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Chaosium Digest Volume 02 Number 04
Chaosium Digest Volume 2, Number 4
Date: Sunday, April 25, 1993
Number: 1 of 1
Contents:
Alternate Settings for CoC (Dakin Burdick) CALL OF CTHULHU
Review: Grace Under Pressure (Alex Antunes) CALL OF CTHULHU
Review: The Stars Are Right (Matt Grossman) CALL OF CTHULHU
The Chaosium Survey (Sam Shirley) MISC
Editor's Note:
A lot of short responses and notes this time around. In reply to
Anthony Ragan, back in V1.10, Liam Routt said that he had not got a
chance to look at the ELRIC! demon creation rules in detail. However,
in talking with Chaosium people, he was assured that the new rules are
similar in spirit, and that the creation of demons is much the same.
There are a number of powers to be combined in the creation of demons,
and a number of samples are given at a variety of power levels.
Sam Shirley had a few replies to Dave Hipple's questions from V2.1.
He said the "mislead" skill in the CoC Fifth Edition rules isn't
really a mistake. Chaosium has always personalized characters with
unique skills (Sam gave the example of Robert Jatik in At your Door
having the skill of "Forget to Give Credit"). About errata, Sam said
that Chaosium doesn't commonly produce errata sheets for their games.
However, they do try and fix errors in subsequent printings. CoC5 has
been reprinted several times, for example, and the latest version is
marked as 5.1 on the title page.
There were also a few queries this week. Liam mentioned that he had
just gotten a look at a copy of the newest Lovecraft Country scenerio
book. He thought it looked good from a brief glance, but was hoping
for a full review from someone who actually had a copy of it. Any
takers?
Sam Shirley also had a whole set of questions. They're at the bottom
of the digest, labelled 'The Chaosium Survey.' I'd suggest that
everyone out there fill out a copy and send it to Sam
(chaosium@aol.com). Hopefully, it will provide Chaosium with valuable
feedback which help them to produce even better supplements.
Finally, Chris Crouch has uploaded a Pendragon character sheet to the
FTP site on soda.berkeley.edu. It's available in the directory
/pub/chaosium/character-sheets in postscript and xfig formats. It's
pretty much the same as the sheet in the Pendragon book, though some
spellings (honour, armour) have been changed.
Recent Sightings:
Actually, this week we have a couple of upcoming sightings. Sam
Shirley pointed out a few articles which will see print in magazines
in upcoming months.
* Misc - A three-part article on Chaosium will be published in an
upcoming Dragon magazine.
* Pendragon - "The Treasure of Galilee", an adventure by Paul Cockburn
will see print in an upcoming issue of White Wolf magazine.
--------------------
From: Dakin Burdick <burdickd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Alternate Setting for CoC
System: Call of Cthulhu
In-Reply-To: V2.3 Setting Cthulhu in the Wild West
I prefer role-playing medieval fantasies, but I started running CoC in
an attempt to convince myself that roleplaying did not conflict with
my academic pursuits (I'm working on my Ph.D. in U.S. History).
I've already run a number of games in the Wild West. The first
adventure involved the range wars in Montana in the 1880s. There
wasn't much Cthulhu involved; it was more like a Boot Hill game using
CoC rules, except there was little kid wandering around with an
invisible monster as his friend (ala Pete's Dragon).
My next attempt was using "The Statue of the Sorceror" and
transferring it to 1890s California. This worked really well, except
that one of the players insisted on taking a Chinese martial artist,
and he kept getting thrown out of bars and insulted. Basically it
just got him ticked off and ready for the final confrontation.
I'm currently running a long-term campaign starting in 1783 in Albany,
New York. I allow five years between each adventure (to allow people
to improve), so the adventures have so far been:
1. 1783: Investigate a Serpent Mound ("Trail of Yig" from "Tales of the
Miskatonic Valley"). The players did ok, but one of them died. Brown
Bess Muskets are not much help against Cthulhu, so one player carries
a heavy crossbow (not much better). The magicians control the play a
lot (I use a different magic system), so some of the rangers were
getting frustrated.
2. 1788: Hunt for a meteorite ("The Hills run Wild" from "Arkham
Unveiled"). This one was an unmitigated disaster. The players had
fun running around but in the end, the bad guys won and the players
fled. Five towns were then destroyed by the bad guys, and this,
combined with a very unlucky summoning roll in a local tavern, spurred
renewed interest in witchcraft trials. Some of the local clergy
started looking towards the party.
3. 1793: The party heads south to friendlier climes, New Orleans ("Tell
Me, Have you Seen the Yellow Sign" from "The Great Old Ones").
There's one problem in converting this adventure tho'; the French
still own the territory! The dead reporter got changed to a dead
foreman on a small sugar plantation. He had been investigating a
slave conspiracy and found threads that connected the slaves on
several plantations to the free blacks of the city, as well as a
couple important people in town. He was found dead after falling off
of the Slave Market in the middle of town. Most of the stuff
transferred over well, although I upped the number of cultists,
scaring the players silly and making them unable to fight, even after
one of them was kidnapped. I added in the information on Carcosa from
Unspeakable Oath #1, and it went very well.
When dealing with the kidnapped character, I used a different system
for running the adventure. Instead of rolling, we played "rock,
paper, scissors". If she won, her character did well. If she lost,
her character did poorly. Three losses in a row meant her character
died. This worked really well, added some tension, and didn't let the
dice intrude on the roleplaying.
Basically, playing in the antebellum period is easy as long as you
don't emphasize combat. I try to give the Indian Scouts and
Revolutionary War veterans something to shoot, but the magicians are
usually left with the dirty job of getting rid of the creature.
Really, the largest artillery the players can have is a Valley Gun
(usually mounted on a crow's nest to sweep the deck of an enemy
vessel), which I may let them mount on a bateau on the Albany River.
Upcoming difficulties include the Masonic Temples, Sasquatch, and
another Indian Burial mound.
By the way, I've also run CoC with the "Flashing Blades" system. I
ran a campaign of "Flashing Blades" (a Three Musketeers game for those
who don't know) and inserted "Glozel est Authentique" (a CoC
adventure) in the middle. The players were taken completely unawares.
Perhaps the finest moment came when a musketeer was digging through
the wine cellar looking for a fine Bordeaux when a gate opened behind
him and tentacles sucked him through, no save. I let the musketeer's
ghost continue to play, and he had a blast scaring the locals. He
also made an excellent spy; the whole party would probably have died
had he not been there.
Back to the Wild West; you should probably rent an old film called
"Valley of the Gwangi" if you haven't already. It was cowboys versus
Harryhausen's dinosaurs. You might get some ideas (remember "Gate
from the Past", one of the early modules?). One of the old Space
Gamers or Fantasy Gamers had a Boot Hill version of that adventure, I
think. Other ideas might be an examination of the Pawnee "Morning
Star" legend, which bears great similarity to certain Aztec legends.
Or how about a Peyote cult? Or an ancient terror unleashed by the
building of a railroad? You could have an early version of the Ghost
Dance and rule that Ghost Shirts actually did fend off bullets. If
you're playing earlier, how about a confederate band that tries to use
the Old Ones to punish the North? Or a Cthulhu connectino with the
assassination of Lincoln? And what about those Mormons? If you want
to risk getting in trouble with the Church, you could change the
nature of the golden tablets that Joseph Smith found. There's a lot
of good material there, but I imagine the reason my characters will be
happy to get there eventually will be REVOLVERS. "Oh boy, I get SIX
times as many shots! Those critters are dead meat!" Tommy guns are
for sissies!
Dakin
burdickd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
--------------------
From: Alex ANTUNES <alex@astro.isas.ac.jp>
Subject: Review: Grace Under Pressure
System: Call of Cthulhu
The last Chaosium Digest mentioned a reprint of the scenario "Grace
Under Pressure", from The Unspeakable Oath. I thought I'd give a
mini-review of this, since we played it two weeks ago.
Summary: It is fun to read, and is extremely well written. The Fuggly
Flee-O-Meter is a classic prop. But, as it stands, the adventure is
not very fun to play.
Spoilers: The plot is similar to the movie "Deep Star Six", an evil
version of "The Abyss", or maybe "Leviathan". The players are the
experienced crew of a deep-sea mission who come across Something That
Should Not Be Investigated.
Good Points: It is fun to read, especially if you've seen any of the
movies above. It is easy to visualize the setting.
Bad Points: As mentioned before, it is unplayable as it stands.
First, the characters are for the most part forced to react, never to
act. Since the characters are professional undersea people with no
Cthulhu or Occult skills, they can't really react properly until they
find out a little of what they face. And, the adventure peaks so
quickly that once they get a minor clue, they are pretty much doomed.
The idea that the characters should leap into the situation
prematurely, or avoid basic repairs so they can investigate something,
is too much at odds with the basic code of survival for underwater
work, which is "take no chances". As a result, a lot of the adventure
was boring ship maintainance since that was a priority, from the
character's point of view.
Also, the adventure usually splits up the party, and no matter how
well written, this ended up reducing play time as the GM had to switch
back and forth. Since both halves were not able to communicate with
each other, any suspense value was reduced.
Suggestions: The scenario is so cool it'd be a shame to ignore it. I
would recommend putting one "Investigator"-type on the crew-- perhaps
an eccentric marine biologist who has encountered weirdness before.
That way, at least the players can Play instead of being forced along.
Also, said character wouldn't be indispensible to the crew and hence
able to explore, add a little paranoia, etc.
More Flaws: The number of skill rolls required is, to my taste, a bit
excessive. Given that the crew are six highly specialized
professionals, having to make a roll for mundane activities does not
make sense. In CoC, having a 75% skill at Driving a Car doesn't mean
you crash 3/4 of the time you go to the store! Instead, it means you
have a 3/4 chance of succeeding when you try something unusual.
Likewise, for driving the sub, for example, requiring three skills
rolls to actually get anywhere gets tedious after a while. The
adventure seems based too much on "how many die rolls does it take to
get a critical failure".
Okay, so that's the review-- good idea, excellent materials and
presentation, but falls short in playability. Adding a character with
a reason to be suspicious would improve things greatly, otherwise you
have six trained professionals who follow standard procedure until
suddenly they are swarmed upon and eaten (well, we did escape,
actually, when we played it).
Cheers,
Sandy antunes@rosserv.gsfc.nasa.gov alex@astro.isas.ac.jp
--------------------
From: Matt Grossman <MGROSSMAN@hamp.hampshire.edu>
Subject: Review: The Stars are Right!
System: Call of Cthulhu
I know that this supplement has been out for a while, but I only got
it a couple weeks ago (isn't it great when your players buy you
things?) so here are my observations on this product.
"The Stars are Right!" is a collection of seven modern day CoC
adventures and an essay on the position of the stars at the time of
the rising of Rlyeh in 1925. The essay is fun but rather useless in
game terms.
The first adventure "Love's Lonely Children" is one of the best CoC
short scenarios I have seen. It is as brilliant as it is twisted, and
promises some really nasty shocks for the characters and players.
The second scenario "Nemo Solis Sapit" is the scenario best suited to
be placed in a campaign. It also seems that it could be translated
successfully to other time periods, unlike the other scenarios in
TSaR!.
The third scenario "This Fire shall Kill" has a good beginning and a
dramatic climax, but a rather weak middle. However, this scenario is
worth playing for the scene with the little girl alone--my players
almost killed me. Overall a fun adventure.
"The Professionals" is fairly good, with an extremely convoluted plot,
lots of techno-babble, and some nice SAN-draining scenes (especially
the snuff film--yuck!). This scenario would probably translate well
to a cyberpunk genre or rather, the modern day as shown in this
scenario is disturbingly close to a cyberpunk future. Disturbing, and
probably intentional on the authors part.
"Fractal Gods" struck me as being the weakest scenario in the book.
It has an interesting premise, and should appeal to all the computer
geeks out there. However, the plot is almost incomprehensible, and I
found it difficult to see what the characters were supposed to do.
Still, I might end up using some of the ideas in this scenario in a
campaign of my own.
"The Gates of Delirium" is a nicely plotted adventure, with a fairly
conventional villain and situation. This is (IMHO) the most "typical"
CoC scenario in the book, and could probably be translated fairly well
to the 1920s. However, it looks like a lot of fun to play, and has
some nice scares.
"The Music of the Spheres" is the biggest scenario in the book, and
one of the best. The premise is ambitious (the return of the Great
Old Ones) but it is well handled. I felt that science was integrated
into the plot much better than in "The Professionals", and this has a
positive effect on the story. This scenario would work well as the
conclusion of a modern-day campaign; it has that epic scope.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who might be
interested in running modern-day CoC. Even if you don't use the
scenarios, there are enough ideas to use for your own game to make it
worthwhile. Also, the authors have succeeded in capturing a modern
feel for these scenarios, one that any Keeper running a modern game
should try to emulate. Finally, the book is very well presented and
illustrated, quite the best thing that I've seen from Chaosium in this
respect.
Matt Grossman
Hampshire College
mgrossman@hamp.hampshire.edu
--------------------
From: Sam Shirley <chaosium@aol.com>
Subject: The Chaosium Survey
System: Misc
I've made up a survey concerning people's roleplaying interests. You
can fill it out and send it back to me at chaosium@aol.com. All
responses are appreciated.
Here's the survey:
1. What is your prefered mix of scenarios to background material?
2. What kind of background material do you like (place maps, NPC
stats, gadgets & guns, group write-ups, etc)?
3. Do you play scenarios as written, or do you pull out the
interesting bits and use them in your own plots?
4. Do you run a continuing campaign? Or do you run an episodic game?
Or something else.
5. Do you tend to play one game system, or alternate between game
systems? What is your main system? Where do our games fall in this
pattern?
6. In Call of Cthulhu, which time period do you prefer (modern day,
1920's, 1890's Dreamland)?
7. How useful do you find items such as character sheets or CoC's Dire
Documents?
8. Are you interested in more items like the Miskatonic U. Kit and the
Cthulhu or President Kit? Got any cool ideas in this vein?
Send your response to chaosium@aol.com.
Thanks,
Sam Shirley
--------------------
The Chaosium Digest is a Discussion Forum for Chaosium Games which do
not have another specific area for discussion. To submit an article,
mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu
