klecser

45 minutes ago, Mike M said:

Shadows Over Stillwater is exactly that type of shorter campaign, each scenario is pretty much stand alone but builds on the others. 

In terms of form, yes. But it is Down Darker Trails. I think what people are really saying is that that they want a short campaign for 1920s. Personally, I believe Shadows Over Stillwater is easily adapted to 1920s.

1 hour ago, ColoradoCthulhu said:

I agree. Shorter campaigns that take several months of play are preferable to the year-long campaigns. We have Masks and Orient Express (and hopefully the other lengthy classic campaigns mentioned above at some point), so new Call of Cthulhu campaigns should be written with this shorter time frame in mind. A campaign that takes three months is much more likely to be played to the last act than one that requires a huge investment of time.

Your point is very well taken and I agree. I do want to pitch to everyone in the audience that you do not have to think of any campaign as a self-contained entity. Many campaigns have sandbox-y, "interim" scenarios that can be easily lifted and put into other campaigns. Granted, this does take a little bit of work and not all scenarios are good candidates. I actually think a big part of the work is simply accepting a different perspective and having the courage to make the change. The key thing for all of us to remember: these are our games. We define how to use the products. Not everyone has the time or desire to "cut and paste" scenarios, of course, and it is overall less work to run from self-contained.

An example: Anyone in the audience who has Masks, check out The Derbyshire Horror as a candidate for a "cut-and-paste" campaign mentality.  It is well-suited, in my opinion, for four reasons: 1) The characters and situations are compelling and do not need any prior setup. The situation is easily connected into or out. 2) There is the prospect of gaining an ally from the scenario, further strengthening it's connection to the latter parts of a campaign. 3) Mam Tor is a locale located nearby that can be made into anything you want it to be. It became a key location for me. It became the holding place of a three-volume Necronomicon, each volume possessed by a different Spirit. It also contained the "prophecy" that is a huge continual source of dread and anxiety for my play group. Tee hee hee.  4) I don't think it's very difficult to shift the location from England to New England or another locale.

2 minutes ago, twofeet said:

What I'd love to see are shorter campaigns. Something we can run in say 6-12 sessions, or 20-40 hours instead of 90+. For a lot of groups, I suspect this may be more achievable then some of the awesome-looking but difficult-to-actually-run mega-campaigns. 

This is a really good point. Diversify, diversify, diversify. All of the existing shorter campaigns are for specific settings or Pulp (Shadows, Cold Fire). I'm certain that the team knows this and is working on it. I am very eager to see The Children of Fear.

I appreciate that course. If Call of Cthulhu is to survive, it must reinvent and grow. That means attracting new players while simultaneously offering something fresh to veterans. Anyone who wants Call of Cthulhu to freeze in time is fighting a losing gaming battle. I've been following the community for several years now as a relative newcomer compared to those in the old guard. I'm a veteran of gaming in general.  And man, are there some epically bitter people in the old guard of this game. The typical very loud small number. They work to either prevent new people from playing the game or, more passive-aggressively, telling players that they aren't playing it "the right way." Heck, I've seen it in a post from today. The point is that whenever game designers follow the desires of the loud and bitter, it usually spells doom for the game. I've seen it many times. Gamers simply don't see their lack of PR support as a player as a liability. But it totally is. So, the editors get it, and aren't bowing to this group, and I salute them for that. Heck, there aren't many games of this size where the Director of the Flippin' Line™ comes onto the forums and asks what people want.

And to that end, for me personally, I'd rather see something new or one of the classics mentioned by ColoradoCthulhu (BTMOM) than The Dreaming Stone. No offense intended to anyone who wants that. Heck, if we got that, I'd be happy for you.  Just throwing in my two cents.

This exact thing happened to me in my last game and my thought process was to put myself in the shoes of the cultist. I was running a scenario in which the Cultist is pursuing the PCs and they could make Spot Hidden rolls to see the pursuit. Multiple rolls succeeded and they got a good bead on their tail. The scenario assumes that they would avoid/Stealth. Not my players. One of them turned to confront their pursuer. 

At this stage, I knew that the Cultist would run, but I had to be prepared as to what would happen if there was a fight. This cultist had a critical "mission" and needed to escape. So, I reasoned that the Cultist would be willing to severely cripple their pursuer to be able to escape. I also run CoC with the assumption that baddies know "how much Magic" they can handle in a short amount of time. They don't know exactly how many "magic points" they have, but they know when they get "tired" from casting Spells. I reasoned that this cultist wouldn't use all of their Magic Points on a surprise encounter like this. He actually had plans later on that would require Magic Point reserves. In addition, I knew that he would want to really cause a devastating blow to shake off this pursuer. Crippling them was a goal of the situation. This particular scenario described the cultists as murderous in their aims and deliberately wanting to kill the Investigators. So, I was knocking five or six in my head and went with six. Six met all of my "requirements" of the logic/madness the cultist would use in this situation. He might have chosen differently if two Investigators came at him.

This all boils down to "think like the Cultist." Are they enraged? Do they need to escape? Do they need a Magic Point reserve for later? Do they anticipate this "fight" lasting a while? (You don't put all your eggs in one basket.)

Incidentally, the Cultist had the initiative and lost the Shrivelling opposed roll.  The Investigator won their Dominate opposed roll.  So, it ended up being a moot point. They used the two rounds of Dominate to bring him closer and make him tell them why he was following them. They then knocked him out and let him go in a place where they were sure he couldn't tail them when he woke up (assuming he was the only one).

Had it gone the "other way" I would stand behind my decision. Had the cultist caused a horrific major wound and then ran, it would have given my players a lot to think about: 1) They would get a glimpse of how "bad" offensive spells can be in the game. We've been running an investigation-heavy, combat-light campaign and this would have been their first introduction to one of the nastiest of spells. 2) It might have made them think twice about confronting pursuers in the future. 3) They would have had the knowledge that someone capable of that was still out there and pursuing them.

Which is better? Eh, it's what happened. They came out on top in this exchange. Next time there will still be an option for the Cultist to "land a big one" on them. Players drive narrative.

I don't know if community guidelines allow this, so mods, if not, you can delete this post.

Go check it out. This is the second book in Sons of the Singularity's southeast Asian Cthulhu Setting/Scenario book "series," this one set in French Colonial Vietnam. Their first KS was well managed and that book, The Sassoon Files, is well-regarded.

30 minutes ago, Defile959 said:

That's really good to hear. I've recently gotten back into playing after a lengthy break (last edition I played was 5.5). My experience with 7th edition thus far has been extremely positive - though I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been eyeballing some of the older material, wondering how difficult the conversion might be.

I started in a "new editions invalidate old editions" mindset, having come from DND. I started thinking I would only invest in 7th edition. I quickly realized (because I remained open-minded) that there was this unbelievable back catalog of materials to draw from and started collecting it all. Remember that, as an investigative game, the power of scenarios is in their clues and characters, not the stats. Heck, many monster's stat blocks can be replaced with "You have no chance unless you prepare in these X ways" and it honestly wouldn't change preparation or execution for the Keeper. Call of Cthulhu teaches us to get more from role-playing games than "There is a monster there. We assume you fight it." If you like that, that's great. I like it on occasion. But it barely scratches the surface of sophistication of the kinds of stories you can tell.

Call of Cthulhu is different from many other role-playing games. As Mankcam points out, the conversion differences between even 1st Edition stuff and 7th edition take minutes. CoC has always been one of the easiest games to convert and that doesn't seem likely to change. 

27 minutes ago, Tranquillitas Ordinis said:

Inspired by this message I propose a different approach, which I find more reasonable. Why? If you sum up the prices of just pdfs of the books mentioned by klecser in the first post (I ignore "After that?" paragraph and use current DriveThruRPG values) you get $88. If you constrain yourself just to pdfs of the Starter Set and the Rulebook you get around $38. Probably in the USA it is a fair price, but people in poorer countries might not be able to spend that much on their hobby. Especially, not knowing much about the game, not sure if they will like it after all, if they can find interested players, if the official adventures suit their style of playing etc. etc.

I respect the fact that you are contributing free options. Everyone's financial situation is different and it is up to anyone to decide how much they are willing to spend on role-playing games. I think that it is worth mentioning that this is the official message board of a game company. Game companies have to make money to survive. They don't sell product, the game doesn't grow. My goal in creating this post was two-fold: 1) As an information resource to help prospective Keepers. I think it does this. Note that I suggest several free resources as well. and 2) To showcase some of the products available for sale that, as an experienced gamer, I think could be useful to people. 

You seem to be making the argument that I'm being disingenuous in making a bunch of suggestions for people. I am not saying to buy all these things.  The post starts with "Pick up the Starter Set." The PDF costs 10 USD and the physical product is 25 USD. I then follow with a variety of options. I'm trusting the reader to make some informed judgments on their own. 

I recognize that you also may be interpreting the word "need" literally.  I'm using "need" in a very casual way here. When I talk to gamers they ask "What do I need?" and I suggest several options to them.  

Copies of the Great Old Ones are difficult to find, but it is available on DriveThru. I don't recall that specific supplement being on the "short list" of updates that have been referenced by Chaosium employees at Cons. I want to say that Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is near the top of the list of old campaigns to get a redux?

Regardless, Black Moon Rising is a classic scenario and deserves a look.

Big Edit adding a lot of different resources. Daniel Harm's Encyclopedia, references to Good Friends and MU Podcasts, and Malleus Monstrorum as a great resource for how to play creatures.

In case you didn't know about them: Daniel Harm's The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource for Keepers wanting to understand the lore of the Mythos better. 

There are also two major Podcasts with an incredible backlog of tips for running the game: The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Podcast, and The Miskatonic University Podcast. Both have major authors/designers of Call of Cthulhu as hosts.

You might consider some of the intermediate collections: The newly released Mansions of Madness Volume 1, or Nameless Horrors.

I would still recommend Doors to Darkness even though it is an "introductory" story collection, simply for ideas. Most of  those scenarios can be modified for more experienced players.

Also, the two scenarios in Deadlight and Other Dark Turns work really well for groups of all experience levels.

At present, published campaigns are either Pulp (A Cold Fire Within or Two-Headed Serpent) or niche (Shadows Over Stillwater, and Terror Australis and Berlin:The Wicked City aren't truly campaigns and are set in specific settings.)

I'm thinking that Lynne Hardy's forthcoming Tibetan Campaign is going to be filling the gap of "shorter non-pulp" campaign that is missing in the 7E catalog.

It is noteworthy that the flavor of the "Journal of Sir Hansen Poplan" flavor text is still present in this updated version. There is a lesson here of not judging a manuscript after having only seen a few pages of it. 

Also, @Mike M, thank you for drawing from and using community inspiration for the "creating monsters" section. My gut reactions: The depth of questions to ask at the start of the section is particularly thorough. I also appreciate that you included both "inspirational" and tabulated options to hit the varying preferences.  I also like the page number references to likely monster spells in both the KRB and the GGCMM. Practical aides like that are critical to effective in-the-moment Keeping and planning.

Great report. It is always useful to see how a Keeper works out the balance of player agency and prepared narrative. If everybody had fun, they were all the right choices!

3 hours ago, Dethstrok9 said:

Huge thanks to this entire thread for assisting with this project. 

*Malleus

Great job sharing your enthusiasm Daniel!

Mike asked the Forums for input on Monster Creation rules a year or so ago. So fans had a hand in contributing thoughts!

That cover art is incredible. Eldritch to the extreme. The split into two with a slipcase makes sense given the huge amount of original material that existed in the old MM. Nightmare fuel is a huge aspect of this game. Let's do it properly.

3 hours ago, tedopon said:

The best thing about the original MM is that it doesn't feel like another monster manual. This one does. Just an opinion, and I like the art, but the design sensibility of the original was 1000* more interesting. I feel the same way about pretty much every Chaosium book that has come out since the Great Restoration. Content-wise they are mostly great (which is a massive improvement over the preceding decade or two which was all over the place...and 90% of all of that stuff had terrible layout aesthetics), but the layout and design of this and the RQ/CoC lines since the "GR" in general seem to be aiming directly at ~2005 d20 era products as a design target.

Again, not a troll post, please don't temp ban me, fill my inbox with hate mail or spend three pages in a public display of outrage. the last thing IMO that an rpg book really needs is engaging layout. It just needs to be clearly written/edited and have good content. Just underwhelmed by the nouveau-retro Design Concrete style that the recent books have used.

When you post rarely, and show up and say that the entire direction of a line over six years isn't to your liking, it is really difficult to see it as anything but a troll post. You can't say "no offense, but..." as a get out of consequences for what you say.

And looking back at your comment history...yeah, you may want to practice self-restraint. You seem to be generally fastidious.

14 minutes ago, davewire said:

 

While Lovecraft’s Massachusetts could be deemed far off or exotic for someone not from New England, the difference I was implying was fictional versus real locations. Boston would be the far-off or “exotic” locale whereas Kingsport would be Lovecraft’s Massachusetts.

My real experience INFORMS my appreciation of the fiction. You asked how we felt about different locales. That's how I feel through my real-life lens. Every individual reader of fiction interprets fiction differently.

Check out my unboxing of Aquelarre!

Seth updated his Fudging video. It elucidates a lot of the arguments eloquently. Great skit too. 

For someone born, raised and currently residing in the MidWest, the "Old World," "lived in" feel of the East Coast can seem like a "far off, exotic place." And to people elsewhere in the world, the mystique of 1920s New England is likely that too!

3 minutes ago, Mike M said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_India#The_beginning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_telephone

 

Thanks Mike. Clearly I assumed something was possible when it wasn't even yet!

"7 March 1926: First transatlantic telephone call, from London to New York."

12 minutes ago, Gundamentalist said:

If the players know the name and the name of the business, couldn't they just send a telegram? Leave the actual routing to the telegram delivery company.

They may not in Calcutta long enough, hence the desire to call.