mvincent

fwiw: I live in an area with large, wonderful, popular, well supplied game stores that always participate Free RPG Day, and I was the second person in the door... but I still missed out (my fingers were mere inches away from grabbing the one available copy). But I was ok with that because: The one item that the first guy in the door chose was the CoC adventure (which bodes well for our hobby!) The game store staff/owners evidently valued the other copy they obtained too! I already have lots of CoC adventures (and I'd rather have other players brought into the hobby) I knew I could eventually get a pdf copy of this one (thanks Chaosium!) Later, I was further delighted to learn that we could order print copies as well. Way to go Chaosium!

What did they do for fun? Go to the movie theater or listen to serials on the radio (in addition to the items mentioned above) How much hours a day did they spend studying, attending classes, etc...? About 5 hours of class each day, Monday to Friday (and theoretically another 5 hours studying, but that can vary) What was the relationship between male and female students? Usually non-physical (joke... the ratio was fairly equal, or just a bit higher for males) Was it usual for them to have cars, or did they all live in the campus? They usually did not have cars, and lived on campus At what age did they join University, and how long till they majored? 18. Four years to obtain a bachelor's degree Note: this was during the Great Depression, which likely set the tone for many students' lifestyles.

I believe an updated English version BtMoM has been in the works for awhile. It seemed the most likely to be the next big conversion project... but that might be awhile off now. It would likely utilize the French (and German) improvements, similar to how HotOE did. The French/German versions of BtMoM expand on the adventure, but did not contain as many art improvements as did the French versions of HotOE and MoN. Indeed, the French version of MoN is visually stunning, and I hope Chaosium decides to use that eventually. I also hope that when BtMoM is redone, they also redo the writing to make it easier to run. I'm currently running BtMoM, and it is a challenge: Dozens of NPC's: almost all of which are available at almost all times, and each with detailed backstories and personalities. Complicated logistics Lengthy writing that does not advance scenes, nor can be read aloud. It extremely difficult to find (or memorize) what you need to run a scene, or what is germane. Very little opposition (other than nature: which can be both boring and cumbersome to players) NPC's (and their interactions with each other, rather than the PC's) being the focus of the campaign. Appears to be written by an author telling a story rather than for ease of use by a keeper. BtMoM has been hands down the most challenging campaign for me to run (and least enjoyed by my players, despite a lot of work on my part). I cannot recommend it as is. However, seeing how wonderful the new HotOE turned out, I'm holding out hope that a new version of BtMoM could fix these issues... especially if crowd-sourced feedback is used.

I've run it a few times with 7e and did not encounter problems.

Correct. Thank you for pointing that out. I believe that was more acceptable (and legal) back then... but it was still likely added as a realization of ickyness for the players. I'd reckon he was still 23 years her senior then also (making him 38 years old)

It can be hard to find. Check your emails with "Time for A Time to Harvest" in the title. Several paragraphs in should be a sentence saying "The password to access this forum is".

Some possible MoN prequels are discussed here and here. The Prequel scenario in the MoN Companion is especially apropos. fwiw: when I ran this at a convention, I simply assigned Jackson Elias to one of the players as a PC... then shocked everyone with a 'PC death' in the very first scene.

Please don't try to remove the "Organized Play" label. I was heavily into running Organized Play for WotC for the last 6 years (when it seemed to be at its biggest and most defining period), and this label is exactly what I wanted from CoC. I'm extremely glad it occurred. The term "Organized Play" denotes an organized, supported effort to play the game we love. It generates enthusiasm and a sense of community, which results in more players. It need not indicate additional rules (especially since CoC tends to be so freeform anyway). Certs and logs were fitting for some organized play games (where leveling up and optimization were a large part of the fun), but I wouldn't think their strict nature would really be apropos for CoC, nor would the extra work be as likely to be viewed as 'fun'. Better to just use clue handouts and research notes as normal instead of formal certs and logs. Indeed, strictly enforcing rules just in general seems antithetical to CoC (and this is coming from someone that was the biggest rules lawyer ever in D&D4e). That said, I still might like to see: - Scenarios designed to be 4 hours long. This helps with both gamestore and convention play. It also allows players to move between referees as necessary (as they won't be doing so in the middle of a scenario). - Point buy as the accepted practice for generating PC's. I don't want to have to explain to an... enthusiastic player that his rolled stats don't seem credible.

Thank you all for the pictures! Some further ideas concerning pictures: 1) I affix them strategically inside my scenarios using (blue) painters tape, which is easy to remove. 2) As they are encountered, I affix the pictures to the player's area map. This gives my players a sense of location and provides a visual record of their investigations (it also begins to look like a classic investigation board). 3) For NPC's with a lot of dialog text (or a monologue), I've previously printed that text on the backside* of the picture for easy reference, allowing me to hold up the picture as I read the text (instead of looking down in my book). * Actually, I just turned the picture upside-down, printed the text below the picture, then folded the picture over. This also allowed me to hang the pictures from my GM screen or place them on the table like a 'tent'.

In addition to the Arkham horror miniatures, I'm also partial to Heroclix (rebased onto these). Some examples of students include: Rick Jones Simmons Fitz Skye Pepper Potts Harvey Dent John Jameson Peace Brigade Thug Walter Kovaks Ben Reilly Jessica Jones Mary Watson Peter Parker Other favorites include: John Jones Bruno Mannheim Bad Samaritan Clark Kent Aldrich Killian Frank Drake Norman Osborn

Nice idea! To speed this up even further, you could have each of these separately printed on a piece of paper (possibly with a picture or additional details) and have the players randomly select one (i.e. to save the time of you reading each one while they write them down). You could also allow them to swap with or copy from other players if they desire. These NPC picture handouts can also be useful later. I refer to such props constantly to help my players remember the various NPC's they encounter.

This forum seems to average about one post every few days...

'Organized Play' wasn't really a thing until recent years, so it's possible that no one even suggested it back then (especially since 'Organized' is literally the antithesis for 'Chaos'). I'm very happy to have it now. fwiw: In 2014-2015 I sent some letters to Chaosium asking about an official organization for Chaosium referees. It's almost certainly coincidence that they actually created one, but I still consequently view them as the most responsive, obliging game publisher I've ever interacted with

The nice lady that runs ArkhamBazaar.com has a short (week-long, almost over) Kickstarter for: Cthulhu Mythos Petroglyphs Interesting pictures of Call of Cthulhu props! I've pledged for previous Kickstarters she's done (including the CthulhuCon ones) and they've always been good quality and prompt.