Yes, March already and I hope you have had some sunshine like I have had as I think the whole world needs some sunshine right now. But we escape the world just for a few hours to take some time for ourselves and become a mythos investigator! Only a few sessions played but very enjoyable they were!
Blood Orgy on Vampire Island – Pulp Cthulhu, Present day
Well with a title like that, who could resist! This game was my second outing to the Good Friends of Jackson Elias Podcast virtual gaming convention. The convention is a massive undertaking by a huge number of Keepers who offer their game in slots across multiple time zones over a weekend so players from all continents can come together and play a range of horror style games not just Call of Cthulhu. The selection process is very fair as players put their name into a virtual hat to be at the game table of an adventure they want to play. There is an option to say “I really want to play this one” which is what I selected as there never seems to be enough Pulp games at the convention and I like to play these the most.
The Set-up for the adventure was a grand party on a boat full of people and shock horror we ended up on an Island with a Vampire! Much as I like the title, I had the same reservations as I had for the game “Kiss of Blood” – the title game the story away so we were waiting for the Vampire and the Island to show up. I even chose my character based on the title of the game. Even though it was a Pulp game, going toe to toe with a Mythos vampire can get you killed! I elected for the beautiful spy posing as a Socialite who just happen to have great stealth and navigation skills so they could hide and find their way around the island. In fact when I worked out how many skill points my character had, it came to over 900! Pulp Heros are known for their high skill level of around 450-500 but this was quite amazing! As it was a pregen, I wasn’t complaining!
The game itself was straight forward as we had a strict four hours to play so there wasn’t time to do much than have the reason we get to the Island and investigate. I do take my hat off to the keepers who are skilled enough to know the pacing of their game to keep it fun and bring it in on time by not “rail roading” the players – a practice where the players only have one course of action. I try not to do spoilers here but this was a showdown style game where the clues lead you to the confrontation and then you win or lose. We just about won and my character survived but this wasn’t due to the amazing spy skills they had I just followed clues and helped the combat elsewhere by operating a plot device. Other player’s characters went insane during the combat and burned the place down taking another player with it!
And that leads me on to my take away from this game which is really a tip for players of Pulp Cthulhu. Keep at least 30 luck points and you can escape a life-or-death situation. I think this is a great rule as it really captures the essence of Pulp Heroes – the cliff hanger! You were sure at the end of the episode Flash Gordon was in chains when the rocket ship crashed or Indiana Jones went off that cliff. Then, as luck would have it, our heroes escape. Flash escaped and Indy comes up to the people looking over the edge of the cliff and in game terms these folks used the Pulp rule, spent all their luck points (at least 30) and escaped the life-or-death situation.
(Return to) Secrets of the Glen, Call of Cthulhu, 2018
I had the pleasure of playing (again) the unpublished Miskatonic Repository game by Keeper Hedge! I cannot wait for Hedge to publish it and you can play this super fun adventure! I played it once before on one of its first drafts and playing it again it hadn’t lost any of its charm and how often do you get to play an adventure again and take an entirely different path!
The hook for the investigators is that they are sent by a rich Mogul to survey an enchanting Scottish glen for ugly development but the glen is enchanting in more ways than one… My character was the local guide who knew the area who would take the corporate folks around the glen to see what they need to see – they might even catch a glimpse of the monster which is supposed to be in the loch. Tam was my pre-gen character’s name and he was a very handy investigator type with excellent shotgun skills, passable spot hidden and good levels in Pow and Luck. On the down side only a base dodge (which would be the death of him) and a low Con so despite his size of 75, his hit points didn’t get above 10.
To say we role-played the S**t out of this game would be an understatement! We took a whole extra session to solve this mystery! The sessions were very chaotic which gave our super chill Keeper stress palpitations but they assured us the way we played helped the play test. And you will never find a more patient and fairer person to run your game than Hedge. Despite accidentally shooting another character in half, failing a dodge and failing a Con roll, Hedge was kind enough to let my character try going out in a blaze of glory shooting his shotgun one last time as he died to clear the way for other players.
As I keep saying no major spoilers here but the Mogul provides instructions for the players to do and I really appreciated the mission style approach this game has but also the absolute sand box freedom – a Sand Box game is the opposite of a rail road game as it is like toys in a sand box that you play with however you like. You have a village full of well written NPCs which all play parts in the plot, some ‘supernatural’ allies which is such a unique extra to the game and of course the mythos. All I can say is buy this adventure when you see it as it is amazing!