joggiwagga

I won't be finishing until Nov, but I'll make sure to get in any notes I can before the end of Oct, even if it's just noted inconsistencies.

ooooh. super excited for the next round of Organized Play!

The thread that links to has a link to a flier that is no longer available (or has moved)

My FLGS is - but the 7E stuff wasn't showing up in the system as of this weekend. They told me to check back in a little bit.

Episode 2 (run 7/31) Slight change up with this group, one of the original four couldn't make it, and we had one new player. Also had to start out with some modifications to the scenario as the two who returned managed to talk (roll) their way out of trouble and escaped only with a cloud of suspicion, as well as having two former PCs in with the NPCs. Both new PCs had connections to Genevieve - Genevieve's former player now playing her roomate, and the new player playing her cousin (a quite pretty but not all that bright young man by the name of Kenneth... and yes, he was inspired by Kevin from Ghostbusters). The PCs suffered some due to this fracturing of the party - they had connections and crossed paths, but they tended to act as individuals (or with Dermot and Ernest, who came back from Cobbs Corner together, as a pair). Kenneth tried really hard to form that bridge, but it took some doing (Kenneth also served as an unexpected venue for getting plot hooks out there, but more on that later). The PCs also pretty much avoided all of the plot dangles... except for curiosity about Blaine's whereabouts... and in that case failed (or botched) nearly every roll to actually achieve things. They rolled well to talk to his friends, et, but that was pretty much it. They failed to convince the landlord to be let in to check-in on Blaine or his room. They tried calling Blaine and failed to talk their way through the landlord (even with deceptions like "We're from the library, he has an overdue book"), they tried to break in (in the middle of the day) and botched their stealth roll to avoid notice when sneaking around the back (a botch was worthy of them being spotted lurking and slipping around back by a police patrol). Since I had two ex-PCs, I had to slot them in. With the multiple connections with Genevieve, I made her body the host of a lady friend for Jarvis, and had her out and about at all odd hours, being bitchy, dressing differently, but very little came of those invitations to interact or follow her due to her suspicious behavior. Thaddeus was present... but his player wasn't in attendance so there was less hooks involving him. It was decided that Kenneth, while pretty, wasn't so good at romance. And this led to what can only be described as infatuated stalking of Clarissa Thurber. Kenneth, it is worth mentioning again, is also not very bright, and therefore being physically abused in response to his overtures didn't quite dissuade him. Instead, it led to both hilarity and opportunities to drop information - something the player had loads of fun instigating. Kenneth sought romantic advice from his cousin "Genevieve" (no Jarvis' body-swapped girlfriend) and from Genevieve's roommate (who's name I have written down and not with me) when Kenneth came to their room seeking his cousin. Genevieve's roommate was in college for English and wanted to be a writer, so she recommended writing poetry. The group took it upon themselves to write (collectively) a really really bad love poem. It was... kind of epic (I'll post it later) His wooing (stalking) put him in the position of overhearing the meetings with Professer Learmouth. Which was great because no one else was doing any sort of following. With so little poking a plot I decide to push things forward, working well with Dermot deciding to go make another check up trip on Blaine (who he has ascertained is actually at home). He shows up at the house (alone) and begins talking to the landlord when they hear the shot ring out. They both rush upstairs, and the landlord runs to call the police. Dermot only has a brief time to look around (and no rolls better than a regular success) so the only thing he noticed of interest was the stack of occult books which he grabbed. Meanwhile (since the party was split) the others went to the library, and fed up with everything Ernest marches up to the NPCs and declares something along the lines of "I know you're not who you say you are!" Which kind of put the kibosh on drawing out Jarvis' torment of them as well as needing to actually do the graveyard mod in order to actually drop information about their plans. In retrospect, I should have drawn things out a night or two. I also probably allowed a bit too easy acceptance of "these are not the same people." But I didn't, in part b/c I felt the active confrontation would trigger Jarvis to act violently. Late that evening Ernest gets a call to meet, because they have something to say. I bumped the time table to a little later, which allowed Jarvis to be in the know about the confrontation and time for Dermot to get back. The PCs all roll out (Kenneth was the only one with a car), with Ernest and Dermot coming openly (since they were both in Cobb's Corner together, and used that as their justification), and the other two hiding near by (and coming in from a different angle). They did manage to stay mostly ahead of the weird fog (some damage was taken), reacted in ways I didn't expect to the hallucinatory projection in front of them, and managed to get out . After all that goes down, the PCs decide they do not want to go back to their dorms because clearly it wouldn't be safe, so they find an all night diner, get some food, and then sleep in shifts in the car (some of them taking time to read the books Ernest took from Blaine). The next day they struggled with incomplete knowledge, but managed to find some information and to also convince authorities that someone's planning to heavily vandalize the library - specifically the rare books, which needed to be kept safe. I let this facilitate some of the rare book collection being moved to an alternate location (I've worked in academic libraries, there's usually a secondary location storage if not vault option for long term storage). Then, after a long tiring day on little sleep, they all decided to eat dinner in the dining halls. I started to describe what they were feeling as reality began slipping and then let them give me some input on how their character would react, then turned that into part of the narrative and describing things as they came out of their delirium. This part was lots of fun, even if it was more narrative setting than player action. After coming out they find the library damaged, but thanks to their intervention at least some of the rare books were saved. They also find the body of Professor Learmouth. I plan on having Episode 3 start with there being rumors about the investigators because they were they were seen in proximity to Professor Learmouth's body first.

There are a bunch of Cult of Chaos ppl who are doing A Time to Harvest via Roll20, seems to be working out well for them.

For those waiting for it to be online - it's up in the Chaosium store (including a slipcase set!)

Didn't see a thread for this, just started reading it. Starting it off with a typo on the Table of Contents where it starts off with EPISODE 4 instead of 5.

I'm super excited about the Chaos Library and the retention of rights on the part of the authors (I'm a copyright nerd, so yeah, that does excite me).

I had a different issue (ie. the players avoided poking things... until they poked EVERYTHING all at once, in split parties...), but honestly I love the self-praise idea. Good way of running it. I probably would have made her condescending and dismissive, but I think your idea is way better. And nothing wrong with a little healthy paranoia on the part of the NPCs. My issue was when while a player was following up on trying to find Blaine (and running into the suicide, with the plan for me to start the nightmares afterwards) several of my other players went to the library and tried to integrate themselves with the NPCs. When that failed one proclaimed "I know you're not who you are. You're not the same people who went on the trip." - which sort of domino-ed the rest of the plot pieces.

Haha - man I missed those last two links apparently. I used one of the other sets in that thread and as a result one of my players became flat out convinced that one of the students (Trent I think...) was a vampire.

Updates show ships in progress, so hopefully soon. I know they were hoping by now, but clearly the stars were night right. More specifically (and copied directly from an official post): "We have just received updated information from the shipping agent about the arrival of the Call of Cthulhu reprints from China - additional copies of the Keepers Rulebook, Investigator Handbook, Keeper Screen, Slipcase, Nameless Horrors and Petersen Guide. United States & Canada 'Hyundai Shanghai', departed Hong Kong 9 July ETA for Tacoma - 26 July Australia 'Cosco Jeddah', departed Hong Kong on 10 July ETA for Sydney - 28 July United Kingdom/Europe 'Ebba Maersk", departed Hong Kong 9 July ETA for Southhampton - 10 August"

Episode 1, Session 2 This was session two of A Time to Harvest, Month 1. Same 4 players as session 1. First session we got through the second night and were ready to start out with Day 3. For mood and getting into the setting reasons, I started them out with the dreams of night two as a review. Between last session and this one I realized I had made a mistake - that when someone fails a sanity roll I should be dictating their next action as their character experiences the side effects. Previously, the players had self offered reactions to their sanity loss (such as screaming and fainting), so I put out there that this is something I may do as dramatically appropriate, but that dramatically appropriate actions taken on their own part may serve as well. I'd say this worked out pretty well, and gave us a bit more room to play with regarding the effects (basically, it can be super fun to let the players creatively screw themselves over). So Day 3 everyone has to deal with the rain. Things went well in terms of running the game, though a little confusion on why they'd even bother with waiting around for someone to go to a farmhouse and not just drive to one themselves since they were at the vehicle. In the first session, Thaddeus was definitely romantically pursuing Rod, so I decided to pull on player heartstrings a little, and had Rod ask if Thaddeus wanted to compare notes for what they'd been finding. Add in some booze (thanks Blaine!) and some really boss Charm rolls, and the two of them had a charming evening of comparing notes and socializing until they fell asleep leaning against the wall. I figured should Thaddeus survive the session this would make things all sorts of fun come Episode 2. That night finally everyone in the group experienced the dreams (before now three of the four had). Ernest, the last to experience them, blamed everyone else for telling them about their freaky dreams since now they're having weird ones of their own. The three male PCs ended up barricading themselves in the room two of them had been sharing upstairs, the female PC was "not that kind of girl" and stayed in her own room (which she shared with the female NPC). In the morning, the male PCs made their way to and from the outhouse as a pack, and on the way back found the skeleton. The PC who had wanted to dig up the garden earlier on failed his sanity roll and reacted by digging frantically in the ground to recover the rest of the skeleton. Genevieve didn't fail, but voluntarily screamed and fainted. This seemed to be her thing. However, that made for a great excuse for her NOT to go on the camping expedition. Clearly she was of a worryingly weak constitution with how much she'd been fainting in the past few days. She swapped places with the anthropology NPC, with him and Blaine was sold on the suitability of said swap due to his academic interest lining up with the promised finds of the expedition. They PCs took Genevieve to the doctor's just to be safe (and b/c of her issues sleeping and weird dreams wrangled some laudanum as a sleeping aid), and also arranged for Blaine to be checked out, since they thought he might be suffering from a brain injury after wandering in the woods lost for so long (maybe he fell and didn't remember?). They really wanted to find ALL THE THINGS in the town records. Like how long families owned properties, etc. But eventually I pried them out of that avenue of research and they chose to talk to Wendell, where they got the photograph, before going back to the farmhouse. They also made a stop at the local store, and without Blaine immediately on hand to stop them, they made to purchase some hunting supplies, coming away with a rifle, a shotgun, a knife, and really no knowledge how to use any of them. Back at the farmhouse they teamed up and went into the woods, where they'd already been itching to explore. The fight with the moon-beast was hilarious. Genevieve did the most damage by flailing at it. Ernest failed his sanity roll and ran screaming at it with a knife... and largely failed to do much damage at all, and Dermott and Thaddeus missed every shot they took. Also, I honestly rolled horribly for the moon beast so they all came off pretty well. Oh yeah, and then the body of Jeffries in the rock... even if Genevieve hadn't failed her sanity roll she asked if she could voluntarily do so (since he was her ex). Dermott kept her from running to him, and everyone held it together, though barely so, when he started speaking in their heads. Until the body moved that is. At which point Thaddeus involuntarily fired the gun he was holding into Jeffries' head making the one successful gun roll of the night. I whispered to the player that he felt a feeling of gratitude from Jeffries before he faded away, which got a great emotional response from the player. That made rescuing Emily super easy, and they decided that two of them would take her straight to the doctor, screw any risk of suspicion. It was the right thing to do afterall. On the way to where Emily was, Genevieve dosed her self with laudanum for the stress which put her out of the running for driving into town. So Ernest and Dermott go into town with a vehicle, leaving their weapons behind, and roll amazingly to keep themselves from actually being arrested on straight up suspicious timing, however they want to stay the night to make sure Emily is OK, and the Sheriff would rather they be where he can keep an eye on them regardless. Back at the farmhouse there's dinner, and Genevieve eagerly partakes of all the whisky she can... on top of the laudanum. Needless to say, she's out cold before long. That leaves Thaddeus and the NPCs. When things start going down his reaction is to bunker down and try to find a defensive position (with his gun) in the house. So I have an NPC responding to the call for help get taken down in the doorway within Thaddeus' view. His response was to run to the fallen NPC and try and help... and which point he failed his roll to not be knocked out by the Mi-Go. In the morning the Professor shows up, and has everyone go home. Says he'll be gathering everyone at the farmhouse and wrapping things up. No one's officially in trouble at this point, but they are tainted by the brush of suspicion. I'll build up more of a case against them in terms of "evidence of drunken and lascivious behavior" by the group at large for the talking to once they get to back at Arkham. I'm also super looking forward to having the taken PCs show up as NPCs. For replacements, one of them is playing a zoologist (big game hunter) with a connection to Dermott and the other an English major who was Genevieve's roomate.

There are folks who are running A Time to Harvest via Roll20 so that might be feasible for you to do! (I'm currently only running it in person, but I've been considering doing an online run as well)

Did you have to modify stats at all for the few extra bodies? Yeah, I can imagine that swapping out ex-PCs for NPCs would cause some issues, and honestly I like the NPC descriptions for the swapping. I used little fold over images to track all the NPCs for episode 1, I'm planning on using them again for episode 2.

I'm curious how folks are handling ex-PCs in episode 2. I have two to slot in (a Langauges and a Anthro student). Are you swapping out some of the named NPCs for PCs, or adjusting the Mi-Go student stuff to feature one or two extra bodies? I figure I can maybe drop one of the named NPCs with the excuse of a family emergency, but I definitely want to bring in the ex-PCs and the surviving PCs have NO in-game knowledge that anything went down at the farmhouse. (*snickers*)

So in an earlier thread some folks didn't like that the Mi-Go self identified, and a suggestion was made for them to do something along the lines of "we've been known as..." for a little bit of misdirection. Another person also noticed an inconsistency in terms of singular vs. plural self-identification. So I've remade the handout with the extra misdirection for GMs who don't want the players to see "Mi-Go" and made all the self-identification plural. Otherwise the text (and the logo) is the same as the handout. For people that want to make other changes I've also attached the FOC logo w/out any background. The font I used is called 'traveling typewriter' but lots of generic typewriter fonts exist. FOC Transcript.pdf

Well, I seem to be needing to download a few more fonts now don't I?

First off - fantastic thread title. Secondly - anyone know of a quality we'll say eldritch font? Sadly this one is no longer free: http://thevaultsofmctavish.deviantart.com/art/Cthulhuian-Font-v1-450664130 I did find this one while poking around: http://www.1001fonts.com/lovecrafts-diary-font.html

There was an updated file with better quality maps since the original had maps that no one could read (fuzzy at normal printing), but I haven't seen a release of any of the handouts as image files beyond things we've done on our own for supplements/alternatives

Well, I guess I didn't need to worry about the effects of Azathoth and Others, the possessing PC was taken by the Mi-Go. Need to do my write up, but the end status is two PCs were taken (one b/c he walked in to trouble trying to help, and the other b/c she was passed out after self-medicating with laudnum and then drinking whisky on top of that), and the other two escaped by dint of taking the found missing girl directly to the Doctor and rolling REALLY (multiple extreme successes, including a 1) on Charm/Persuade checks with Sheriff. They also wanted to stay in town over night to make sure the girl was going to come out of it OK even without the Sheriff not wanting them to wander off. I'll have to modify the start of Episode 2 a little bit to reflect being sent home in a cloud of unproven suspicion rather than being sent home in full disgrace. Full write up later, right now brain is consumed by LARP related stuff.

well done

I believe we're looking at mid to late July

I really like some of these ideas

Did you run the Free RPG Day scenario? How'd it go? I had four players (plus someone who signed up but decided to just watch) - an author, athlete, actor, and engineer, and ran the yacht captain and first mate as (disposable) npcs. My biggest challenge was only having 2 hours to run it, which meant limited time to build up the horror or draw them around. At the start of the game 2 players when asked to describe their characters and the sorts of accessories they'd wear two said they had some sort of silver. A third didn't specify, but a stealth luck roll on my part decided yes, she had silver earrings. Players investigated the superstructure, got freaked out, decided to go back to their ship ( was a great time for them to hear horrific screams of pain and some banging from the yacht), found the helm and engine destroyed and the NPCs dead and decided the best thing to do was to lock themselves into their own engine room, get it started and moving even w/out the ability to steer. Well, the engineer did her thing well, so sure, it could start moving, at which point one of them went back up to the deck. At this point we had a half an hour to finish, and with the amount of damage the monster could do, I wanted to avoid a straight up slaughter of the players who trapped themselves without any equipment. I quietly asked the player who went up to the deck (his character was in very deliberate denial that they were still in danger and was the single player who never had any silver on, nor picked up any silver) if he minded me flat out assassinating him. He was totally down for it. A second player said he'd come up to the deck, and decided he'd lost his silver watch. So he got to witness his friend being knocked to the deck and something invisible knock down and take bites out of his friend. That was fun. I let the players at least attract the monster to their yacht engine room with the bloody remnants of their friend and captain, but with no locking in or more to really trap, especially when the yacht caught on fire and then exploded, the two still with silver got to see it dive into the water after them. Everyone had fun, and it was great to see what assumptions they made.