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Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions
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*** Unless you [[Sealed Evil in a Can|seal it away in a can]], of course.
** There is a collection of D&D jokes somewhere on the Internet that invokes this trope. [http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/Humor/Your%20Character%27s%20Too%20Powerful/ "You know your character is too powerful when..."]. In particular, there was the series on jokes about the demon lord Orcus, who was in the early Monster Manual stated to be so strong that he'd deal damage with a slap with his open palm. The jokes went something like this: "You know your character is too powerful when... ...You slap Orcus on the back, and Orcus dies. / Orcus slaps you on the back, and Orcus dies. / You think "Maybe I should kill Orcus" and Orcus dies..." And so on.
* [[Averted Trope|Handily averted]] by just about every other ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' RPG. In the original rulebook by Chaosium (and from 2nd Ed. onwards), Cthulhu's stats are so high that he's essentially [[Nigh Invulnerable]] (although a big enough attack, say six tanks firing at once, has a reasonable chance of dropping Cthulhu for up to 20 minutes), and he "devours 1D6 characters per round"; in the ''[[GURPS]]'' version ''Cthulhupunk'' (which mixes modern-day ''Call of Cthulhu'', [[Cyberpunk]] and [[High Tech]] Sci-Fi genre), a note indicates that vaporizing the big guy with an A-bomb would only get rid of him for two days, after which he would return... ''[[I Love Nuclear Power|radioactive]]''.
** OF course, even with this there are exceptions, the most famous being the tale of [[Crazy Awesome|Old Man Henderson]], [[Crazy Awesome|the only person to ever have won at Call of Cthulhu]], by using the trick of 1. Becoming Hastur's Greatest Foe, thus allowing you to personally summon him by chanting his name. 2. Knowing that an Elder God summoned without their consent will be really pissed off, but temporarily weak enough to be killed, though you only get one attack to try it. 3. Wiring a building with enough explosions to make Michael Bay blush. Of course, it's technically less [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]] than [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Did You Just Permanently Blow Up Hastur In An Ice Rink?!]]
* In the early ''Call of Cthulhu'' by Chaosium the Headbutt skill allowed you to stop anyone acting for one turn. A starting character had a 95% chance of pulling this off. Apparently, even Great Old Ones are affected by the Headbutt. (Most versions of the rulebook mention that non-humanoid creatures are completely immune to all knockout attempts.)
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** The Ultramarine Space Marine Chapter Master, Marneus Calgar literally punches out the Avatar of Khaine, the bloody handed war god of the Eldar.
*** On a similar note, Ragnar Blackmane of the [[Space Wolves]] manages to single-handedly stop Magnus the Red, daemon prince of Tzeentch and primarch of the Thousand Sons legion, from entering the material realm by throwing the Spear of Russ right into his eye and thereby closing the portal that was threatening the planet. Oh, and is it worth mentioning that he was still a Blood Claw when it all happened?
*** Worth mentioning that when their paths crossed again, {{spoiler|Magnus remembered that last time. Same Wolf, same weapon and same intent. Our one-eyed Primarch buggered off just as Ragnar was about to throw the Spear, thus saving the system in a general sort of way}}.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has a good number of [[Eldritch Abomination|ineffable, horrifying beings]] out there on the periphery, all designed so that your characters will inevitably beat the snot out of them. A lot of ''gods'' in ''Exalted'' are weak enough for starting characters to kill them without much trouble (granted, many gods are "Least Gods", whose dominion encompasses things like individual blades of grass). ''Scion'', by the same company, follows the same design philosophy.
** The quotes page for ''Exalted'' contains this gem, apparently found on rpgnet.
{{quote|Exalted is in many ways like [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]. Both can be set in a [[Crapsack World|largely negative world]] and both contain [[Eldritch Abomination|mind-numbing horrors]] whose [[Finger-Poke of Doom|gentlest sneeze]] could [[Person of Mass Destruction|kill half of Malaysia]]. The difference is the scope of fear; humans fear Cthulhu, Cthulhu [[Humanoid Abomination|fears]] [[Badass Abnormal|the]] [[A God Is You|Exalted]].}}
** ''[[Scion]]'' also averts this, however; yes, you ''can'' kill the Titans, but there's a reason [[Sealed Evil in a Can|the gods sealed them up instead of doing it in the first place]]. Remember the Ice Age? It ended the SECOND Ymir was killed. And flooded most of the Earth.
*** To elaborate: Titans in Scion are less like living beings and more like worlds unto themselves (they do have minds, but like A'tuin the Great, they think thoughts so huge and slow that lesser beings cannot hope to comprehend them), floating in the Overworld, with landscapes, cities and entire races of monsters within them. Each one of them represents (and is naturally ruled) by a certain basic element of reality, and it's existence ensures the continued existence of the element. Any attempt to Punch Out a titan would result in [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu|breaking the World's arm.]] Killed the titan of fire? No more fire or heat in the universe. Killed the titan of darkness? Now the entire universe is filled with endless, blinding light for all eternity.
* The cover of ''Summoners'' for ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' probably deserves mention here.
* The tabletop roleplaying game ''[[Cthulhu Tech]],'' which is a mashup of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' and ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'', both averts and works this way. The Old Ones themselves pretty much automatically win if they actually bother directly fighting any number of protagonists, and the awakening of Cthulhu would officially screw over not just the human race, but an alien race trying to invade as well. Even the avatar of Hastur, horribly crippled to work within our limited sets of dimensions and weakened by improper summoning, is set as outgunning every other army on the planet combined. [[Deus Exit Machina|Thankfully, he stays at home]]. On the other hand, you can easily beat up a few [[Humongous Mecha]] or even an [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Engel]] with luck and some simple soldiers, or survive exposure to the infinite dimensions without being fried instantly. Seeing an Old One directly ''can't'' even drive you irreparably and instantly insane on its own, and lucky individuals can stroll up to the body of Cthulhu, take a picture, and leave without taking a single point of insanity.
* The boardgame [[Arkham Horror]], a spin-off of the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' RPG, involves the players trying to close interdimensional gates opening around the town of Arkham. If they fail, a Great Old One awakens and the players have to fight him. It's possible, but extremely difficult, to defeat the Great Old One (unless it's Azathoth, who [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|automatically ends the game with a loss for the players]] if he awakens).
* ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]]'' has a Cthulhu version, as well as a variety of others. It has been stated in the Internet-based epic rules that with these rules in play, at high levels, you can have enough personal power to kill a radioactive Cthulhu and his clone. Presumably, by this point you have six hands, and they're all on fire.
* ''[[Monsterpocalypse]]'' features the [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo|Lords of Cthul]], who have "We were inspired by [[H.P. Lovecraft]]" written on them in the maddening tongue of R'lyeh. Complete with tentacles. In the backstory, they're avatars of cosmic forces and are here simply because they like making people dead. These avatars can be taken out by tank fire, kamikaze cyborg alien birds, and 60-foot-tall [[Highly-Visible Ninja]] bodyslamming them.
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