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Sunday, August 24

Chapter 18: Closed Casket - Introduction

This scenario, “Closed Casket,” is a Cthulhu Now scenario by Brian M. Sammons from Chaosium’s Secrets. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Kurtis “Hammer” Grange (Fast/Dedicated Hero/Sharpshooter) played by George Webster

I finally moved into my house and was ready to try out my brand spanking new gaming lair. Unfortunately, that meant a few things: 1) my players would have to take the ferry to Connecticut, and 2) I would have to actually get my lair set up. As a result of these two obstacles, we lost one of the PCs (Archive) as well as one of the miniatures (Hammer). What was supposed to be a series of scenarios for several agents turned into a cozy duo against the world.

And yet it works. Action horror, especially, works best when the odds are against the heroes. And in this scenario, where I stole liberally from the remake of the Hills Have Eyes, if one agent goes down they both go down. It turned into something of a road-trip buddy movie at the beginning, and then went south fast.

Because this was an unofficial mission, the agents didn’t have their usual firepower. That worked just fine here (it doesn’t work as well in later scenarios, as you’ll see), forcing the agents to think creatively. I also made it very clear that the bad guys don’t want to kill the characters…they have something far worse in mind. This made fighting to survive more urgent and more than just a battle of hit points.

This scenario also showed the power of the team’s versatility. Jim-Bean’s ability to heal himself and Hammer’s gun-fu really came in handy. Unfortunately, the creepiest part of the scenario in which the agents travel to a faux town filled with dummies used for atomic bomb testing never happened because the agents were never caught. Still, I felt the ending was suitably climactic. [MORE]

Labels: d20 modern

posted by Mike Tresca at 8:36 AM

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