Phil Hendry

Thanks for all that! I was aware that, like a lot of games, this wasn't D&D with all its arbitrary restrictions - I just wasn't sure how far it was supposed to go! We've played some D&D in recent times (most recently, using the excellent 'Adventures in Middle Earth' setting books from Cubicle7), but we've played a lot of other stuff over the years/decades... Every game is different (and we end up making our own 'house-rules' for all of them, because we always find things we don't like).

Thanks... I suppose that begs a logical next question... If they attempt to shoot someone, and succeed, do they then get a 'tick in the box' and thereby a chance to improve the 'skill'?

Okay, we've been playing for a little while now (since lockdown started), and have just hit a snag... A(n embarrasingly stupid) question has arisen. One of my investigators is thinking of buying a firearm. He has no skill in Firearms (Rifle/Shotgun), but points out that the 'base chance' (to which any 'additional' skill is added) is 25%. Does this mean that an investigator with no (learned) skill in Firearms (Rifle/Shotgun) can pick up a Winchester carbine (say) and have a 25% chance of hitting what he shoots at? Or is he 'forbidden' from trying? Or something in between those two extremes? I could argue it either way, but wondered whether there's an 'official' rule I've missed somewhere? Sorry, I can't find anything in the starter set rules, nor in the Investigator Handbook or Keeper Rulebook... But maybe I'm looking in the wrong place or searching for the wrong string. I always used to tell my students that the only stupid question was the one they were too embarrassed to ask... I'm almost too embarrassed to ask this, as it seems so fundamental to how the system plays, and I'm wondering how we managed to play for the best part of six months without it arising... Thanks, Phil

We're starting another one-shot (which will probably take us several weeks to play through)... Blackwater Creek. I'm struggling with it a bit though - it feels as though it wasn't properly proofread/edited - for one thing, the handouts are supposed to be in an appendix, but they're scattered throgh the text and, though Page 8 refers to a "history of Cade (Blackwater Handout 6)" I can't find it anywhere in the PDF!! Anyone know where it went? Anyone know of a source of 'pretty' handouts for the scenario please?

Thanks guys - plenty of possibilities here to investigate.

It’s going really well. The game is very different to any game we’ve ever played ‘tabletop’ - partly that’s because Call of Cthulhu is different from any of the games we’ve usually played, but also because we’ve never PBEMed like this before... And we are having a blast. There is a good deal of tension involved - it turns out to be a good medium for building suspense - providing the Keeper has a decent command of the English language. And everyone says they’re enjoying it - when they’re not worrying about what awful thing is going to happen to their character.

Thanks guys - I’ll check those ideas out!

Hi folks, My group of experienced role-players/friends (we’ve played together for 30+ years) decided, on lockdown, that playing our usual sort of combat-orientated games was probably not going to work - particularly as one player is a complete technophobe and really wouldn’t cope with Roll20 or any of the other on-line tools for playing (don’t tell me they’re easy - I know - this is a phobia we’re talking about: ergo it’s not exactly rational)... So we’re ‘stuck’ with good old PBEM. So, we started playing Call of Cthulhu - and we’re having a blast: it lets me think out my keepery bits properly, and write some suitably descriptive, creepy-when-appropriate, settings and responses to their questions and turns, and they discuss and plot and plan and... It’s just a whole lot of fun! So, we’ve been playing ‘The Haunting’ and the scenarios out of the starter set, and now we’re looking to move on to ‘greater things’. And I’m a bit confused as to what next... The choice seems to be between ‘one-shots’ on a similar ‘scale’ to those in the starter set, or some humongous campaign like ‘Masks of Nyarlathotep’ or ‘Horror on the Orient Express‘ - there don’t seem to be any ‘smaller’ campaigns - either that, or I’m looking in the wrong places? Anyone got any good ideas as to what we should do next? What do people do - does everyone just play ‘one-shots’ unless they’re prepared to take on one of the biggies? I’d love to play one of those, obviously, but PBEM is, by its nature, quite slow, so I’d rather save it for if/when we can play across a table again. Thanks, Phil

So far, so good! Each player has taken a couple of turns, and they're beginning to make progress.

Hi there, My group have just started a PBEM Cthulhu game, with me as GM. I'd have liked to have gone a bit more hi-tech than PBEM, but technophobic players are what they are. Anyway, there is a request for some 'background' info about 1920s life in general and Massachussetts in particular. Are there any favourite resources out there which give anything from a brief introduction upwards, to save me having to set in and write something please? I've had a hunt around the webosphere, and around these forums and have pretty much drawn a blank - my Google-fu seems to have atrophied in lockdown.

Finally, this afternoon, after several weeks struggling to learn all sorts of (new to me) on-line technology so I can 'function' in the 'real virtual' world, I have got my group 'up and running' with a new RPG venture in the 'imaginary virtual world' - an introductory Call of Cthulhu scenario - using (relatively) old technology (one player is a bit of a technophobe - email is about as far as we can 'push' him - Zoom, or Roll20, or anything like that is out of the question for now at least).

Our usual host has cancelled all games at his house 'until the epidemic is over' and has gone into total lockdown. So we'll need to play at one of our alternative venues... And maybe recruit another player - three of us, including GM, doesn't feel like enough.

This is sad. I never knew Greg, and I had been away from Runequest and Glorantha for many years, but had recently returned - and am enjoying, immensely, immersing myself in the world and the game which he began. My condolences to his family and friends... And to the gaming world, which has lost one of its greatest ever.

Spotted whilst skimming through... Page 219, column 1, 'Mounted Combat' - "Unless the riding animal is a trained for combat, it will not fight." That probably ought to read " Unless the riding animal is trained for combat, it will not fight."

I got mine early this morning. Once I got my chores done, I set in to skim through it and begin reading. It's beautiful, and so big, and so full of 'stuff'. My only grumble - the maps are very low-resolution, so that they pixelate badly when you try to zoom in to read the smaller names - much more so than the Argan Argar Atlas.

Hello! I’m new here, which is why I’m posting in this thread. I’m A long-time roleplayer - been playing since the late ‘70s, starting with original D&D, and moving on through a lot of classic games. Have always preferred fantasy to sci-fi - it’s hard, as a physicist, to ‘suspend disbelief’ in most sfrpgs, and it’s really hard not to spend one’s time analysing just how ‘it’ (whatever ‘it’ is) might work in the real world; worse still if your group contains more than one physicist (which t did for a long time). Traveller (LBB era) was a notable exception. I/we last played RuneQuest (3) in (I think) the late 1980s. It’s good to see it ‘back’ with Chaosium and linked once more with Glorantha - a setting I’ve long admired, but have never really ‘got to grips with’... Starting to rectify that - I’ve just read the Glorantha Sourcebook - though I have to confess that some of the extensive history made me glaze over a bit... I’ll return to read some of the more obscure bits when (if?) I need them for a game.