Cthulhu Clue

[Old Man Henerson]

On 10/11/2019 at 2:46 AM, seneschal said:

Musing on possible Halloween scenarios, I had a random thought.  What if instead of ramping up the eldritch terror to 11 we drifted in the other direction (or misdirection) a bit?  I'm a fan of both the board game and the comedy movie "Clue."  What can we do with it?

What exactly do you mean by going the other direction? Do you mean like my post about if the mythos was not that powerful?

[seneschal]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

What exactly do you mean by going the other direction? Do you mean like my post about if the mythos was not that powerful?

Yes.  That's why I thought you'd enjoy this discussion.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Remember, if you beat a dead horse long enough, it will rise up as a zombie horse to plague the world of man once more. Thus it is with fandoms and genres.

Zombie Horse Races? 

4 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I couldn't agree more with that. When I was younger, I would watch episodes of Ancient Aliens with a clipboard in hand and write down ideas from whatever zany episode was on. A few of these ideas have even made their way into the book I am writing.

Wow, finally a use for Ancient Aliens. I just hope you didn't believe what you were seeing. I remember back when stuff they showed on the Histiry Channel probably had happened and was actually history.

4 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

That is definitely one of the more interesting ideas I have heard.  You could also have it so while all the players are arguing and searching for who the murderer is, that Mr. Body is slowly transforming into a monster and will start to feed on the players or take them through his secret portal to Planet X to be eaten there.

I must have gotten it from somewhere but I can't remember where. I know of a couple RPGs where you start as ghosts and transition to the world of the dead, but no one where all the players are murder victims and out to solve their own murders. I recall an episode of, I think, Alfred Hictchock Presents where a mystery writer basically ask for permission to relieve his last few hours to try and solve his own murder. But not something with a whole group.

I think it would be best if it were ran as a sort of comedy too. The first adventure could have a "famous detective" as a NPC guide who shows them how it's done by solving his own murder. He is successful, but, unfortunately, that means he gets to move on and isn't around to help the other PCs.  

 

 

[Old Man Henerson]

12 hours ago, seneschal said:

Yes.  That's why I thought you'd enjoy this discussion.

Okay, here is the plot of the game I am currently working on.

I got this idea after reading some material from the End Time monograph on the internet. The back story starts in 2020 when a group of astronauts investigate the dark knight satellite. (Wich, by the way, sounds like Batman's satellite TV service) While on the satellite, they learn that the satellite is a beacon for a great cosmic force that is approaching the Earth, and will arrive in 7 years. One of the astronauts, who is really a cultist/monster tries to take over the satellite and gain its power for himself. They defeat him and barely escape the satellite as it explodes.

Over the next 7 years te world America, Europe, and China pool their resources and start a Mars mission to send their best people to live on Mars before the cosmic force arrives on Earth, sending up 3 rockets with 100 people at a time about every 2 years. As the cosmic fore draws closer, things on Earth get worse as crime and insanity goes up and cultists, monsters, and UFOs begin appearing and abducting people. At the end of the 7 years the cosmic force arrives and envelops the Earth in a monstrous cloud that the people of Mars can't see through. A few days later, the get radio transmissions from 3 more rockets that left Earth at the last minute and are lead by Elon Musk of all people.

The main story will take place 300 years later after Elon Musk and his descendants have made the Martian Colinies into an advanced society and the cosmic cloud over the Earth has disappeared. The PCs will be part of an expedition to Earth to see if they can recolonize the planet. This ofcourse goes horribly wrong and they are attacked by psychics and cultists aided by one of the expedition leaders who has already consorted with the dark powers in order to transcend his human limitations.

The PCs will have to survive in a strange and warped world full of psychic monsters and cultists ruled by three cosmic beings that are actually children of the first cosmic force. Along the way, they will find allies among the various resistance tribes and paramilitary organizations who are fighting against the 3 rulers and learn how to gain psychic powers and defeat them. Another force Known as The Light will also help and guide them through their adventure along with providing them its power and strength.

The end goal will be to go into the psychic dream realm and steel the shards of the Earth's life force that the 3 rulers have been feeding upon and use them to defeat the rulers, and once they have enough power to defeat the cosmic force itself and free the Earth. 

I also kind of want to have them use some cool mecha suits like the one on the back of the Big Golden Book, provided ofcourse through Elon Musk Cyber technology.

What do you think of the setting?

[Old Man Henerson]

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Zombie Horse Races? 

You betcha! 😉 That is not dead wich can race again.

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Wow, finally a use for Ancient Aliens. I just hope you didn't believe what you were seeing. I remember back when stuff they showed on the Histiry Channel probably had happened and was actually history.  

I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself, so I am more on the fence about it, although I have more faith in the actual historical accounts and legends than whatever Ancient Aliens Guy and his buddies are theorizing. I have never liked the Idea that the show put out that aliens were behind everything while humans just sit and watch. Still, the show is great for coming up with ideas for books and games.

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think it would be best if it were ran as a sort of comedy too. The first adventure could have a "famous detective" as a NPC guide who shows them how it's done by solving his own murder. He is successful, but, unfortunately, that means he gets to move on and isn't around to help the other PCs. 

That would be pretty funny to see. Just have Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot show up and give the PCs advice before jetting away. Also telling them to look out for the villain's propensity for following tropes. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

You betcha! 😉 That is not dead wich can race again.

And a late finisher can win the race!!!

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself, so I am more on the fence about it, although I have more faith in the actual historical accounts and legends than whatever Ancient Aliens Guy and his buddies are theorizing. I have never liked the Idea that the show put out that aliens were behind everything while humans just sit and watch. Still, the show is great for coming up with ideas for books and games.

I'm not opposed to the concept of Aliens, not opposed to all of the theories presented, just how AA has gone so overboard with it.  It's like an episode of In Search Of as written by the staff  of any of those "Newspapers' you see in the checkout of your local  supermarket" Nessie is Elvis's lovechild".

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

That would be pretty funny to see. Just have Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot show up and give the PCs advice before jetting away. Also telling them to look out for the villain's propensity for following tropes. 

Yeah. the idea would be for them to expect that he will b e around to help them solve their murder, only lose him because  they solve his first. Maybe Nero Wolfe would be a good choice since then the PCs would do  all the legwork. At the start of the adventure he informs them that he's solved everyone's murdered but his own and wants to reveal everyone at once (in classic mystery fashion). But once he's solve his own murder he vanishes without telling the other [layers how they were murdered, so it's back to square one.

 

Oh, BTW, I emailed you a file on character scale power armor which might help for your astronaut suits. 

[Old Man Henerson]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

And a late finisher can win the race!!!

 😂Good one, but those odds are too grim for me to bet on, but who knows, maybe the bet will pay off and you will reap quite the eternal reward from it.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'm not opposed to the concept of Aliens, not opposed to all of the theories presented, just how AA has gone so overboard with it.  It's like an episode of In Search Of as written by the staff  of any of those "Newspapers' you see in the checkout of your local  supermarket" Nessie is Elvis's lovechild".

That I can agree with. It is also the same with those ghost hunters and finding Bigfoot shows, if anything they filmed was real it would be on the national news instead of some backwater TV channel. Still, Ancient Aliens will hold a special place in my heart as one of the most ridiculous and interesting shows to see, especially for an author like me.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah. the idea would be for them to expect that he will b e around to help them solve their murder, only lose him because  they solve his first. Maybe Nero Wolfe would be a good choice since then the PCs would do  all the legwork. At the start of the adventure he informs them that he's solved everyone's murdered but his own and wants to reveal everyone at once (in classic mystery fashion). But once he's solve his own murder he vanishes without telling the other [layers how they were murdered, so it's back to square one.

That would be quite a hilarious set up, however, aside form having the PCs find several of the clues themselves, you should have whoever the Master Detective was leave some little clues himself for the PCs to find. So while at first they will think that he left them out in the cold, if they are smart enough, they will see that he actually left them every thing they need to succeed.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Oh, BTW, I emailed you a file on character scale power armor which might help for your astronaut suits. 

Thanks for the email. For the game I was torn between having a psychic focused adventure or taking inspiration from Cthulhu Tech, perhaps I can still have my cake and eat it too with this.  By character scale mecha, does it mean something like the Iron man armors?

Edited December 6, 2019 by Old Man Henerson
adding a word

[Atgxtg]

19 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

 😂Good one, but those odds are too grim for me to bet on, but who knows, maybe the bet will pay off and you will reap quite the eternal reward from it.

That I can agree with. It is also the same with those ghost hunters and finding Bigfoot shows, if anything they filmed was real it would be on the national news instead of some backwater TV channel. Still, Ancient Aliens will hold a special place in my heart as one of the most ridiculous and interesting shows to see, especially for an author like me.

Not for me.  To me it's the posterchild of the death of the Histroy Channel as a repectred source on History. Yeah shows like Pawn Stars, and American Pickers, were  steps in the wrong direction, but AA is really where the channel lost all credibility.

19 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

That would be quite a hilarious set up, however, aside form having the PCs find several of the clues themselves, you should have whoever the Master Detective was leave some little clues himself for the PCs to find. So while at first they will think that he left them out in the cold, if they are smart enough, they will see that he actually left them every thing they need to succeed.

Depends on t he dective. Certinaly not Wolfe. One of the things about him is that  he has no love of detective work.  But with Holmes  or another dectetive with a passion for detection it different. Holmes  could point out some "obvious" clues that could take the PCs some time to decipher.

19 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Thanks for the email. For the game I was torn between having a psychic focused adventure or taking inspiration from Cthulhu Tech, perhaps I can still have my cake and eat it too with this.  By character scale mecha, does it mean something like the Iron man armors?

Yeah, sort of. It was written more for anime. Basically to show than you could use the BRP Mecha rules and scale it back down  to character SIZ to get powered armor. I was working on statting up the mecha from Genesis Climber Mospeada at the time, especially the Ride Armor., although the Armor Fighters were on the "to do" list).

[Old Man Henerson]

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Not for me.  To me it's the posterchild of the death of the Histroy Channel as a repectred source on History. Yeah shows like Pawn Stars, and American Pickers, were  steps in the wrong direction, but AA is really where the channel lost all credibility.

Yeah, it is sad that it has gone so down hill, but someone else will take their place eventually. On the bright side, we have got a whole lot of good memes out of it, so there is that.

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Depends on t he dective. Certinaly not Wolfe. One of the things about him is that  he has no love of detective work.  But with Holmes  or another dectetive with a passion for detection it different. Holmes  could point out some "obvious" clues that could take the PCs some time to decipher.

I have not heard of Nero Wolfe, so I will have to take your word for it. I am mostly familiar with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie when it comes to detectives.  Perhaps a game of Sherlock Holmes vs Cthulhu would be an interesting game to run?

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, sort of. It was written more for anime. Basically to show than you could use the BRP Mecha rules and scale it back down  to character SIZ to get powered armor. I was working on statting up the mecha from Genesis Climber Mospeada at the time, especially the Ride Armor., although the Armor Fighters were on the "to do" list).

Aside from power rangers, a bit of Voltron, and Pacific Rim, I have not seen much of the mecha genre. Though I am thinking of checking Genlock. Could this system support something like Pacific Rim robots?

[Atgxtg]

46 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Yeah, it is sad that it has gone so down hill, but someone else will take their place eventually.

Already have. Sites like Youtbue and Magellan seemed to have similar content to old Histroy Channel.

46 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I have not heard of Nero Wolfe, so I will have to take your word for it.

Wolfe is worth reading. The A&E TV series from a couple of decades back was good, too.  In a nutshell, think of him as more like Mycroft that Sherlock. He is an overweight gourmet who would rather follow his normal daily routine  raise orchids,  read books, and dine well, then do anything else. He only does detective work to get the income he needs to support his lifestyle. In fact he hires another Dective to do his legwork for him. Since the other detective, Archie Goodwin, is mor ein the mold of a 30s-50s Film Noir type, you get a contrast between the Great Detective type and the street smart type.

46 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I am mostly familiar with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie when it comes to detectives.  Perhaps a game of Sherlock Holmes vs Cthulhu would be an interesting game to run?

Holmes vs. Cultist would be. I wouldn't want to mix himin with actual Mythos beings. His brain would probably win up in a Mi-Go jar.

 

46 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Aside from power rangers, a bit of Voltron, and Pacific Rim, I have not seen much of the mecha genre. Though I am thinking of checking Genlock. Could this system support something like Pacific Rim robots?

Hold on a second. What I wrote was just something to scale down the BRP Mecha rules to character scale mecha, with a few personal system tweaks added.. BRP Mecha does a good job of handling giant robots and other stables of the anime genre. That would probably be what you wan, but I think it is out of print. If you have something in particular in mind I might be able to help you stat it us in BRP, especially with those tables I sent you and a little tech knowledge.

[Old Man Henerson]

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Already have. Sites like Youtbue and Magellan seemed to have similar content to old Histroy Channel.

Yeah, I watch videos like that myself. I get some pretty good ones through Overly Sarcastic Productions.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Wolfe is worth reading. The A&E TV series from a couple of decades back was good, too.  In a nutshell, think of him as more like Mycroft that Sherlock. He is an overweight gourmet who would rather follow his normal daily routine  raise orchids,  read books, and dine well, then do anything else. He only does detective work to get the income he needs to support his lifestyle. In fact he hires another Dective to do his legwork for him. Since the other detective, Archie Goodwin, is mor ein the mold of a 30s-50s Film Noir type, you get a contrast between the Great Detective type and the street smart type.

 

Sounds interesting, I will maybe have to see it sometime.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Hold on a second. What I wrote was just something to scale down the BRP Mecha rules to character scale mecha, with a few personal system tweaks added.. BRP Mecha does a good job of handling giant robots and other stables of the anime genre. That would probably be what you wan, but I think it is out of print. If you have something in particular in mind I might be able to help you stat it us in BRP, especially with those tables I sent you and a little tech knowledge.

Don't worry about it, I was looking for something much smaller anyway. More in the 10-15 ft range, so your rules should do fine. I was just curious how far the rules could go. Thanks again for sending them.

[Atgxtg]

8 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Yeah, I watch videos like that myself. I get some pretty good ones through Overly Sarcastic Productions.

I've seen some of thier stuff. Not bad, but not quite the same sort of thing.

8 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Sounds interesting, I will maybe have to see it sometime.

The books are still better, if you are into reading.

8 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Don't worry about it, I was looking for something much smaller anyway. More in the 10-15 ft range, so your rules should do fine. I was just curious how far the rules could go. Thanks again for sending them.

Well the key trick of BRP MEcha was in creating a mecha scale that was 10x character scale and then reducing damage dice  by 1/10th. So 10d6 became  1d6 mecha scale and so on. 

My rules were more  for man sized armor your could wear, but could scale to ther 10-15ft range. That would be about  twice the height, so 8x the mass,  of +24 SIZ.

[Old Man Henerson]

56 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

The books are still better, if you are into reading.

Yeah. I am into reading, and speaking of reading...

57 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Well the key trick of BRP MEcha was in creating a mecha scale that was 10x character scale and then reducing damage dice  by 1/10th. So 10d6 became  1d6 mecha scale and so on. 

My rules were more  for man sized armor your could wear, but could scale to ther 10-15ft range. That would be about  twice the height, so 8x the mass,  of +24 SIZ.

Something that occurred to me after speaking earlier was that since your rules were more for man sized armor, I could go with something more like the Starship Trooper armors from the book. Perhaps I should do both. Why are you supposed to reduce the damage dice though?

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Something that occurred to me after speaking earlier was that since your rules were more for man sized armor, I could go with something more like the Starship Trooper armors from the book. Perhaps I should do both. Why are you supposed to reduce the damage dice though?

Because it's easier  to roll something like 3d6 for a battleship's main gun than 30d6. It is also easier to do the math and just scale hit points and everything else. So Instead of a Battleship needing thousands of hit points it can  get by with only hundreds of mecha scale hit points. 

[seneschal]

On 12/6/2019 at 9:50 AM, Old Man Henerson said:

Okay, here is the plot of the game I am currently working on.

I got this idea after reading some material from the End Time monograph on the internet. The back story starts in 2020 when a group of astronauts investigate the dark knight satellite. (Wich, by the way, sounds like Batman's satellite TV service) While on the satellite, they learn that the satellite is a beacon for a great cosmic force that is approaching the Earth, and will arrive in 7 years. One of the astronauts, who is really a cultist/monster tries to take over the satellite and gain its power for himself. They defeat him and barely escape the satellite as it explodes.

Over the next 7 years te world America, Europe, and China pool their resources and start a Mars mission to send their best people to live on Mars before the cosmic force arrives on Earth, sending up 3 rockets with 100 people at a time about every 2 years. As the cosmic fore draws closer, things on Earth get worse as crime and insanity goes up and cultists, monsters, and UFOs begin appearing and abducting people. At the end of the 7 years the cosmic force arrives and envelops the Earth in a monstrous cloud that the people of Mars can't see through. A few days later, the get radio transmissions from 3 more rockets that left Earth at the last minute and are lead by Elon Musk of all people.

The main story will take place 300 years later after Elon Musk and his descendants have made the Martian Colinies into an advanced society and the cosmic cloud over the Earth has disappeared. The PCs will be part of an expedition to Earth to see if they can recolonize the planet. This ofcourse goes horribly wrong and they are attacked by psychics and cultists aided by one of the expedition leaders who has already consorted with the dark powers in order to transcend his human limitations.

The PCs will have to survive in a strange and warped world full of psychic monsters and cultists ruled by three cosmic beings that are actually children of the first cosmic force. Along the way, they will find allies among the various resistance tribes and paramilitary organizations who are fighting against the 3 rulers and learn how to gain psychic powers and defeat them. Another force Known as The Light will also help and guide them through their adventure along with providing them its power and strength.

The end goal will be to go into the psychic dream realm and steel the shards of the Earth's life force that the 3 rulers have been feeding upon and use them to defeat the rulers, and once they have enough power to defeat the cosmic force itself and free the Earth. 

I also kind of want to have them use some cool mecha suits like the one on the back of the Big Golden Book, provided ofcourse through Elon Musk Cyber technology.

What do you think of the setting?

Sounds very anime.  🙂  All the PCs must be teenagers in tight white spandex uniforms.

[Old Man Henerson]

On 12/7/2019 at 9:29 AM, Atgxtg said:

Because it's easier  to roll something like 3d6 for a battleship's main gun than 30d6. It is also easier to do the math and just scale hit points and everything else. So Instead of a Battleship needing thousands of hit points it can  get by with only hundreds of mecha scale hit points. 

Thanks a lot for the tip. That makes so much more sense for vehicular combat. That makes me think it would be fun to run a game that centers around combat like that. Might be interesting to try no?

[Atgxtg]

10 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Thanks a lot for the tip. That makes so much more sense for vehicular combat. That makes me think it would be fun to run a game that centers around combat like that. Might be interesting to try no?

It might be interesting,  but keep in mind that this, like most RPGs is centered around the player characters. You want to be careful not to overshadow them with gear and vehicles.

[Old Man Henerson]

23 hours ago, seneschal said:

Sounds very anime.  🙂  All the PCs must be teenagers in tight white spandex uniforms.

Oh boy, now that you put it that way it does sound like an anime LOL. It reminds me of Valley of The Wind, wich I have really wanted to watch for a long time now. The mecha part of the story ma or may not make it into the final cut however, so I will have to think about it some more.

[Old Man Henerson]

59 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It might be interesting,  but keep in mind that this, like most RPGs is centered around the player characters. You want to be careful not to overshadow them with gear and vehicles.

Yeah. I will have to remember that.

[Atgxtg]

37 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Yeah. I will have to remember that.

It should mostly come down to  how PCs can survive against high tech weaponry. Handguns and rifles, even laser version s are okay, but something like a low caliber autocannon can wipe out your group before they know what hit them. 

One suggestion I have is that if you do allow for such high tech weapons, give those spandex suits some  extra ballistic protection.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Old Man Henerson]

1 minute ago, Atgxtg said:

It should mostly come down to  how PCs can survive against high tech weaponry. Handguns and rifles, even laser version s are okay, but something like a low caliber autocannon can wipe out your group before they know what hit them. 

One suggestion I have is that if you do allow for such high tech weapons, give those spandex suits some  extra ballistic protection.

Yeah, I will definitely give them more protection. Thankfully though, only a small amount of enemies will have such weapons, since most of them will be creatures, and medieval level cultists. There will be a few enemies like the grey aliens and some abominations with more powerful weapons approaching lasers, but for the most part the PCs won't deal with them very much until the later half of the game. Psychics should be the more immediate problem in the beginning.

[seneschal]

The guns, not the creatures, are psychic.  If a PC acquires a weapon from a downed opponent he risks mind control/possession by whatever broadcast power is enabling them to operate.  Creatures and cultists are simply pawns of this centralized controlling force, be it a computer, alien or ancient entity.  If they can resist domination the adventurers have a chance to wrest control of a weapon from ... whatever it is.  However, since the power is broadcast, the high-tech gear only works within a certain range of whatever originally gave it its oomph.

Nero Wolfe radio and TV episodes can be watched/listened to for free on YouTube.  Leg man Archie Goodwin gives Wolfe his oomph.  Otherwise he'd never work at all.  Goodwin needs his paycheck to chase blondes, who have a different kind of oomph in either series.

[Atgxtg]

12 minutes ago, seneschal said:

The guns, not the creatures, are psychic.  If a PC acquires a weapon from a downed opponent he risks mind control/possession by whatever broadcast power is enabling them to operate.  Creatures and cultists are simply pawns of this centralized controlling force, be it a computer, alien or ancient entity.  If they can resist domination the adventurers have a chance to wrest control of a weapon from ... whatever it is.  However, since the power is broadcast, the high-tech gear only works within a certain range of whatever originally gave it its oomph.

There was a History Channel  mockumentary on War of the Worlds that sort of went down that  path. Basically it  was the alien tech  that  drove the Martian to invade, and  with us humans being such technophiles it seemed as if the tech basically  abandoned the Martians for more useful and versatile us.

12 minutes ago, seneschal said:

Nero Wolfe radio and TV episodes can be watched/listened to for free on YouTube.  Leg man Archie Goodwin gives Wolfe his oomph.  Otherwise he'd never work at all.  Goodwin needs his paycheck to chase blondes, who have a different kind of oomph in either series.

Yeah, although the radio episodes aren't all that good,  usually. Rex Stout (the author), actually  stopped licensing Wolfe out to radio, film ,amd TV because the adaptions were so  bad. They would typically adapt Wolfe to fit the standardized mystery format, than adapt the format to fit Wolfe. The  A&E series and a handful of later  radio adaptations are the  most faithfl of the adaptations.  

[seneschal]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, although the radio episodes aren't all that good,  usually. Rex Stout (the author), actually  stopped licensing Wolfe out to radio, film ,amd TV because the adaptions were so  bad. They would typically adapt Wolfe to fit the standardized mystery format, than adapt the format to fit Wolfe. The  A&E series and a handful of later  radio adaptations are the  most faithfl of the adaptations.  

But Sydney Greenstreet (Kaspar Gutman from the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon) is fun as Wolfe and has great interplay with Gerald Mohr's Goodwin.  The 1950-51 radio show is as much about their relationship as about the week's latest murder (because as Agatha Christie said, it always has to be murder; mere larceny isn't high stakes enough).  True, though, the 1980s Canadian Broadcasting Company radio show doesn't have the same sparkle.  Don't know if it is more faithful to the books.

[Atgxtg]

39 minutes ago, seneschal said:

But Sydney Greenstreet (Kaspar Gutman from the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon) is fun as Wolfe and has great interplay with Gerald Mohr's Goodwin. 

Yes, for all of about two episodes. They had a hard time keeping Archies for that radio series.  Plus there is a scene where Wolfe gets all flustered because Archie is in danger, which just doesn't fit Wolfe.

 

39 minutes ago, seneschal said:

 

The 1950-51 radio show is as much about their relationship as about the week's latest murder (because as Agatha Christie said, it always has to be murder; mere larceny isn't high stakes enough).  True, though, the 1980s Canadian Broadcasting Company radio show doesn't have the same sparkle.  Don't know if it is more faithful to the books.

It is. The 1950s version  had next to nothing in common with the books, and was why  Stout pulled the plug  on  adaptations for the rest of his life. In his opion it was that bad. 

The 80s CBC version is truer to the soruce, helped in part because they adapted  actual Nero Wolfe stories.