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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 11, 2013 11:01:45 GMT -5
We're still playing CoC, but now we are alternating between this and the BLACKROCK D&D game. After returning back to our own dimension (as far as we can tell... ), our characters tried to return to our former "ordinary" lives as professors and FBI agent. But that didn't last long. Agent Johnson showed up again at Miskatonic University and made us honorary Delta Green agents. Of course, that is so top secret we can't tell anyone and we don't even have badges we can show. This time we accompanied Agent Johnson to Colorado to investigate the strange happenings with his cousin at a "dream research" facility up in the mountains next to a lake.
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Post by grodog on Nov 15, 2013 21:27:42 GMT -5
A lake. Hmmm. Prepare for transport to Hali
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 5, 2014 19:30:14 GMT -5
We are still playing CALL OF CTHULHU and have been playing the same campaign for a year and a half now. None of the PC's have died or gone insane, but quite a few NPC's have died. The general consensus is that our Keeper has been soft on us -- something he has even openly admitted -- but we have had fun nontheless.
I guess the best way to describe our game is somewhat like the X-Files, with some of our characters similar to the Lone Gunmen. I tend to play up my character's nerdy attributes. He's an academic, a professor at Miskatonic University, he is a zoologist, but his real love is cryptozoology which is the study of animals that haven't been proven to exist. He has clothing and equipment that looks most similar to that of a bird-watcher: broad-brimmed hat, bermuda shorts, fanny pack, telescope, and Infrared Detector.
A few of us academic types have teamed up with an FBI agent, and we've been made honorary members of Delta Green, which is evidently the super-secret branch of government that investigates the paranormal (think Men In Black, or Project Blue Book).
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Post by grodog on Apr 28, 2014 23:07:11 GMT -5
Delta Green is some pretty good stuff, Gary---enjoy (I helped to playtest some of it BITD, when I was working with Pagan Publishing ). Allan.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 1, 2014 10:29:24 GMT -5
I don't think Ray has actually run anything out of the Delta Green supplements. So far, the Delta Green connection mainly seems limited to a reference as a clandestine branch of the FBI which we were made honorary agents of. And we haven't run into any 'space aliens' yet, defintely no grays. It's more on the supernatural angle. But the game often does have a somewhat X-Files vibe. In the last game we had to hunt down and stop a child-killing monster who possessed/impersonated ice cream men. "Stop him as he's passing by!" Very creepy and a lot of fun.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 8, 2014 8:17:05 GMT -5
Our GM, Ray, acquired a PDF of "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and is going to run it for us starting next Friday. He is going to modify it to be set in our current time (Cthulhu NOW, which is what we've been playing for around a year and a half now). I'm looking forward to seeing what all the hoopla is around this scenario. Ray seems to have hit his stride as a GM for this game, and he "gets" Lovecraft, so that is all good. As players, our group still seems to be somewhat lacking in being able to piece clues together... But at least we come to the game now with different expectations than for a more straightforward RPG.
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Post by grodog on May 17, 2014 21:57:40 GMT -5
Our GM, Ray, acquired a PDF of "Masks of Nyarlathotep" and is going to run it for us starting next Friday. He is going to modify it to be set in our current time (Cthulhu NOW, which is what we've been playing for around a year and a half now). I'm looking forward to seeing what all the hoopla is around this scenario. Ray seems to have hit his stride as a GM for this game, and he "gets" Lovecraft, so that is all good. As players, our group still seems to be somewhat lacking in being able to piece clues together... But at least we come to the game now with different expectations than for a more straightforward RPG. I am very jealous! I've wanted to run Masks for years, but havne't had a steady play group for CoC since I left Lawrence 14 years ago On the plus side, though, our current AD&D group has a few folks who would be interested in playing some CoC here and there.... Allan.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 27, 2014 8:53:08 GMT -5
I am very jealous! I've wanted to run Masks for years, but havne't had a steady play group for CoC since I left Lawrence 14 years ago On the plus side, though, our current AD&D group has a few folks who would be interested in playing some CoC here and there.... Allan. Hopefully you'll get to play it some day, too. We started "Masks" last Friday and I don't want to give anything away. We had an action scene, and have gathered a lot of clues, and we've done a lot of speculating on what might be going on -- but so far, we don't really know. We can't even agree on how to pronounce Nyarlathotep, although my favorite so far is "Narly Hotep." Just as an aside, one of the authors of "Masks of Nyarlathotep" -- Larry DiTillio -- also wrote "Chagmat," which was always one of my favorite adventures from DRAGON Magazine (#63). He also was executive story editor for Babylon 5, and wrote a lot of episodes for the old He-Man cartoon!
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Post by Scott on May 27, 2014 15:08:40 GMT -5
The discord of the Great Old Ones. These are not names that can be spoken by the human tongue. Narly’s a little different though, since the repeating pharonic association means that at least you can be pretty sure of the hotep part.
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Post by geneweigel on May 29, 2014 9:13:07 GMT -5
In spirit of Lovecraft, make names that are unpronounceable the farther one gets into the madness. Like for example, I automatically say "kuh-thoo-loo" and "ny-AR-lath-hotep". I think this can mirror the fiction, that is, the closer that one gets to the heart of the cult then the less its going to sound like that and more "coo-{CHOKE/GASP}Loo" and "nnn{CAT-LIKE SNARL}-hotep".
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Post by Scott on Jan 11, 2015 7:52:12 GMT -5
Strange Aeons ago, when I had to endure a daily decent into madness, i.e. I worked at Eide’s, I had a lot of the Chaosium CoC stuff, but never played it. I think I sold it all years ago. I may still have a book or two buried away, but I’m not sure. I do have the D20 CoC book though, and inspired by your write-ups, I’ve been paging through it. I may try running something. It’s probably be more like Scooby-Doo though, since Gavin will be the primary player. Gary, I’ve also outlined a short adventure for my Welkwood campaign, but I don’t know when I will have the chance to run anything. Friday nights are out due to soccer. Saturday nights don’t work because I’ve been working very early Sunday mornings. Hopefully something will change soon.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 11, 2015 12:52:14 GMT -5
I've never owned any Chaosium stuff, myself, and still don't, which may seem odd since I have always been a fan of both Lovecraft and RPG's. But I don't think I got into Lovecraft until the 1990's, after I was already long past the teenage stage of "let's try a different game every weekend." And I just didn't know anyone who played it. I still think it is a niche game that requires the correct mindset and right mix of people or it just won't work. For kids, yeah, the Scooby Doo approach might be the best way to introduce them to the genre (a haunting or a mystery, clues, investigation, etc.).
Currently all we are playing on game night is Ray's "Masks of Nyarlathotep" campaign. Brian and Kate haven't been showing up due to work scheduling and it is uncertain when they'll be back, which also means Brian's AD&D campaign is on hiatus indefinitely. This means we're playing Ray's Call of Cthulhu game every other Friday, which I think helps because it is hard to sustain a campaign involving memory of details, clues and speculation when you only play once a month. Our characters are now in Cairo, still in search of the fate of the Carlysle Expedition... We'd be further along, but we got distracted by a number of red herrings in and around London.
It's still up in the air what we will do after "Masks" ends. Ray has already hinted he wants to take a break from GMing after we finish "Masks." I've been trying to convince Eric to either revive his Weinland campaign or else run a classic FASERIP system Marvel Superheroes game, but he hasn't committed to either. I'd love to see you start up your Welkwood game again, sometime... When does soccer end?
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Post by Scott on Jan 11, 2015 13:39:56 GMT -5
The current session just started; this past Friday was the first game, so it will be a couple months. I'm hoping my work schedule won't be so bad for much longer. I might be able to run something on Saturdays sooner than Fridays. I don't think that works for everybody, so I might try a few one shots with other games I have, like CoC, Mythus, WHFRP, etc. My first CoC adventure will probably involve Jeff the Killer. Something that started out as in internet meme, and then blew up into full blown urban legend. Gavin is terrified of him. Follow that up with Slender Man, another web originated urban legend.
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Post by Scott on Jan 11, 2015 14:18:32 GMT -5
Masks is long. Not something to run if you want to take a break. That and a creatures of the Dreamworld are the 2 Chaosium books I know I still have. I thought about trying to convert to the D20 version, but I'd need the right players to make it worthwhile.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 11, 2015 14:40:25 GMT -5
I've heard of Slender Man because of it being in the news about those two girls stabbing a classmate last summer. But I haven't heard of Jeff the Killer before. Slender Man has a creepy appearance -- a bizarrely tall guy in a suit with no face -- but doesn't seem to have any sort of coherent mythology behind him. But what is interesting to me is how something that is admittedly fiction gets turned into an urban legend that some kids think is "for real." He kind of reminds me of a mixture of the Tall Man from the "Phantasm" movies (unnaturally tall, wears a dark suit, not human anymore, with special powers like telekinesis and shapeshift/illusion) Freddy Krueger from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies (preys on children, and remember in the first movie he had telescoping arms), and perhaps the "gray" aliens (tall, thin, hardly any facial features, abduct people). I found these online today: www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2duevcUMGwwww.youtube.com/watch?v=u2K5I3NJtiQ
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Post by Scott on Jan 11, 2015 14:55:04 GMT -5
He has tentacles too, which will fit nicely with the mythos. I was thinking about making him some kind of half-breed, similar to a Deep One.
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Post by Scott on Jan 18, 2015 10:12:20 GMT -5
How'd the game go Friday?
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 18, 2015 10:28:41 GMT -5
It went well. While waiting for everyone to show up, we watched "Maleficent" which Ray brought -- it wasn't bad. Randy showed up for the game and played an NPC, Mahmud, the Cairo urchin boy who was our guide in the city. Our characters found out about the Clive Expedition, which had previously been a rival to the missing Carlysle Expedition we were searching for. We went upriver on the Nile to the dig site to talk to them, and found out a mummy and sarcophagus had been stolen, and that some of their hired guards were armed with clubs that had cultic symbols we'd seen previously. The lead archaeologist also told us the history of the mummy, which was an ancient queen. This ancient queen had some link to the Black Pharaoh... an ancient entity also known as NYARLATHOTEP. Make a sanity check!
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Post by Scott on Jan 18, 2015 11:47:18 GMT -5
Maleficent was OK. I would have liked it better if it wasn't Maleficent. I think it takes away from the character. Like when they gave Hannibal Lecter a back story that explained his evil as opposed to Lecter's own wonderful explanation, "Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened."
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Post by GRWelsh on Jan 18, 2015 12:17:17 GMT -5
I completely agree with you about Lecter. With Maleficent, the situation is slightly different because this new Maleficent movie isn't supposed to be the back story to the 1959 "Sleeping Beauty" movie but rather a reimagining. The two movies are like alternate possible universes. The ultimate fate of Maleficent in this new film is completely different from in the original, so they are not even compatible. The new movie isn't nearly as good as the 1959 classic -- but it was entertaining in a "What if?" sort of way. I did think it was silly for a character who is "just misunderstood but not really evil" to be born with a name that literally means to do evil.
"A guy named Octavius winds up with eight limbs. What are the odds?"
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