21st Century Philosopher: Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed - Tricks of the Trade for Beginner GMs

With the release of Call of Cthulhu (CoC) 7th Edition, there has been increased interest in people wanting to run CoC 7th Ed scenarios. The first time I ran a CoC game was in 1992 at DunDraCon16. The first time I ran a game at a convention was in 1988 at DunDraCon12. So, I've been a Game Master (GM) for a long, long time but GMing CoC intensively since 2011 when I started running Masks of Nyarlathotep (CoC 6th). Then running Etermal Lies (Trail of Cthulhu), recently Horror on the Orient Express (CoC 7th) and A Time to Harvest (CoC 7th).

A Time to Harvest was Chaosium's first Organized Play Campaign released in conjunction with CoC 7th. A monthly campaign released once a month for six months. It is now a published campaign.

It is running this for people new to CoC 7th that I found out that I had some wisdom to impart to newbies of both CoC 7th and CoC in general as a player and as a Keeper (GM in CoC-speak).

Setting Expectations

Most players are familiar with D&D and CoC isn't D&D. Thus, the first thing for newbies is The TALK:

Call of Cthulhu (CoC) is a way different game. It's about investigating and discovering mysteries. As your character survives, his/her skill points gets better (by some, but not a lot) which means the investigator gets better at finding clues, but hit points don't change, so it stays as deadly as when the character started. And when you get better at uncovering clues, you get to know more faster, and the more you know, the higher chance you uncover stuff you didn't want to see (like a kid picking up a rock and creepy things scuttling away) and the faster you go insane. So, CoC is a death spiral. The better you get at it, the faster you kill or drive your character insane. That's pretty perverse. So, why would you want to play a game like this? Well, your character will wind up dead or insane, but you'll wind up saving some innocent people, a town, and sometimes the whole world. Your efforts will probably go unrecognized by the world and even maligned as some crazy individual who murdered a house full of people and/or burned a house to the ground. In short, your investigator will be an unsung hero.

The next is on Player Characters (PCs) not interested in investigating. There's an unwritten contract between players and GM. You should remind your players of this.

The GM is supposed to provide an interesting story and engage the players. The players are required to come up with some reason to be involved in the story. The GM is not required to shoehorn them into the story. If the PC is not interested, then I would tell the player, "That PC happily goes on his way living an uneventful and peaceful life, roll up a new PC that might be interested in this scenario." If the player refuses, then drop the player from the game and get a new player. I've seen players at conventions that say, "Oh, my PC wouldn't do that. I'm role playing realistically. Nope. Not investigating, not going there, no way, no how." So, my question is WTF is that PC doing in the game and why are you as a player here. You've read the scenario description in the con booklet. If this game isn't for you, you may want to leave and find another game. I have no other game and will not change the game just for you. I have other players who are interested in this game and you are taking up a seat that someone else would happily occupy.

Preparation for running a scenario or campaign

I generally have a bullet pointed outline of the scenario and what I want to happen. I found that even the best written scenarios bury a lot of information in paragraphs and during play it is hard to find necessary information. The general style of CoC scenarios puts NPC and monster statistics at the end of the scenario, not when the NPCs are met. If you are using a digital file, it's annoying to scroll up and down the file during play. So, I print out those last few pages.

I like pictures, so I have pictures of NPCs, locations, and objects, either printed out or ready for upload for an online game. For an in-person game, I like to save paper and create a contact sheet that contains all the NPCs (including their names). I then print it out and cut them into squares with craft scissors that make postage stamp-like portraits. I like the effect it has.

Since CoC is set in the 1920's. I have other props that help set the tone for the time period such as a reprint of the Sears and Roebuck Catalog and pictures of period cars.

Google images is your friend. You can google for period pictures and use them in your campaign.

Here's a link to some animated postcards: http://petapixel.com/2016/04/06/animation-created-using-old-photos-early-1900s/

Here's a summary of the 1920s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s

1920s: http://www.1920-30.com/

1930s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_in_the_United_States

Cool video on driving a Model T: YouTube - Model T - Test Drive

Video on how to start a Model T and where the gas tank is: YouTube: Model T - Mechanical Details

Video on Men's Fashion for 1920s: https://youtu.be/2JkQgvsUCSA

For setting, I'd recommend some silent movies: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin.
Buster Keaton: Sherlock Jr, Steamboat Bill Jr, Seven Chances, College.
Harold Lloyd: Safety Last!, High and Dizzy.
Charlie Chaplin: The Kid, The Gold Rush.

Again, Wikipedia and Google is your friend.

Continuity

Most of the campaigns I've run have taken about two years to finish. Not every player who has started in a campaign winds up playing at the end of a campaign. And not every character that starts winds up at the finale. Key to the games I run are consistent players. You need a core group of players that show up every session.

Some players keep extensive notebooks of every clue and NPC name. Some don't. As a player, I'm lazy, so I rely on my memory and Idea rolls afforded by the Keeper. In other games, I take the photographic memory advantage (and rely on the Keeper) if it is available because, again, I'm lazy and rather be in the moment and play against what I remember vs flipping through pages of notes. For me, being a player is a luxury and I'd like to enjoy it, sniff it, breathe it in, roll around in it at my leisure.

For most games, I like to end a session at some natural stopping point such as after a climax or a lull in action or a reveal of a key clue. When I used to run a game every week, I used to end the session on a cliff hanger. The players liked that because they can think of solutions during the down time.

Most of the games I run now are once every two weeks, so I send an email game reminder a few days before the game and put some sort of teaser that summarizes what had happened the session before to jog their memories and to generate some excitement. Also if a player missed the last session, it provides a summary for them.

For online games, I create a website. I post the Timeline of events, portraits of PCs, NPCs, Items, Handouts. Here's my completed Masks campaign website. This was run using the 2010 version of Masks with the Companion, using Pulp Cthulhu (with medium pulp), and also included various other scenarios.

Clue Trails

My games are about clue trails and revealing horrible secrets.

CoC is an investigative game, so there must be clue trails. A well built scenario should have multiple trails going to the solution. If you don't, a problem will occur if the players miss the only trail and they're left with nowhere to go. Trail of Cthulhu solves this by always handing out core clues. A core clue is a clue that is necessary for pushing the investigation forward. In CoC, this can be solved with multiple clue trails, so if a group of investigators miss one trail, they'll find another.

If the clues are too hard to find and all the players fail, then maybe when they follow the last clue trail, you'll have to give it to them, otherwise your game is over. But you should have some consequences. The longer they take to pick up the clue trail, the more time the bad guys would have to prepare or recruit more cultists. i.e. have a cost for the earlier failures.

For a lazy GM who doesn't want to make multiple clue trails or a printed scenario which doesn't have multiple clue trails, what is a GM going to do? You can let the players make an Idea roll. If they succeed, you remind them of something to checkup on that should reveal the core clue. If they fail, the core clue should come with some consequences. e.g. when they followup on the clue, they're noticed by the bad guys and are either chased or attacked.

Most clues are gathered using either Library Use or Spot Hidden.

For Spot Hidden, I treat it as either Passive or Active.

Passive: If there's something to see when they just enter a room. I ask each player to roll Spot Hidden and those that make it notice whatever is in the room. But they can point this out to the other players. The degree of success indicates the amount of detail they see. For instance: A book out of place on the shelf (regular success), A book bound with unusual vellum, maybe human skin (hard success), A book bound with human skin and faint tattoo markings that make an odd pattern on the binding (extreme success). If I don't ask them to roll a Spot Hidden, it is assumed there is nothing unusual to see. But the players can do an Active Spot Hidden to find any clues if there are any.

Active: The players request a Spot Hidden. They are tossing the room. Going through every book, looking for pieces of paper inside books, opening every desk drawer, picking up every statue and looking underneath for markings, examining every piece of paper for clues or odd marks. This takes time to do. If the players want to do this without leaving the room a mess, they'll have to tell me they're doing it carefully and that takes even more time. Each player gets to roll Spot Hidden. If there are multiple successes and multiple clues, I spread out the clues to various players. If there's only one success, I let that player find the most interesting clue and still give out several clues if not all of them. Additional levels of success could reveal additional information useful to the players, so each level of success should give more detail that helps with the investigation. If there aren't more levels of detail, then I may go with giving out additional clues.

Sometimes, I punish them for a really good roll by giving them some creepy details that causes a SAN check. But I do this only sparingly.

If there are core clues, then even a failure on the Spot Hidden will reveal the clue. An example from one of my friends Jeff C.:

I was in a game where the GM put the clue taped underneath a drawer in a drawers chest. Nobody said they were looking there, so the game ended because the players never found the map to the caves. The right solution was to allow the players to find the map even on failed Spot Hiddens, but to give the players additional information based on their level of success. A failure should still reveal the location of the caves, but maybe a success includes important information like a hidden trail to the cave opening.

There are consequences of "tossing" a room. Consequences are based on the current situation and what is reasonable. Neighbors may notify police that someone is committing a burglary. If people still live in the house, they may try to stop you or hurt you before you finish your search. You may make noise and some creature may hear you and come and investigate. For failures, you may break something or accidentally destroy a clue or you may accidentally release something horrible.

Odds and Ends

Fighting Back with a Gun in Hand (official rule clarified)

In the new CoC 7th edition, combat becomes a give and take affair vs one swing of a weapon like in D&D. So, when you are attacked, you can either dodge or fight back. But what if you are holding a gun in your hand, do you get to shoot? That seems like an unfair advantage. You shoot your opponent, then they enter melee with you then you shoot them again. So, I emailed Mike Mason and got the following response:

Once you are in melee, you are in melee - trying to fire off a gun while in melee is very hard - so you cannot fire at someone as a “fight back”. You can use the gun as a cosh* though to “fight back”. If you let a PC fire the gun as a “fight back” then apply two penalty dice (one for “hip fire” and one for trying to shoot while the combatant is hitting you).

On TV in melee - someone has a gun in the brawl - its a messed up situation, and normally the gun goes off hitting the person firing it (as its been twisted round by their opponent).

Anyway, base rule - you are either in melee (so cannot fire, but can use gun as a cosh etc) or you are not (and so you can fire). Otherwise, as you say, [the shooter] has an unfair advantage (due to game mechanics) that wouldn’t exist in real life.

cosh* = pistol-whipping
Stats on p.402 Keeper Rulebook, Hand-to-Hand Weapons: Blackjack (cosh).

I have a separate blog post on Combat Q&A.

Spending Luck (optional rule)

I now allow players to spend luck in both one-shot adventures and campaigns. I originally disallowed spending luck on one-shots but after hearing a podcast that was in favor of it, I tried it out at a convention game and it worked out fine. I also started running Horror on the Orient Express with Luck Spending, but no Luck recovery. Soon, players were down to 8 Luck and moaning complaints when I asked for a party Luck roll. The only relief would be when that character wasn't in the game or when that character died, so I allowed them to regain 1d10 Luck (on a failed Luck roll) at the end of each chapter of HotOE (finishing a city). In my party Luck rolls, where the character with the lowest luck rolls, I include all party members even those not present (e.g. split parties) because I thought it would be unfair to the player with the low luck - that character would always be shunted off to unimportant tasks and it would lead to a bad player experience. So, just like a San check you can't avoid by "not looking at it," a party Luck roll includes characters split off from the group.

I have a separate blog post about Luck.

Group Stealth Roll (house rule)

In CoC, when players are sneaking around, you make every player roll a Stealth roll, and due to the law of averages, someone always fail. In Trail of Cthulhu (ToC), you can piggyback on another players roll, by having each character just spending a point, so everyone can succeed. I found it very unfair to require all players to roll Stealth, so instead, I give the option of a group Stealth roll. Just have the player with the lowest Stealth roll and if he succeeds, the whole group succeeds. In this instance, the group only includes those who are trying to be sneaky. If a character has a very low Stealth, then they can leave that person behind instead.

I have a separate blog post about Sneaking Around in Groups.

Machine Guns (house rule)

The rules for machine guns is pretty math intensive and takes the fun out of opening up with an automatic weapon. Delta Green added an instant death mechanic (Lethality Rating*) where you roll additional percentile dice to see if you get an instant kill (generally 10%) and if you don't do an instant kill, you add up the two dice resulting in 2d10 damage instead of your regular weapon damage. What this does is really just make massive weapons do an overall 2d10 in damage. Seems silly to me. You just wind up rolling 2d10 damage in most cases. And if you happen to roll with percentile dice 01, 02, ..., 09, 10, you do an instant kill, but in those cases, the damage is already 11-19 points (10+1, 10+2, ..., 10+9, 1+10) which would have killed the target anyway.

I would just house rule that the level of success results in a number of bullets that hit. Roll for each target in range for individual results: Fail = no bullets hit, Regular Success = 1 bullet hits, Hard Success = 2, Extreme = 3, Critical = all bullets. If the gun has a higher rate of fire, maybe add an additional bullet to each level of success.

*As a side note: I asked Dennis Detwiller about Lethality Rating and got a great answer. A marine major said that you need to model that a Tomahawk missile can hit a building and most of the people can be killed, but one lucky person staggers outside. So, Lethality Rating models this as 2d10 which generally will kill everyone, but someone lucky might just take 2 pts of damage.

Insanity (thoughts)

As much as D&D models combat, CoC models insanity. In other words, not very well. Pretty funny. In D&D there's lots of combat, but it doesn't model it very well. In CoC, there's insanity, but it uses a random roll up table. The descriptions of the insanities are one sentence long. Description of Manias and Phobias are 3 to 5 words long. It's not your DSM.

Mainly, Insanity lets the GM take control and mess with your character. Overall, it'll add flavor to the game and with a quick discussion with the player, you can come up with some interesting role playing based on the insanity.

But in reality, just like H. P. Lovecraft likes to reference Non-Euclidean Geometry, CoC should really be referencing Non-Euclidean Physics and Non-Euclidean Religion/Philosophy. When a player's San goes to zero, they become an NPC and is driven permanently insane. But what does that mean? I don't think it means that the character turns into driveling puddle of poo in an insane asylum, he becomes Dracula's Renfield. He understands that consuming life gives him life, just like Dracula must drink blood to remain undead forever. So, for CoC, if complete insanity is to understand this Non-Euclidean Physics/Religion/Philosophy, then every step into insanity must be towards this complete understanding vs a random phobia or mania. The phobia or mania can be a symptom of the madness, but the inner workings must be towards this complete understanding of this new Non-Euclidean Philosophy. There must be a method to the madness.

For a campaign game, instead of rolling a random mania or phobia, I'd bring one up that's appropriate and maybe one that would lead to an Insane Insight. See p.169 Keeper Rulebook. Then this mania or phobia would foreshadow an Insane Insight that does happen at a key moment. I'd probably still do a die roll on the random chart for inspiration and see if it applied somehow, but if it didn't, I'd pick something more appropriate.

In True Detective Season 1, Rusty was falling into this madness as he started to understand its reality.

For example: A character drawing something over and over again, is really trying to figure out something or express his fascination with this new Non-Euclidean insight. The character should be mumbling, "It's not right, it's not right," as he tears his drawings into pieces and then starts drawing again, trying to capture the Non-Euclidean in Euclidean space.

Non-Euclidean Art:

Cubism

M. C. Esher

I have a separate blog post on Insanity Q&A.

Using Results from Random Tables for Inspiration (Significant People, Meaningful Locations, Treasured Possessions)

As part of character generation, each PC should have randomly rolled Backstories. To the players, it may look like fluff and additional color, but I found this can be used like Trail of Cthulhu's Sources of Stability or Delta Green's Bonds. During play, these significant people or things can be affected by the Mythos or during periods of madness. So, they can be great story hooks.

PC Death, Hospitalization, or Insanity

What do you do when a PC in a scenario or long campaign cannot continue with the adventure?

In long campaigns, I've had Players decide to play a NPC once their PC dies. It's a little bit more organic than rolling a completely new PC that shows up out of nowhere.

They're at a new location. The PC dies, but the PCs have some NPC allies or someone they saved who now owes them a debt of gratitude or wants revenge. You can do the same thing for someone who is in the hospital or have gone insane. Have the Player pick an NPC to play.

If you have an Investigator Organization which the PCs belong to, then they can easily bring in a backup PC instead. See p.122 Investigator Handbook, "Chapter 6: Investigator Organizations."

But between chapters or scenarios there is always a long gap in time. Generally, months which will let the PCs heal up or get some mental help. Some campaigns have long travel times which fulfill this rest period. If a PC gets hurt or very fragile (mentally) before the end of a chapter (or scenario), then the PC may opt to continue knowing full well that they might go totally insane or die -- which is cool in itself (a true hero). I've had PCs with 1 HP (with a broken arm) go with the other PCs into danger because they needed help. I've also had games with PCs with 12 or less SAN left, where a 3 pt SAN loss = 20% loss (and an Indefinite Insanity), continue playing, knowing that they most likely won't make it to the end.

NPC Skills and Stats on the Fly

You don't need to roll up an NPC like a PC. First figure out the NPC's occupation. Give them 8-13 HP. Avg 10 HP. Occupation skills should be at 50% (1 to 3 skills). Occupation adjacent skills should be at 30%. Everything else should be default %. Dangerous NPCs like a gangster, give them Occupation skills (such as Intimidate and Firearms) at 60-70% instead. If you need their stats for a save throw, just assume it's 50.

Another way to think of this is that for most opposed rolls against a NPC, you need either a Regular success (NPC skill 0-49%), Hard success (NPC skill 50-89%), or Extreme success (NPC skill 90%+) to beat an opponent. NPC doesn't need to roll. So, you only need to decide if the NPC is average, above average, or exceptional in the skill.

Published Scenario Recommendations

For a beginner GM, I'd recommend Chaosium's free Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules which includes the scenario: The Haunting.

Chaosium's Free Adventures, The Lightless Beacon is recommended.
Chaosium's Doors to Darkness contains 5 scenarios designed for beginner GMs.
Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu Starter Set which contains 3 starter scenarios and a solo adventure. Paper Chase which is in the Starter Set can be run as a one-on-one scenario with one GM and one Player.
If you want more one-on-one scenarios, Monophobia (6th Ed, easily converted) provides 3 free scenarios.

For Monophobia's scenario Vengeance from Beyond, I have a blog post on Occult Book Dealers of Arkham

Here are Conversion guidelines from older CoC scenarios to 7e.

For long campaigns: my notes and thoughts

What Books Should I Get First?

Get Chaosium's free Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules.

If you like the game, then get the Keeper Rulebook. It includes all the rules including character creation. For those familiar with D&D, it's a combination of the DMG and PH. This is all you need to start with. Once you have the Keeper Rulebook, you should read "Appendices: Summary of Game System Rules" p.407-419.

The Investigator Handbook expands the list of occupations, adds investigator organizations, and gives background information on the 1920s. It actually collects information from CoC 5th Ed's Investigator Companions' Vol 1 & 2. I rarely use it. It does have "Optional Rule: Experienced Investigators" on p.61 which gives additional experience for soldiers, police, gangsters, and doctors.

Malleus Monstrorum is a huge two volume set. The first volume is on monsters. The second volume is on Mythos deities and their cults. A great resource for making your own scenarios. Unlike D&D's MM, not every creature has an illustration. I estimate only 1/3 to 1/2 of the creatures has an illustration, mostly in sepia tones.

The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic is a collection of all the spells used in previous editions of CoC and their modules. Useful as a resource, but I seldom use this as most modules would include descriptions of unique spells not in the Keeper Rulebook. Also new modules sometimes create new spells not in this book.

How to Prepare for Running a Published Scenario?

Read it first like a story, don't worry about stats and mechanics, so you can figure out the plot and what's going on.
Days later, re-read, but take notes, writing up a short outline with bullet points of key events.
I make props and google additional info (and take screen shots of images). I find NPC and PC portraits, maps of areas, images of local landmarks and objects. I create character sheets (digital or physical).
If you have a PDF, you can highlight various things in different colors. (I hate writing in real books, so I only do this with a copy of the PDF). One color for text to be read to Players, another for important GM triggered events, stats, new rules, SAN loss, etc.
Hours before running it, I look at the outline and highlighted stuff to refresh my memory and add additional notes. If possible, I re-read the whole thing again just in case I missed something.

I have a full blog post on this: Prepping for Running

Basic Investigation Techniques

Someone asked how to give their Players hints as to what to do during an investigation because they were unfamiliar with investigative games. This question was aimed for a more modern time period with PCs in law enforcement. But here's my answer: If they're new to investigative RPGs, then you can hand them a list of generic things they should think of doing. This should be tradecraft that they should be familiar with as a PC. For instance: 1. Google search available names and places. 2. Search a location for things out of the ordinary. 3. Search for someone's cache of secret stuff (hidden safes, hidden compartments, shoe box under the bed). 4. Stake out a location and see who comes and goes and frequency. 5. Follow someone and see where they go. 6. Go get official records such as phone records, cellular phone locations, credit card usage, CCTV and license plate readers, property records, tax records. 7. Get official records of significant others, relatives, and friends. 8. Get school and work relationships (yearbooks, work party pictures, work org chart). 9. Criminal records. 10. Child support records. 11. Interview people. 12. Put a tracer on someone's vehicle. 13. Secretly open their mail. 14. Get into their safe deposit box. 15. Look for undeclared income. 16. Look at foreign travel. 17. Look at security clearances. 18. Look at foreign contacts. 19. Look at historical records (online and library). 20. Look at newspapers for old news stories. 21. Look at their computer, browser history, hidden or encrypted files, areas of interest. 22. Arrest suspect and question them. 23. Tap their phones. 24. Go through their garbage. 25. Do they belong to any clubs, organizations, or have hobbies.

The End

Well that's all I can think of at this point. If I come up with more, I'll add it to this post.

Other Websites

Chaosium's Page: Getting Started (also the free PDF QuickStart rules which includes the classic scenario: The Haunting)
Forum for Lovecraft fans, posts include fan props, maps, scenario clarifications, etc.: Yog-Sothoth
Seth Skorkowsky's great video on Sanity game mechanics.
Online Character Generator: DholesHouse.org

21st Century Philosopher

Monday, August 29, 2016

Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed - Tricks of the Trade for Beginner GMs