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Sunday, April 20

The Lazy Man's Guide to Constructing a Call of Cthulhu Adventure

Having game mastered my share of Call of Cthulhu scenarios for a modern campaign, I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of bad scenarios out there. The ideas are always interesting...the execution is what suffers. My biggest problem is the lack of narrative thread, as if the author is afraid he'll ruin the game for the GM if he doesn't provide guidance to what happens next. I'm really a big fan of providing a plot outline as to what will happen in a scenario -- even if I only ignore it later. It seems many Delta Green/Cthulhu Now scenarios are travelogues, providing overviews of areas with schedules, NPCs, etc. but no actual means of resolving the events in question.

In some cases, there are major events that are exciting that, if the PCs do the "right" thing, don't happen at all. Which is just bloody stupid gaming.

Or to put it another way, if Luke just managed to kill Darth Vader the first time he met, we chuck that whole series. Or if someone just calls in a SWAT team on Jason/Michael Meyers in the first movie, we wouldn't have to deal with the rest of the horror. Or something important in the movie/book/television show we're experiencing and instead of actually having narrative conflict we reward players for avoiding the conflict all together...zzzzZZZZZ.

Look, I want PCs to be smart. But conflict is INTERESTING. If the PCs are so smart as to completely avoid the conflict, then what we have is a very boring scenario. Sure, the PCs are smart for staking out an area, framing the cultists, and ensuring their dastardly plan to destroy the world never happens...but that's hardly an interesting conflict. In fact, many of the scenarios dedicate quite a bit of time to when things go wrong -- implying that they should go wrong, because that's more fun.

In Nemo Solus Sapit, there's pages upon pages dedicated to what happens when Azathoth is summoned as the PCs struggle to survive. And yet the scenario awards agents for averting the ceremony. Puhleeze! Why would I as a GM let them avoid the most interesting part of the scenario -- the conflict?

That's why I love Sandy Petersen's handy guide to crafting scenarios: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=51&page=1

Don't let the title fool you. I consider creating piles of useless background about an area to be much lazier than providing a narrative thread for the GM to easily use. His substeps detail the work involved, ranging from "How can the plot be prolonged?" to "why don't the authorities intervene?"

But here's the really important part:

Every scenario should have a great climax.

It's the difference between killing the cultist before he casts his ritual, and killing him after he's summoned the huge monster. I want the huge monster to show up -- nay, DEMAND IT SHOW UP -- because running away from the monster, trying to defeat it, or being eaten by it is fun.

Mind you, there are times when I don't want the climax to be an either/or proposition of apocalypse vs. happy survival. But I demand a narrative climax, as do my players. CoC scenario authors get away with not providing it because old school gamers are used to crafting their own climaxes and plots. But good scenarios make it clear how things are going to play out, even if that's not quite how the scenario ends.

What shouldn't be rewarded, but all too often is in Delta Green type scenarios, is the coward's response. In essence, good guys are encouraged to not face threats directly, not deal with them face-to-face, cause that means loss of Sanity, and Sanity means eventual death. It's like playing Charlie in Charlie's Angels instead of the Angels...sure Charlie has lots of power. But you can't help but thinking he's kind of a douche for not handling things himself.

When I have to resort to movie plots for my narrative, the scenarios aren't doing their jobs.

Labels: gaming news

posted by Mike Tresca at 2:23 PM

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