Part 6 - A Not-So-Positive Take

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Hello all.

While my game has been on hiatus since around the time Part 4 was posted (job changes, school starting, players unavailable, etc.), I have had plenty of time to look through A Time to Harvest and have found myself very satisfied - that is, until Part 6 rolled along.

I would like to preface all of this by saying that I do not wish anything resembling ill will on anyone who worked on it. I don't think any less of anyone who enjoys part 6 and intends to run it. I don't even entirely think it's an awful thing on its own! I just--well, let's get to the analysis.

Major, MAJOR spoilers ahead.

 

If I'm being honest, I really, truly, sincerely thought Part 5 would be hard to top. The introduction of a Great Old One isn't just a Big Thing, it's a Cataclysmic, Game-Changing, Completely Campaign Shattering thing. Any player characters who want to continue after that are a true and genuine asset to a Call of Cthulhu campaign - more power to them. Infinite amounts of power to them. They're gonna need it if they think they're gonna run the risk of running into something like that again. But, sadly, for me, the appearance of a Great Old One themselves is when the third act comes to a close, and the epilogue begins. It's when the final scenes play out, the characters decide their future, and the endless struggle continues at another time, in another place, with another group of people.

I do not consider a trip to the moon to be an epilogue. It is, if anything, an entire campaign unto itself - one where the climax is not that and the investigators have likely not yet actively been brutalized physically and/or emotionally by Shub-Niggurath itself. The ruin of Cobb's Corners is, to me, the ultimate expression of a Lovecraftian ending - a journey to the moon to rough up some mi-go and thwart a dastardly, maniacal scheme seems, to me, kind of a copout. Like if the Blair Witch Project had an extra 15 minutes tacked on where Heather goes back in time and burns the Blair Witch at the stake to prevent her from becoming immortal and changing history or something.

As I said before, it's a great ending to another campaign. I'd happily field some adventures trying to study, build, maintain, and then ultimately utilize a moon portal for the FOC to combat the mi-go through. But, sadly, it is not, to me, where I would end A Time to Harvest. The rest of the campaign feels so dark and ominous and genuinely horrific, that I feel the ending is just too much pulp - the players will never fear being kitted out with moon magic and going into space. 

As for how I'll modify this, it's a difficult call, but I think I have my epilogue planned. After the conjuration of Shub-Niggurath, I think the hills will buzz to life all around Cobb's Corners, and the investigators will take one last blow to the mind as they witness armies of mi-go teeming to life from the hills and fluttering to the sky into the arms of one of their gods, vanishing once more into the distance from whence they came - perhaps with mass offerings of Pasquallium in tow. The survivors and the sane may choose what happens next - and in their lives over the next few days, they will be encountered by a half-mad and gun-wielding Roger Harrold (really Daphne Devine) who rants at them about their abandonment issues, how they were promised they would go to the stars, and that it's all (somehow) the investigators' fault.

Perhaps not a Lovecraftian ending, but a suitably bleak one no matter what they do. They survived - that's victory enough.

 

All that having been said, I still dearly love Chaosium and will more than happily participate in next year's Organized Play campaign! This one was so great that my response to the ending and my need to say it out loud should say far, far more than my silly little complaints. Until next time!

[logoi]

Well, I am afraid I have to agree with you on this one. The 6th episode is probably the weakest part of the campaign. I think it looks really bleak in comparison with the old scenarios and campaigns of yore. The post-climactic mood of this part borders on grotesque, it looks like some kind of a Hollywood sequel - not very Lovecraftian. If anything, I would really recommend this part is rewritten for the published version of the campaign. That being said, I am a big fan of A Time to Harvest campaign Ep 1-5 and my players are enjoying it a lot (1st group is going int o Episode 5, the other finishing Ep. 2). Chaosium has given us another great set of scenarios. It the end is a wee bit disappointing, that is probably because we are used to really great stuff from you guys!

[morganhua]

I'm going to be running Ep 6 this Thursday.  We'll see how the players react to it.  Also I hate the gates modifying the body so they can breath on the moon.  I'm putting them in deep sea diving suits with a self-contained air supply.

[billvonw]

I think that Ep.6 would be far more interesting with a little more interlude, like a big expedition to the Himalayas and a more gradual unveiling of the true Mi-Go plans, I think I am gonna run some other scenarios in between Ep.5 and 6, extending the campaign a little but making it more impactful rather than throwing a lot of cataclysmic information on the PC's at once. I also loved the idea of having them with something technologic to breathe rather than modifying their bodies on the gate. 

[SteveMND]

We just finished up Episode Five (and for us, the campaign) last night as well, and the players all agreed that the eminent arrival (and attempted thwarting of) an Outer God was a hell of a high point to end on.

[Mike M]

Would you have preferred Episode 6 to have been an optional epilogue to the campaign? Certainly, Episode 5 does end with a bang.

 

[SteveMND]

I'd think so, yeah.  Doing battle with (or at least potentially encountering/thwarting/escaping from) the physical manifestation of one of the top-tier deities who is literally flattening an entire town seems like the emotional high point to most any campaign.

Edited November 29, 2016 by SteveMND

[TK Nyarlathotep]

I agree, Ep. 6 might make a better optional epilogue than a mandatory part of the story. It doesn't tie up a whole lot, and a mi-go shoggoth seems downright quaint compared to being reduced to screaming at the sky by the manifestation of corrupt birth herself.

[mibagents]

I"m going to have to jump on the bandwagon here, and say Ep. 6 is a let down in a way.  I think the Call Shub Niggurath ending is epic and can't be topped.  However, I can see swapping 5 and 6; the Moon Gate is right there in the mine the investigators are searching for their friends.  It makes more sense to have a brain in a brain cylinder tell them about the moon gate then, and cobble together an approach to it immediately.  Then, after walking on the surface of the Moon, they get to watch Shub Shub get jiggy with it, and lose most of their sanity. 

[Numtini]

I ended up as a player for TTH. As a player, it felt both over the top and a letdown at the same time. A letdown because you just can't beat seeing an Elder God, but over the top because the moon felt more like "that's ridiculous" and not so much like "wow that's cool." It also felt like we had no agency for ep 6. We didn't discover the plot, we were told about it, and we were sent to fix it, despite being a bunch of college kids when FOC had paramilitary folks available.

I love the idea of reversing 5 and 6. It fixes all these issues.

Blowing it up and ruining their fun could also be connected into why the cult goes crazy and destroys everything, which I found pretty disconnected from the whole Mi-Go thing--a problem I had with the whole campaign. Have a cylinder warn the players about the moon, but tell them it will probably result in retribution against Cobb's? That adds a nice moral aspect to it. Yeah, you saved the world, but Little Johnny is cooking up his parents at the diner and that's partially on you.

[mibagents]

So my group is coming up on chapter 4 this weekend, and I'm going to reverse 6 and 5.  The discovery of the moon gate makes the existence of the earthquake mining machine useful, if they can figure out how to control it, and how to get it in place (over the finished section of gate). 

[Mike M]

2 hours ago, mibagents said:

So my group is coming up on chapter 4 this weekend, and I'm going to reverse 6 and 5.  The discovery of the moon gate makes the existence of the earthquake mining machine useful, if they can figure out how to control it, and how to get it in place (over the finished section of gate). 

Will be interested to hear how the resequencing goes. 

[joggiwagga]

So I actually talked to my players post ep. 6 asking their opinions about the mod and about how it fit into the larger story.

First off, they did all have fun.  I had a bit of a challenge as a ST handling the chase scene because it's over such a large (and at times slightly undefined) distance, but that's beside the point.

But one thing they really liked about the over all ATtH arc is how mostly grounded in reality the arc was, with the insidious threat of the alien.  They were normal people slowly discovering things in the shadows were out to get them.  Going to the moon flipped the whole feeling of the arc to them with a sudden SF adventure module, and they would have preferred it not modify their physiology so they could breath on the moon.  The players had of course encountered the gates before, but they were weirded out and avoided them

[morganhua]

I didn't morph their physiology, but gave them this:

 

[Matt Ryan]

To me, episode six feels like the start of a second campaign, a sequel to "A Time to Harvest" and one I'd run with the Pulp Cthulhu rules. Teleporting to the moon seems way outside my concept of mimicking Lovecraft's works. Dreaming to the moon would be another story . . .

For our campaign, which was more often than not driven by the players' actions and not the railroad-y plot line, we ran episode five in the middle of episode four, right after the Dark Young attacked the Maclearan farmhouse. The Dark Young fled with two of the NPCs, leaving easily followed foot prints, but the PCs weren't interested. They zipped over to the mercenary camp, witnessed the horror, then fled to town. Since they were on their way, and no amount of convincing from the other NPCs could get them to follow the Dark Young, I threw them into the middle of Cutter's ritual. They prevented Shubby's full manifestation and escaped the destruction of the town. In the morning, an FOC clean up team found them and asked where the missing FOC folks were. Then they followed the tracks through the woods and found the Mi-Go tunnels. That's where we are now.

Next week they plan to go into the tunnels, aided with a half-dozen well-armed mercs, and we'll have a real shoot 'em up. I plan to throw Mi-Go soldiers at them left and right. I'll highlight the gates, maybe even let them see the moon through one, but plan on distracting them with waves of Mi-Go baddies. We'll see how it goes.

I hope rescuing the FOC NPCs and destroying the Mi-Go will make a satisfying ending, but have my doubts. Episode five was just too good.

Then, once the Mi-Go are cleared, I'll ask the group if they want one more episode or if they feel the campaign has reached a satisfying conclusion. We're playing at the local comic book store, so we might click into a new campaign or even snap over into a different game. I hope we stick with CoC, but it's not entirely up to me.

 

[caddy1071]

On 12/13/2016 at 8:38 PM, morganhua said:

I didn't morph their physiology, but gave them this:

 

OH MAN - where did you get that one?  Obviously(? ) a diving suit - can you divulge where you found the picture/who created it?

NICE- this line of managing the moon section seems a bit more to my liking. (although, honestly, I'm back on Ep 2 )

Thank you all for putting this out here - this is great input for moving forward in our campaign - I'll evaluate 5 and 6 and may very well swap them if it makes sense.  I'll also report back, Mike, however I guess I'm a slowpoke and it will be out by then anyway!

Thanks again, all!

tty!
Cory
 

[morganhua]

http://www.deadinventors.com/2013/10/the-diving-suit-from-davinci-to-cousteau.html

http://intheboatshed.net/2008/07/08/was-dr-who-in-paris-in-the-19th-century/

Edited December 18, 2016 by morganhua

[mibagents]

Well it took a couple more sessions than I would have liked but we finished the campaign, and my attempt to re-sequence chapters 6 and 5 did not work.  When my PC's entered the caverns at Round Hill, I showed them the gate being active, and a Mi Go which they killed dropped a device that went through the gate, making it obvious it was a magical effect of some sort.  My characters did not bite; I think because they were on a mission to find a captured NPC  (Larry Necklar) they gave the moon gate a pass.  There was talk of going back for it after Chapter 5 but time constraints did not allow me to further the campaign at that point.  So my feeling is still that, after witnessing the arrival of one of the Big 5 and the destruction of a town, and the permanent insanity of a host of NPC's and PC's, doing the moon gate is anti climactic but my attempt was lame because of the players mission at hand.  If the Moon Gate chapter is to be used, I still believe it should happen before Chapter 5 but it will also have to happen before Little Pigs Little Pigs (I can't NOT hear Negan when I read that chapter, lol) So they can have a reason to enter the Moon Gate.  This might however mean the kidnapping does not happen, but if they are drawn to the caverns to destroy the moon gate, it still puts them there (which is probably the biggest reason for the kidnapping) so they can find the brain jars and so forth.  

[g33k]

New Cultist here (just joined)  But I played Chaosium games (RQ) as long ago as 1980, and CoC ... 1st or 2nd (not sure) and... hrm... at least 1 other edition; and other BRP games since... and plenty of non-Chaosium games across the years.

So -- despite my "novice" status here, and the fact that I've yet to do more than skim the resources -- I feel able to chime in with a "hell yeah" on the idea that the appearance of a Great Old One is really the climactic event.  That event ends the campaign.

I like the suggestion (by mibagents) of re-sequencing such that "session 5" *IS* the 6th/final session.  I wonder if an even-more-extensive rework of the material -- ep's 4/5/6?  ep's 3/4/5/6? I'll have a better sense after I dig through it in depth -- might be better than a simple 5/6 reversal?

I'm also interested in the feedback @joggiwagga got from his group, that the sharp left of the sci-fi / MythosTech "go to the moon" plotline felt out of place.  If I end up doing that "extensive re-work," I'll probably add extra MythosTech to the prior modules, such that those sci-fi elements don't seem so out-of-place.  And I'll certainly revise the moon-visit to use an archaic dive-suit like @morganhua suggests (brilliant, that!).

 

 

[TK Nyarlathotep]

By the way, thank you all for not eviscerating me, taking my words into account, and really giving some valuable input and feedback. Y'all are aces!

[g33k]

On 3/8/2017 at 8:39 PM, TK_Nyarlathotep said:

By the way, thank you all for not eviscerating me ...

<blinks confusedly>     Oh, but... evisceration is still happening, didn't you know?

We just haven't got the canopic jars ready, nor the soul-scarab...  It has to be hungry enough to eat the whole heart in one go...   Otherwise, you'll never stop screaming ...

 

[TK Nyarlathotep]

Oh no, the metaphorical/verbal evisceration, not the physical one. Thank you for eviscerating me physically.

[Dork_Rage]

My group just finished episode 5 today.  It ended, as it should, with a major cataclysm.  Only 2 PCs managed to escape.  We will not be running episode 6 because episode 5 wrapped things up so nicely.