Scenario Ratings

[klecser 917]

With the release of Does Love Forgive? (https://www.chaosium.com/blogdoes-love-forgive-a-special-surprise-release-from-chaosium-for-gen-con-2020-/) Chaosium seems to be releasing a scenario rating system. Interesting. I wonder if this will become a common feature moving forward? Will past scenarios get retroactive ratings? Here is a screen shot of the system:

The first scenario in the collection is rated a single star and one session. The second scenario is two stars and one session.

Discuss!

[Mike M 764]

To be honest, we already mostly say in a scenario's introduction what its level is and so on. 

This rating came with the Does Loves Forgive? book, so we thought we'd leave it in and see whether it was of use. 

 

[klecser 917]

Just now, Mike M said:

To be honest, we already mostly say in a scenario's introduction what its level is and so on. 

This rating came with the Does Loves Forgive? book, so we thought we'd leave it in and see whether it was of use. 

 

Interesting. Thanks Mike. I can see arguments both for and against being explicit about it in a "system." 

[Tranquillitas Ordinis 94]

This rating system is in every official Polish scenario. I think this was an original idea by the Polish publisher "Black Monk Games" and I personally like it. If you know you need a short/ long or easy/ difficult scenario for your campaign, it serves as a quick and quite accurate help to choose between them.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Tranquillitas Ordinis

[Closterphobia 21]

I like it personally, it would also be great to see it in the blurbs / marketing material for the scenarios, particularly if that information was searchable. 

[Gman 11]

 

@Mike M

 

First of all yes I find this very helpful and would love this in all products moving forward with the additional defined session length.  Is a session 2 hours, 3 hourS, 4 hourS, 8 hours?  I assume it's 4 hours but don't know for sure.  Like many gamers I'm busy and always have to balance adventure length with my availability. If I know up front how long an adventure or campaign is expected to run I'm much more likely to buy it

 

in addition this adventure looks ver Noir....can we please get a "Noir Cthulhu" setting book in the vein of Pulp Cthulhu or Berlin the Wicked City?  That would be amazing!!!

Thanks for all your amazing work with the CoC line  LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!

 

[Spence 89]

1 hour ago, Gman said:

in addition this adventure looks ver Noir....can we please get a "Noir Cthulhu" setting book in the vein of Pulp Cthulhu or Berlin the Wicked City?  That would be amazing!!!

I'll second that...

[Joe Kenobi 75]

2 hours ago, Gman said:

First of all yes I find this very helpful and would love this in all products moving forward with the additional defined session length.  Is a session 2 hours, 3 hourS, 4 hourS, 8 hours?  I assume it's 4 hours but don't know for sure.  Like many gamers I'm busy and always have to balance adventure length with my availability. If I know up front how long an adventure or campaign is expected to run I'm much more likely to buy it

 

It's a good point--my in-person sessions were usually 3 hours, but with remote play given our current reality, I've moved to 2 hours. Oddly enough, I didn't think through the shortened sessions at first, and kept asking myself, "Why are these scenarios taking so many more sessions to complete? Is virtual adding that much time?" Took me a couple of scenarios before I finally realized, "Oh yeah! We're keeping the session shorter now that we're online!"

My question: Is the difficulty a rating for the player to "solve," or for the Keeper to run? I assume the players?

[MrJorgensen 9]

2 hours ago, Gman said:

First of all yes I find this very helpful and would love this in all products moving forward with the additional defined session length.  Is a session 2 hours, 3 hourS, 4 hourS, 8 hours?  I assume it's 4 hours but don't know for sure.  Like many gamers I'm busy and always have to balance adventure length with my availability. If I know up front how long an adventure or campaign is expected to run I'm much more likely to buy it

 

I suspect this sort of thing varies so much from group to group that trying to quantify it with a rating would be quite difficult. As an example, I recently ran "None More Black" from Doors to Darkness for my group, believing it would take about two four-hour sessions. But my players like to get into their characters, they plot and scheme, they talk to everyone and chase down every possible lead (sometimes down dead-ends, which led to more NPCs created on the fly, which led to more character interaction, etc etc) ... it took us six sessions, and it could easily have gone another. I'm not knocking the idea of ratings, necessarily, but I do think the qualities they're trying to measure are so dependent on Keeper style and group dynamic that I'm skeptical they'd be of much practical value.