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Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Missed Dues & Blackwater Creek - Scenarios - Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed - Review
Missed Dues and Blackwater Creek (CoC 7e, 2016, 80 pages) are two scenarios that are included with the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack which includes GM screen, scenarios booklet, character sheets, and 3 maps: Arkham, Lovecraft Country, Earth.
I have the 2015 KS edition of this, so there may have been some changes. My copy of the scenarios has 93+ pages and also a Keeper Reference booklet (22 pages), and color maps of locations from the scenarios in the Keeper Rulebook.
You have an option of either using the pre-generated mobsters or using existing PCs. There are no pre-gens of regular investigators of university professors and librarians. You can use the pre-gens from the QuickStart or some of the other published products such as the CoC Starter Set or Doorways to Darkness.
I played Blackwater Creek and ran Missed Dues, in both instances the PCs were mobsters. I do want to say that as mobsters, there are viable solutions to scenarios that law abiding citizens would never attempt. It's sort of fun to have no qualms about murder, intimidation, or blackmail. So, some scenarios with mobsters as PCs have an easier solution than with law abiding citizens.
Most of my sessions are 3 hours long. Different groups take different times, but my run times are here for comparison purposes. At conventions, I generally book a 6 hour time slot which includes time for explaining the system and a break for food.
I hide spoiler sections with JavaScript. If you have JavaScript turned off, you can skip the spoiler sections I have marked.
Missed Dues
Time Period: Oct 1922
Location: Miskatonic University, MA
Pages: 37
Run Time: 1 session
Pre-Gens: 6 mobsters
Hook: "Sticky Jack" Fulton did a job on the sly and didn't pay the mob their percentage. It's been a week and now he's missing. Find him and get the missed dues.
I ran this with mobsters, but not the pre-generated ones. I was running a series of mobster scenarios, changing the hook for various published scenarios, giving them a mobster slant. So, they used their pre-existing PCs.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: You don't have Jack's home address, so look for Jack's apartment. After a few twists and turns you find it. Inside is a house of unspeakable madness. Get out alive.
The Bad Guys: Cultists, crazed woman, Servitors of the Outer Gods, Azathoth.
A pretty simple scenario. It all depends on where the PCs go to find Jack. There's lots of locations where you can get his address. Eventually, PCs enter the apartment and things are really messed up in there with various scenes of horror. One door leads to outer space and the Outer God Azathoth. This could lead to a TPK or permanent insanity.
When I ran this, I gave a few clues, like the sound of unearthly piping coming from the other side of the door. The door was more than ice cold. I had a split party, so I think only two PCs decided to open the door. One went insane. The other closed the door and fled. The other PCs were in other parts of the apartment looking for Jack and found their own horrible tableaux.
=== SPOILER SECTION END ===
Blackwater Creek
Time Period: Sept 1926
Location: rural Massachusetts (can be tied to Miskatonic University scenarios)
Pages: 49
Run Time: 1 session
Pre-Gens: 6 mobsters Mobster Hook: Bootleg whiskey is being made out in the boonies. Find the makers and cut a deal with them.
MU Hook: Prof Roades and his wife are missing. The rest of the archaeological expedition has returned from the dig site. The new school year is about to start, see if Prof Roades is ok.
=== SPOILER SECTION START ===
The Plot: The whiskey is made with corn tainted with corrupted water. Deal with either the source of the corrupted water or with the bootleggers.
The Bad Guys: The Sheriff (if you're mobsters), bootleggers, tainted locals, crazed pig, Shapeless Mass, Embryonic Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, The Womb of the Mother.
This scenario has a lot of NPCs and various creepy things and events all over the place. The more you investigate and interact with the locals, the more horrible things you'd find.
I think this scenario might be better if normal investigators were used. We used mobsters and the instant we got our hands on the tainted booze, we decided to leave, abandoning the scenario early. The problem was Jimmy, the boss's kid brother, wanted to investigate more, but everybody else wanted to skedaddle. My character Lenny automatically backed his brother Mickey. And Mickey wanted to leave. I was willing to back Mickey up, up to and including shooting Jimmy and blaming the bootleggers who we had already murdered for his untimely death. After seeing how it was, Jimmy did the smart thing and decided taking the formula for the booze and cases of the product was all we needed.
Meta-wise, I knew there was more to the scenario (and so did the Player who ran Jimmy), but we abandoned the scenario. I think the GM should have played it out a bit more because even with the booze, we'd find out we can't replicate the addictive effect of the tainted booze and we'd have to return to the farm and investigate more. So, maybe with better handling, playing mobsters would still work out.
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