Hey, Veeky Forums. I'm planning on running one of the adventures from this book for my players, and I was wondering if any of you had any experience with them. What works? What doesn't? What needs to be converted?
For those who've not read this already, it's a collection of system-agnostic horror adventures that are more or less designed for Call of Cthulhu. They were created thanks to a Kickstarter, and are up for free right now around the web.
>They were created thanks to a Kickstarter, and are up for free right now around the web.
Then why didn't you post them here
I am interested, but not enough to do any work. FEED ME PDFS!
Could you post link to that, OP?
Also, I never runned a CoC game before, so I'll watching this thread.
Hold your horses, I'm getting around to that. First one's probably the most traditionally Call of Cthulhu.
Second one's also pretty heavily tied to Call of Cthulhu - it's very open-ended, and I suspect that you'd really need the location flowchart to run it properly.
Third's a bit weirder, in that depending on the GM, the party's probably never gonna see half of the stuff in the book - but it's definitely my favorite of the bunch. Lots of strange Biblical flavor in this one.
Fourth seems to be agreed to be the weakest, but it simultaneously has one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a while for a 'mundane' villain. Least interested in running this one.
Last one's interesting, in that it's primarily about surviving a grueling climb up a mountain. You don't see many games put much effort into describing how climbing actually works, and it's really goddamn cool how they've set this one up.
Ah, fuck me, I forgot to attach the .pdf
Thanks OP, for a second I thought you might have flaked
Much appreciated
Not a problem.
Anyways, back to my original question: has anybody run these before? I have a general idea on how to sub in Call of Cthulhu mechanics (SAN rolls of varying intensities, skill checks, etc.) but I'm interested to see if anyone made modifications to the adventure's clue layouts/setpieces to make them flow better.
I have never seen them before.
For 30s material check Pulp Cthulhu.
When you say you have a general idea how to sub in CoC mechanics... would you like to discuss it?
>I have never seen them before.
Same here
Mostly, I'm just referring to how challenges and/or damage to the players is represented - spotting a hidden lever would be Notice, seeing the puppet-monsters from Bryson Springs would be 1/1d6, et cetera. Like i said, I'm more interested in ways to really liven up certain areas, like the anti-union rally from The Red Tower, or the town of Toil in general from Revelations. Things that give them character, you know what I mean?
Not really. As stated, I haven't read the scenarios.
The CoC mechanics and game structure have layers. They can and should all be used to control tension and to decay the characters. But they function in different ways and can be brought into conflict for the players while all coming together to corner the characters for the keeper.
The most immediate one is HEALTH. It is a scarce resource, about 10 HP for the average investigator. And a normal gun can deal 1d6 several times in a round. Getting into a situation that threatens health considerably should be reserved for investigators who have made an error in judgment or have made it all the way to the big boy threats revealed near the end. But a little damage early on can nicely set a tone, raise the stakes, and initiate a slow decay in this dimension.
The next layer is SANITY. It is not as scarce as health, but it doesn't heal as readily, or at all in most one shots. Its sphere is twofold: personal responsibility, and confrontation with extreme experiences. This is probably the main avenue of character decay in CoC. Roll san when witnessing the terrible thing, roll san to do horrible things in order to stop the terrible thing, or do both. Relevant knowledge and sanity tend to be inversely proportional to each other: it costs a lot of san to learn the mystery of a scenario clue by clue. But beyond a mere limited resource it is also a starting point for a lot of flavor detail connected to losing sanity. Unlike health the wounds suffered in sanity stick around in the mechanics and keep shaping the character with little episodes.
Then there's LUCK. It can be rolled against directly to test if coincidence is in the investigator's favor. But it can now also be spent to boost failed rolls making it a bit of a moxy stash, one that easily runs out - just in time to test if coincidence is in the investigator's favor...
And finally there's the CONTEXT of the scenario, the rapport and trust that has been built among PCs and with NPCs, the leeway which the social order grants to anyone who doesn't seem mad, sinister, or violent, and also the feeling that the world has your back and isn't facing off against you after having torn off its mask. This is not in mechanics but up to the keeper managing the game dynamic with story.
These layers come together to form a spiral of decay that first lets the characters seem powerful in their wonderful world and then removes both power and world in increments that can be felt by the players. In the end their backs shouldn't just be against the wall in the story, their sheets should be close to character loss in more ways than just death through major wound as well.
Thank you for dumping OP, these are a good read!
Pretty cool stuff!
Oho, I didn't get that the adventures were systemless? These could very well be used for whatever chilly or creepy RPG you'd like?
Not personally, but there are quite a few AP's of the scenarios. Roleplaying Public Radio (for whom Caleb Stokes writes/runs a lot of stuff) have episodes of Wives of March, Revelations and Bryson Springs; Rag-nerd-Rok did Red Tower IIRC and I think it was Drunk and the Ugly who did Fall Without End.
FUN FACT! All of these scenarios are Delta Green "canon" via the DG scenario "Lover In The Ice", also by Caleb Stokes.
>Just played Saya no Uta
>wanting CoC inspired games
>user delivers
Thanks, man.
Sure - I've seen Revelations done in Cthulhu Dark, Wives of March done in Trail of Cthulhu and Red Tower done in "traditional" Call of Cthulhu. I see no reason why you couldn't adapt these to run in Dread or Tremulus, or anything with a decent horror/investigation focus.