Keepers Ruminations

I wasn't going to comment about the stupidity of using a bear trap or the ten minute discussion that arose when Martin brought the idea up but then I decided to have a wee go of Fallout: New Vegas last night. Fair enough it's done in the game and Martin did have another media reference but I stand by my decision that it's a stupid idea that won't be allowed ever again in my games. Unless I'm running Buffy and you spend a drama point of course. Anyway we've come to the end of the first two documents and how do I feel it's gone?

The first advice I'd give somebody new to Trail of Cthulhu is to run at least one one-off before going on to The Armitage Files. The way the campaign is set up means there's a rather big info-dump at the start and the players are then the ones deciding what direction everything goes in. Sorting out the rules at the same time is an extra ball that you really don't want to have to juggle. In the last session I went for a fag with a player and as we chatted I realised he'd missed something I thought was really obvious about the combat system which I could have made clearer if I'd done a less intense introductory session. The only problem with this is I can only advise designing a scenario yourself, adapting a CoC one or buying Arkham Detective Tales. The scenario in the main rulebook doesn't quite work and the free scenario at Pelgrane Press, The Murderer of Thomas Fell, whilst absolutely great is very much a hardcore Purist one. It's a great adventure and it's made me buy other Graham Walmsley adventures from them but you really wouldn't expect the characters from there to then go on to investigate more. I'd like to see a free Pulp adventure offered by Pelgrane at some point to balance the whole thing out.

Saying that I'm downloading Cthulhu Apocalypse as I type this so please don't ignore the fantastic Purist stuff.

My only other real complaint is that this campaign desperately needs an index. It's annoying when the players suddenly decide to do something and I have to quickly find something.

As to the campaign so far I'm loving it. Having the Yacht Club as the first starting point meant I could borrow a spine from the book but the way they veered from that path proved interesting. I'd had the Yacht Club break-in as the midpoint of the adventure but that really proved to be the cave exploration. As the game moved on the break in came to the fore as the climax and it ended up being quite a good one for what we were running. My original climax idea included much death, madness and monsters in a subterranean temple but the assault with no monsters and rather heavy foreshadowing of things that may yet come proved really satisfying for all of us. To be honest there's enough there at the moment to go on with a great campaign, and there's a slight temptation to do that,but the Files keep drawing you back.

We've had one more session in the interim but that was only to go over the new document. The only thing of interest is that Dawson has started losing and gaining time at points. I'm sure it's nothing.