I am curious about the purpose of the "Heroic" and "Villainous" keywords. From a game balance perspective, I'm wondering what can be said about these keywords, in relation to their use in preventing the play of both Heroic and Villainous characters simultaneously, especially with the existence of Tyler Scindere. Is there something that makes the use of both, rather than one or the other, somehow overpowered, and if so, does this not become less of an issue as more and more of each are added to the game?

The reason I ask comes from more of a thematic outlook on the game, specifically the "why" of Heroic and Villainous keywords appearing in a setting whose primary distinction is the objective absence of a good-evil dichotomy. Lovecraft himself was once quoted as saying, "Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large." The Old Ones, for example, are seen by the investigators as malevolent entities for the threat they pose to mankind, but by and large they have no care or concern whatsoever for our survival or extinction. We simply have no relevance in this greater cosmic battle that is unfolding.

So to sum up, I guess what I'm asking is, should there be no game-breaking factor at present (for if there is, my entire argument more or less breaks down), why do we want or need these keywords in Call of Cthulhu?

I'm would think its simply story background. The battle of Good vs Evil...that kinda thing, rather then overpowered cards.

Do we know what prompted the decision to incorporate "good & evil" into the game? For the reasons I stated above, somehow it just doesn't feel Lovecraftian. YMMV, of course.

MarthWMaster said:

It's one way of defining it.

Another way of defining it is there are protagonists (the humans who unwittingly gets sucked into trouble) and the antagonists (pretty much the entire universe).

One could look at this from the perspective of "good and evil", depending on how entrenched the human ego is. I'd say the ego is rather large considering how such major malign forces are usually out to get one single man.

One could argue that not only is it lovecraftian, but that it is the very foundation of his horror fiction.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

Man vs. nature, humanity vs. inhumanity, hero vs. villain ...call it what you will. Give it a name. It's all the same in the end.

MarthWMaster said:

Why do we want them? I never asked for them. They were there before you or I started playing.

As for why we need them, the only person qualified enough to answer that is Nate French. Everything else is circular.

Hellfury said:

And that I think, might be the most Lovecraftian statement possible in this thread.

In the end I think it is just about adding a bit of window dressing around controlling game mechanics.

Heroic != Good and Villainous != Evil. These are qualities of character, and not necessarily opposites either.

Heroic = exhibiting courage and daring

Villainous = depraved, highly objectionable

Usually heroes are not villains, but it is possible in certain conditions.

I think part of it is that the CoC CCG and LCG have a more pulp feel to them than the nihilistic feel of HPL's writings. It makes it easier for the game I guess.

TheProfessor said:

This a reasonable explanation.

The_Big_Show said:

This is too, and perhaps more likely the intent of the creators. But I do want to be absolutely clear, since some of the replies sound more irritated with my query than I would have liked: I was merely asking for opinions on the keywords, and in no way was calling out the game creators for doing this. As license-holders for CoC they have far more interpretive claim to Lovecraft's work than I do. They like their Cthulhu coffee creamy; I like mine black. Neither is objectively better than the other.

I still think the subtypes come more out of game mechanics than flavor. In essence having Heroic and Villainous creates a sort of self imposed restricted list. This allows design to create cards that would otherwise make broken combos or other undesirable issues.

MarthWMaster said:

Who was irritated?

I was inclined to say that you were, but after rereading your posts I see I was greatly mistaken. I'm very sorry about that. I come here from the L5R forums, where virtually every opinion offered is met with hostile resentment by those who disagree, and I guess I've grown so accustomed to that kind of social terrain that I expect it everywhere on the internet. I can't think of any other explanation for how I managed to read your reply as antagonistic. Please accept my apologies.

MarthWMaster said:

Been there. Hear you on this one.

Wow, I've tried to read the L5R forums. I give you massive props for bothering to participate there. I've been fascinated with the game for ages and regularly read their articles and spoilers, but the aggressive and heavy handed moderation on their message boards greatly discourages a new person participating.

In fact, where I to have posted something like this post on the L5R forums, I'm sure I would be warned at the very least for being "off topic," or we could have the thread locked since several of us have now posted something "off topic."

Speaking of which, L5R is another game that has "Hero" and "Villain" keywords without really having a good/evil affiliation determined by them. Kind of like what TheProfessor said, heroes are people who bravely fight without regard for their own safety, and villains have a tendency to move themselves out of harm's way immediately after doing something.

But then I suppose it's a different thing entirely in a setting where the "villains" have little to fear, except from other villains.

I'm hearing what the Professor is saying, and getting the nihilistic versus pulp atmospheric argument, let me pose an idea of my own:

You have, for example, Deep Ones. They are not fundamentally evil per se, just in the story that I remember them appearing in (The Shadow Over Innsmouth) their goals were fundamentally opposed to those of humans that happen to stumble across their secret. If a Deep One came into my house and politely asked for directions, I would probably freak out and potentially hit it with one of my crappy possessions, but that doesn't make me or it evil. So in this game universe, I can see that characters who are unabashedly good-aw shucks-save the damsel in distress-types could tolerate working with otherworldly creatures (knowing so or otherwise) as long as they don't have to work with ultimate forces of evil badness.

So while I get what everyone is saying, I would offer that there DO exist characters in this game (and probably in life) that are the definition of Heroic and would only do things that would be commonly interpreted as good. Similarly, there are characters that are evil and just don't give a **** about doing whatever it takes to get their way, which might involve doing things commonly interpreted as evil.

My two cents.

I think if a character in CoC is considered to be villainous or heroic is decided from a human viewpont.

In Lovecrafts (universal) view the GOOs aren't explicitly evil, just selfish and ignorant of the needs and wellbeing of everyone else in the universe. They don't intend to live peacefully beside humans - for them humans are fodder, potential slaves or just vermin. So from a human viewpoint I think they can be very well identified as being evil or villainous. And if you use the human viewpoint as well on other characters they can be considered to be villainous and heroic, too, without contradicting Lovecrafts universal viewpont.

And besides the mutual exclusion there is another game mechanic that deals with these two keywords - some agency characters have abilities that aim specifically at characters with these keywords, namely Thomas F. Malone, Kirby O'Donnell, Paranormal Specialist and Nathaniel Elton, which gives the agency a good way to deal with GOOs. So there is more to these keywords than just the mutual exclusion and flavor.

Nico Deluxe said:

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Whatever deck or faction we choose to play in this game, we're still all human, and the game was made by human hands, all the stories of the Mythos are told from a human perspective -- considered in that fashion, it would probably make less sense if these keywords were absent.

I've had to apply some imagination in my interpretation of the game to make this work for me Nico, so I think its a great discussion point.

One of my favorite things about Lovecraft is his sensibility of the inhuman universe. My take is that there are some characters who just won't work together, for any narrative reason. Whereas the game invites us to imagine reasons and ways that an anarchist and a byakhee would be working for the same ends, it asserts that Victoria Glasser and Thomas Malone can't find a way to accept that their purposes might be similar - even if they tried to deceive each other. So I don't boil it down to some metaphysical argument that the game is making about people's qualities, but more about how each character sees themselves and each other.

The technical question is more tricky. The question I would pose to try to figure out whether there is a mechanical rather than narrative purpose to putting villainous and heroic cards in the game is whether anyone out there thinks they could build a game breaking deck by ignoring the villainous/heroic restrictions. I don't have a deck in mind, but I have noticed that heroic and villainous characters tend to have more useful abilities (or happen to be powerhouse ancient ones) than their less dedicated fellows.

And that's my 2c. clinking down the chute.