GmApu

Another thing to consider is that not all of them need to “win” the scenario if things get to hard you just either kill them using a satisfactory sequence or have them “disappear” without a trace. Sometimes investigators Get themselves into situations that they can not escape and that is part of the premise of the game. We just need to make those deaths and disappearances satisfactory.

I havent played the scenario but I read it. In regards to not having any other way to escape is because they have the option to bargain their exit. The module even tells you that the bad guys know there is something in the box but they dont know what it is or what does it do. So, I think, that is something that you could try the next time, have the bad guys talk more extensively about how they will let them go away if they give the boxed item. I'm pretty sure that most investigators would not agree to give the thing out but, that is the other "exit" option you are given by the module. Another thing that can be done if they are NOT captured inside of the vault is to have a secondary "emergency exit" somewhere in the back of the office room, I'm not aware how common those were in the 20s. Cheers.

Hello all, I don't know if this still needed but here we go. I got a group of D&D organized play program players. They were keen on learning a new system so they accepted my invitation. What followed was one hour of reading and choosing characters. Then we played for about an hour and half. During this game they decided that it was sensible to lie about their goals to the town's people marking them as strange outsiders, just like the Men In Black, asking about this Otis fellow and his gold coins. After trying to get to talk to Elsie the editorial staff did not allow them to go in because of their shadiness. Then they started to see the black car around town stalking the Inquirer building. They got stuck, and talk a lot about what to do next. The game session ended and we met the next week (last week). This day they were more on point, they played their journalist card with different NPC i had to create on the fly when they decided they wanted to go to a bookstore and the local diner. In the bookstore the clerk recognized Agatha and gave her information on what is happening in town and what the gossip about this Mr. Frye is. In the diner Otis payed for food for his mom with a gold coin that was showed to Wing when he asked to see that curious thing. After that a different pair when to the editorial building after seeing a red card with a blonde girl drive past them. There they were able to talk to Elsie Caldwell and Mr. Titcomb, Elsie agreed to take Agatha to Hannah's house. This is where I upped the stakes receiving a visit from a hybrid that was not please about the investigators there. They decided to follow this guy and had to come up with a wharf close to Insmouth, they failed some checks and decided to go away without any transportation. They walked back to Hannah's home and a bunch of hybrids were "visiting" her. The investigators were chased out in gun point making them very frustrated. I think this was because they are used to be fantasy heroes that resolve most of their problems with a spell. Anyways, outgunned they walked back to town. The next day they decided to ask some questions in the scrapyard and got to meet Otis. After telling him about their interest in his story he took them to his machine where he told them that his brothers were coming "tonight". Ending the second night of play in 2hrs and a half. The investigators stayed with Otis, but when the lights started to appear in the sky they pulled their guns and rifle out. The shot first and thought to ask questions later, two of them died horribly, Wing lost a lot of sanity stunning him for a few moments and unable to act. The police officer, Archie, was able to shoot down 2 of the deep ones. Then the rest of the enemies grabbed Otis and left. The investigators decided to take a deep one corpse to town but they were stopped by the Men in Black and told to never speak of what happened to anyone. Then they took all the dead bodies and left the investigators alive. After, they returned back home and the end scene was with Cleaver receiving them at the train station eager to hear about their experience. So, the module is very fun to run. The character are very interesting, specially Otis and Hannah. I played Hannah as a delusional person, always with a smile on her lips and very "motherly", offering food and talking to the investigators as if they were children. Otis was super shy until they showed him a bit of knowledge in what is in space and what they read in the fluff piece (handout#1), after that he was super friendly and talking a lot about how he does everything alone in the marches, I wore a jacket for his portrayal and I made sure to play out how he hid his skin under it and he used his clothing to hide his deformations. When the final Otis scene started i upped his excitement and he even got naked, to be "pure" for his brothers, taking his jacket off and ripping his shirt. with this I intended the investigators to see his deformed body but they were more busy looking for enemies and ignored the man. The rest of the cast, Elsie, the sergeant and the store owners did not induce a lot of interest in the players. I was not able to use the bootlegers because the players never had a reason to meet them. So, this game took us 3 game days to finish. one day of 1hr and half of play and 2 days of 2hrs and a half of play. So about 6 hours of play. They are DnD players are it was hard to the players to accept that their dnd style of play did not made them "win" the scenario. And the ending was bitter sweet to them. All in all, they enjoyed the experience and asked me to run chapter 2 next week for them. They also showed a lot of interest on the mythos and asked for audiobooks to listen to. So that is a win. I learned a lot from this first play through and I'm looking forward to run it again with a different group of people.

Im interested.

Greetings, Name: Felipe Country: USA Location: Petaluma, CA and St. Rafael, CA I run games every Monday in a store called Gamescape North in the city of San Rafael, CA. Looking forward to running more Chaosium games in the store.