Call of Cthulhu: DA notes

Its cool because Saxons in the dark ages had so many beliefs that were just blindly stupid or insane that roleplaying an investigator ( in call of cthulhu, investigator is the word used to mean "character" ) in the dark ages is interesting. Coc already has this theme of calling for players to intentionally make choices that are going to possibly hurt their investigator for the sake of roleplaying ... In this game, metagaming is much more of a problem, you're not really allowed to try to stay alive in some situations ... Like, if your investigator goes insane, you're expected to honor that even if it means your investigator does something very detrimental ( Like, my friends investigator has WWI PTSD and his reaction to seeing 5 corpses dead from shotgun blasts was to think he was in the trenches and unload his revolver randomly into the distance . In game terms, he had failed his sanity roll and gone temporarily insane . ) ... If you try to mitigate that, it ruins the game . Probably most people think this is the fun part. Its not that you're scared exactly, its like in a horror movie when you know the dude is doomed. Its not a feeling of fear so much as like gruesome anticipation. You know ? And that's why call of cthulhu works. Thats the fundamental principle, its that " Don't go into the basement idiot " principle. The players are meant to play their investigator as if the investigator doesn't realize he's in a horror, and the enjoyment comes from compartmentalizing and knowing that they are in a horror. So, what I'm saying is, people in the dark ages did all kinds of really stupid stuff that falls in line with that kind of roleplaying. Like the practice of bloodletting to cure diseases, or the belief in the Saxon cosmology ( " Humans live in Middangaerd which is surrounded by two saltwater seas and two freshwater seas " ) and the excessive punishments and offenses to honor... All that irrational and harmful behavior of the Saxons goes well with this game because its the same kind of thing as playing an insane investigator.