"Are you seriously going to-"
Yes.
"Call of Cthulhu?"
YES.
As with Mekton Zeta, Call of Cthulhu is a wargame at its root that throws around pretensions of narrative logic that do not exist in the game.
Because the game is a wargame, it can be run in the Braunstein style, and observers will see that it will remind them of Cults Across America. The Patrons are not necessarily cosmic-level players, but rather less-than-cosmic, and that includes god-like figures like the title character and Nyarlathotep. You can't play an idiot god like Azathoth, but Dagon is fair play because Dagon has comprehensible objectives and limited (believe it or not) resources to pursue them. (Yes, including the Big C; his limited resource, ironically, is time and remember that ramming his skull with a boat was enough to knock him out.)
There are multiple cults, independent entities, anti-cult agencies (public and private), and all of them have objectives to reach and resources to work with. That solves the Patron and Domain play question.
Then, as with MZ and Real D&D, the interactions of these Patrons will result in playable scenarios where the usual RPG play can be had.
As COC isn't generous with either physical or psychological recovery, and investigation of recovered information--papers, tomes, etc.--is normal in these things, mandatory downtime is required. This means that players are implicitly encouraged to play multiple characters in a campaign; one is active while one or more others are in downtime for one reason or another.
All of this can also be applied to Chill, Nightlife, Beyond The Supernatural, Nightbane, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Witchcraft, and all of White Wolf's "horror" games are proven to be Braunsteins due to their LARP scene. Even the most pretensious horror game is really a dressed-up Braunstein and therefore can be run as such, will benefit from being run as such, and
"But surely you can't say that this is applicable across the board?"
I can, and I can prove it in one word: TORG.
But that I will reserve for tomorrow.
YES! CoC works just fine at this level. It was more apparent in the first four editions of the game, which were the work of Sandy Petersen. Things changed with the 5th edtion (1992) when Lynn Willis began making changes and I think that is when they began to follow the money to where they are now. The 7th edition had significant changes to the game but it is still a wargame and should fit this model without any trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe fit between the Braunstein model and RuneQuest is even better, since RQ was designed to slot into the world described by Chaosium's White Bear, Red Moon boardgame. That game and its sequel, Nomad Gods, provided terrain maps and a list of domains (and their patrons) as well as a timeline of events that players would have to deal with, flee or change depending on their level of power.