We’re back and we’re damaged. Send help.

Main Topic: Injury and Disease in Call of Cthulhu

This episode, we’re looking at how injury, disease, poisons, and other physical hazards work in Call of Cthulhu.

Being an investigator is fraught with hazards. While we’ve discussed sanity a few times, we’ve never really got into more corporeal damage before. We discuss how the game mechanics handle physical harm, some options for portraying it narratively, and some of the different ways in which an investigator can get hurt in the first place. As ever, we throw in a few ideas about how we handle these things in our own games, and what plot hooks dealing with serious physical harm might present.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

The Blasphemous Tome Issue 12

Issue 12 of The Blasphemous Tome will be going out in early July. This is the fanzine we produce for Patreon backers of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias. Each issue contains a brand-new Call of Cthulhu scenario authored by one of us and licensed by Chaosium.

Every backer will receive a PDF of issue 12 as soon as it’s available. Anyone backing us at the $5 level or above by the end of June will also get a printed and signed copy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

2 comments on “Injury and Disease in Call of Cthulhu”

Benjamin May 27, 2024

On diseases, I would add that they can manifest as dependencies. A character with a life-threatening heart condition, for instance, might be practically unhindered, until he loses ready access to his medicine and the clock starts ticking. This works well in isolated or apocalyptic situations where resources are scarce. I guess it condenses the disease into short bursts of intense drama. It also implies a clear, actionable resolution, something diseases typically lack. The problem can be dealt with, or the character can perish, before the disease starts boring the players. When it is under control, the condition can mostly be ignored, except it presents a clear point of weakness that can be threatened.

Good episode, lads.

mrdisvan Jul 23, 2024

Always lean into any events that the dice throw up, I say. Blindness is an extreme case but Scott made some very good points. Each narrative effect of injury feeds into the next bit of narrative, and there are plenty of examples in fiction of how that can work well. Bond has to cope early on in Live and Let Die (the book) with a snapped finger. Jeff in Rear Window only gets to witness the story because he’s flat on his back. Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York has his real origin story in the loss of his eye in a fight. On a milder level, John McClane’s lack of shoes in Die Hard might look like just a boring penalty in game terms, but it adds to the tension. And for adventures while recuperating, look for inspiration in the Nero Wolfe novels; Wolfe investigates every crime without leaving his home, which could be a good template when one of the PCs is recovering from serious injuries.

Benjamin May 27, 2024
On diseases, I would add that they can manifest as dependencies. A character with a life-threatening heart condition, for instance, might be practically unhindered, until he loses ready access to his medicine and the clock starts ticking. This works well in isolated or apocalyptic situations where resources are scarce. I guess it condenses the disease into short bursts of intense drama. It also implies a clear, actionable resolution, something diseases typically lack. The problem can be dealt with, or the character can perish, before the disease starts boring the players. When it is under control, the condition can mostly be ignored, except it presents a clear point of weakness that can be threatened.
Good episode, lads.
mrdisvan Jul 23, 2024
Always lean into any events that the dice throw up, I say. Blindness is an extreme case but Scott made some very good points. Each narrative effect of injury feeds into the next bit of narrative, and there are plenty of examples in fiction of how that can work well. Bond has to cope early on in Live and Let Die (the book) with a snapped finger. Jeff in Rear Window only gets to witness the story because he’s flat on his back. Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York has his real origin story in the loss of his eye in a fight. On a milder level, John McClane’s lack of shoes in Die Hard might look like just a boring penalty in game terms, but it adds to the tension. And for adventures while recuperating, look for inspiration in the Nero Wolfe novels; Wolfe investigates every crime without leaving his home, which could be a good template when one of the PCs is recovering from serious injuries.