morganhua

My players picked that up.  There was definitely an ick factor.  They tried to figure out if they wanted to rescue her, but from their conversation with her, it looked like she was content enough.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html

Yes, back then, it was more acceptable, but still a bit young, the median age for women to be married was about 21.  I think some states let you get married at 12 (puberty).

Those are great questions.  I grew up in the US, but we never really studied it that much in school.  I guess more than the kings of England which we only learned in our English class when we had to read Shakespeare.  aTtH starts in Aug 1930, so that's about a year after the stock market crash.  Looks the game starts close to the time of the first of the big bank runs where people stood in line and withdrew all their money out of the banks which caused banks to collapse and close their doors.

Here's info about the progression of the Great Depression:

http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression

1 hour ago, joggiwagga said:

pg 23, col 1, second sentence: "With reputations already tarnished by their exploits in Vermont (in addition to any calamities caused during this episode), the investigators will have a difficult time attempting to explain that brain-swopped alien agents are about to attack the university."

 

Should be "brain-swapped" not "swopped"

Us Americans like swapped, but apparently swopped is correct according to the dictionary.  I noticed this on pages 31-33 where "mind swop" had multiple occurrences in the NPC descriptions.

On page 9, col 1, para 7:

Quote

feed false data to Professor Learmonth, convincing him that Pasqualle’s Ore originated from a meteorite rather than being a rare Earth element.

On page 12, col 2, para 5:

Quote

Higgins, Noakes, and Thurber have returned from the second field trip with evidence the Pasqualle Ore is not native to Earth. The students claim it must have come from a meteorite that struck the Vermont mountains thousands of years ago. To prove their point, the students have brought another small sample of the mysterious ore they claim to have found in an old crater. There are also photographs of the crater, as well as pages of dated field notes and calculations.

I must have read more into this than was intended because I read it as the Students showing Prof Learmonth that the earlier sample must have come from this same meteorite due to the flight path of the meteorite.  I misunderstood this from the "pages of dated field notes and calculations."  If the students had no idea about Pasqualle, they would have just brought back the sample, pictures, and measurements of the crater.  To actively try to discredit the origin of the earlier sample would require previous knowledge of Pasqualle Ore.

For clarification, I would have instead written it as:

Quote

Higgins, Noakes, and Thurber have returned from the second field trip with manufactured evidence that the Pasqualle Ore is not native to Earth, but from a meteorite that struck the Vermont mountains thousands of years ago. The students bring back photographs of a crater and their falsified field notes and a small sample of mysterious ore from the meteorite they claim to have found in the old crater.  They think this is enough evidence for Professor Learmonth to decide that earlier samples of Pasqualle Ore were from the same meteor shower.

I also found it odd that Prof Learmonth would let Harrold Higgins experiment with the Pasqualle Ore unless Prof Learmonth had a prior history with Harrold.  I assumed a random dig-monkey wouldn't be allowed to touch it and only a grad student under Prof Learmonth would have access to the Ore, especially for experimentation.

What I'm worried about is that Prof Learmonth seems to think nothing is amiss when the students come back with Pasquallium and pictures of a meteorite crater and then try to argue that all Pasquallium in that area is from the meteorite vs native to the area.  And it is clear that Harold Higgins is allowed to experiment with the Pasquallium samples in Prof Learmonth's lab, so it's not such a hush-hush thing unless Harold Higgins is one of his grad students (which was not indicated in Episode 1).

sverbridge's suggestion might work about just bringing back samples from the meteorite crater as a standard operating procedure for a geological survey, but the additional papers and experiments with Pasquallium seem to come out of left field unless the students know about it.  Prof Learmonth would think something is fishy and according to Episode 2 events, he seems clueless (innocent, see p.27 brain knapping ruse).  Maybe if the timeframe is stretched out more, it would work.  If the samples and pictures are brought back without that report.  Then time passes and after the samples are analyzed, the students write that report that is accepted by Prof Learmonth.  Also the brain swapped students are humans, not Mi-Go meat puppets, they have above normal intelligence (most of their EDU is very high, and INT is high), but are insane from being stored in a jar for years (note they all have 0 SAN), but basically they were human.

I guess I'm worried that Prof Learmonth (who has a high INT and EDU, 25% psychology) didn't notice anything wrong.

Also several of the mind swapped students have high psychology skills, so they wouldn't make a mistake that would trip Prof Learmonth's alarm bells since he's one of their main targets.

pg. 16, col 2,  para 3, last sentence: "A search of Blaine’s desk finds an interesting letter (Handout: Harvest Papers 8)"

Should be: (Handout: Harvest Papers 11)

pg. 16, col 2,  para 4, last sentence: "On opening the journal, a loose sheet of paper falls out, which turns out to be a short letter from Professor Harrold (Handout: Harvest Papers 9)."

Should be: (Handout: Harvest Papers 12)

pg. 18, col 1, para 10, line 1, (typo) "Blaine was murder by Javis" 

"murder" should be "murdered"

p. 44. Handout is incorrectly listed as "Handout: Harvest Papers 11"  It should be "12".  It is correct on pg. 20.

p. 45. Handout is incorrectly listed as "Handout: Harvest Papers 12"  It should be "11".  It is correct on pg. 19.

p. 44-45, the right fix is to keep the label, but to swap the two images (letters), then it matches the handouts on pages 19-20.

I'm reading Episode 2 and it's clear that the Geological Survey group has to know about Pasquallium since they return and talk to Prof Learmonth about it.  I'm surprised this wasn't spelled out in Episode 1.  I assumed the Geological Survey group was just told to get soil samples for Prof Learmonth to examine.  With the Geological Survey group returning and telling Prof Learmonth that it was from a meteorite, it seems like the Geological Survey group must have been told about what they were looking for.

Well, I'm not going to retcon what had happened at the dig sites, so I'll assume Blaine who is in charge was told about Pasquallium, but he didn't tell the Geological Survey group about it, keeping it a secret since he was working for the Mi-Go and the whole thing was to keep their mines a secret  But once the students have been brain replaced, the Mi-Go came up with this story to tell Prof Learmonth who has no clue that the original students weren't told about Pasquallium.  Blaine could say he was told to keep it hush-hush and was going to disclose more if the students found some evidence of Pasquallium.  And once they found the meteorite (a fabricated lie), he told them to take a sample for Prof Learmonth.  Of course, any surviving PCs might have some issues with this lie.

1 hour ago, Philippa said:

All he has to do is say something like 'I feel so guilty about what happened last time, I wasn't here because I broke my arm and the others died / went missing / whatever.  I feel like I have to prove myself to the professor, will you help me?'  I think it will make him seem a bit more believable, and then any odd behaviour can then be put down to him not wanting to risk any accidents, wanting to show he can run a safe dig, etc etc.  Having him behaving like a suspicious moron right from the start meant we didn't trust him at all - only the NPC cast of thousands did apparently.  Hence the packing up and heading home when things just got too stupid to stay

In my game, that's exactly what Blaine told them.  I played it up though. At first, Blaine was very reluctant to talk about what happened.  Then a PC pressured him and that's what he said.  He also told them he had a relationship with Devine (true in his head, but untrue in reality) and really didn't want to talk about this anymore.  And I told them he was really upset about talking about all this and was truthful (if they used Psychology).  Since in the 1st expedition, he had nothing to do with the death or disappearances.

6 hours ago, Khelbiros said:

They were talking to various people, but also wanted to explore the town. 

Ah, in my game, they explored the town after the free lunch provided by Blaine at Jim's Grill.  The Deputy gave them a tour (and introduced NPCs in the town) and they did some exploring themselves.  So, they had little reason to return to the town on the next few days when they were given the assignments to dig sites and oral traditions at farm sites.

3 hours ago, Philippa said:

The stories I run are NEVER too straight forward for veteran players.  The veterans are the ones who think they are too smart to fall for the obvious red herrings and so instead fall for the meta red herrings EVERY TIME - I still get curses about the Dark Ocean Society, or Emperor Norton, or 'Have you heard the Hounds?' or even 'going to bloody Ostia' from the experienced players who should know better but can't resist.  But because there is a timeline, by following the red herrings like that they missed out on stuff that other teams got to experience.  So no two sessions are the same (thank goodness tbh, when I am running 11 in the same weekend).

This sounds really interesting.  So far, I've only run published scenarios of CoC (haven't designed my own for CoC, but have for other systems).  Would love to see how you design your games and fool the veteran players.

I think you got distracted by the Pasquallium.  That has nothing to do with Episode 1.  I think it has to deal with later episodes when the mining concern is brought in.  So, when I ran it, I did not bring any Pasquallium into the scenario.  As the dig sites only revealed Indian artifacts, I actually told the PCs that the digs have more to do with archaeology and native plants and geological survey.

As per the bridge, I assumed the Sheriff needed the PCs automobiles as the town is poor and does not have sufficient cars to tow the truck out of the river.  Not only that, it's the student's truck, so it should be pulled out of the river by the student's cars since dragging it out might damage the cars.  I also said it took the Sheriff's car and the two other cars to pull the truck out of the river.  Also, the folklore group includes various male NPCs who can help in getting the truck out of the river, not just the PC females.  The female PCs can be left at the library, but the male NPCs who drive the cars will definitely go to the bridge.

As per the library, that's not what the folklore group is supposed to do.  They're supposed to take a dictaphone and take audio recordings of oral traditions.  What does going to the library help in that regard?  Blaine would veto that, but the PCs can go to the library anyway without telling him.  Not a big deal, since the other group would think that everyone is outside getting recordings.  The NPCs would probably continue with their job of getting recordings, so there's still a group out in the rain.

I put the bridge far from town and told the players that the dig and the folklore homesteads requires crossing multiple bridges to reach.  Each day, they drive further and further as they talk to more remote homesteads.  That's why the mid-wife is the last to be spoken to.  She's at the far end of the valley.  (But you are right, if this scenario is going to be cleaned up for publication, more than one person has complained about the location of the bridge, so it needs clarification.)

I knocked out the bridge after the truck almost finished crossing the bridge, so they were on the side nearer to the Maclearan Farm and Cobb's Corners.  I put the dig sites and homestead north of Maclearan Farm.  The hood of the truck is closest to the shore and the PCs have to jump from the truck hood to the shore as per the scenario description.

Tying up Blaine is a bit extreme.  I think assault and battery would lead to severe punishment by law enforcement.  If the Sheriff or Deputy came by and saw that, they would be in deep doo-doo.  I would bring that up and if they wanted to proceed, I would have them make SAN checks.  And what are they going to do if nothing happens?  Let him go? Then he'll put them up on charges.  Kill him for no reason?  Then that's murder.

I think you forgot there's a big number of NPCs who would be against tying up Blaine and not going on the dig.  Of the seven NPCs, I'd think a fair number would be against it. They could bring up the illegal aspects of what the PCs are planning to do, then you'd have a conflict inside the group.  Some may go along with the PCs, but others will object and some may call the Sheriff, and others may tell Blaine about the PCs' crazy plans.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Hey, at least your group did the 2 subplots.  Mine ignored the dreams and heard about Emily, but didn't care, and never looked for the dream gate.

I just told the players the truth: that's the only portrait that was provided with the scenario and the others are from the internet.  They were able to deal with it.  Some players did say he looked a bit cold.  Jason Trent is your other foil in running the game.  Actually, the players were pretty suspicious of the whole town.  There's so many red herrings in the game, they'll have issues trying to figure out what's going on.  I think that's deliberate.  In my game, they didn't figure anything out.  They suspected Blaine, Trent, and the children in town.  One player had Blaine at rifle point, but Blaine's excuse of having to use the outhouse worked.  The player searched the outhouse and missed the stashed booze twice, so Blaine didn't even have that as an excuse.  Later when Blaine pushed that investigator into the river during the bridge washout, the player decided it was revenge for the rifle incident and not for taking away their attention from the dead Mi-Go floating down the river.  Even leaving the Truck during the rain storm was suspicious, but not actionable.  I mean, what are the PCs going to do?  Murder the guy for getting lost in the rain?   The rain is so hard that it washed out a bridge. And the folklore people got chased away by a guy with a shotgun and told them they were stupid for being out when it was raining cats and dogs. The penalty for murder is either hanging or electric chair.  In the game, nothing happens to the PCs until the 4th night and at that time, it's too late.  Having the players harass Blaine isn't a problem.  I mean he really doesn't have anything to hide that they can ask about.  If they ask about the previous expedition, he can tell the truth that he didn't have anything to do with the deaths and disappearances.  I even played it up and had Blaine say that he didn't want to talk about it.  After he got pressured, he admitted his attraction to Daphne Devine and her loss hurt him and he didn't want to talk about it anymore.  Since he was protective of Clarrisa Thurber, the other players thought he was just a creepy stalker.

You can always look up another portrait on the internet and replace Blaine's picture.

Yeah, I just had a few random nearby farm people stand around when the sheriff shows up with the other PCs as they try to attach and pull out the truck from the river.  I also explained that it was one of the farm people that had called the sheriff.

I did deliberately blow Blaine's cover late in the scenario when he called out to two NPCs to help him outside the Maclearan Farmhouse.  The Mi-Go spore gunned the two NPCs and Blaine shouted for help from the remaining NPC and a PC.  One of the PCs looked out the farmhouse window and I let him do a spot hidden.  He made an extreme success, so I let him see the two fallen NPCs and I tell him that Blaine is just standing outside in the rain.  "It looks a bit strange to you as he's just standing there, he seems calm as he's calling for help."  I did this because the PCs were supposed to survive.  Of course, the PCs barricaded themselves in the house, so I had the remaining NPC run out the back door into the woods, as a hint, but the PCs didn't go for it.  I finally had to start freezing the house and threaten to give them frostbite before they came with a plan to escape.  They wound up leaving one PC behind to be captured* as the rest escaped.  I let them use one of the cars even though they should have been disabled, otherwise I think none of the PCs would have escaped.  In my game, 3 out of 6 PCs escaped (2 were captured at the dig site, 1 captured at the farmhouse, 3 escaped from the farmhouse).  Unfortunately, they set the farmhouse on fire as part of their plan.  So, I've been looking up laws about arson in 1930.  I think they're going to be in deep trouble in Episode 2.

*The PC actually failed to dodge a cold area and fell unconscious from cold damage while running for the car.  When the other 3 PCs reached the car and started it up, they noticed they were missing a PC, but drove away anyway, abandoning the PC.  So it wasn't as deliberate as it seems in that short description; they didn't leave a PC behind as bait.

51 minutes ago, Cyenobite said:

I have two points that seem minor, but have been nagging at me in regards to storyline...
1) I'm not sure about the bridge getting washed out - There is the one showing on the map, but it seems too close to town. I can't quite put my finger on why this is bugging me... 
Maclearan house is outside of town by about 3 mile (if I recall). I guess that means the students would have to travel through town to get to the dig site. I might just have a second bridge that doesn't show on the map, so as to be vague about it. Apologies for not making my point clearly. I think it also has to do with my 2nd point...

2) I'm having a hard time finding the reasoning or motivation on why Blaine would want to leave the geology students during a horrible rain storm, just to make a phone call back to the house. I know my players, and I think this is going to raise a big red flag for them that *something* is going on. This kinda relates to my previous point about the Bridge... if the dig site is through town, over the bridge and several miles out, it doesn't seem likely that Blaine would walk back in the downpour all by himself. Assuming he already has brokered the deal with the Mi-go, then it really shouldn't matter if he were present or not. The Mi-go would presumably leave him alone, so as to get the other students. It just feels sort of "forced".


 

1. The bridge isn't on the map.  The map is the town map of Cobb's Corners.  I think the bridge is far from Cobb's Corners.  I told the players that to get to the dig sites and folklore homesteads they cross several bridges.  The one that gets washed out is a random one.  

The Maclearan Farm is North of Cobb's Corners by 3 miles and I put the dig site and the other farms even further North, so they don't have to go through Cobb's Corners to get to the dig site.

2. It's supposed to make them suspicious.   But he doesn't care because he thinks the Mi-Go will capture all of them.  When I ran it, Blaine told them the rain is too much and he'll just pop over to one of the farms he knows is nearby to call and see if the other students have returned to the Maclearan Farmhouse and he'll be back in a few shakes.  I stayed with the PCs in the truck until they decide to move on.  They did visit a few farmhouses looking for Blaine and didn't find him.  Then I cut to the Maclearan Farmhouse.  When he shows up at the Maclearan Farmhouse, he just tells the other PCs that he got lost in the rain.  Couldn't find the truck and worked his way back to the farmhouse.  Also very suspicious.  I then had the Sheriff show up and announce, "There's been an accident and I need your help."  Then I cut to the truck crossing the bridge and the washout.

But you're right, if this campaign sees print, these details need to be specified for clarification.  The locations of stuff got more clear to me once I realized that the Maclearan Farm was north of Cobb's Corners, but I had read the map more carefully to figure this out.  At first I did think the bridge on the North East corner of Cobb's Corner was the one washed out, but it seemed too close to the town and didn't match the text description as that bridge crossed a different river.

9 hours ago, Baniak said:

In my game there was dynamite in the general store in Cobb's Corners. One PC even bought two (how do you call them) sticks. I allowed it, especially if they were gonna fight the moon beast with no weapons at all (only wooden sticks and rocks... oh come on). I even let them by a revoler, assuming that the trader (can't remember his name) just wanted to earn some money on passing by students.
There is no harm in a revoler and some dynamite, right? :)))

Way back when, dynamite was used to remove tree stumps.  So, there are legit reasons for having dynamite in the general store.  Now, being able to light one and throw it and it blowing up at the right time is a totally separate matter as I assume none of the students are experts in fuses or throwing lit sticks at moving targets.  I can see a student throwing one and the creature just runs past the stick and it blowing up harmlessly somewhere.

On 3/29/2016 at 1:39 PM, dadcubed said:

First forage into GMing CoC and an Organised Play situation. Should be good. No where can I get a hard copy of CoC 7th Ed in the UK? Cheers

The books just arrived at the warehouses in UK yesterday.  So, I assume after the Kickstarter contributors get their copies, the other copies will be available locally at your game store or for online purchase.  So, maybe in a few weeks?

7 hours ago, Cthulhus_Voicemail said:

The adventure "Dead Light" is a good one to use as an "on the road" scenario between two points.  

Dead Light is about 4 hours to run, but it's deadly, so I wouldn't run it between sessions as the characters might wind up dead before you run the 2nd episode.

Also I assume (but I may be wrong) the 2nd episode is right after the 1st episode where the "missing" characters return, but either mind controlled, replaced, or recruited, so it would ruin the surprise of having "dead" characters return since you'll have to explain that as you run your in-between scenario.   You could run your in-between scenario as a flashback, but then when I ran the 1st episode, I approached it as the very first time the characters ran into something supernatural, so there would be a disconnect.

Maybe the best thing is if you run other scenarios in between, have them roll up new characters, so the continuity isn't messed up.

There's no reason for any type of blasting on this expedition.  Robert Blaine would not allow it.  I can see a PC sneaking a stick or two, but why?  Is he already insane or what? Maybe deduct 1d6 SAN per stick he brings because there is no sane reason to do so.  But do know that there is a possibility that the General Store in Cobb's Corners will carry dynamite. 

My group didn't solve the subplot, but since John Jeffery and the Dreamgate is still out there, I may continue to haunt their dreams when they return to Cobb's Corners in later episodes.  I may also populate Cobb's Corners with more Dreamland creatures as they invade Cobb's Corners.

I drop the picture on the game table as they meet each NPC.  I have the individual pictures for each NPC.  Go look at: 

That topic has a link to my Google Drive where I have all the pictures I used for the game so far.

The Maclearan Farm is 3 miles North of Cobb's Corners.  From the scenario p.19: "Standing majestically in the background, the Green Mountains rear up like a bulwark against the rest of the country."

I have no idea where the Green Mountains or Broken Hill is.  I did a lot of hand waving (I did a lot of "Them mountains you see yonder.  Yep.  Those mountains.") and only sent them to the Broken Hill on the 4th day and didn't tell the Players that that is where Blaine sent them, since Blaine was in charge of the maps and where they were going, so it would have been to Blaine's advantage to not tell the Players that that was where he was sending them.  I told them it was a very long drive and that is why they have to bring their camping gear as they would not be returning to the Maclearan Farm for several days.

This was also the same day as finding the bones in the flowerbed, so Players were relieved that they would be given the opportunity to leave the Maclearan Farm.  The folklore students were disappointed that they had to stay at the creepy farmhouse, but Blaine brought take-out food from the Jim's Grill as a treat (plus Whiskey).

4 hours ago, DMWCarol said:

I'm hoping I can up the pace a bit to bring up down to a length that would work at UK Games Expo.  Their slots are under five hours so I'm not sure it will be possible but you never know...

I've seen people who run a Part 1 and Part 2 at conventions, so maybe you can do that instead?  Take two slots and run the whole scenario.

In both my HotOE campaign and aTtH, I let the players burn luck, but I don't let them regain it.  In my HotOE game, one player is down to 7% luck another at 35%.  In aTtH, the players (most new to 7th) forgot the luck mechanic and I was so involved in the Mi-Go attacks I forgot to remind them of it, but the result was 1/2 the PCs got abducted.  Three PCs actually drove away into the night and left a PC behind to her fate.  Very classic CoC ending.

I was wondering about Jethro Cratchett.  Maybe in Episode 2, when the players return they would find the research Daphne Devine got and find out about Jethro Cratchett? Since we don't know what's in the other 5 episodes I didn't want the PCs to find him during their Folklore expeditions.

Pasquallium didn't seem to come into my game at all (I finished running it). They mainly found Indian arrow heads and the Indian burial mound.  No PCs were part of FOC.

There was already so much stuff going on, they never figured out the Mi-Go; They only got suspicious of Robert Blaine and at one point a player had him at gun point.  They were looking for Evil Trees, Undead, and Children of the Corn.  They never even looked for the missing girl or John Jeffery even though they got all three of the dreams.  They just thought the dreams were an oddity.  They shot a Zoog near the Outhouse and put it into a specimen jar, but never went into the Sugar Maple Forest.

So, I think adding the Pasquallium is way too much info and it probably comes in when FOC appears in the later episodes.

Did 2nd session and actually finished it in 4 1/2 hours.  Wound up capturing 3 PCs.  2 from Geology dig, and 1 from the farmhouse for 50% party capture.  The rest of the students got away.  So, I was able to finish the game in a total of 9 hours.  They didn't do the Gate subplot or the Missing Girl subplot.  They just never went down those avenues.