Someone explain the appeal of Old Man Henderson?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

In the game "Eternal Darkness", the "win state" you're railroaded into would often be a humiliating, emasculating death, ongoing torment, or insanity, after being presented with a situation beyond hope - however, this served a mechanical purpose: you weren't playing a single character, but rather, you had a journal that collected the memories of numerous characters over thousands of years, and its by exploring these memories that the final protagonist is able to stop the apocalypse.

If it keeps in mind that it is a game, a game can use those sorts of horror conceits well.

[virgil]

You don't get to scream and whine about me DARING to be right about predicting just how fucking stupid Virgil's position is. Because I was fucking right.

No. You were wrong. You've been called to actually explain how you came to the conclusion from the beginning, and your sole justification is to point at the post and think we can see the same imaginary text that you can. And you still can't do it for what's been written thus far.

[PhoneLobster]

OK. So you agreed with me all along that bleak games suck and kill with fire is an active motivational force in ALL your games. Oh and that your "fuck you on a boat" was a right piece of shit sounding game.

OK.

Apology accepted.

[Zaranthan]

MC: "Okay, so you hear the otherworldly shrieks of the horrid creature as the building burns down and collapses on it.

P1: "Shit, glad we got out of there. How much sanity did I lose tonight? 15?"

P2: "I lost 20."

P3: "Damn, well any ending you can walk away from, right? I go home and start a fingernail collection."

--

There you go. Bleak ending, with a session that was about running into something with slimy tentacles and killing it with fire. No dichotomy. gg no re.

[DSMatticus]

Seriously. You're entire argument now is "Sure I'm fucking wrong about what Virgil was saying BUT HOW DID YOU KNOW SO QUICKLY????"

Unless you are arguing that the exhaustive list of possible differences between "scooby gangs with dynamite" and "grimderp everybody dies" is the dynamite, you have offered evidence that is only evidence if the conclusion it's supposed to be evidence of is already true.

You are still insisting on replacing what people say with what you want them to have said

Hey, you know the thing where I am accusing you of replacing your opponents' positions with strawmen and then arguing with those? You're still fucking doing it. I made absolutely no concessions to you in any of my posts, because you have provided absolutely no evidence that forces me to (and, to be perfectly clear, you won't). But I did, as you can see from the above, remain consistent in my accusations that you are just making this shit up.

You are pretending that because I am calling you out on the obviously dishonest act of trying to justify your rant with posts that had not happened yet that it is the only way in which I am calling you out for being dishonest. Of course, in both of the relevant posts I've very explicitly called you out for being dishonest by strawmanning your opposition. I chose to focus on the one that lets us all skip the past the part where you try to defend a pathetic, tortured wording via begging the question and straight to the part where you are claiming you could see the future, because my only burden in demonstrating that you are full of shit is to demonstrate any inconsistency at all.

You have chosen to use this focus to craft another strawman in which my damning line of argument is somehow a retreat. This is because you are, to your very core, a dishonest shitstain. You are going on ignore for the umpteenth time, and I don't think I'm taking you off anymore. What fucking use are you supposed to be to any discussion if all you ever fucking do is build strawmen and flog them?

[norms29]

Virgil, I have to admit I'm getting very curious about how you're defining a "bleak" game, especially after you picked up PL's terminology of Scooby-Doo as the opposing style.

Because I'm starting to get the impression that the difference is only visible at the end, if the PC's lost it was (probably) bleak, if they win it was (probably) Scooby-doo. is this an accurate description of your position?

[DSMatticus]

Virgil, I have to admit I'm getting very curious about how you're defining a "bleak" game, especially after you picked up PL's terminology of Scooby-Doo as the opposing style.

Because I'm starting to get the impression that the difference is only visible at the end, if the PC's lost it was (probably) bleak, if they win it was (probably) Scooby-doo. is this an accurate description of your position?

Well, if you'll recall, the thread starts off about Old Man Henderson, who is (if the character ever existed) literally a joke character intended to troll everyone at the table. They aren't something out of the horror genre or the action genre, they're just a parody. PL said he thought this was supposed to be pretty standard fair for CoC, and described it as "scooby doo with guns, explosions, and gleeful insanity." For the purposes of this thread, the definition of Scooby Doo people are operating on was set by PL as "looks something like an Old Man Henderson story."

Despite PL's rants about how virgil supersekretly rejected that playstyle because guns and explosions aren't grim(???), I'm pretty sure people are actually rejecting Old Man Henderson's borderline fishmalkery because that actually does conflict with CoC's grim/bleak tones.

[PhoneLobster]

... the impression that the difference is only visible at the end...

They go into it knowing that survival is a crapshoot, and therefore guns/illiteracy/arson don't necessarily improve the chances and thus not an 'obvious' choice.

Is the best we currently have. Which directly claims its a before game rather than end of game distinction (and now that I isolate it, also makes some very bizarre and rather offensive claims about player agency and the way odds interact with tactics). But don't expect any consistency if you even get any elaboration at all.

edit: Indeed on the consistency front he later on pulls off something along the lines of "If the players PUSH for Scooby they get it" but says if they properly understand real CoC games (with the direct implication this is superior and the right way to do things) he gives them bleak survival horror where the win state is merely living and merely living is incredibly unlikely no matter what they do.

And that section strongly implies he actually sits down with groups and either at the last minute before starting, or sometime early game telepathically divines their "correct" understanding of the genre as he sees it then either sadistically murders them all like he decides they clearly want or sighs sadly and gives them molotov cocktails while feeling superior and snobbish about it.

[virgil]

Virgil, I have to admit I'm getting very curious about how you're defining a "bleak" game, especially after you picked up PL's terminology of Scooby-Doo as the opposing style.

Because I'm starting to get the impression that the difference is only visible at the end, if the PC's lost it was (probably) bleak, if they win it was (probably) Scooby-doo. is this an accurate description of your position?

The definition of Scooby I've been using is the version of CoC as favoured by PL; which is where Old Man Henderson's 'antics' are typical. The definition of Bleak I've largely worked with is two-fold: genuine chances of combat success is low in the face of iterative probability (but not zero), and the exploration/discovery/mystery portion of the adventure takes up a greater percentage of the game compared to the planning/fighting/surviving. It's a mutually enforced thing, as PCs tend to be incompetent in a fight or expect their gun-bunny to pull a "clever girl" line as they realize they brought a knife to a gunfight.

I haven't thought too hard about what the consequences would be were I to define Bleak as the complete opposite of PL's seeming definition of Scooby; but it would likely be different from the definition I've described above.

EDIT Forgot to add an additional part of the Bleak game definition. At least one character surviving to the end of the scenario is the win state, rather than defeating the antagonist. I specifically mean the end of the chain of events being investigated, rather than the 'end' created because the last PC died by falling down a hole in the first 10 minutes. Annoying that I have to clarify that last bit, but we all know PL would think he's clever by using that loophole for his strawman.

[virgil]

edit: Indeed on the consistency front he later on pulls off something along the lines of "If the players PUSH for Scooby they get it" but says if they properly understand real CoC games (with the direct implication this is superior and the right way to do things) he gives them bleak survival horror where the win state is merely living and merely living is incredibly unlikely no matter what they do.

There you go again, building strawmen made of shit. You do realize that when projecting, flat and white surfaces are better choices than straw, right?

[Dogbert]

One would think there's no reason to play CoC if one's not in the mood for playing a helpless, curious scholar-type fashioned after Lovecraft's perpetual self-insertion character who always ends up running into the night after watching the boogieman at the end of the tunnel. It's like trying to bring angst to a TFOS' game. You're basically trolling the game.

Having said that, I read the tale of OMH and can only salute in respect, that was some epic trolling for the ages, and that neckbeard totally had it coming (saying the tale is true, of course). Like an elegant Dr. Facekicker.

[TiaC]

Would it be reasonable to say that the difference is a matter of win condition? In the bleak game, surviving to the end is a win, while in the scooby game it is required that you actually remove the threat.

[Red_Rob]

(saying the tale is true, of course)

Of course it isn't true. Call of Cthulhu does actually have rules, and those rules are not in line with the actions described.

In a skill based system where you get skill points assigned at character creation, you cannot just "write a 50 page backstory" to give yourself all the skills whenever you need them without even having to make a roll as far as I could tell. It would be like saying your D&D character has a backstory that includes a written list of magic items you inherited and claiming that was somehow clever.

Also, you physically can't kill a Shoggoth with "A molotov cocktail and a shotgun" unless the GM is sandbagging so hard that he is practically in a WW1 trench. Those things have hp out the wazoo, practically instakill attacks and are specifically resistant to fire and firearms. The whole enterprise is reliant on incredible luck akin to only ever rolling natural 20's in D&D.

So no, it's not based on real game of CoC, as far as that takes you. it could have been a freeform "GM calls for a roll occasionally but wings the rest" style game, but winning one of those with explosives doesn't have the same cultural cache as "beating" Call of Cthulhu. Plus when you look at the descriptions of "odious, player hating GM" and "sandbags furiously, bends the rules to accommodate player fuckery" they don't really add up.

[sandmann]

It is plainly obvious that everyone in Virgil's game entered knowing that the game they were playing was not "heroic fantasy" but "horror movie".

The entire Henderson story is a flat out example of people "signing up for it" that, quite frankly hated the stupid mortality...

...Which is the reason he is a troll.

It is assumed that character death is on the table, that the odds are stacked against you

You can't stack the odds against the players meeting your win state in an RPG game. That is the most stupid and directly contradictory clash of design goals possible.

and that the win state is often "survive and escape" rather than "kill the bad guy and bring his head back for a reward".

You just said the odds were stacked in favor of death and then said the win state is "survive and escape" do you see the problem there?

Also by defining survive and escape as the win state you just placed Virgils lame ass "fuck you on a boat" in a LOSE state. Because Only one player even came CLOSE and still got kicked in the nuts and failed.

You never played Dark Souls, right ? Nintendo-hard is a thing people like. So is "John Carpenter's The Thing".

[Starmaker]

You never played Dark Souls, right ? Nintendo-hard is a thing people like.

Except (1) Nintendo-hard vidya bears no relation to TTRPGs, because the whole point is that you retry when you die and eventually win, and (2) Dark Souls is in fact exceptionally fair, in that you can win it at level 1.

[OgreBattle]

Dark Souls was inspired by Fighting Fantasy books, so its filled with "YOU DIED" events that spring out at you, though ideally they try to give a clue like a road filled with charred corpses that if you cross, a dragon comes out and breaths fire on you. Dark Souls is also focused on you coming back to life to go forth once more though, in emulation of re-reading a Fighting Fantasy book.

I haven't heard of a CoC game where you were suppose to immediately come back to life though.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Phonelobster gave an objective definition to a subjective experience by saying that playing CoC as Virgil does is not fun. Why that is stupid should be obvious. If he doesn't like how Virgil runs CoC, that's great, but it doesn't make Virgil's game automatically bad.

[sandmann]

I haven't heard of a CoC game where you were suppose to immediately come back to life though.

The point is that people pay money to look at a screen for 2 hours and die every 10 minutes for 2 hours and still have fun. You will fail and fail and fail and still have fun. Because "The Thing", where "Sitting in the ruins of your station, all alone, maybe killed the alien", is a valid win-scenario in some situations.

[Starmaker]

The point is that people pay money to look at a screen for 2 hours and die every 10 minutes for 2 hours and still have fun. You will fail and fail and fail and still have fun. Because "The Thing", where "Sitting in the ruins of your station, all alone, maybe killed the alien", is a valid win-scenario in some situations.

I get it that people derive fun from completely arbitrary things, but that doesn't make this comparison any less disingenuous. Loss conditions where you have to retry and start over and a bad ending are completely different things. In a videogame, it's possible to do one or the other or both. Without the official notakebacksies shitty ending(tm), retrying the same task until you succeed tells the in-game story of eventual success where the difficulty of the challenge is illustrated not by murdering extras left and right but by [usually alternate-reality] failure.

[name_here]

I would point out that I once played a game called Space Station 13, which is a multiplayer game where coming back from the dead is incredibly complicated and double-digit player bodycounts are not uncommon. And if your team loses the round, you lose the round.

But you know what? It's fun. It's fun taking up toolboxes to rush the armored guy with an energy sword, it's fun fiddling with explosives that may have a much larger blast radius than you want, it's fun trying to crowbar your way through doors when the power is cut, it's fun winning as the traitor, it's usually fun losing as the traitor, and it's fun having the post-round chat asking how the ever-living fuck people pulled X off. The only thing that's not fun is being dead when there's nothing interesting to watch.

[virgil]

Would it be reasonable to say that the difference is a matter of win condition? In the bleak game, surviving to the end is a win, while in the scooby game it is required that you actually remove the threat.

That seems to be a good approximation of the difference between the playstyles IMO; though surviving past the end is completely optional in a bleak game. I will argue that death stories can be fun, so 'losing' in a bleak game isn't intrinsically disruptive and requires more qualifiers before trying to make absolute statements.

[Avoraciopoctules]

One would think there's no reason to play CoC if one's not in the mood for playing a helpless, curious scholar-type fashioned after Lovecraft's perpetual self-insertion character who always ends up running into the night after watching the boogieman at the end of the tunnel. It's like trying to bring angst to a TFOS' game. You're basically trolling the game.

http://www.somethingawful.com/dungeons- ... station/1/

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I can picture Old Man Henderson as a Dark Heresy acolyte, using the same approach: firearms skills, explosives, and a convoluted backstory. Basically:

1) It's true that the GM can send a monster that's immune to mundane weapon after you to force you to "think". Chances are, however, that that hobo you see nearby isn't immune to bullets. Point your gun at his head, grab him, and throw him in the way of the monster. Congratulations, you bought yourself a few more precious seconds using that gun the monster was supposedly immune to.

2) Yeah, chances are that bullet-resistant monster is also fire-resistant. Well, you're not using your explosives skill to do direct damage. Why? Because explosive implies AoE, and AoE = opportunity for GM fuckery to have you hurt yourself or your teammates (the latter being a drawback because it didn't accomplish anything). What you want to do is to use the explosions to create pitfalls beneath the monsters and/or drop buildings on top of them. And if your teammates get caught in the implosion, its their own fault for not taking Explosives.

3) You need the backstory because sometimes these games dick you over by giving you a "career" that makes it hard to take the skills you need to round out your ultimate derailer. Your firearms and explosions guy probably has bad social stats by now, and probably doesn't have much knowledge-based capabilities aside from the Marine equivalent of quoting Sun Tzu. In Dark Heresy, this is solved by the "elite advance", skills and talents you buy though in-world justification based on your background. Being able to say, "it's totally justifiable, based on events on page 229 of my amateur fiction". Once the GM has gotten wise to your tricks, you need those aces up your sleeve. Social skills such as charming NPCs are how you force the GM to MTP outside his planned adventure, and MTP is critical when the GM can say "You have a 33% chance to not die instantly" based on RAW.

You'll also want that huge backstory when you start synthesizing Shoggoth Kyrptonite in your meth lab.

[sandmann]

I get it that people derive fun from completely arbitrary things, but that doesn't make this comparison any less disingenuous. Loss conditions where you have to retry and start over and a bad ending are completely different things. In a videogame, it's possible to do one or the other or both. Without the official notakebacksies shitty ending(tm), retrying the same task until you succeed tells the in-game story of eventual success where the difficulty of the challenge is illustrated not by murdering extras left and right but by [usually alternate-reality] failure.

Actually, many CoC-Campains I know are exactly retrying again and again, only that your character does not come back, he stays dead and you make a new one, his brother/pen-pal/random-dude-he-told-his-secrets. And then you continue where you left of. Which is more or less die-and-retry.

And actually, yes, that is a very genuous comparison. Phonelobster said that you cannot stake the odds against the players winning and expect them to play, because it would be a clash of design goals when "You win when you die" and "You die fast and easy" are both goals. This is exactly the case with DS: Your Goal is to "play until the end", and the game trys every possible trick to frustrate you and grind your progress to a standstill. Some older games are constructed in a way that makes it impossible to win them with your first try, and people still play them. Diablo 3 Inferno was, after release, a box full of "die-your-way-through". Sometimes things are interesting BECAUSE they are frustrating to a point.

[Judging__Eagle]

I would point out that I once played a game called Space Station 13, which is a multiplayer game where coming back from the dead is incredibly complicated and double-digit player bodycounts are not uncommon. And if your team loses the round, you lose the round.

But you know what? It's fun. It's fun taking up toolboxes to rush the armored guy with an energy sword, it's fun fiddling with explosives that may have a much larger blast radius than you want, it's fun trying to crowbar your way through doors when the power is cut, it's fun winning as the traitor, it's usually fun losing as the traitor, and it's fun having the post-round chat asking how the ever-living fuck people pulled X off. The only thing that's not fun is being dead when there's nothing interesting to watch.

I started playing SS13 in February. It's pretty interesting; and Rouge-like in it's levels of complication.

Also, "nintendo hard" is piddling compared to playing original Rogue. I cut my gaming teeth on Rogue; and games that are less entertaining than Rogue have to be pretty bad. The Dark Souls game is a game I consider less entertaining than Rogue.