Musings about the world, life, and everything in it.
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Morgan's Miskatonic Repository Con 2021 Adventures
This is a great convention. I feel that Call of Cthulhu Players are some of the best Players as they think out of the box and don't rely on Hobo-Murdering to solve all their problems. They're also able to accept death, dismemberment, or insanity as a story outcome.
This convention is to showcase scenarios that are or will be available through the Miskatonic Repository.
I've noticed a theme in this weekend of horror and madness. Expectations set by the game description and whether it was met in the play through.
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10/15 Friday 10am-2pm
Pilgrim's Hope
First stop in Illinois with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and Frank Butler gets bitten by a venomous snake. It is up to Annie Oakley, his wife, and other members of the show to find Frank treatment in the nearest town of Pilgrim's Hope.
This is still a playtest, so things might go sideways. :)
GM: Jazmin Ospa (Zoekitten84)
Players: Morgan Hua (Annie Oakley - Gunslinger), GrapeApe (Jose Luis Hernandez - Scout), Geoffrey P (Robert Paul Gladstone - Soldier), James C (Samuel Builds-the-Fire - Cowboy)
This was an interesting play test. We ran way short, only 2 hours. Jazmin did warn us that it typically runs 3 hours long. The structure and bones of the scenario was fine and we gave feedback afterwards on what she might change.
We had a good group of Players and we galloped through the scenario. I think Jazmin was too easy on us. I'll point out areas in the spoiler section.
The game promised Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. We had shoot outs and snakes as promised, but I wished we had more of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The story starts out with Frank being bit by a strange rattlesnake with a crescent mark on its forehead. Those in the know (Mythos) know it's snake people. The venom quickly is spreading and finding a doctor is paramount.
We go to Pilgrim's Hope, the nearest town and look for a doctor. There are signs of a snake cult, possibly Snake Handling gone wrong, but we ask the Preacher for access to the town doctor who is being "punished." After we cut a deal, he tells us where he is and we break into the Preacher's house. Of course, there is a mural in the room where the doctor is bound and gagged, and snakes come pouring out of the mural, but we rescue the doctor. The doctor has an anti-venom which can cure Frank. *** We basically grabbed the doctor, shot some snakes, and threw blankets on the rest of them. I felt this scene could have been drawn out a little bit more to add more tension. Getting to the doctor should have been a bit harder. Having the snakes be more aggressive would have helped too. Even if we were bitten, the doctor had the anti-venom. Just let the doctor have enough to fix all of us. ***
Out from the well in the middle of town, with the parishioners chanting and dancing, a giant snake erupts and chases us. *** I think the snake only got a chance to attack us once. This would have been a good place to add a chase scene or at least let the snake try a few times before we got to the train station. ***
We get stopped by some snake people, we shoot one, and run over the rest with our wagon. We rush back to the train station and the giant snake gets stopped by an invisible barrier which it can't cross (actually some sort of max range). We shoot the snake to hell and back again and some Indians from the Wild West show do a ritual dance which also affected the snake. *** The giant snake shouldn't have stopped. I was actually hoping for some train vs snake action here, but the train had already left the station. Even if the snake did hit a barrier, maybe some snake people following the giant snake would be a nice second wave of attackers arriving right after the giant snake. ***
On the horizon, where the Preacher's town was, is a burning inferno.
We go to our show venue and we notice the Preacher there. Jose and Robert escorts the Preacher out and searches him. They execute him and bury him in the manure pile. We find nests of snake eggs planted around the venue and we destroy them.
Apparently, we short circuited part of the scenario by cutting the deal with the Preacher. Another group searched the whole town for the doctor. Also another group tried to have a shootout with the giant snake and wound up mostly TPKed. Our group thought saving Frank was the utmost importance and mainly beelined to the doctor to save Frank. We were the first group to actually get out of town with the doctor.
I thought maybe having more of the Wild West Show would be interesting, maybe having subtle snake things go wrong at the show such as snakes appearing in bottles being shot at, snake eggs in the hardboiled egg vendor, all culminating with Frank being snake bit. Also put the Preacher and his people in the audience, implying that they had a hand in sabotaging the Wild West Show.
I guess the only problem is it's always snake people and snake handlers, a worn trope, but what I like is the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It'll be fun to play Buffalo Bill and the other famous people in the show, including Frank Butler, and instead snake bite various people at the show and force Buffalo Bill to find enough anti-venom to cure everyone. Also there is a lot of history there to mine. My advice would be to expand the scenario to be more about the Wild West Show instead, then it could be a source book for other games.
If you build it… THEY will come! Pulp scenario. In rural Iowa in the 1920s, a barnstorming baseball team is all set for a game in a small town. There’s just one problem: the whole town says that field is haunted by ghosts!
Rural Iowa in the 1920s. In any other era, you would be international baseball stars. But given the racism and sexism of the time, you instead make your way barnstorming with the All Nations baseball team across America, playing in rural town after rural town, working for what is essentially a carnie advertising a sideshow. You're not making millions living in New York, but hey, it's baseball, and you get to play it for a living.
But now, your boss has seemingly screwed the pooch. The piece of land that he rented out for tonight's game would make an amazing field. If not for the fact that nobody in town wants to attend the game, because they all think that field is haunted by ghosts! You're going to have to figure out what is going on with that field, and possibly, confront this evil spirits that threaten to ruin your baseball game!
This is a Pulp scenario that has investigation as well as action, but focuses on fun and uses the full Pulp rules.
GM: Al Smith (diesel680)
Players: Morgan Hua (Ginny "Pretzel" Washington - Two-Fisted), DoctorKreiner (Jose "Cannonball" Alvarez - Beefcake), Matthew G (Leroy "Mudkat" Malarkey - Rogue), Geoffrey P (Jessie Carter - Dreamer), Richard C (Hiroshi "Boots" Akada - Outsider)
I so wanted to use the line, "There is no crying in baseball." But I never got to use it.
The pre-gen characters were a lot of fun. Richard was a great Hiroshi, amazingly entertaining. Another good group of Players.
I felt there was too much investigation for a pulp game, but it's my problem as the scenario description did say, "investigation as well as action." In our play, we did 50% investigation, 50% action. I go with the philosophy that in a purist Call of Cthulhu game, you find the clues; in Pulp Cthulhu, the clues find you.
I enjoyed the game, but some of these baseball players are really dogged investigators! Who would have expected that. The investigation did pay off and probably saved our bacon.
Field of Screams is a play on the movie title: Field of Dreams. The only thing is I wanted was more baseball! We actually, never got to play a single inning of a game. The only game sort of happened off screen.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Scenario starts with the PCs, all baseball players, listening to an argument between our bosses, Edith (manager) and Eddie (owner), about how the field we're on is haunted and no one will come to watch our baseball game. We get tasked to go into town to drum up some interest. We throw balls around and sign autographs. The townies are friendly enough, but all have excuses NOT to show up at the game.
After talking to the Mayor and others, we find that a blue light shows up with ghosts and people vanish, some to return with odd injuries or aged differently. We also learned the Mayor owned the land we were going to play on.
We obtain an idol from a brother that had returned and find that if we combine it with its matched pair on the missing brother, it would seal the away the underground K'n-yan, preventing them from materializing. One PC got a critical Mythos roll (01%) when examining some info and we learned about the K'n-yan.
Edith gets kidnapped by ghostly K'n-yan. We enter the hollow earth via a tunnel in the pitcher's mound. After mowing down some K'n-yan, rescuing Edith, and getting chased out of the hollow earth, we seal the entrance (we rescued the missing brother too, he had the other idol).
Outside, the Mayor grabs Eddie hostage and we negotiate his release. He explains (yeah, villain monologue) that we ruined his sweet deal with the K'n-yan. We tell him the K'n-yan was tired of us surface dwellers and was ready to invade and punish us. As he leaves, I bean him with a baseball, and we take all his money (to make him penniless) and stow him on a cross country train.
We also win our baseball game (but offscreen as a yes/no question). Even a montage of greatest hits, asking each Player a game highlight would have helped here.
I found the chase a bit flat, it was mostly run as RAW (rules as written), but the obstacles were a wall to climb, a gap to jump across, a hole to squeeze through, and falling rocks to avoid. The bad guys got 2 actions and two PCs only got 1 action (the other three PCs got 2 actions), so I actually thought I was doomed as the chase track had 10 locations. There was no way to outrun our pursuers. Some of the faster PCs did slow down the pursuers once by blowing up a bridge and Jose sacrificed himself which bought enough time for my character to escape. I'm not sure what could be done to make the chase more exciting. To make it more interesting, I did suggest adding in baseball based obstacles, maybe areas where a slide into home base would be useful, or throwing some rocks like a pitch or swinging a bat at some natural feature that would create some obstacles.
We also didn't have to go far to get into the hollow earth, but hey, this is only a one-shot, and realistically, we wouldn't travel weeks underground, without food and water, to save Edith.
I sort of wished we actually got into an inning of a baseball game and had ghosts and stuff showing up during the middle of the game. Then we would have had a chance to use bats and balls against the ghosts (to no effect, or at least to horrific effect).
A letter from an inmate at HMP Dartmoor Prison, Devonshire, England. A request for your forgiveness in the final days of a man’s life in exchange for a substantial reward for your time. Is this too good to be true?
If curious souls are willing to cross the threshold of the prison gates, they will find answers to the questions they didn’t even know they were asking.
Questions about who they are, who they will become, and what they are willing to do to live long enough to see it come to pass.
Can you survive the deadly game of cat and mouse within the prison walls and find out what secrets lay beneath England’s most infamous prison?
GM: Thomas Newman (Newman)
Players: Morgan Hua (Eleanor Rigby - Dilettante), David J (Det Inspector Martin St John-Wells - Detective), Martin E (Thomas "Slugger" Malone - Street Punk), Andrew A (Dr Tobias Haigler - Archeologist), Geoffrey S (Captain Richard Hillwood - Army Officer), Denice K (Jimmy Mae Finley - Gambler)
Great atmospherics. GM brought sound effects and background sound tracks that enhanced the creepiness of the game. GM's descriptions of locations were well written and added greatly to the atmosphere. We also had an excellent group of Players.
I really admire the GM's descriptions and use of sound effects. His descriptions were the right balance of getting the atmosphere right and not being too long. A case of being just right which is really hard to do. I myself, generally try to error on the side of being shorter, so the pacing doesn't suffer. I've tried to do sound tracks for various games and I always forget to change tracks. So, kudos to the GM.
The game promised an infamous prison and most likely an escape. I think this game delivered in spades.
This was my favorite game of the convention.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Six strangers all get a letter that brings us to Dartmoor Prison, unknown to us, the same letter.
We get escorted in and are put in the visitor's room to fill out visitation forms. After a long wait, we look for the Warden and find that something horribly wrong has happened in the prison. There are signs of violence everywhere. Every room has some creepy stuff in it. The theme is consistent, so it's not only there for shock value.
After exploring most of the prison and releasing some of the inmates, we find that the prison is a trap for individuals who are a threat to the universe. This prison has been trapping individuals for centuries. We find a map that leads the way out.
We escape after fighting the Warden and facing a test where one PC had to sacrifice themselves.
In the end, we escape, but there's a hint we're still hunted by Hounds of Tindalos.
At various points, I wondered if the secret way out was a test and part of the trap, and we would come out of the sewers back into the prison. When we finally saw the outside, there was a great sigh of relief.
It’s the Summer of 1969 and the whole family is coming on vacation this year. The station wagon is full. The destination: Valley Lodge off Route 10 near El Paso, Texas. However, it’s not long before the family gets lost. The station wagon is low on gas and the dirt roads just keep crisscrossing. Maybe you can get directions from that house - or perhaps a place to spend the night.
The Fingers of Fate is a Call of Cthulhu scenario sequel to one of the worst movies ever made. Can the Waldrup family survive a night in the strange and terrible house of The Master? Can they even hope to escape? Players take the parts of various members of the Waldrup family of 10 of Sweetwater, Texas, come to El Paso for an exciting vacation. Extra characters can be used as backup characters if the worst should happen to them. This is a playtest for an upcoming Miskatonic Repository scenario.
GM: Andrew Miller (Max_Writer)
Players: Morgan Hua (Melvin Waldrup - mouth breather, Hugh Utley - Melvin's Uncle [replacement character]), John F (Leroy Waldrup - used car salesman), Justin L (Dough Utley - nerdy youth), John L (Phyllis Waldrup - aspiring teacher)
I had a lot of fun playing in this. I got to play a clueless mouth breather and after getting knocked unconscious, I played Hugh Utley, his uncle. The final fight scene was pretty exciting though I suspect 2 or 3 PCs should have died, but the GM was being nice.
The game promised Manos: The Hands of Fate and some helpless family getting slaughtered. The GM did a great job of making sense of one of the worst movies ever made. I came in cold, never having seen the movie, but it all worked for me. We all escaped alive, though some of us needed to go to a hospital afterwards.
Second favorite game of the convention, but only by a little bit. I think if we had more Players with more PC interactions, it could have edged out The Prisoner's Dilemma as my favorite game this convention.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
Our station wagon gets stopped by a cop, which Leroy (my PC's dad) talks out of the ticket. We then get lost in twisty desert roads (and low on gas) and find ourselves at a house we didn't see before.
We approach the house for directions and wind up staying the night. We meet Michael the caretaker and later Torgo. There are killer wolves outside (Leroy got attacked) and well preserved books inside the house.
Luckily, the nerdy kids like to read books and Dough figures everything out.
In the climatic fight sequence, where nothing affected the Master, we kill him and his brides by putting out the brazier. There was no water, so we used sand. Not only did the Master fight us, but the brazier attacked us with smoke and flames.
We take all the antique books and at the hospital report that we got burned during a camping accident and were attacked by wild animals.
After the game, the GM didn't expect us to go agro on the Master, but expected us to flee and hide until daylight. I'm glad that is an option because I wondered what would have happened if Dough had never figured out that putting out the fire was a way to put the Master down.
June 1926. Boston is in shock as it’s Mayor, Arlow Jeffreys is found dead in his own home, every bone in his body broken or pulverized and no sign of an intruder. Boston needs a new Mayor and there is one name that everybody is calling for; Miss Diane Draper, the charismatic repealist who miraculously calmed the savage rioters a month earlier. However, not everybody is convinced she's the right person for the job.
This is the follow up scenario to Bootleg Whiskey, Liquor, Champagne & Wine and part 2 in the American Empire Saga.
GM: Clym Arnold (thekraken75)
Players: Morgan Hua (Ashley O'Neil - mobster/bare knuckle boxer), David J (Huxley - butler), Geoffrey P (Brett Aberauch - Olympic wrestler/rich boy), Sean V (Edgar Dwight - private eye), Michael H (Zooey Aberauch - investigative reporter), Mike K (Eugene Forester - radio operator)
Definitely a weird game and not a in a good way. We had a good table of Players, but the pacing was very slow for me. I'll mark the weird stuff in the spoiler section.
The game promised an investigation inside a Radio Station, but we never even got into the building. Sort of a major fail here.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Mayor is dead and we're asked by the widow to look into it since she was given a mysterious note. We go to the address and find that Eugene thinks there's been a conspiracy at the radio station. He plays a recording of the radio show the Mayor was listening to and Titus (the dog) goes bonkers. *** Eugene is a PC, so he has to wait until the other PCs show up at his place. GM did explain to the Player that Eugene would show up later before he was picked. So, this happens maybe 1/2 hour into the game. Absolutely not a good thing to do for a convention game, have a Player sit out until the other Players show up. ***
We visit Coleman Hardy, the previous radio host, replaced by Diane Draper. His voice is gone and he types out conspiracy theories about Diane and an Egyptologist. *** Giant expository dump. It only served to make us suspicious of Diane, but it didn't really help us. ***
We arrive at the Radio Station and then we have a 2 hour fight outside the Radio Station. We never even got inside. We fight a super strong, invisible Mythos creature. It kept on picking up random PCs, lifting them up into the air. Most of the combat was trying to save each other and trying to get away. This went on for about 2 hours. *** For me, the pace was really slow, the most boring climatic fight I've ever been in. ***
Eventually, the PCs get away. I went temp insane and hoofed it on foot and in the epilogue was picked up by the creature and killed because everyone else was able to drive away.
GM did say this was a shortened version of his scenario and it was mainly survival horror because of this.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
10/17 Sun, 8am-9am
Panel: Dramatic Structure in Scenario Writing
Moderator: Chairperson Heinrich Moore
Panelists: Sean Branney (HPLHS), Michael Fryda (RPG Imaginings), Lynne Hardy (Chaosium), Mike Mason (Chaosium)
Topics: Elements of a plot, building tension, developing strong characters, etc.
Actually, I wasn't being easy on you. I didn't figure the entire family would bum rush the Master and, dice being what they are, I had good rolls and bad. I never fudge die rolls. Add Doug's quickly figuring out how to destroy the Master and his wives, which I should have brought in immediately, and it was all over quickly.
Glad you enjoyed the game. Looking forward to playing with you again.
10/15 Friday 10am-2pm
10/15 Friday 3pm-7pm
10/16 Sat, 11am-3pm-7pm
1 comment:
Thanks for the review, Morgan.
Actually, I wasn't being easy on you. I didn't figure the entire family would bum rush the Master and, dice being what they are, I had good rolls and bad. I never fudge die rolls. Add Doug's quickly figuring out how to destroy the Master and his wives, which I should have brought in immediately, and it was all over quickly.
Glad you enjoyed the game. Looking forward to playing with you again.
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