Is a personal plane and a trunk full of guns too much?

[FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb]

We're just starting Masks of Nyarlathotep and one of the players ended up with $80,000 personal property.  He wants a plane big enough to carry all 6 investigators (I would think him as pilot, one other investigator serving as untrained copilot or oiler or whatever the other crewman is, so only would need 4 passenger seats) and I can't find anything that keeps him from having it.  It looks like the price based on modern planes and adjusted for inflation is around $6000 (and right now, I can't remember what modern plane I looked up for that price).  I'm sure he's going to want to try to get that to Europe and Africa; is that realistic?  What added cost would he have to ferry it across?  I'm guessing that even if he does, fueling sites are so few and far between that it would be useless without sending someone ahead by train to set up makeshift landing/refueling sites?  Also, he chose pilot as his occupation and has civil prop at 71%.  Is that enough to reliably fly himself across the atlantic, and is there a plane of that period that would do that with 6 people that he could afford?

 

Another of the investigators is a former soldier and wants a box of grenades, a tommy gun, a 22 rifle, and a luger.  If I'm assuming that he got all of that black market or something, what are the realistic chances of getting that into europe or africa?  How do I handle customs checks?

I haven't read enough of the campaign yet to judge the preponderance of mythos entities vs human cultists.  Is there enough mythos involved that this much artillery isn't going to make a big game-balance difference anyway, and I just let him take it, if he can think think up a reasonable above-board justification for the authorities, like planning an african safari or something?  I'm assuming if they go to africa, the guns may pass off that way, but would the grenades?  Elephant grenades, maybe?

[soltakss]

I'd allow it, for both the fun factor and the fact that it won't make much of a difference.

This article says that the British auctioned of tens of thousands of aircraft after WWI, so there should be loads available.

Another article says that the Aeromarine 75 4 passenger flying boat cost $6,500, so you are probably about right with your estimate.

 

On 2/22/2023 at 6:22 AM, FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb said:

I'm sure he's going to want to try to get that to Europe and Africa; is that realistic?

This article says that the Aeromarine 75 has a range of about 850 miles, so probably not good for Europe or Africa, but the Investigator could put it on a cargo ship, sail to Europe and then fly along the coast.

On 2/22/2023 at 6:22 AM, FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb said:

Also, he chose pilot as his occupation and has civil prop at 71%.  Is that enough to reliably fly himself across the atlantic, and is there a plane of that period that would do that with 6 people that he could afford?

I would say that a skill of 71% would be fine to fly, unless in bad weather.

The Aeromarine 75 sounds perfect, it has a crew of 2 and 4 passengers, can fly for 850 miles and can be landed on water. It was described as a luxury experience, so just the kind of thing for a part of Investigators.

On 2/22/2023 at 6:22 AM, FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb said:

Another of the investigators is a former soldier and wants a box of grenades, a tommy gun, a 22 rifle, and a luger.  If I'm assuming that he got all of that black market or something, what are the realistic chances of getting that into europe or africa?  How do I handle customs checks?

It is traditional to ship such items in boxes labelled "Machine Parts", which usually works. You get through custom checks by bribing officials.

Don't forget, this is not long after WWI, so there will be loads of ex-military weapons around. The best thing about having them is that don't make much of a difference in the game.

[FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb]

That article says it carried 10 passengers.  Also, 6 went for 10k, but that's still within his budget, but he's going to be getting wicker chairs strapped to a military deck.  That price was before conversion, according to the article, and Aeromarine were going to have to convert it for civil use themselves.

The article talks about the crew being the pilot and his "mechanician".  Any idea how important that mechanician post was on these old planes?  Masks calls for 6 investigators, and I only have 3 players so they are each running two investigators.  Realistically, Is he going to have to adjust his other investigator to provide some mechanic skill level, vs. me getting to add drama with losing oil pressure or something in flight?  I suppose the pilot skill could cover it, and then just have the untrained copilot roll < 100% for just holding it flat and level while the pilot deals with any routine things.  I don't think I'd consider "here, hold this still" to force a 1% roll, but it's got to be stressful enough for someone who's never been up before to at least require a "don't fumble" roll.
 

Edited February 25, 2023 by FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb
Add a thought about price.

[Susimetsa]

14 hours ago, soltakss said:

This article says that the Aeromarine 75 has a range of about 850 miles, so probably not good for Europe or Africa, but the Investigator could put it on a cargo ship, sail to Europe and then fly along the coast.

I'd say it is possible, but you have to plan how you cross the wet bit - and perhaps getting a gas tank extension might also help. I'd suspect from Newfoundland to Greenland to Iceland to Ireland might work well.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Susimetsa

[EricW]

I'm an amateur pilot. There is a route from USA to Europe for light aircraft, Nunuvut, Greenland, Iceland then Ireland. Carrying a whole pile of guns could be an issue, guns and ammo are heavy - maybe they should be shipped separately.

The biggest issue though, is all the attention it would attract. Cairo and Nairobi were part of the British Empire in the 1920s. To reach Africa you would have to wire ahead, arrange fuel drops and supplies. This would create a lot of interest, fabulously wealthy people flying a large private plane (who can afford that?!), in places which where a plane is a rare sight. Maybe even newspaper articles and questions in parliament, about the strange planeload of Americans invading Africa. 

On arrival they would run head first into a crowd of newspaper and radio reporters demanding details of their mysterious trip to Africa. They might even be followed everywhere they go.

Lets hope the bad guys don't read the newspaper!

Edited February 25, 2023 by EricW

[FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb]

On 2/25/2023 at 1:00 AM, Susimetsa said:

I'd say it is possible, but you have to plan how you cross the wet bit - and perhaps getting a gas tank extension might also help. I'd suspect from Newfoundland to Greenland to Iceland to Ireland might work well.

On 2/25/2023 at 5:32 AM, EricW said:

There is a route from USA to Europe for light aircraft, Nunuvut, Greenland, Iceland then Ireland.

I don't know enough history to know whether fuel would even be readilly available even through canada and greenland, etc.  Several of the historic crossings landed in islands and such, and the Faroes look like they are about the right distance, but I have the same problem.  Wikipedia says they had a fishing fleet, but I'm assuming that's going to be coal-fired steam ships at most.    This article talks about "With the arrival of cars in the '70s...", for the Faroes, so I'd assume no readily available fuel in the 20s,  And I don't have any sense of history, so I don't even know if they could find enough fuel to cross the us without setting up fuel drops ahead of time.

So my thinking in general is that the only reason to go through that much trouble is if you are trying to make headlines by "crossing the atlantic".  Otherwise, the logistics and everything else probably make it more realistic to just ferry it across, and the same goes for any trip down into africa or anything.

Honestly, though, if he decides to fly, I'll probably just pull up google maps and assume that any decent city at about the right range had fuel reserves of some sort.  Maybe for farmer's tractors or smaller gasoline powered boats (don't know when those started).  And maybe let him get maps of some depots out in the desert or something where a camel dealer has a truck and his own tank, maybe with a week layover because "I just put the last of it in the truck.  Delivery guy won't be out for another week with a load of camels and a refill."

 

On 2/25/2023 at 5:32 AM, EricW said:

The biggest issue though, is all the attention it would attract.

 

I think this would be fine, and possibly even expected.  They are tracking down the route of a previous expedition that did have a lot of newspaper coverage and such, so they coiuld probably handle the publicity that way.  But I was thinking that may make it harder to smuggle the weapons in.  It may justify some of the guns, although may start rumors of some sort of revenge mission or something.  But I still don't think they could justify the grenades.  And the customs officials would be less likely to take bribes if their under a lot of international scrutiny.

 

What about weather?  Skill rolls aren't necessary under normal conditions, and flying should be normal barring weather or mechanical failure.  So I was thinking the chance of something going wrong that requires him to make a pilot check may be an average of luck and pilot skill?  His skill as a pilot makes him better able to determine whether it's a good day to fly and whether his plane is up to par and such, and then his luck augments that for the random thunderstorm or loose bolt.  Does that sound reasonable?  If he succeeds at the roll against the average, then he has an uneventful flight.  If not, then I get to add some drama and force some skill rolls.

 

 

 

[Susimetsa]

This is an interesting story about the early attempts to cross the Atlantic:

https://applications.icao.int/postalhistory/aviation_history_the_first_over_the_atlantic.htm

In short, given that the late 1910's was still the time of daredevils, it is unlikely that it would be a commonplace event in 1921 (the beginning of the campaign, if I recall correctly). Thus, warning the players of the dangers and asking for skill rolls has merit.

[FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb]

1925.  The expedition they are following was 1919 or 1920.  So only 2 years before Lindbergh's flight, and planes are probably a little safer and more stable by then (although only by aftermarket tweaks, since he may still be dealing with a WWI surplus plane).  But yeah, still daredevil country.  At the same time, I think I may do the luck/pilot average thing and give the chance for drama, but not to the point that they fail or crash into the ocean or something (not that I'd tell them that in the moment).  It would kinda defeat the purpose to kill them off before the story even gets underway well.  And I've realized that this player rolled a 10 on his d10 for the income roll (I knew he rolled high, but I wrote a character sheet app that pulled the value for him, so I hadn't actually looked at the table yet).  So I think it will be more memorable for all of them if their rich buddy is able to fly them around and let them stay at fancy hotels and such.  Maybe he even played racquetball at the country club with the playboy socialite that was running and funding the previous expedition, and a little publicity wouldn't be out of line just from that anyway.

And as far as I know (haven't read the whole thing yet), nothing is expected to happen in-transit in this campaign, and I can always force an emergency landing to fix some mechanical issue if I need to set a scene up that expects them to be at ground level at some point.

Basically, I need to keep reminding myself to not hold too much for "realism" as long as I have "verisimilitude", and if they want it to feel like an Indiana Jones movie, that doesn't hurt anything.  I mean, we're not playing Pulp, so they're all probably going to die in the end anyway. 🙂

 

[EricW]

15 hours ago, FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb said:

Basically, I need to keep reminding myself to not hold too much for "realism" as long as I have "verisimilitude", and if they want it to feel like an Indiana Jones movie, that doesn't hurt anything.  I mean, we're not playing Pulp, so they're all probably going to die in the end anyway. 🙂

 

They could lose most of their stuff in a forced landing - like the forced landing in “Lord of War”.. They’re PCs in a Cthulhu game, you don’t have to be nice to them 😉

You could have a lot of fun with this, one of the PCs could break their back during the landing, make a big deal of the difficulty, then an antagonist could offer to heal them - for a price.

Edited March 2, 2023 by EricW

[Numtini]

While it's probably technically possible, in much the same way that flying to space is now, the idea of doing Masks by plane is simply not realistic. The trip would be an adventure unto itself. But also, in any sort of in-game logic, the idea is to stop this cult, and faffing about with a temperamental airplane to get across the Atlantic when you could get there faster and safely on a steamship just doesn't make sense. There are plenty of places in the game where you could toss an available plane at the group, so his skills don't go wanting.

In terms of weapons, we had a bootlegger and he had a tommy gun and that was fine in NYC because he was from NYC. But I was very upfront that there was no way they were going to get that past British customs, and they were wise enough not to try. Hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols, sure. Get licenses. Possibly bribes. Maybe wait a few days. But not explosives or automatic weapons. He managed to pick a tommy gun up from a cultist in Australia and I'm pretty sure he'll find his way into having one in his possession by the time they go to Grey Dragon Island.

[Darius West]

I can't see why people would prefer a plane to a ship of some description.  Remember that Lindberg only flew the Atlantic back in 1927, and flight is still very dangerous.

[EricW]

12 hours ago, Darius West said:

I can't see why people would prefer a plane to a ship of some description.  Remember that Lindberg only flew the Atlantic back in 1927, and flight is still very dangerous.

An ocean going ship would be better. An 80ft sail boat, steamer or diesel boat would be more than enough to carry guns and party, and could carry enough fuel for long distance journeys. Oil extraction began at scale in the mid 1800s, Kerosene lamps were in common use from the 1860s, so there would have been plenty of kerosene supplies in major ports in Africa which could be used for fuel. The Germans deployed diesel U-boats in 1914, so diesel technology was well known and in use commercially by the 1920s, and kerosene lamp fuel, which could also be used in diesel engines, would have been readily available even in far flung corners of the British Empire.

[klecser]

My gut says that you need a really thorough session zero with this group, making sure that everyone understands the "reality" of the reality, both from a metagame perspective, and a historical perspective. Ya'll need to agree that you are in agreement on what "realism" is in this game. Is this being run as classic or pulp? If it's pulp, you don't worry about it.  I agree with Darius that one of the top misconceptions of the era is what air travel actually looks like. Even the most daring hesitate to make Transocean crossings in airplanes. Sea travel is still the norm of the day and a fact of life if you want to go overseas. As Darius says, flight is still super dangerous, and lengthy trips with many people is just asking to get them killed. So, would I "allow" it? Yes, and... Yes, but... I'd create a table of realistic airplane malfunctions and weather and roll on it for "encounters" every leg of the trip. Fuel costs could be absurd. Infrastructure is likely an issue too, depending on the route they take. I agree with you that sending advance parties to set up refueling stations is probably necessary: in which case, why are you flying? Epic, yes. Ok. 

As to the guns, my understanding is that military-grade weapons can't just be brought into countries. So, you're at smuggling. Air travel may actually draw MORE cargo inspection attention. I have ideas, but it would be up to players to figure that out. It would be a fun challenge. The guns aren't going to help them against Mythos entities anyway. 

I'm getting the vibe that you need to be sure that you know what people are expecting. It isn't Indiana Jones the RPG unless you are running it as pulp. I'm getting big "I wanna be Indiana Jones" vibes from your players. And that's fine. But if you're intending to run a Classic game, then they are being set up for disappointment.

[svensson]

Responding to the OP:

YOU keep him from having a Lockheed Elektra and a crate-full of Lewis guns. If that much gear is simply too much for your campaign, tell him he can't have it. Tell him that his cash is tied up in investments or real estate. If he has that much money, give him a house with a trustworthy staff in New York, Paris and Istanbul [or wherever] and he has a good car in each location.

The MoN campaign is not Pulp Cthulhu. Your players are not former Flying Tigers winging their way around the South Pacific in a Grumman Goose flying boat. If they want to swing from chandeliers with their whips, fedoras, and bomber jackets, build a campaign for that.

But player possessions are a negotiation process. One of the loopholes of a Cthulhu campaign is dilettantes trying to buy their way through the campaign using their Credit Rating like a club. Money is just one tool in the investigator's bag, and should never replace skill and good roleplay.

Edited March 5, 2023 by svensson

[Mark Mohrfield]

2 hours ago, svensson said:

The MoN campaign is not Pulp Cthulhu.

Not so sure about that. While not explicitly written for the Pulp Cthulhu rules, there are several pulpy elements in the campaign.

Spoilers:

Spoiler

At one point the characters get ahold of Lightning guns.

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Mark Mohrfield

[Ema Nymton]

30 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Not so sure about that. While not explicitly written for the Pulp Cthulhu rules, there are several pulpy elements in the campaign.

Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

At one the characters get ahold of Lightning guns.

 

Masks is not written as Pulp. However it can easily be run as Pulp.

The latest version of the campaign has excellent guidance in this regard and frequent sidebars with Keeper advice and additional information for Pulp play.

[FG-ziZxvoFRHduKepRbPGuFEb]

I've heard the same thing, that's it's "kinda pulpy".  The more I think about it, the less I think it actually matters.  If I need them on the ground, or on a ship, then mechanical problems or bad weather or the scene just happening to occur somewhere they stop for fuel can always ground them.  If I don't need them on the ground, then it doesn't matter if they go by ship or train or plane.  They've gone through all of the short scenarios in the keeper's book, so they know what to expect as far as game play, but I'm having a hard time getting them to get into the role play aspect, so if something like this helps them to be more active and creative, I'm hesitant to say no.  I'm trying to get into a less "rules lawyery" mode and say "yes, but..." as often as possible.

And in reality, he's asked for the plane, but I don't know if he's going to try and use them to this extent or not.  I'm just thinking through what I may want to do if I was a player, but I roleplay a lot more.  His money has the same problem.  In the "yes, but.." frame, I would let him say that he knew the original expedition playboy, at least peripherally, and give him an easy "in" to talking to that guy's contacts.  That does require him to actually think about what his character's wealth means for his lifestyle and daily routines and such, and I don't think he's up to putting that much thought into it yet.  But if he gets into his role enough to do so, I'm going to let him.  Or if he decides that he's made all of his money by smuggling, then I'll let him use his smuggling contacts to get his friend's guns in easier and to maybe know of less-well-known networks of refueling spots or something.  I still need to read through the rest of the campaign and work out where I need them to hit any given scene without the plane or whatever, so maybe I'll have to backtrack some of this by having some hard-to-find part breaking down, so he has to abandon the plane or something, but we'll see.

I've played DND since 2nd edition, and have been DMing for 10 years now.  I got thoroughly burnt out on d20 altogether just due to how constricted it gets, especially at high levels where we'd take 3 hours to run one combat simply because of all of the options all of the monsters and characters have for rolling dice.  So I swapped to CoC to get back down to a more basic "theater of the mind" feel and am really liking it (but haven't been able to be a player at all, yet. 😞)  But the players are a different story; one has only ever played final fantasy style video games, and the other only played a little dnd under d20 where it was all "roll play" instead of role play.  So anything I can do to get them to envision the story from their character's point of view, even if it's a view skewed from what "reality" would be in the situation, I should probably try to go with.

Basically, let them make it their story.  After all, it's supposed to be me and them creating a story, and every group should have a different story from every other group anyway, at least slightly.  If they don't, then it may be too much on rails.  So if they want their story to involve flying around a lot, and that makes it more memorable and fun for them, even when they do eventually get wiped out by doing something stupid, so be it.

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

Not so sure about that. While not explicitly written for the Pulp Cthulhu rules, there are several pulpy elements in the campaign.

Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

At one point the characters get ahold of Lightning guns.

 

Fair enough. I thought it was more like Classic 20s, like Cthulhu on the Orient Express.

[Numtini]

The current edition of MoN is dual-statted for regular and pulp. I've run it as a low pulp (1 talent and we added back in major wounds) and it's been fantastic. The material lends itself to Pulp in tone, but the big thing is with something this long, there's a real benefit it not having characters dropping like flies and getting replaced every couple of sessions. I played in a HotOE campaign recently and at one point, couldn't even remember my character because so many had been killed, mostly to not particularly memorable accidents. In contrast, my MoN players are very invested in their characters, who've developed long histories and personalities far beyond what was there at character creation. I'd never run a long campaign in regular again. I'd at least go for the double hit points. I don't think that means you have to abandon historical reality though, so even being an advocate for pulp, the plane wouldn't fly, so to speak, at my table.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Numtini