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Chaosium Digest Volume 05 Number 06
Chaosium Digest Volume 5, Number 6
Date: Sunday, January 23, 1994
Number: 1 of 1
Contents:
Horror Scenerio Generation (Tim Beecher) CALL OF CTHULHU
More Chivalric Vignettes (Shannon Appel) PENDRAGON
More on Plan d'Enfer (Frederic Moll) MISC
The Nomads of the Time Streams (Shannon Appel) ELRIC!
Editor's Note:
As I mentioned in the last issue of the Digest, I was away at RQ-Con
last weekend. As expected, it was a lot of fun. Planning has already
begun for RQ-Con 2, which will be held in the San Francisco Bay Area
in January of 1995. Like RQ-Con, it should include Elric!, Pendragon
and Call of Cthulhu games (along with lots of RuneQuest games, of
course), and thus may be of interest to subscribers to this digest.
If you'd like to be included on the rqcon2-info list, drop me a line.
For those of you interested in the windows versions of the Chaosium
Digest archives, all back issues are now available. The directory is
/pub/chaosium/archives/windows on soda.berkeley.edu.
Shannon
--------------------
From: timbee@timbee.rnd.symix.com (Tim Beecher)
Subject: Horror Scenerio Generation
System: Call of Cthulhu
Horror Scenario Generation: Coming up with Your Own Scenarios
For those of you unfortunate enough not to have attended the seminar
at RQ-Con held by Sandy Petersen, this article contains some
suggestions for creating scenarios, based upon part of the seminar,
with some of my own techniques added in.
For those keepers who have trouble creating scenarios and need some
inspiration, the following techniques may help:
THE CLASSIC MOMENT
Sandy covered this very well in his seminar. Take a classic moment
from a book, movie or real life. Some examples are the pod discovery
from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the scratching on the window
from hundreds of books and movies or the giving of a speech or
presentation in front of a group that you don't know. This moment of
psychological terror may be built into a scenario.
To explain, I will choose the feeling of deja vu (the feeling that
something experienced has been experienced previously in the past).
Now, to build a scenario. I choose a member of the group. If no
one's character is suitable, make up an interesting NPC. I then
decide that when the group enters certain houses the character will
feel deja vu. The plot then leads the party to discover why the
character feels deja vu.
Another example could be that a character's next door neighbor
confides that for some unknown reason she feels terror every time she
sees a van marked Kadath Catering. The classic moment then is
experienced when you look in your car's mirror and see the same
vehicle following you. You might know that in a few minutes a knock
will be heard from the door, though no one is there, or you could find
that the children who have died from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome) had the same crib toy. Hitchcock movies are excellent for
this type of drama.
The Technique:
1) create a moment of suspense (speaking to a room full of people and
realizing that they are all wearing red ties)
2) create activities that lead to the suspense (being booked on a speaker
tour, and hearing in the papers of a serial killer who wears a red tie)
3) create resolution of the suspense (tracking down and confronting the
killer)
THE CARNIVAL MIRROR APPROACH
Take something harmless and amusing and warp it. Stephen King is the
master of this technique. This technique has been used repeatedly
with clowns. Something is first chosen that is harmless and amusing,
such as a fast food restraunt a pair of funny glasses and a rubber
nose, or a slinky (tm , I believe). Then, add a little spin. You
might go through the drive-through and realize that the static voice
sound like evil demonic laughter, or spot someone spying at you from a
building with binoculars, wearing the funny nose and glasses or the
slinky could start to move when strange bad things happen. Thus, the
element of suspense appears.
The Technique:
1) choose something harmless or amusing (a plastic banana)
2) link it with something eerie or strange (a ghost)
3) determine the circumstances causing the combination and how to deal
with them (the ghost of a pet ape plays with an old plastic banana
at night)
THE GROUP ACTIVITY APPROACH
The classic example of this is the teen slasher movie. A group of
people go bowling/skiing/hiking/canoeing/bungie jumping in a remote
area. Strange and bad things start to occur. You've seen it at the
movies hundreds of times. The main problem is getting a group to go
on a cruise/exploring caves/bird watching. The classic Hollywood
lead-in is for a couple to go off together to procreate and get
attacked. Let's start with a group activity that the whole
adventuring group will do. Riding the subway and having a picnic seem
like standard things to do. While riding the subway, the group spots
strange lights, or at the picnic, the ants form strange designs on the
ground. These serve as harbringers of bad things coming.
The Technique:
1) strange omens occur or people start to disappear or show up in pieces
("Where's Lenny and Candy? It's time for the marshmallow roast")
2) group learns of horrific secret that they have stumbled onto ("It's a
creature of marshmallow and it's roasting Lenny and Candy, impaled on
a stick")
3) players escape, survive and end horror ("It's a good thing I always
practice safe sex and carry a flare gun")
B MOVIE UPGRADE
You can laugh but it is important to use a bad movie for this
technique. For my example, I will use the old movie "Curse of the
Black Widow". The creature involved is a were-spider. This curse is
passed down every two generations to one with an hourglass birthmark.
The movie was not so hot, but if I take the monster and make it a
little smarter, keep some of the good points (such as victims being
webbed up while friends frantically search for the lair) and add a
little misdirection ("the lab reports show the victims were drained of
blood and had strange puncture marks on their necks"), I have a good
adventure. You use Grade B movies because fewer people see them and
they usually only need a little work to become Grade A material.
Grade A movies have been seen a lot, need to be reworked more in order
to be usable and create higher expectations among players. It might
seem strange to use "Valley of the Gwangi" instead of "Dracula" for
material, but it works.
The Technique:
1) steal the plot from an old 2 am horror flick (plastic monsters from under
Golden Gate Bridge that are vulnerable to water attack teens)
2) Remove the stuff that made you think it was dumb or won't fit (monsters
under bridge attack teens)
3) change things to confuse those who have seen the movie and add your own
touch (monsters under bridge summoned by teens attack rival gang)
Feel free to combine techniques, but avoid overkill. Hundreds of
monsters attacking people becomes boring. Hundreds of monsters using
non-violent protest against investigators is darkly humorous. One
scratching noise on the windowsill at night is just as scary as the
hundred monsters.
--------------------
From: Shannon Appel <appel@erzo.berkeley.edu>
Subject: More Chivalric Vignettes
System: Pendragon
In some old issues of the Digest (V2.11 and V3.1), I presented
vignettes for Pendragon. Here are two more Pendragon vignettes,
appropriate for any time period:
The Adventure of the Faerie Cup: The players come upon the manor of
Edenhall and learn that the lord of the place is suffering great
distress. For generations, a fragile goblet has sat in a place of
honor in Edenhall, since it was taken from the faeries, long ago.
When they lost the cup, though, the faeries placed a curse upon it,
saying that Edenhall would fall if the goblet were ever broken. Now,
the cup is gone, disappeared into the night, and the lord of the manor
will do anything to recover it. Who has taken the cup? Perhaps a
rival lord, seeking to undo his foe? Maybe an untrustworthy peasant,
unaware of the goblet's truth worth? Possibly the faeries who lost it
long ago, finally taking back what is theirs? The players may
adventure for a time, trying to help the Lord to reclaim his lost
relic. And, if the goblet is broken, there are other questions. Will
Edenhall truly fall, of might there be a way to prevent its doom?
Perhaps envoys will have to be sent to the Other Side, to beg for
clemency. (idea from _English Myths & Legends_)
The Adventure of the Revolting Peasants: The knights come upon a land
where the peasants are in full revolt. As soon as the lord of the
land sees the knights, he asks for their aid in putting down the
rebellion, for his men-at-arms at not sufficient for the task.
However, the adventure is not simply one of JUSTICE, for the peasants
have good reasons for revolting. The last harvest was a poor one, and
now they are starving to death. Will the knights be MERCIFUL, or will
they simply enforce the laws of the land? What will they do when they
learn that the lord has huge stores of food from past years of plenty?
Perhaps, the knights will be able to find some alternative, another
source of food. There could be many different possibilities: lords of
nearby lands, the high king himself, druids of the forest or even
traditional enemies.
Shannon
--------------------
From: Frederic Moll <fmoll@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Subject: More on Plan d'Enfer
System: Misc
This is an update of my article published in Chaosium Digest V5.3
about the french fanzine Plan d'Enfer.
Here is a summary of the first 4 issues:
Issue 1:
Excalibur: a synopsis for Hawkmoon! (and not Pendragon...)
Les Reines (The Queens): Pendragon stuff
Herbes et Poisons, Part 1: the first installment on herbalism in Stormbringer
La Justice: Law and Order in Pendragon
Patrick O'Conneil: an NPC for Call of Cthulhu
Issue 2:
La Quete du Graal: for Stormbringer (as usual, they seem to like distortions..)
Herbes et poisons, Part 2: more on Herbalism for Stormbringer
A survey of the Hawkmoon related products
Issue 3:
A Stormbringer issue:
Callandus de la Loi
Herbes et Poisons, Part 3: herbalism again...
Keradec le Voyageur
Lo'an, Part 1: the first part of a Stormbringer campaign
Issue 4:
Herbes et poisons, Part 4
Lo'an, Part 2
A survey of the Stormbringer related products
Unfortunately, these 4 issues are now out or print!
Frederic Moll
--------------------
From: Shannon Appel <appel@erzo.berkeley.edu>
Subject: The Nomads of the Time Streams
System: Elric!
Last Friday, I received some information on "The Nomads of the Time
Streams", the International Michael Moorcock Appreciation Society. I
thought it would be of interest to other Moorcock fans, so I'm passing
it on here.
The Society has been in existence since 1988. Cuurently, it publishes
two regular magazines, the American Megaflow Manifesto, and the
British Time Centre Times. The magazines include news, special offers
from publishers and dealers, bibliographical and biographical
information, exclusive pre-publication of new stories, reprints of
rare Moorcock fiction and non-fiction and many other features.
Members of the Society will receive both magazines. If you'd like an
annual US membership to the Nomads of the Time Streams, send $20.00
(or #15.00) to:
D.J. Rowe,
18, Laurel Bank,
Truss Hill Road,
South Ascot,
Ascot, Berkshire,
SL5 9AL,
ENGLAND.
Checks should be made payable to: Nomads. An eternal membership is
also available for $150.00 (#100.00).
You can receive more information on the Society by contacting the
president, Paul Cashman. His electronic address is:
corum@uscn.uga.edu
Shannon
--------------------
The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's
Games. To submit an article, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. The
old digests are archived on soda.berkeley.edu in the directory
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