The Stars Are Right!
Sep. 22nd, 2012 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroA collection of Call of Cthulhu modern-day adventures, all ready for you to hook into an existing campaign or run as one-shots. Something every tired GM wants and something players shouldn’t be reading, really, I mean it.
I say “modern” as opposed to the 1920s Lovecraft-era that many CoC games take place in, as this book was originally published in 1992. (My copy is from the 2004 reprint.) There’s an adventure that revolves around a computer virus…that gets mailed out on CD-ROM to a couple hundred subscribers to a computer hackers ‘zine. It doesn’t account for a modern investigator’s ability to use a cell phone or get information via the internet; or inability to get away with certain activities because of Homeland Security. Of course, nothing says you can’t just explicitly set the adventures in the early 90s, and many of them are fairly adaptable to modern technology.
The very first story is a sex-drugs-and-abuse story that looks like an even nastier version of my homebrew Cthluhu Dark adventure, “The One With The Hookers.” You’ve also got arson, cannibalism, political corruption, suicide, gory dismemberment, and plenty of Things From Beyond. Everything you want in a horror game. (If you don’t like horror, don’t play Call of Cthluhu.)
Though if you do like horror tropes and just don’t like the “half the party dies or goes insane during every adventure” style inherent to CoC (and Lovecraft’s work), these are rules-light enough to translate very nicely into other modern-day systems. With a little tinkering, they could be run as low-level World of Darkness games, as d20 Modern games, or even with a specialty system like the Buffy RPG. I suspect I’m going to end up doing exactly that.
As you might or might not have guessed, I’ve finally made it back to the pile of RPG books I got from I-Con six months ago. My long-term to-do list includes a big list of media that I need to consume before more of it comes pouring in.
Overall: This was exactly what it said on the tin, a collection of ready-to-use Call of Cthulhu stories. Upon reflection, I think an updated version of this (since we’re now twenty years later) would make a fabulous companion piece. I’d love to see what happens when you scan a page of the Necronomicon and upload it to Tumblr.
I say “modern” as opposed to the 1920s Lovecraft-era that many CoC games take place in, as this book was originally published in 1992. (My copy is from the 2004 reprint.) There’s an adventure that revolves around a computer virus…that gets mailed out on CD-ROM to a couple hundred subscribers to a computer hackers ‘zine. It doesn’t account for a modern investigator’s ability to use a cell phone or get information via the internet; or inability to get away with certain activities because of Homeland Security. Of course, nothing says you can’t just explicitly set the adventures in the early 90s, and many of them are fairly adaptable to modern technology.
The very first story is a sex-drugs-and-abuse story that looks like an even nastier version of my homebrew Cthluhu Dark adventure, “The One With The Hookers.” You’ve also got arson, cannibalism, political corruption, suicide, gory dismemberment, and plenty of Things From Beyond. Everything you want in a horror game. (If you don’t like horror, don’t play Call of Cthluhu.)
Though if you do like horror tropes and just don’t like the “half the party dies or goes insane during every adventure” style inherent to CoC (and Lovecraft’s work), these are rules-light enough to translate very nicely into other modern-day systems. With a little tinkering, they could be run as low-level World of Darkness games, as d20 Modern games, or even with a specialty system like the Buffy RPG. I suspect I’m going to end up doing exactly that.
As you might or might not have guessed, I’ve finally made it back to the pile of RPG books I got from I-Con six months ago. My long-term to-do list includes a big list of media that I need to consume before more of it comes pouring in.
Overall: This was exactly what it said on the tin, a collection of ready-to-use Call of Cthulhu stories. Upon reflection, I think an updated version of this (since we’re now twenty years later) would make a fabulous companion piece. I’d love to see what happens when you scan a page of the Necronomicon and upload it to Tumblr.
