How do You Integrate Pulpy Styled Players into a Darker More Traditionally Styled Game?

I was actually descending the 1000 steps into the Dreamlands last week, therefore, I couldn’t record. But those stories are for another day. This piece is in response to Chad’s amazing voice mail in which he asked of us the title question.

CoC has a built-in stat and mechanism that allows you to deal with situations like this. It is called Sanity (SAN). Let me explain. Player A is a shotgun toting lawyer in the vein of Mickey Spillaine or Robert E. Howard (REH), the rest of the group is comprised of antiquarian types that are more grounded in reality, well the reality of the game at least.

So the GM makes a little side note that either a) Player A has, unbeknownst to him, lost a few SAN points, or b) Player A has gained an insanity.

The real trick with this is that the GM is going to have to split many descriptions up and give one version to the group as a whole, and another slightly different version to Player A. Most of the time this can be with a side-line to Player A done after the main description is done. These extra descriptions are what are going to make that character act pulpy as opposed to more mainstream. They can be anything from a simple additional feeling, to a full blown separate reality for Player A.

One of my favorite examples of this is when the group is interviewing an important NPC. The GM gives a  normal description of the encounter to the group and then starts feeding more and more disturbing information about the locale/encounter/NPC to Player A. At some point he is going to have to roll either a Willpower check to keep himself “normal” or he will fail and go full blown Spencer for Hire beating the shit out of a thief mode on little old Mrs. Bunsbunny. Of course to Player A Mrs. Bunsbunny is slowly turning into a Deep One, or he might actually perceive sweet little Mrs. Bunsbunny as a 300lb. brute. The choice is ultimately up to the GM, but this type of thing is where we can get creative on the fly and have some serious fun in the game.

The trick here is that Player A is either more insane or slightly more off his proverbial rocker than the rest of the group. So his perceptions of the exterior world will be viewed through his slightly differently shaded crazy glasses.

The problem with this is dealing with this type of thing is when you have to do it on the fly, and honestly if done right this can be one sign of a truly great GM. It is much simpler if you can have character sheets or talked with your players ahead of time so that you can plan this out, but that isn’t always the case.

Having this sort of player in the group can make a game really fun for everyone, including the GM. It lets you really fuck with at least one player’s mind while running an otherwise altogether normal adventure. It adds an altogether separate layer of horror that can be used to mess with your players’ minds. And as GM’s that is about as much pleasure as we are ever going to get out of the game.

I hope that provides at least another viewpoint on the subject. No answer is of course right nor wrong, just have fun playing the game.

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