OK, I get that games need to “build ambience” and games should let you get the feel of the character. But I don’t like playing dumb characters or walking through stupid scenes written by bad writers. I suspect others don’t either

In Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth you play a stupid protagonist. I ask you: if you were in an spooky town, with unfriendly, evil looking people, with only one hotel, who’s owner is a serial killer, and has told someone else that he intends to kill you… would you a) sleep in an alleyway, b) run from this town anyway possible, or c) go to sleep in the hotel’s bed and NOT prepare a quick getaway?

In fact, before this scene, your character is so stupid actually walk INTO a building, unarmed, during a firefight. While bullets are being shot. And everyone is dead and you don’t scream “Cease Fire!”

Given no choice from the developer and designer, my character went to sleep and woke up in the middle of an attack that he knew was coming. He staggered into the next room and died. And he did it two more times before he stopped playing, allowed the cthulhuoids to conquer the Earth to go rant on a blog.

Now, I don’t know about other gamers, but I don’t identify with stupid protagonists. Not in movies, when the women don’t lock the doors of house. Not on TV before the second to last commercial I’d actually pull out the macguffin (first seen in act 1). And not in games, where my stupid actions are dictated by a lack of choices. So… what would I do different were I the designer?

I would pull a James Bond, I’d fluff the bed, pull out some cards and play solitaire until I needed to kill or run. I’d also pull the boards from the window BEFORE I went to bed or something else.

Now, I know these actions are Ian Fleming and not H.P. Lovecraft, but even if the plan failed, it would’ve been nice to know I’m not playing a moron in the game. More importantly, H.P.’s stories are full of witnesses, not daring-doers, who passively react to their friends getting killed or investigate a little too far into the tenebrious and rugose. Thus, not even the game is true to it’s original genre.

Working on: The Dinosaur to Oil game. Need to playtest and iterate now.