5 Tips on Running Sanity in Call of Cthulhu

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5 Tips on Running Sanity in Call of Cthulhu

Рет қаралды 8,072

Күн бұрын

Note: These are just my suggestions, so they may not relate/work well for every game group. If you have your own tips, feel free to share them in the comments (us Keepers have to stick together, ya know!)
A quick video for you before I jump into Halloween: my five tips for running the iconic yet surprisingly fickle rule of sanity for Call of Cthulhu. It's a lot of fun to do, but can just as easily go wrong or just frustrating in the worst situations.
00:00 Intro
00:34 Make The Madness Related The Situation
01:41 Control The Motivation, Not The Character
03:00 Always Return To The Previous Madness
03:47 Traumatise The Character, Not The Player
04:38 Failing Forwards
Stock Images: pexels.com

Пікірлер: 23

@RicksPoker Жыл бұрын

I really enjoyed this video. Suggestion for future video: 5 Examples of Failing Forward in Call of Cthulhu. Give 5 in game examples of how a blown roll or SAN loss can make the game more interesting and advance the plot. (Don't forget to remind people of Insane Insight.) Warm regards, Rick.

@angelsandautobots Жыл бұрын

You witness a Gug devouring a human. Your character now has an obsessive fondness for parakeets. O___o

@rynowatcher Жыл бұрын

I have had some success with losses of time if they are alone for bouts of madness. Basically instead of telling the characters they destroy their office, they wake up after the office has been wrecked with them cowering in a closet so there is some doubt what happened and why eerie clues are sprawled on the walls. Using player fears usually does not work because real fears are hard to translate or rely on first hand experiance. For instance a person afraid of heights will usually not have a problem with having a mountain climber investigator; heck might even want to play someone who is free from that fear. What to avoid is using player trauma; gets a flight or fight response. Jerk move and possibly unsafe for you to evoke trauma as it might start a real fight.

@raphaeljsn 2 жыл бұрын

I know the channel is practically new, but so i am as a Keeper, and your videos are reaally helpfull, ive run 2 games into 3 sections for now, ive learned a lot, but i still struggle with the sanity idea, and about the background of the players characters, i really want to develop their backgrounds while i explore their sanity. I really loved the scenarios you played on your videos, awesome work! Its simple, straight to the main points, and fun to watch, and all that in short takes.

@BalsasTableTales 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the kind words! Character sanity (or insanity, shall we say) can get overwhelming for beginner Keepers. It gets easier to come up with crazy and fun methods overtime, so don’t worry too much. A trick I was taught when I started out is think of the opposite thing a PC would do. E.g: if a character is usually calculated and calm, then their madness could be moments of obsession or blind rage. Hope this helps you out!

@ceruleanknight4527 2 жыл бұрын

That was incredibly well made! I love the examples and narrative moments. It gives me some practical application and really sells the idea.

@BalsasTableTales 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Glad I could help!

@bigapegaming853 2 жыл бұрын

love your videos man, glad to see you're still putting them out!

@andrewtully3622 2 жыл бұрын

My sentiments exactly!

@LolonOnline 2 жыл бұрын

Really great video, I now know a little bit more about Call of Cthulhu than I did before! (but at what cost of my mind oooooooo spoopy)

@BalsasTableTales 2 жыл бұрын

Watching CoC videos may result in an immediate 0/1d4 SAN loss. I must remember to put that in the disclaimer...

@LolonOnline 2 жыл бұрын

@@BalsasTableTales aaaahhh, that explains a lot. Mainly the screaming sounds only im hearing from my cup of tea

@jgr7487 11 ай бұрын

4: You totally can traumatise your players if the trauma is caused by fighting a skeleton (in CoC) or a zombie (in D&D) that JUST WON'T DIE. As soon as the investigators see another mound of bones rattling, they will nake the PC run away, saying "no, no, no, not that again!"

@RubberDuckKid Жыл бұрын

Super useful, thank you!

@BalsasTableTales Жыл бұрын

Happy to help!

@AustinKiefer 2 жыл бұрын

Old video, but wanted to comment anyways. For the last tip you gave "Failing forwards" in page 169 in the keeper rulebook, there is an optional rule called "Insane Insight" this what you 100% explain in the example. If a player fails sanity checks a lot, try using the insane insight optional rule to make there madness useful to the game.

@MrEzuli Жыл бұрын

Hey, a great video! I have intuitevely thought a lot about the random phobia / mania tables not being that fun or interesting so already have started to not go there, instead just picking something from the scene. The agency loss is a interesting thing, there are people in my table who haven't minded at all going for a red haze by the dice rolls being unlucky and trying to drown their fellow investigators. But I don't know, if the investigator suffering the red haze has a shotgun, things can get real ugly real quicky.

@BalsasTableTales Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the kind words. It's fascinating how many people don't have this problem about losing agency! Maybe it's just my players who were the issue after all!

@MrEzuli Жыл бұрын

@@BalsasTableTales I have a hunch that the players who are more "gamist" are more precious about agency. I have a couple of players who aren't gamers really, and tend to view the game as a narrative of the whole story, and not just as a narrative of their character. I am myself a bit iffy on taking agency away, so tend to do it sparingly. More along giving motivations, like you outlined in the video. If the end result is that they end up blowing a shotgun in their friends face, well, so be it.