joggiwagga

Yeah, I've yet to encounter a situation where they'd even conceivably feel safe enough for that mid game

When running A Time to Harvest I may have had a player who just randomly grabbed some books while they were passing through b/c they were in a different language turn out to be foreign language bodice-rippers.

I think there will always be speculative fiction even if a thing exists in the real world. Though if I've learned anything from reading Charles Stross, it's that Real Life can run ramshod over your plot (like the time he had to change a mention of al Qaeda b/c in the time between submitting his final version to the editors and publication, 9/11 happened, or various effects of Brexit on his plot, etc."). My thought is that if we have books of eldertich poetry and lore for players to find then it's probably best to not have say "Call of C'thulhu and Other Stories" on the bookshelves, but your own version of fantasy horror squamous tales? If they're looking for fiction reads or you want to lace the setting with pulp novels, why not?

Yeah, I mentioned H. H. Holmes to a friend last night and he was like "oh yeah, the dude from AHS." I guess we're not the only ones to be sold on the idea of a 'murder castle' or someone using the World's Faire to murder. I'll have to check out that radio play when I'm not at work. As for a scenario based specifically on him, maybe I'll get up the guts to actually write some original content after doing more research, but I won't be upset to find someone else runs with the idea before I do. Today at work I was handed a book to catalog on the Axeman of New Orleans, so this week seems to be all about serial killers for me.

*nods* This came up actually while running a one-shot, so it was less of an immediate reality, but considering one of the supplied characters started with a SAN of 40 the risk of losing "1/5" SAN was laughably easy... so it got me thinking about SAN recovery mid scenario. I was considering, should anyone actually act in a way that displayed incredible sacrifice/morality/humanity on their part was to consider that a reason to reward back a small amount of SAN... sort of like the reverse of losing Clarity in Changeling: the Lost. But it was a moot point anyway as the character with 40 SAN was not inclined to behave in anything except strict self interest, and the only humanitarian efforts were made by someone with a significantly higher SAN.

Another fun thing is to look into period appropriate sensationalist headlines - libraries have been archiving newpapers for quite some time, including having them bound as volumes (though this is done rarely now today). If someone doesn't do well at their Library Use roll (or perhaps asks for help and words things on the vague side so they don't sound utterly bonkers) they could end up with fun little finds like that. There's a lot of 'stranger than fiction' stuff out there in the real world, be it as just fun flavor, or something that you can actually tie into your scenario as support of the weirdness the investigators are facing. EDIT: found the older thread on fonts, and so my question on fonts became a moot point

is the d10 then institutional care roll? (I'm at work and don't have the rules on hand).

Do any scenarios currently exist that involve or are based on the activities of H. H. Holmes? Alternatively, if you've done your own custom game involving H. H. Holmes I'd love to hear about it. http://www.biography.com/people/hh-holmes-307622 http://harpers.org/archive/1943/12/the-master-of-the-murder-castle/ I was sold at "Murder Castle"

Ah, so I misread that bit (and possibly confabulated it with healing). Apologies and thank you. I guess the next question is, if say the players have the opportunity to take a month (or more) for dedicated therapy time (I believe 1 month can restore 1d10 San), does that have a ceiling beyond the Cthulhu Mythos score limitations? (Who knows, at some point I might do more than run one-shots).

Reading through the book I noticed that it states a good night's rest in a place where the PC feels safe can restore a point of sanity. Which leads me to the question... since Sanity is a moving number how much sanity can be regained this way over time, and to what point? I know that Sanity is a moving number, so we have starting Sanity, max Sanity (100 - C'thulhu mythos), and various losses and gains depending on what the characters encounter and achieve.

I really like this idea!

I've put in to run games at ConnectiCon (July 6-9), we'll see what they say!

OMG. <3

Now I need to remember to download that when I'm home from work....

So I actually talked to my players post ep. 6 asking their opinions about the mod and about how it fit into the larger story. First off, they did all have fun. I had a bit of a challenge as a ST handling the chase scene because it's over such a large (and at times slightly undefined) distance, but that's beside the point. But one thing they really liked about the over all ATtH arc is how mostly grounded in reality the arc was, with the insidious threat of the alien. They were normal people slowly discovering things in the shadows were out to get them. Going to the moon flipped the whole feeling of the arc to them with a sudden SF adventure module, and they would have preferred it not modify their physiology so they could breath on the moon. The players had of course encountered the gates before, but they were weirded out and avoided them

Sure, I'll hop in Name: Tegan Country: USA Location: Western MA I ran ATtH and the FreeRPG day scenario at Modern Myths in Northampton, MA. Location for the next organized play is TBD.

My players spent some "quality" time there - they wanted to research property histories and deed records. "What date did [character's family] buy the property?" Finally I broke down and was like "guys, I really don't have notes for these specifics," - and they still kept looking. Point of note, if there's anything that's hard for me to fabricate, it's stuff involving history dates. Eventually one of the players got the hint and was like "at the risk of metagaming, I think we're being told there's nothing here for us and all we're finding is boring, barely legible records, let's go do something else." As a small town New Englander myself - generally the buildings are minimally staffed, there will be various town records and at least one person nominally in charge of them (maybe several and it will be all departmentally sorted), some head of town type role (selectman or whatnot), an assessor, probably a meeting room for town meetings. records would include property ownership, any sort of licensing, town meetings, etc. feel free to get creative with where in the building stuff is stored. Some stuff will likely be in offices (ie current year/stuff needed immediately on hand), some things like town maps may even be in drawers in the meeting/common room space. Plan on some sort of dusty back room with old files which lets the players dig through stuff. Some towns do the town meetings in a different location depending on the size of their town hall, like a church or even the fire station.

There is basically nothing about that post that would be out of place IN a CoC game.

Episode 5 (10/30/16) Two of the regular group were missing due to other conflicts, but we had a brand new player (new to group and completely new to CoC). I gave him a rough sketch of the game so far, and gave a few general options for what he could play (hand wave another student or something along so far, give him one of the still alive NPCs, someone local...). He proposed that he was basically a local hermit type who "knows stuff" - so we built a quick woods hobo (using Tribal Member template for some occult), and I took him aside and told him about some of the weirder local stuff. We ended up getting through stuff a lot faster than normal here, so the game session was shorter without me using all of the plot options. Much less side chatter and banter threw off my sense of pacing I guess. When leaving the underground river, Dennison does not pass his swimming check, so rescue by Franklin McAllister, our new woods hobo, was a good way to get everyone together. This also made for fun moments such as when Sam realized his compass wasn't working for Franklin to dismiss compasses as never working, but also meant it made sense for them to have a slightly easier time communicating with the freaked out local sorts. The two missing PCs stayed with the farmer and his son who were fending off the children (and the players interrupted the summoning) - again, with the local connection it made communication and eventual wary trust actually slightly possible). The idea being that they'd help fortify the farmhouse and defend it from further mauraders. I decided the carvings on the cow included marks/runes that matched stuff seen at the standing stones. They nearly didn't save the girl trapped in the basement, but with trepidation they went in and then realized there was an adult to save and helped her out. In town they come up with a plan for interrupting the ritual and trying to free folks, and as Franklin gets on top of a building to act as a sniper I had the ritual complete. Franklin, Dennison and Dr. Sarah (NPC) failed their Sanity test, Ernest and Sam (NPC) passed. I made the 1d100 roll on the table in front of everyone. And with that Franklin and Dennison (with 63 sanity) took a 68 sanity loss and went permanently insane. I gave them some pieces and let them come up with input how they actually went out. Dennison's choice was to have essentially a berserker moment inspired by a scene in Independence Day, and Franklin had a very... Cthulhu Mythos act of self mutilation and suicide (cut out his own eyes, and then slitting his own throat and pulling the wound open to hasten his own death when cutting out his eyes doesn't remove the wrongness of the Mother's presence). I like what my players come up with when something horrible happens to their characters, it's often worth it, especially when they're excited that their characters are going insane and dying. At this point Ernest goes for flight, once he recovers from his comparatively insignificant sanity loss. Tugging on Sam's arm they run off and find the Stanly Steamer, and make it to the farm house where they saved the farmer and his son. They stayed there through the night, and in dawn by climbing up on a roof they could get a brief glimpse of the wreckage of Cobb's Corner. Everyone had loads of fun. I get the feedback where people are wondering about why this wasn't the final chapter, as it's a tough one to top. We did go through content way faster than I intended or thought we were, in part b/c much of the interpersonel drama (mainly Ernest and Vivian sniping at each other) was missing and there was less distracted chatter. But honestly no one minded that it went faster than normal. And next, on to the moon!

Episode 4 (9/25/26) It was a serious challenge not to TPK this group. Nothing against a TPK, but I want it to be more than a "you done goofed" situation (also, a lot more horror from just one or two dying than all four...). There was a lot of missing clues and hints, failing idea rolls, and generally making the worse choices possible. The original player who missed the past two games was finally present with his "Zoologist" (ie. big game hunter), Dennison. Dermott's player was absent, so he was largely shadowy and indistinct. Dennison charmed the heck out of the Cobb's Corner locals, which is hilarious since he was the least social character out of everyone and looked a bit like a woods hobo. While Vivian and Ernest tried fo research occult (and get distracted by poetry) in the library, Dennison went out on his own and learned all sorts of things about animal attacks and the strange rate of children deaths. They did a loop to the school house and got all of the info bits from the first session, as they skipped it earlier on. Overall fail at Cuzra for various reasons. In some cases it was player RP increasing the already challenging task of getting through to him. But they went and trespassed a ways down the road to the standing stones. During the attack of the Dark Young, Vivian took a big sanity hit and it resulted her in seeing the Dark Young as GOD. She got taken when she basically went willingly into the embrace of her god. Engineer NPC was taken as well. Party didn't seem to get that shooting and explosions weren't doing much damage b/c of a resistance, but they went in pursuit straight to the mine, never checking in on the FoC armed encampment. At the mines they rigged the car to drive with a stone to the gas to make a distraction. They distrusted the gateway, and instead hiked all the way in. Lots of room exploring, it was decided that Dermott would have grabbed random books, I plan on at least one of them being a romance novel in another language. They eventually find their missing compatriots. The NPC was already dead, Vivian was about to be cut into. They start trying to extricate themselves, but the Mi-Go start talking and I decided that Dr. Sarah is incredibly susceptible to their sales pitch (after all, she's written as having an interest in information exchange with them). Instead of grabbing her and running Dennison fires his shotgun at the MiGo. Twice. Which means pretty much any idea of stealth is over and done.... and they're in a dead end area of the mine. I basically gave them the jump down the drain grate to the river way out in the end. They were very to all being taken. But the ending game with them soggy and frightened on the underground river bank was a REALLY good end point. I'm happy with the atmosphere of the ending, though I really wanted to kill off some of them, I think it worked better to let them survive rather than kill them all.

Playing some catch up b/c while I emailed Dustin, I never posted them here (if anyone is curious about my results). Episode 3, Run 8/28/16 Game started out with needing to do some timeline establishment. The framing of Episode 2 led me to think it happened within say the first half of the semester. Clearly Episode 3 happened post Black Tuesday, so that required some shifting around. We established that Episode 2 wrapped up late in the Fall Semester, and that Episode 3 was taking place around the beginning of the Spring Semester, which allowed us to still have the appropriate amount of winter left to work with and worked as a general transition. I had my three core players from the first game (one of the original four was out of state), playing Ernest, Dermott, and Vivian (formerly playing Genevieve Jones). None of them were hard sciences majors, so the lower reaches of FOC were never explored, and no one really tried to pump Albard for information about his experiences once they were in. All of them wanted to work on their marksmanship training (which I allowed for some skill rolls) and Dermott has decided his life goal is to become a wizard and spent 90% of his time studying what he could from Albard's library. They went to Canada, and went with "we're with FOC" as their introduction to pretty much everything. Worked OK with the cops since the context was PI's for FOC, but got clearly didn't work so well with the priest. They never bothered going to the site the body was found at, instead watched the church from the cafe, eventually following the Priest back to his lair, and managing to stop him from actually killing the homeless guy, largely b/c they failed at getting in stealthily and the priest ran to get his gun. Dermott was hit by some shotgun pellets, but overall they came out OK. So at this point they know nothing of what's in the basement. They come back, they're debriefed. Dermott is treated and goes back to studying. Throughout all of this they all claim they're fine and don't need to meet with the shrink. Then the party happens. Going down they decide to split off b/c they hear things going on behind the door. Fortunately the response to pretty much what they see on the floor and coming up the stairs is to run away. This is where I have to admit, I wasn't hard enough on the players. Vivian probably should have died b/c she thought the best way to fight them was by punching them, even if she clearly realized the need for cover. Dermott had been drinking heavily (before I even had them roll he said he was going for that). He'd also been studying scraps and fragments in his effort to become a "M-F-ing wizard." So he decides he wants to try and cast a spell, knowing full well he knows none. I, finally having the book, go "you know what, this could be funny," find a barrier spell in the book and pull from that. When asked how many MP he wants to put towards the attempt he says "all." So I let him in a drunken certainty draw something out with salt and blood on the floor while the deep ones try to break in, and let him actually very briefly (like 2 rounds) have a barrier go up... while he falls on the floor unconscious (then seizing) for the rest of the scene, in addition to some sanity loss. Dermott will have NO memory of doing this or it's success, and I've told he player it won't happen again either without an actual spell. Ultimately they got everyone up on top of the elevator and above combined with killing enough of the Deep Ones that they escaped instead of pursuing. Plans were made directly with the missing original player to bring his character in for Episode 4, which I'm about to go and run!

1. is during the end of the summer 2. is during the school year, and at the start of episode 3 (and a better examination of the time parkers) i had to do some fudging to make the chapters line up appropriately. my challenge? Black Tuesday, October 1929. Text of Episode 3 clearly indicates an NPC who's family lost a lot of money with the crash, so it needed to be after Black Tuesday, but I didn't want the climax to happen right on top of the Stock Market crash. We made it happen late November, so the college partially dealt with the fallout by using the holiday break. 3. the side quest module happens in the winter, and target dates for episode 4 are late winter/early spring at the latest 4. I feel like March works really well for this module 5. Comes right off of episode 4. 6. I'll have to get back to you on that as I only just ran episode 5.

I think there are actually three bundles total, with two different pledge levels on each. Just to make things confusing. But still, a whole lot of supplements at a pretty good price.

There are a bunch of Trail of C'thulhu offerings over at Bundle of Holding right now - listed as play aids for CoC. https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Tentacles4

hahah, that kills me with my players. last game i even made repeated comments along the lines of how little the monster seemed to care about being shot. even with "you just saw it hit with FOUR GRENADES, it seems remarkably uneffected." it didn't register to anyone that they were basically doing no damage... they were just lucky the monster's goal was literally smash & grab, not kill and destroy...