Call of Cthulhu session report

I finally got to game again (tentacle fist-pump)!  This was last weekend.  The twins are over 2 months old now and things finally settled down enough where I could organize a monthly session of roleplaying.

I gave the players their choice of games, a variety of stuff that I already had and knew how to run.  The first voters chose Call of Cthulhu.  Figures, that's the one game that can't be GMed on the fly.  I had little time to prep, probably a total of 2 hours.  That was barely enough time to read through a scenario, let alone take notes and consider changes.

I decided to just create a new scenario from scratch.  One hour spent creating the basic framework the night before and another hour fine-tuning it the day of.  Below is a quick rundown of what happened.

If you're interested in my Call of Cthulhu hack, check it out.  It effectively cut our character creation time and effort in half.

The characters were an odd assortment from the 1920s - gangster, archaeologist, journalist, occultist, etc.  I read over the motivations in Trail of Cthulhu.  When I came to the entry for "ennui," I braced listeners for my ignorance on how it was pronounced.  Minutes after learning that it was pronounced "on-wee," I purposely referred to it as quinoa... which made everyone laugh.

It began with a ski trip to the Alps organized by The Outdoors Society - a Miskatonic University club.  The PCs were on the ski trip for a variety of reasons.

After the obligatory warning that something ominous might happen (a comet was seen overhead last night), the PCs were settled into the ski lodge, either socializing or retiring for the evening... when some kind of starship landed a mile away.

These icy shoggoths with tentacles shambled out of the ship, attempting to grab a human specimen from one of the many onlookers.  That specimen just happened to be the party's Austrian bodybuilder.  There was a struggle, a second alien, and a couple of NPCs getting melted by a milky discharge that came out of their tentacles.

Luckily, all the PCs made it out ok.  The aliens decided to cut their losses and flew away in their ship.  However, the force from their departure caused an avalanche!  Two of the PCs were buried in snow.  Thankfully, they were buried out in time and all returned to the lodge.

A year later, each of the PCs receive a telegram inviting them to Herr Zandyke's castle in Austria.  Herr Zandyke being an alumni of Miskatonic and generous donor, everyone attended.

Upon arrival, the celebration was in full swing.  About 50 attendees were present and all wearing fanciful masks.  One was a peacock with shimmering blues and greens, but also suckered tentacles hanging from where the mouth should be.  Another was a demonic spider with bulbous scaly head and membranous sacs inflating and deflating as the mask wearer breathed.

Each of the PCs was being wooed to join a certain faction and wear a particular mask pertaining to that faction.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to work out the intricacies of these factions, but I want to flesh that out in the near future if I run this scenario again or self-publish it for The Outer Presence.

Regardless, the PCs ended up below the castle on the shore of a subterranean lake.  At the center was a small outcropping of rock, a grotto which contained something of great value.  Each PC was given a ceremonial knife and locked down there for an indefinite amount of time.

Deep Ones came for those who stayed on the shore and another Deep One protected the grotto from those who tried to swim to it.  One loss of sanity was so great the character went temporally insane. A swimmer almost drown; being at zero hit points from a vicious claw attack, he fell unconscious before reaching the rocks.

Luckily, the occultist swam over to save him before he drowned.  Meanwhile, the others were trying to break through the door in order to get back into the castle.  Thanks to the bodybuilder, they managed it.  Taking out a couple of cultist guards, stealing a car, and engaging in a high-speed chase / firefight.

Eventually, the PCs evaded the cultists and flew back to the United States.

It turns out that 3 of the players had never played Call of Cthulhu before.  So, it did my RPG fanatic heart good to pop a trio of tentacled cherries!

VS

p.s.  For the record, "69" was rolled 5 times over the entire evening.

The Outer Presence - playtest #1

This investigative horror scenario was born here.  Got to keep this short.  Busy, busy, busy!  Also, this session report will be short on details - spoiler free, it's called these days.  ;)

Below are the players and their characters.  I told them to create a character concept instead of going through the motions using Call of Cthulhu or something similar.  Interestingly, none of the characters were scientists, explorers, or even academics.  For an inexperienced Game Master, this probably would have led to either GM interference or crying.  I decided to massage their entry into the story.  Seemed to work well, no one mentioned anything.

Oh yeah, I also decided on the 1970's.  Not only is it a compromise between the 1920's / 30's and present day, but I was going for a Cannibal Holocaust type thing.

Tim Virnig:  "Lang"; grew up wealthy; father founder and editor of Gazette newspaper; supposed to follow in his father's footsteps; instead, photographer of B-list celebrities and scandals; in free time, hoping to write mystery novel; also hoping to be a news reporter.

Jeff Adamus:  He played Jeff.  Photography print shop owner; advertising, pop culture, and band/music enthusiast; owns a couple cats; band and business promotion with marketing specialty.

Russell Reed:  Frank Smith; writer; reporter; disco dancing freak; reveals corruption; wants to write detective novels.

Kent Nedland:  Vince O'Donald; accountant; believes world can be placed in a monetary paradigm; scrawny dude; pocket calculator; # crunching.

Marie Nedland:  Susan Thompson; tech person; plays poker and goes dancing; wants to fix the disparity between rich and poor.


Somehow, I turned a desperate need for more explorers into a desperate need for publicity now that the first expedition was such a success (not really a success).  The players were all game and they roleplayed their involvement extremely well.

Clues led them to believe that this wasn't just a fun, all expense-paid tax write-off.  For instance, a couple investigators found a hand-written note telling them that the expedition's last telegram should be shredded so that no one can learn the truth!

Onto New Guinea!  Their host was a piece of work.  I really wanted to push the envelope with what players and PCs might expect from the scenario's principle antagonist.  He pushed a lot of buttons and made everyone hate him.  PCs didn't actually vomit... but they wanted to.  Incidentally, the actor Sidney Greenstreet was my inspiration for Doctor Karl Steiner.

Exploring the temple!  Over the last few years, I've been on the jungle cruise at Disney World's Magic Kingdom probably a dozen times.  The part when the boat goes into that dark structure was the basis for my temple.  Could have been more detailed, but I think it was successful on the whole.

Two investigators went temporarily insane, none died.  Was the world saved?  Perhaps...

The timing went extremely well.  Including 15 min. of character creation, the entire scenario took 2 hours and 55 minutes to resolve.  Good thing as two players had to leave just as we'd finished the game.  The first hour involved the set-up, including arrival.  The second hour involved getting a lay of the land, interacting with the people, and learning what the scenario was really about.  The third and final hour involved exploring the next location, learning the truth, and final resolution.

Probably won't get around to publishing it for awhile as I already have two irons in the fire: the Game Mastering book and Crimson Dragon Slayer, my very own OSR rule-set.  Both will be available this summer!  Check out the g+ community for CDS here.  The support, feedback, and even playtesting (!!!) that I've received since mentioning the idea weeks ago has overwhelmed me with happiness and enthusiasm.  Thanks, everyone!

VS

Other Side of the Screen

Occasionally, Game Mastering feels like a thankless task.  GMs give and give and give.  Sometimes they receive an accolade here or there, other times the scornful, disapproving eyes of ungrateful bastard players!  Hopefully, that's a rarity at your table, but yeah, GMing isn't always glamorous.

That means a long-term Game Master must find fulfillment in different ways.  Chiefly, his achievement is the power of creation, and sometimes that alone must sustain him in the dark times of whining, looking up stupid irrelevant stuff on one's internet-capable cell phone, and weaselly avoidance of any possible damage or ill effects.  Just as God (assuming He exists) must be thoroughly disenchanted with the sentient beings running roughshod over his world, there has to be a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing you made something cool, something alive... and that it wouldn't exist without you.

But this blog post really isn't about GMing so much as returning to playerdom.  Yes, a mere mortal again - or vampire, half-orc, mutant, etc.  It can be quite a shock.  A comedown.  Instead of manifesting a world and controlling nearly everything in it, he's now little more than a scavenger trying to survive another night.

I recently played in a friend's Call of Cthulhu one-shot.  As GMs tend to agree, it was a refreshing change of pace.  Playing is its own kind of fun, different from GMing but still a good time.

There's a mindset that comes with running a PC for a change.  The GM-turned-player wants to make up for lost time.  You see, he's watched all his players blasting away at imperial stormtroopers, beheading trolls, drinking blood, smashing cars, manipulating shadow, committing treason against the computer, and summoning nameless servants for dark puposes.  There's all this awesome stuff that a career GM has voyeuristically lusted after for months or even years.  Suddenly, it's within his grasp!

Prepare thyself, GM, for the second come-down of Christ.  Chances are, a former GM's player experience won't live up to a sliver of what he was hoping for.  These days, I've become a master at managing my expectations.  Years ago, I fell into that trap.  I thought my years of GM service entitled me to a fantastic experience in front of the screen.  I was due, right?  Haha, not so.  A combination of bad rolls, bad luck, player inexperience (yes, years of GMing can corrode forms of common sense), and trying too hard... they all put me in my place.

Older and wiser, I now let the game evolve organically, and my place within it.  Mostly, I was comic relief.  An impossibly handsome and intelligent drifter without much education and the worst dice rolling possible.  In the end, I played my character as if I was him.  Didn't try to be the best, outshine the other PCs, save the day, accumulate fantastic loot, or do a bunch of radical super-maneuvers to impress anyone.

My expectations in check and sense of entitlement gone, I had a lot of fun.  And better yet, I was able to better facilitate the table's fun rather than hot-dogging it, failing miserably, and becoming indignant.  Focusing upon my character allowed the GM to do his thing and the other players to do theirs.  Sure, I was wounded, driven insane, and seemed kind of NPCish next to my companions... but that's the life of a PC sometimes.  His experience isn't always glamorous, either.

I was playing and made myself realize how fortunate I was to be roleplaying at all.  I welcomed the idea of not having the session's success resting solely upon my shoulders.

So, if you're normally a GM and about to play, keep that in mind.  You may not slay the dragon or roundhouse kick Dread Cthulhu in the eye, but fun can still be had.  And if you're a career player, then do something nice for your GM this week - send him a "Great game, man!" email after the session or buy him a 12 pack of his favorite soda or even volunteer to GM for a night.


VS