Keepering The Necropolis experience?

[theWoozle]

I'm going to be running a session of The demo/intro adventure The Necropolis at the DragonFlight Con (Aug 25, Bellingham, WA) and was wondering if anybody had experiences to share? 

[DMarcel]

I'll be running it at GenCon this week so this past weekend I did a test run with my regular gaming group. The only thing I noticed that could be a problem is that the monster seems to be just a hair fragile; he hits hard but it doesn't take too much to take him out (though to be fair my group did get lucky with their combat rolls). I'm thinking about giving it a few points of armor when I run it at the con. 

[TK Nyarlathotep]

The Guardian is a bit squishy, which I don't think is entirely the point, but I came up with a rather gruesome way around it.

Basically, instead of "merely" cannibalizing PCs, he murders them and takes their parts to reconstitute himself. These parts are still alive, and are horribly insane. In the two games I ran, in one scenario he cleaved a PC in half down the middle and, when blown apart by dynamite, stitched a new body for himself and sealed his blasted-open front with the two screaming, gibbering, moaning halves of the first dead PC. In the second game he had a massive gash cut into his chest by another PC, whom he crushed and compacted into his chest to replace the lost meat, with the PC's terrified and cramped face staring out at the others.

(To this end I also allowed the PCs to continue participating in the scenario by having a say in what horrid things the Guardian does, and roll for it).

[joggiwagga]

At ConnectiCon last month I ran this twice, from my report to Dustin:

Quote

For the Necropolis, each time I lost at least one person, but for different reasons.  No one ended up in the treasure room to find the heart, first session they spent a LONG time in the shrine room... ALMOST ended up in the treasure room, and ultimately set everything they could possibly burn on fire.  One of them survived by hiding in the dog mummy space.  Monster got out to terrorize the lands at large.  Other group they actually managed to kill it, but not after one PC was splatted very hard at the start, and then gave that player the option to try and kill the other PCs as the monster himself while I referred the scene.  Went really awesome.

So I guess the monster is a little squishy, on the other hand it one-shot a PC on the first round, and it was just luck that they killed it before it killed them.  The group that killed it I then spun out some really fun and creepy epilogues for, so they survived, but their experiences forever changed their lives.

[Carrthulhu]

Hey there!

As the scenario is for demonstration purposes it's nice to give new players a bit more of a chance when trying CofC.

As it's pitch black in the necropolis it'd be a good way to start showing players the penalty die roll mechanic making it a touch harder.

If you really want to make it harder add armour points (as suggested by DMarcel) or additional HP.

I really love TK Nyarlathoteps idea as well.

Glad everyone is enjoying it! Mikes additional characters have made it really shine.

-Leigh 

/|\~(;,,,;)~/|\

On 15/08/2017 at 6:43 AM, DMarcel said:

I'll be running it at GenCon this week so this past weekend I did a test run with my regular gaming group. The only thing I noticed that could be a problem is that the monster seems to be just a hair fragile; he hits hard but it doesn't take too much to take him out (though to be fair my group did get lucky with their combat rolls). I'm thinking about giving it a few points of armor when I run it at the con. 

 

[Robertm73]

Just ran it at Gen Con 8 times I think.  I had two parties use the dynamite.  Both failed at the diary clue and seemed intent on combat.  Almost all the rest split the party between fighting to delay the creature and searching the rest of the tomb.  I had two parties find the jars to kill the creature.  One party got a extreme success twice shooting the creature to kill it.  the other party lost 4 people but manged to inflict enough damage to kill the creature.  Couple of small changes.  I waited till they found the body and read the diary then had everyone do a listen as the creature broken down the door.  Then a sanity check if they are int the room as he destroy the door.  then after he moves to the entrance I gave them 4 rounds before the creature broke free and escapes.  also telling them that if it escapes he will collapse the hallway and leave them to slowly die inside.  I like the pressure aspect to force everyone to act and think quickly   

 

[Robertm73]

A second question to everyone who ran it.  I was thinking how cool it would be to have a follow on adventure where the person who help the guy become the undead is really still alive.  Figure out the a way for immortally.  One year afer the events the same charters are re-united.  Something that was in the tomb is important to him and he hope to trap everyone to find it

  

[Carrthulhu]

Will you be running a one hour or two hour session?

[jbgillund]

I would run this at Garycon.. if I had it

[MOB]

We'll be running The Necropolis at PAX AUS this year, 27-29 October in Melbourne, Australia. Along with The Dead Boarder.

Chaosium will have four dedicated tables to run games from close to finish, and we have recruited 20 Keepers to run the sessions. Many people who attend PAX Aus have not played a RPG before, and we hope to introduce many of them to Call of Cthulhu with these sessions.

[joggiwagga]

Oh that's awesome.  I was looking at PAX East and they don't seem to have any organized Table Top gaming, just a free-for-all gaming room.  I've been toying with contacting them directly and asking if that's actually the case.

[Robertm73]

If anyone is come to Cincitycon in Cincinnati I will be running this on Saturday Oct 7th.

[Philip C. Robinson]

I ran the necropolis twice at kantcon 2017 in Overland Park , ks.

first session had three players, second had a full compliment of six.

Both sessions ran for about 2.5 hours (I tend to slow burn with atmosphere and allow players to play in the sandbox a little bit to get familiar with mechanics).

in both instances, the game ended in total party kill- thanks to the soldiers use of dynamite.

The first session never got anywhere near the jars, and actually ran scared at the sounds of he creature breaking free. 

The (first)soldier made a critical fail on planting the dynamite at the barred entry door. I ruled the whole tomb collapsed.

 

The second party did really well with finding the clues, and even formulated a plan of attacking the monster, and indeed- it sure was squishy.

again, the soldier with dynamite, fumbled the throw roll- dropping the lit stick amidst the entire party. Regrettably he was already out of luck, and even when I gave him a sympathy push- he just didn’t deliver..

everyone had a BLAST , as I had already prepared them to the idea that in coc, it’s not a matter of if you die- but WHEN.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Philip C. Robinson
Autocucumber fail

[Gorneesh]

Sorry to drag this one back up, but I'm running this for a Halloween game, and I wanted to know to what other Keepers had done or added to make this a longer scenario? Any ideas welcome.

Thanks