I ran a semi-epic CoC genre game in real life, and I thought I did a good job. A lot of the stuff could translate into online play... puzzle and mystery solving... It wasn't exactly CoC though. I ran it in GURPS so technically it as GURPS horror. And I didn't use the official CoC pantheon of monsters. But the feel was the same. See what you think of this: "The two powers at
work in this world are not Good vs. Evil. They are not Light
vs. Darkness. Neither are they Order vs. Chaos nor Freedom vs.
Slavery nor Life vs. Death. The two forces at work are those
who seek to unleash the ancient godlike beings that threaten to
consume and destroy this planet and those who seek to prevent their
manifestation. This battle has waged for a hundred
millennia.
Those who seek to unleash the ancient ones do
so to serve their personal ambition and lust for power. They
are blind to the consequences of their reaching this goal. They
make the proverbial deals with the proverbial devils, in the hopes of
obtaining personal power that they can lord over their fellow
humans. While those who seek to thwart the advance of the
ancient Godlike aliens find themselves employing more and more
extreme methods as the knowledge of the ancient ones grows and as the
ancient ones themselves gain a larger foothold on this planet.
They create societies that are just as secret of those contrived by
their adversaries. They infiltrate organizations of
hierarchical power, organized religions and scientific societies
alike, in order to prevent information about the ancient ones from
coming to light. They use alliances between royal families,
corporations and shadow elements within nations to accomplish this
goal, a goal which they pursue at all costs and by any means.
And
over many centuries, these organizations, institutions and alliances
have grown both in power and in historic legacy becoming forces unto
themselves developing their own intentions, desires and goals
independent and apart from their original objectives. Secret
societies spring up within secret societies like wheels within wheels
and dark alliances are formed between members of the two opposing
factions until the lines between the two been blurred so much so as
to have lost all meaning.
Plowing through the muddy waters
of false allegiances, dividing shadow from light and serving as a
beacon for all who oppose those who seek to unleash the ancient
godlike beings upon our fragile world stands a small, rag-tag group
of investigators... and their little dog fluffy."
I wasn't familiar with the actual CoC rules system when I started that campaign. I am more familiar with it now. I like the simplicity of the system, but I am not keen on the skill/task test system of the straight percentile (with Hard and Extreme penalties and bonus and penalty dice). I guess it makes for a simple system, but I think Hard and Extreme are too difficult. And I like the bell curve achieved by adding dice (-ie- 3d6). And Luck seems to play WAY too big of a role in the game. I mean, I get that these are supposed to be ordinary people. But it is hard to run an epic campaign when players are on their fifth character by the end.
