There's Mythos in my Mythos!
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:23 pm
Have any of you ever run a game, or played one where the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft existed within the game's universe? If so, how were they used? If not, would you ever incorporate them in future games and how would you use them?
My thought is that the game would have to be set in modern times with internet access and the Barnes and Noble leather bound edition for 20 bucks. Maybe a character has some kind of affinity for science fiction, or paranormal studies etc... they would likely have read some HPL but perceived it as fiction, so no loss to SAN, but when that character encounters something mythos related, it would come with implications in his/her mind that the other characters would be ignorant of. So maybe you'd add a SAN modifier, and give extra mythos knowledge every time this character saw something mythos related; because, after all, he'd possess knowledge on the matter, only that knowledge is gradually being converted from fiction to fact... and that can't be good for one's mental health.
This same concept could apply to other tomes within the mythos. Sometimes simply reading a book regardless of how staggeringly terrifying it is would have no effect on the reader's SAN if that reader was a skeptic and saw the book only as fiction or lore. A character would have to read it and understand/believe the implications of the book before they actually lost any SAN, but that leads me to another question. Could one gain Mythos Knowledge without losing max SAN under special circumstances? Or would that flout the rules of the game entirely?
My thought is that the game would have to be set in modern times with internet access and the Barnes and Noble leather bound edition for 20 bucks. Maybe a character has some kind of affinity for science fiction, or paranormal studies etc... they would likely have read some HPL but perceived it as fiction, so no loss to SAN, but when that character encounters something mythos related, it would come with implications in his/her mind that the other characters would be ignorant of. So maybe you'd add a SAN modifier, and give extra mythos knowledge every time this character saw something mythos related; because, after all, he'd possess knowledge on the matter, only that knowledge is gradually being converted from fiction to fact... and that can't be good for one's mental health.
This same concept could apply to other tomes within the mythos. Sometimes simply reading a book regardless of how staggeringly terrifying it is would have no effect on the reader's SAN if that reader was a skeptic and saw the book only as fiction or lore. A character would have to read it and understand/believe the implications of the book before they actually lost any SAN, but that leads me to another question. Could one gain Mythos Knowledge without losing max SAN under special circumstances? Or would that flout the rules of the game entirely?