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7/6 Thurs 5:30-9:30pm.
Rich Food
System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: James - inquist_games
Players: Morgan Hua (Dr. O'Grady), LakshnessMonster (Garcia - Student), Steven W - relnec (Dominguez - Gang Member), Lauren - geolaur (Helen Bloom - Homeless Drug Addict).
For 2-4 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly.
Pre-generated characters will be provided.
It is a cold and rainy December in San Diego, California. The investigators are volunteers at the St. Germain’s homeless shelter. The shelter is at maximum occupancy and the doors have closed for the night when there is frantic banging at the front entrance. Three regular guests have finally arrived, only they are missing extremities and have chunks of flesh bitten off. They tell a tale of cannibalism and corruption in society’s elite. The investigators must unravel a dark conspiracy and face the price of greed. Pre-gens will be provided. VTT: Roll20
Content Warnings: Cannibalism, gore, and possible temporary loss of player agency. There are no instances where an investigator may unknowingly eat human flesh. Additionally, there are themes of homelessness, drug addiction, homophobia, assault, and police brutality with some NPCs and Pre-gen backgrounds.
I enjoyed this scenario. It was quite creepy and the investigation was very interesting.
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The misdirection worked really well in this scenario and made the investigation key in figuring out what was really happening. A number of scenarios are just bread crumb linear plots. This time, you really had to examine everything, put the pieces together, and understand what was going on.
Three guests show up at the homeless shelter with various injuries. They tell us of an abduction by police and an odd party attended by rich folk (sort of a Eyes Wide Shut situation). The rich folk attacked them with their teeth, eating chunks of flesh off of them. They were then taken to a lower level holding room and they were able to escape.
We actually located a possible location of the building and did some breaking and entering and found no evidence they were held there. There were no traces of anything untoward happening there. We did find some scant traces, but it wasn't conclusive. We weren't sure if nothing really happened.
The PCs returned home and there were some spooky things that happened to each of us individually. Signs and portents.
The next day, things happened that made two of the homeless people rich. And we discovered they had lied to us and it was an auto-cannibalism ritual that made them rich. The third homeless person, Marissa, had asked the other two to help with her ritual and they got sucked into the ritual against their will. She only got $500 because her injuries were slight. We decided that she was going to try again and eat more herself this 2nd time around.
We located her at a development site set up for demolition. Before we entered the site, we had the foreman disconnect the explosives from the detonators.
As a precaution, two of the PCs put cotton in their ears (it didn't work). I injected a paralyzing agent in my jaw muscles and Dominguez's; this I hoped would prevent us from chanting and biting ourselves. We rushed the ritual. I failed my save throw and tried to gum myself. The others made their save throws. Garcia was able to disable Marissa with a spell (he secretly had spells) just before a dark entity could set off the explosives.
The misdirection about rich cannibals really worked. When Theo, one of the homeless who had lost two toes earlier, suddenly wound up in the hospital and had his foot amputated, we found two lawyers paying him off and we really thought he had just sold the rest of his foot to them. In actuality, a driverless car ran over his foot multiple times and he was paid to keep quiet by the startup that owned the car service. What really happened was the ritual made a contract with a supernatural being that made the car malfunction, which in turn gave a windfall to the victim.
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7/7 Friday 5:30-9:30pm.
The Diner
System: Horror the RPG (powered by Year Zero Engine)
GM: DontStopMeNow
Players: Morgan Hua (Bill - Head Chef), NoobishIndianGirl (Shelia - New Waitress), WishMoon (Mike - Diner Owner), Steve W - relnec (Det Hank - Retiring Detective), James - inquist_games (Brenda - Senior Waitress).
For 4-5 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly.
Pre-generated characters will be provided. Please contact GM after player assignments are announced.
Horror the Roleplay Game is a new ttrpg utilizing the Year Zero Engine. For this game we will be playing through one of the scenarios in The Dinner - a collection of scenarios for Horror. Introducing "The Diner Horror RPG Scenario Book," straight out of the twisted realms of the 1980s! Get ready for a heart-pounding, spine-tingling adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat! "The Diner Horror RPG Scenario Book" has been meticulously designed for cinematic play, perfect for those one-shot gaming sessions. With pre-generated characters at your fingertips, you and your friends can dive right into the action, learning and playing the scenarios in one thrilling sitting. Immerse yourself in the sights and sounds of the 1980s horror scene, as VHS-style aesthetics come to life in every chilling detail. Dust off your Walkman and get ready for a nostalgic journey filled with retro charm and adrenaline pumping excitement.
Content Warnings: Diner meatloaf, horrible puns, maybe spiders, also maybe slime, and maybe a vampire, diner waitresses name Sheila and Brenda
The system was basically Alien RPG, but in a present day setting.
The scenario was pretty simple, but it was the Player interactions that made this a fun game. Loads of great roleplaying.
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Actually, if you replace the spider infection with Xenos, you'd actually get an Alien game. The only difference was the setting. The spider bite would infect you and then transform you into a spider-human hybrid. There were also different sized spiders: normal, softball-sized, and huge.
Basically, it starts raining spiders. Heavy metal band members rush inside the diner with spiders all over them. Two were bitten and have a bad reaction to the spider bites. We barricade ourselves inside. Hijinks ensue between characters. One of the NPCs transforms. We find that weed protects you against the spiders. And outside is a van with a tin of weed.
The fun bits are the interactions between characters. One of the waitresses, Shelia, was having an affair with two of the band members and in the end, she wound up shooting both of them (killing blows). The retiring detective and head waitress wound up protecting each other and marrying each other. The chef and diner owner bravely ran out to the van to get the weed, but wound up driving away (failed panic rolls), only to return and run over a giant spider. The sequence was really, run over the spider, back up, panic, back up some more, try to get the car go forward, but back up even more. Finally, got the car into gear (succeeded panic roll) and crushed the spider, saving both Hank and Brenda.
One really funny line was when I mentioned that Shelia should have an affair with the remaining band member, she said, "I'm done with dating musicians."
My PC's secret agendas were weak sauce though, much like some of the bad agendas in Destroyer of Worlds. I don't know what the other PCs agendas were and whether they added to the game's chaos.
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7/8 Saturday 8am-noon
Le Dossier Mönch
System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: Joseph - SpoJino
Players: Morgan Hua (Said Kouzham - Lawyer and Moroccan Nationalist), Andy R - RandomAnswer (Sergeant Henry Evans - British Expeditionary Force), misty_lady (Yelena Volkov - Archivist and Egyptologist), princejvstin (Voira da Veiga - Aristocrat and Refugee Advocate).
For 3-4 players, ages 18 and older. This game is beginner friendly.
Pre-generated characters will be provided. Please contact GM after player assignments are announced.
Morocco, 1939: After France declared war on Nazi Germany, the French Protectorate in Morocco seized all German assets in the territory. This seizure included the French military police (the Gendarmes) taking control of the Mönch Textile Factory in Casablanca. While doing so, they discovered a cache of documents that left them befuddled. A contact in the French Foreign Legion has reached out to you for help with some clandestine digging into this factory and the cache of documents currently in local, civilian police possession. Nazi Content: This scenario includes fictionalized images and handouts with Nazi and Nazi-like symbols. Nazis are unambiguous antagonists in this scenario and will not be portrayed as anything other than working against the interests of the investigators. This scenario is a modified version of a chapter from the upcoming Sons of Singularity “The Blessed and the Blasphemous” campaign. Scenario written by Patrick Chandler.
Content Warnings: Body horror, medical horror, gore, brutality, Nazis (including Nazi imagery).
Additional Safety Tools: X-Card
This game felt more like Pulp Cthulhu than purist. But I had a lot of fun anyway.
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I guess when you throw in Nazis and Nazi Experiments, a game always goes pulp.
This scenario was pretty much a straight line A, B, C finale. Introduction was a party where the PCs meet each other. We get asked to go find evidence Nazis were involved in a textile factory. We explored the factory, found horrible stuff in the hidden basement. Went over evidence the police had already confiscated. Uncovered Nazi informants and traitors. Decided to go to a French prisoner of war camp way out in the desert. Face the evil Nazi scientists who were reanimating corpses and destroyed the zombie factory.
The zombie-tank machine the Nazis were building was very Pulp Cthulhu-esque.
At one point, my PC was forging legal documents, picking locks, and making lists of traitors for the resistance. I was an "excellent" lawyer.
One of my favorite scenes was when a truck full of Nazis showed up and we hid in an alleyway. We all made our die rolls or spent enough luck. They didn't find us, but when they went back to their truck, I pulled an Indiana Jones and fired a Panzerfaust at their truck; I had picked it up from the factory's hidden basement and wrapped it in cloth to conceal it from casual onlookers. Boom! Dead Nazis.
The final fight at the prison camp was pretty good too. I shot one of the Nazi scientists. "I got your parts for you!" Blam! Yelena set the zombie factory on fire. Voira climbed on the tank and tried to open the hatch, but it was locked, so she fled from the zombies. Henry had to run back to where we hid our 2 Panzerfausts and finally used it against the zombie-tank. We then chased down the last Nazi scientist and shot him dead as he tried to steal a truck.
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7/8 Saturday 1-5pm
Viral
System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: Jeff - SeattleEgg
Players: Morgan Hua (Enoch Eakins - cameraman), Chelsea - PixelWhip266 (Corina Trench - co-host), Laura - lsnow11 (Ku Hyeon - tech/skeptic), Hilmar - hilmar_firestarter (Marco Proudfoot - host).
For 3-4 players, ages 16 and older. This game is beginner friendly.
Pre-generated characters will be provided. Please contact GM after player assignments are announced.
You take the role of ghost hunters with a hit YouTube channel - you call yourselves the Spektral Krew! You are headed to an island off the coast of Sicily to explore its very dark past. The only public information is a pixelated satellite map and a pile of redacted documents, but a little digging on the Dark Web has revealed something far more sinister. What better way to make your final push for one million subscribers than to stream the investigation live from the island! This is scenario written by Alex Guillotte and Bud Baird, published 2022.
Content Warnings: Nosophobia, Body Horror.
Additional Safety Tools: Pre-game discussion
I heard many great things about Viral and was very excited about trying it out.
This game was very creepy and fun. I would have loved to play this game for over a longer period of time, maybe 8 hours instead of the 4 we did. Wonderful group of Players. I feel guilty in that I think my character, Corina, and Marco took up most of the screen time with amazing roleplaying. I felt Hyeon was slightly odd man out. If I played Hyeon, I would have demanded more screen time as the resident skeptic.
After playing in this, I highly recommend the scenario.
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The scenario is fairly straight forward. TV crew goes to haunted area, explore and get goaded to explore as much as possible because they're live streaming, so they get in deeper than what normal people would do due to a demanding audience. Then it turns into survival horror.
The island has lots of creepy areas: A bridge with lots of icons, mutated fruit trees, burned out area with candles, ash, and bone. We explored only a few areas. I can see this scenario can be much longer if the PCs explore more locations.
Most of the fun is the Players leaning into the live streaming trope of ghost hunters: Asking the audience where we should go; asking the audience to pay us in order to do stupid, dangerous stuff; faking stuff; competing media stars; wannabe media stars; getting 1 million subscribers; getting views.
I brought out the specially marked flashlights that randomly go dim or go out. Corina had a really high spot hidden and pretended her psychic sensitivity was sending her messages. Marco was a big ham.
During the game, Corina pulled down a mutated lemon, asked the audience to pay $500 and she'd peel it. Someone did. The juice looked like blood. So, I asked the audience if someone would pay to have her eat it. We kept on pushing up the price for various stunts. Marco got paid to enter the Cremation Pit, a blasted circle of ash surrounded by candles that were mostly blown out. In the center were still hot embers. Under that ash were human bones. I told Marco to pretend to touch the glowing embers and used blocking to make it look like he touched it. When we went into the Morgue. I asked if the audience would pay for one of our hosts to get on a slab and be slid into the mortuary cabinet for 10 seconds. Corina did it for $10,000. She put on a go-pro and I videoed from the outside and we did a split screen of her being slid in. She wanted to go in head first. Marco did a short monologue right before he closed the door. What happened was damned scary. Her 10 seconds felt subjectively like 10 minutes and bugs rained down on her inside. When we opened the door, she was pissed (and no bugs we could see). Of course, we had a 10 second count down before opening it up and thought she just freaked out. She threw her go-pro at us and ran off alone (complete horror trope!). The finale was a Ouija board séance and the survival horror events after that. After lots of running from really horrible stuff, we ended with a TPK.
7/8 Saturday 8am-noon
7/8 Saturday 1-5pm
