Representing the horrors of Cthulhu without giving the game away

I decided on a change of pace today, and amended the style of post. This is a break in form from the last few months' of D&D and Midgard game write-up offerings. I am harking back to a mini-series of related posts from 2021 wherein I discussed various ways I used to run fantasy gaming sessions. They can be seen again below if you wish to take a look...

Dungeon Dwellers' Tactics - 23 Jan 2021
Henchmen and Hirelings - 7 Jan 2021
Dungeon Ecology - 6 Jan 2021
Dungeon Parties - 5 Jan 2021

Continuing on; this is a post on how I think it may be better to represent the Cthulhu mythos and other similarly associated gribblies on the tabletop without stat blocks getting in the way - i.e. keeping a sense of awe and horror without reducing everything to numbers.

Whilst reading a book, or watching a film or TV show, I love the feelings of suspense and dread that the authors/screenwriters give to their creations and the protagonists' encounters with them. I would very much like to represent those feelings in my tabletop games.

Cthulhu Mythos Calamari - free download

I have played Call of Cthulhu on and off for many years, over several different versions, including the Dark Ages and Invictus settings. I have also played a number of one-off humans versus monsters RPGs and tabletop games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten and Broken Legions, but what has prompted me to write this post is my recent-ish acquisition of the Osprey Publishing book When Nightmares Come. It got me thinking that I often find that the horror of Lovecraft's creations are not given any justice once they make it to a rules set, because once they have stats associated with them and the players get hold of said stats, then the horror element has essentially gone. So, how do we represent unnamable and indescribable things in tabletop and RPG games?

I think the first thing we need to look at here is whether we are going to Role play or Rule play. Obviously all games require rules to make it fair for everyone that takes part and they provide the guidelines on how to play, but sometimes rules can get in the way of a darned good narrative. Most of the RPGs that I have participated in as a player have been theatre of the mind style - no miniatures, no props, just good story telling by the GM and the level of immersion into the game instilled by the players. From this, would it be too much of a stretch to have monster abilities that the GM makes up on the fly? The GM can work out what will cause harm to the creature based on pre-game thoughts, or maybe ingenious role playing by the players - that is, if a player thinks of a great ruse to disable a critter, then it should be rewarded with game-world changes by the GM. That doesn't mean to say that the next time a similar monster is encountered it has to have the same vulnerabilities.

When I play a game I try not to look at any stat blocks or monster descriptions so I purposefully don't know what each critter is capable of. Obviously stats are required for game play's sake, but if they are used, they need to be kept secret so the players do not know what they are up against. Unfortunately, having played many RPGs and having read many fantasy, sci-fi and horror novels I, as a player, kind of know what most creatures are by their description and then know what their traditional weaknesses and vulnerabilities are. This leads me towards a bit of rule playing knowing that such-and-such is a 2 HD monster, cannot be hit by mundane weapons, but is vulnerable to silver. I wish I could forget all of this whilst playing. That said, even though I, as a player, know this, unless a particular gribbly has been encountered previously, my character does not know what it is. This is where the Role playing comes in.

So, here is where a good GM comes into their own. Why should a particular monster look like the stereotypical form of that monster? Why can only certain weapons harm them? Why can they not come out during the day/night? Although it would turn any "real life" mythology on its head, in a fantasy or sci-fi world these vulnerabilities can be different. A monster might just be a particular species that is just very hard to kill. Use the rules in the Bestiary of whatever game world you are playing in but amend it slightly. In a fantasy context, maybe ghouls are not undead but are a race that live in crypts and darker environs as sunlight harms them (it does not kill them but slows them, blinds them etc.). They can be killed by mundane weapons but due to their metabolism they regenerate swiftly or their biology dictates they need very little blood in their system, so as a result a cut will very likely not bleed (or not very much at any rate) hence all hits only cause minimum damage.

Using the above as an example of how we can mix things up, means we can use more horrific creatures in several new and different ways. Like the ghouls mentioned above, maybe zombies are also not undead, but are afflicted by a virus (as per many Hollywood movies recently), or are beings subjected to a fungal spore infection (as in my own Doggerland D&D campaign). Do they move quickly or slowly? How do they feed and what on?

Before a monster is encountered properly for the first time in an adventure, have signs and clues to its existence; stories told around camp fires or in the local inn, spoor (fur, scales, slime, ectoplasm), the remains of its previous victim(s), a strange smell in the area etc. Build the picture slowly but enticingly. The next encounter should be just as the monster has wreaked havoc amongst, but not been killed by, another group of NPCs (maybe make these NPCs warriors or adventurers so it ups the perceived threat level). Next, have the heroes encounter the monster but have them not be able to kill it quickly (reduce all hits to maybe the minimum damage, let it take several hits and then escape). Finally, have the heroes meet the monster face-to-face. Use its normal stat lines but try to work the combat encounter so that one of the heroes deliver a death blow using a particular kind of weapon (a silver blade, a magic item, etc.) or only bludgeoning hits cause damage etc., to make them think that is its weakness. If this killing blow can be emulated in other encounters with the same type of creature, then the players may think that the beings can only be overcome by certain weapon types; the mythology will build itself. 

These are just a few options for consideration when running horror style encounters in your RPG. Unfortunately, this is a little more difficult for a tabletop wargame as both sides need to know the beings' capabilities (although I can think of one or two ways around that). Maybe I can have a think on this subject further and use the idea for a future post?