff, and the methods used are... Kill It With Fire...

The only way you DON'T get that is if the stakes of the proxy war AREN'T life and death. And if fucking Hastur cultists are running around flipping real estate or some crap and there isn't SOME kind of ultimate goal that goes "Step 2)? Step 3)RULE THE WORLD!"... I'm not sure we are supposed to fucking care or why you would play that as an adventure.

And even if you DID play "PCs vs Hastur Cult Flipping Real estate" as an adventure... I'd be prepared to bet the PC's gang of rogue independent property speculators would be resorting to fire bombs pretty damn quickly regardless because, fuck it, who are we kidding, RPG players... and also because fuck it, that sounds so much clearly like more fun than, well, not doing that.

Hell I once ran a game with the PCs being the local Tidy Towns comity. They still eventually blew up an army base car park with jet fuel and a rocket launcher. Though fair enough, they WERE fighting a horrific existential threat as they fucking should be.

[Aryxbez]

The appeal was the idea of someone using A DM's stupidity against him, all the while providing a nice example of stories being told, even in a Hostile bad DMing environment. While, as I recall, the person originally made a character that he had cared about, then the DM smashed it to bits because he was a jerk.

[virgil]

Anyway, Virgils incessant baseless "nuh uhs!" aside. At least until he can either commit to actually saying something or actually denying he said something...

Do your ears hurt with your fingers lodged so deep in them? If players push for Scooby CoC, then they get Scooby CoC. They understand what the horror genre means, and actually want something other than Henderson antics once in a while; which I provide, and they enjoy. Accusations that I force it on them, and that they're not having fun, is outright lying on your part.

Who the fvck thinks they know a complete stranger's opinion better than that person's good friend? Who the fvck thinks that directly asking a person to compare two things is less reliable and substantive evidence than a stranger projecting their opinions on what they do and do not like?

[DSMatticus]

PL, I have no idea what the fuck you are arguing or trying to argue. You started off beating on a "you hate explosions!" strawman, and virgil told you (more or less) that he didn't say and you should fuck off (fairly accurate; he didn't say that, and you should fuck off). Then you erected an entirely new goalpost of "oh yeah well tell me how that's fun," while two posts before that you straight-up said "Personal Horror Survival Gauntlet" is "fine and all." Also if everyone dies that's railroading because reasons. Also fire solves all problems.

At least half the bullshit you are rambling is just a string of angry non-sequiturs, with the remainder being stupid. Just stop, really. I don't even care if there's anything in this conversation on either side worth poking with a stick to see if something coherent will ooze out. There is already too much shit to wade through looking for such gems.

[PhoneLobster]

PL, I have no idea what the fuck you are arguing or trying to argue. You started off...

I can totally talk to more than one person and about more than one thing at once. It's definitely allowed. I'm pretty damn sure of it.

On the one hand I'm saying Virgil hasn't actually made any specific and clearly backed claims of WTF these "Bleak" games are he runs (the ones which are NOT, apparently ones in which kill with fire is an option and to which his "witnesses not participants" and "doesn't matter if you run or fight, you die" implied statements refer to). And indeed he hasn't even really told us WHAT is even so fucking "bleak" about them. He came close with some very vague implied claims amounting to trashing himself as a bad railroad GM... which he has sort of, but not explicitly denied when called out on.

Thats it. He hasn't told us what the fuck "Bleak Despair Loser Fun" actually IS he just says "Sure I do Kill it With Fire... but I also do totally fucking Bleak Despair Loser Fun!"... and doesn't tell us what it is.

I doubt that bleak despair fun really exists, and demand at the very least a clear fucking description.

Meanwhile simultaneously I'm running through my Kill It with Fire stuff as a largely unrelated set of material elaborating on my "The thing I don't get about this Henderson thing is why they seem to think killing it with fire isn't purely routine game play" point.

That's largely unrelated to anything to do with Virgil. Other than he is claiming there is some sort of different form of Horror RPG game play where the basic motivations and story forces involved aren't pushing to a kill it with fire outcome. And since he refuses to engage in that discussion by say... describing any single aspect of that claim... it doesn't really have anything to do with his posts.

[PhoneLobster]

Talking about talking to more than one person at once...

Let's go with a fairly basic plot that doesn't involve the players lighting anything on fire:

...Only it isn't actually a plot is it. You didn't outline what players/characters went and actually did at. All you outlined a set up, a mere starting point for an adventure.

A pretty fucking ridiculous edge case set up with just short of NO useful leads to follow up on. But a set up that does in fact lack any form of actual physical enemy to go and somehow fight.

It falls down, hard, however the moment you actually consider what the players actually will have to go and do. What they have to do next? Go and get a cure, presumably by interacting with evil cultists and monsters, in a situation with life or death stakes AND on a time limit no less.

At best they are chasing up information and components from regular people, but the sheer expense, time limit and stakes make it a "By Any Means Necessary!" situation... and any means, means guns, explosives and fire.

So, no, I don't see that story working out without a very high chance of violent encounters occurring.

Or I don't know I suppose the party could just look it up on the internet. Find the cure. Purchase "much more expensive" ingredients at a conflict free herbal supply warehouse run by regular people who aren't evil and don't want to eat their brains. Then whip it up in a regular kitchen blender without anyone trying to stop them. I mean if THAT is where you intend your adventure to go from there then I GUESS you could be right you just set up a conflict free where nothing and no one is at risk of being burned down.

But it seems kinda like an odd way for it to play out. I'm pretty sure all the people who wank on about "Bleak Despair Losing Fun" aren't talking about an RPG simulation of picking up some stuff and whipping up an expensive recipe off the internet unopposed.

[virgil]

Aside from PL admitting to non-sequitors...

Bleak CoC example, ultra simplified and all of the ambiance stripped out: on a boat, hear distress signal, go to examine. Cruise ship adrift and no sign of life, but lots of signs of people having been there as of a few minutes ago. Find an old, unconscious man and records indicating that the ship disappeared twenty years ago; as well as a walkman. They play it and zombies spew out. Only one PC and the old man 'survive' to reach lifeboat; the final words of the tape reveal that the old man performed a ritual, at which point the old man wakes up and destroys the last PC.

[PhoneLobster]

Bleak CoC example...

Wow.

I'm not even sure I NEED to point out just how much of a flaming turd your example of "Bleak Fun" was.

Pretty certain I can just point and hold my nose.

[virgil]

Are you returning to your moronic assumption that the players didn't have fun and that it was all rails?

[hogarth]

I have to admit, I wouldn't expect zombies to spew out of a Walkman, so I give it an A+ for originality.

--

I've played hack-'n'-slash Call of Cthulhu and I've played "everybody dies" Call of Cthulhu and they both have their charms (notwithstanding the fact that the Chaosium rules mostly suck).

[PhoneLobster]

Are you...

...pointing out your example of "Bleak fun" lacked any actual fun things in it. Also it was just generally pretty shit quality.

Fun things COULD have happened during the most certain zany attempts at kill it with fire that must have occurred during fighting. But everything you actually described as happening was made of fail and sadness and ended with a deliberate, needless, and quiet frankly deeply lame, shitting on the limited achievements of the last remaining player character.

No. I'm quiet happy at pointing at that and calling it a stinker in it's own right. Your earlier implied methodologies and supposed segregation of games into "fighty ones" and "bleak failure ones" DOES suggest your described game play example was arrived at through heavy railroading. But it doesn't really matter. Because at pretty much every point it was a shitty story made of shit even if things COULD have turned out differently, indeed maybe especially if things supposedly could have turned out differently.

[virgil]

Judging by how the players actively had fun, I'm going to have to say there were fun things in that game; both in the exploration and survival attempts. The idea that the ending crapped on the achievements of the surviving player implies that I should have explicitly changed the rules on what woke up the old man (whom they chose to rescue on their own) or possibly even the old man's identity; which is a railroad all on its own.

PhoneLobster in a nephropidae-shell