Airecon 2024

Last weekend, I was at AireCon 2024, the games convention in Harrogate’s convention centre.

AireCon is lovely. There’s a great mix of RPGs, board games and other activities and a lovely, friendly atmosphere. I was there Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday

Friday was RPG day for me. I ran three RPGs (enough to get me a weekend pass). I ran Hillfolk (DramaSystem), Hazelwood Abbey (DramaSystem) and In Whom We Trust (Cthulhu Dark).

Hillfolk (DramaSystem)

I set off from home a little later than I planned and arrived at my table to find my three players waiting for me. Unfortunately, that was all we had – three players. I know the game was sold out, but two players never turned up. 

Of the players, one had never played Hillfolk, one had run it some years ago, and the other had the Kickstarter, but their partner had played in the game I ran at Continuum last year! They’d said it was awesome, so no pressure this time…

We spent an hour or so developing our characters and creating the network of needs and wants that drive the action. The characters this time were the Chief, the Artisan and the Curate and our story involved cave paintings, the suspicious death of the previous chief and (eventually) the successful raid on a neighbouring tribe.

Some thoughts:

• Hillfolk with three players was fine. It wasn’t as good as with five, but it was more intense for each of them.
• We had quite a few procedural scenes this time.
• I introduced a few NPCs – I think I’m getting better at managing them in DramaSystem.
• I kept track of scenes this time – we had 18 scenes in total.

After Hillfolk, I had a quick bite to eat, and then it was time for Hazelwood Abbey.

Hazelwood Abbey (DramaSystem)

Hazelwood Abbey is Hillfolk but in a Downton Abbey setting. Again, I had three players, and this time they chose the Earl, an illegitimate Heir and the (Dowager) Countess. Our story this time was driven by Dowager Countess’ refusal to accept the Heir and her eventual murder of the Earl!

Some thoughts

• Again, just three players – but I think five had signed up. Again, the game was intense and would have benefitted from more players.
• Only one procedural scene. When I ran it at Furnace last year we didn’t have many either – maybe that’s a feature of the setting.
• Again, 18 scenes. I think that’s a coincidence. The situation for Hillfolk has an obvious ending (dealing with the neighbouring tribe) whereas with Hazelwood Abbey I have to judge the right time to stop – so the Earl’s murder was ideal. 
• I played even more NPCs this time than I did last time.

In both Hazelwood Abbey and Hillfolk, the players embraced the game and the system, and we had lots of lovely dramatic scenes. And DramaSystem games are so easy to run – almost no preparation is needed. I’m now planning my next playset – this time set around a successful rock band.

(My Hazelwood Abbey DramaSystem playset is available on Itch.io.)

After Hazelwood Abbey I went to get some tea and met Philippa, a friend. I had some time before my next game, so I taught her the Villagers board game (and, um, won) before heading back to the RPG rooms for Cthulhu Dark.

In Whom We Trust (Cthulhu Dark)

I had all five players for In Whom We Trust, a one-way trip deep into the Amazon jungle. Inspired by the movies Outbreak and Arachnophobia (the scariest PG movie ever), I originally wrote In Whom We Trust as a Call of Cthulhu “tournament” adventure for Convulsion/Continuum in the mid-90s. Since then, I’ve redone it for Cthulhu Dark and made it available via Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Thoughts

• We had one survivor this time – but from what I could see, all the players were enjoying themselves. Even those that died grisly deaths.
• The system was simple and great, as usual. One character was close to going insane – which was about right.
• I last ran In Whom We Trust five years ago at GoPlayLeeds, and it was nice to revisit it.

After finishing, I walked back to the car past several light artworks – it was Harrogate’s Beam light festival, which was an unexpected pleasure.

Saturday

On Saturday morning I brought Megan and one of her friends to AireCon. I’d ignored the trade hall and the board games yesterday, so today was a chance to remedy that.

We played lots of games:

• War of the 3 Sanchos (a small wargame which I enjoyed more than I thought I would – but I won, so I might be biased)
• Forbidden Jungle (a co-up which we lost, badly – I’d happily play it again.)
• Panic Lab (a mental agility game which Megan won both times)
• Giant-sized Hey That’s My Fish (which Megan won – I came last)
• A playtest of a game about finding poison antidotes (which I won – the game was fine but not stellar and we gave some feedback)

Losing at Panic Lab

Then we had to say goodbye to Guy, and so Megan and I played Woof Days (which I don’t recommend, we won one game each) before catching up with Philippa again. We played:

• Wyrmspan (a heavier variant of Wingspan that I won but Megan was bored by – she found it slow towards the end)
• MLEM: Space Agency (a push-your-luck game I enjoyed but came last while Megan won; but the cat-based space theme I found offputting)
• Reef Rescue (a light memory game that I won)

After that, we entered the wonderful charity raffle. There are only a dozen or so prizes in the raffle, but each prize consists of 20 or so board games, and you stand almost no chance of winning. But if you do, you win big (and it’s up to you how you get them home)… We didn’t win, and the raffle raised over £10,000 for charity.

Waiting for the raffle

Entropoly

Finally, on Saturday, Megan and I watched Ivan Brett (from The Traitors) host Entropoly, a game where the players invent new rules each time they take a turn. The rules got crazier and crazier, with rules for wearing wigs, moving anti-clockwise, and changing the spelling of the board.

The game ended up as a co-up, with all the playing pieces merged as one trying to find the correct finish space, which had been duplicated twenty times. There was much laughing and silliness, and it was a lovely way to end the day.

Sunday

I was tired after Saturday and almost didn’t go to AireCon on Sunday. But I decided I would, and I’m glad I did, as I played in a tabletop RPG and did some networking.

What’s Old Is New (WOIN)

I took the last place in a game of WOIN, where we played adventurers with strange abilities (I was a martial artist with mysterious chi powers, another character was a mutant, and another was a cyborg) helping the oppressed. Like the A-Team. We fought vampires, met some nuns, built an improbable vehicle and smashed a sinister vampire plot. I had a good time, but I’m not sure the WOIN system is for me. It was fine but didn’t stand out – we could have used almost any trad ruleset.

After that, I found friends (old and new) and talked about Jubensha, freeforms, escape rooms, and Dune 2 before heading home.

And that was my AireCon. What will I do next year?

MR James ghost story RPG scenario design

As I continue to listen to MR James’ ghost stories (see last post), my thoughts inevitably turn to how I would do this in a roleplaying game. And the short answer is, it’s not easy.

So what do I want from an MR James-inspired game?

A sense of unease

A sense of unease. Details. A sense of measured pace. A creepy backstory. Long-dead occultists whose reach extends into the present. No real closure. Things that should not have been done. Bleak endings.

Taken at Calke Abbey

MR James’ ghost stories lack the terror and horror stages that Ash Law talks about in The Trajectory of Fear. There’s unease and dread, but that never (or perhaps only rarely) becomes terror or even horror.

While that works for MR James, how on earth do I wrap it all up into an enjoyable RPG adventure? Compromises will have to be made.

Casting the Runes

Casting the Runes is Paul StJohn Mackintosh’s GUMSHOE-powered game of occult investigation, set in the world of M. R James’ ghost stories. The Design Mechanism publishes Casting the Runes, and you can download a preview here.

I don’t own Casting the Runes (and I’ve never played a GUMSHOE game), but from what I can tell, Casting the Runes is Call of Cthulhu (or, rather, Trail of Cthulhu) with ghosts replacing tentacles. So there are investigators, monster stats, combat rules, magic rules and so on. 

My main problem with Casting the Runes is that it doesn’t model the MR James stories. Monsters aren’t fought – they are mysterious and otherworldly. Magic isn’t used – except by the bad guys. That’s not what I’m looking for.

While researching this, I tried to find free scenarios for Casting the Runes (just in case I was mistaken). I found The Bone Mill and A Reckoning Come October (both by Dosmania) on itch.io. Instead of a traditional investigation, the two scenarios use a structure that I didn’t find easy to grok. But from what I can see, the scenarios appear to be traditional investigations.

What I’ve done so far

I’ve already used A Warning to the Curious as the basis for Operation Curious Warning, a D-Day mission for Achtung! Cthulhu. That’s about as far from MR James as you can get. In the scenario, Section M is charged with investigating and neutralising the legend of three ancient crowns said to protect the French coast from foreign invasion.

Unfortunately, whoever disturbs the crowns suffers a ghastly fate – so the PC who destroys the crown (allowing D-Day to be a success for the Allies) is doomed. 

While I’m pleased with the scenario, it’s much more pulp action than Jamsiean unease.

The only time I think I’ve got the Jamsiean aspects right is after the crown has been destroyed: that PC’s doom is foreshadowed by having a shadowy figure getting closer behind them. (“Sorry, Sir, I thought there was someone behind you.”) 

But given that the PCs are in the middle of a commando raid on a French chateau, any subtlety is lost in the cordite and action.

What I’m planning

My current plan is to base something around Count Magnus. Something has been accidentally awakened, and the long-dead count is stirring. 

I’m considering setting it at Calke Abbey, the National Trust property in Derbyshire. Calke Abbey passed to the National Trust in 1985, and much of it is in the same shabby condition as when it was handed over.

Taken at Calke Abbey

It is tempting to set the adventure in 1985 and involve members of the Department for Irregular Services (the Liminal crew I wrote about recently). They would be called in to check over the property before any work begins to make Calke Abbey visitor-ready, which would start our scenario.

And while that’s tempting, the scenario doesn’t feel quite the right fit for Liminal. I won’t get the bleak, supernatural feeling I’m hoping for with Liminal.

Instead, I think I need Cthulhu Dark.

I’ve written about Cthulhu Dark before – it’s elegantly simple and suits bleak one-shots. I suspect it’s what I’m looking for.

I haven’t made my mind up yet. While I suspect Cthulhu Dark would be ideal, I also want an excuse to give the Department for Irregular Services an outing.

I expect I’ll try them both.

The Lightless Beacon

As part of my plan to run other people’s RPG adventures, I thought I’d give Call of Cthulhu’s The Lightless Beacon a spin. It’s free on Roll20, which also means I get to practice my Roll20 GMing skills. And because I don’t have a copy of the Call of Cthulhu rules, I used Cthulhu Dark.

Spoilers ahoy!

The Lightless Beacon

The Lightless Beacon is an introductory adventure written by Leigh Carr with Lynne Hardy: the ship the investigators are travelling on is wrecked and the investigators must make their way to the nearest island (and lighthouse), which has its own difficulties (mainly deep ones).

The game is likely to end up with a furious battle at the top of the lighthouse, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in most games, but less than ideal for Cthulhu Dark.

Timings for The Lightless Beacon suggest that it will be over in an hour, with four players. While it’s extremely short, I suspect my players will drag it out longer than that. But we’ll see.

Cthulhu Dark

Cthulhu Dark is Graham Walmsley’s excellent rules-light Cthulhu system. The rules cover two sides of A4, and I have the gorgeous hardback that Graham produced. I’ve written about it previously, and I find it simpler to use than traditional Call of Cthulhu. There are some complications in using Cthulhu Dark, though, that means I can’t quite run The Lightless Beacon exactly as written.

Doomed: In Cthulhu Dark, the investigators are doomed. They’re not expected to triumph. So this will not end well for my investigators—so I can ignore any temptation to have the investigators win.

No combat: Cthulhu Dark has no combat rules. If the investigators fight a supernatural menace, they lose. They can flee, or hide. But they can’t fight. So that rules out a climactic battle at the top of the lighthouse.

Final horror: In the scenario construction section, Cthulhu Dark talks about the final horror, that moment at the end of the adventure when the investigators finally understand the full ghastliness of what’s going on.

However, The Lightless Beacon doesn’t have a final horror—it’s just some monsters trying to recover their gold. So I changed the scenario slightly, and corrupted the deep one gold, making the gold itself evil. The deep ones turn their gold into jewellery and sell it to hapless victims who, upon buying it, become corrupted themselves (and maybe even prompting ‘the change’). I’m writing this before we play, and with luck the adventure will end with the investigators barricaded at the top of the lighthouse, monsters pounding at the door, and with one of them looking at her wedding ring, not knowing if it is tainted or not. Fade to black.

You can download the basic Cthulhu Dark rules for free here.

My thoughts on reading The Lightless Beacon

Roll20 doesn’t make it easy to use pre-written adventures. The text is contained in Roll20’s handouts, which I copied into Word for easy reading. I didn’t copy everything, and I still ended up with 6000 words of text…

So my first sense of The Lightless Beacon, a one-hour adventure is that it’s overwritten. By a long way. I appreciate that it’s aimed at newcomers to Call of Cthulhu, but I’m sure even newcomers would appreciate clear, concise writing.

Hard to use in play: This makes The Lightless Beacon hard to run in play—unless you’ve internalised everything (and why would you for a one-hour game?). Worse, the text doesn’t include the map cross-referencing, making it harder to use.

(I am sure you could present The Lightless Beacon as little more than annotated maps. It’s just a one-page dungeon, it doesn’t need all that extraneous material.)

Everything is hidden behind a dice roll: I was surprised at how much was hidden by a dice roll, including the handouts. Luckily, with Cthulhu Dark, investigators always find the clues so I don’t have to worry about that. But it does seem very old-fashioned and I had thought that 7th edition Call of Cthulhu, given GUMSHOE’s presence, had moved beyond that. (And maybe it does, maybe there’s something in the rules about that.)

Younglings: The monsters in The Lightless Beacon are embarrassing. They’re called ‘younglings’ a word that I’ve only ever heard in association with Revenge of the Sith. I’m not sure why they don’t have a more sinister name—sea horrors, or larvae. Anything but younglings.

Sea horrors (I’m not calling them younglings) have poisonous dorsal spines they can fire at prey. That means they have to turn their backs to attack anything! I’m trying not to laugh at how ridiculous that sounds, so I will give them breakable poisonous teeth instead.

Firearms: Games are scarier when the characters are powerless, and removing guns helps to remove that power. As far as I can see, The Lightless Beacon has three guns: two on the island, and one that starts with the characters. I removed (or broke) two, leaving the one gun for the investigators to find in the innards of a dead NPC. (Guns aren’t any help in Cthulhu Dark anyway.)

Dynamic lighting - bah

Roll20 integration: The Lightless Beacon is the first Roll20-sourced adventure I’ve run, and while it integrates with Roll20, I’m not sure it makes the best of Roll20. Some thoughts:

• Dynamic lighting: The plan of the lighthouse has dynamic lighting enabled, which is nice but I found it irritating in play. Once the players had visited a room I wanted that room to remain visible, but with dynamic lighting once we moved the token away the room went dark. (So I prefer the old-fashioned “fog of war” approach.) My lack of familiarity with Roll20 probably didn’t help here—I’m sure there’s a simple way to sort this.
• GM layer: The maps all have a GM layer with a few notes, but not enough. There’s a bloody stain on the GM layer in the kitchen—I’m not sure why that isn’t on the background as the investigators see it. And I would have liked more notes on the GM layer to make it easy to run.
• Scenario text: As a I said before, the scenario text is all in handouts. A quick reference guide would have been very helpful (or just better annotated maps).
• Roll 20’s Jukebox: I thought I’d try out Roll20’s jukebox feature. I used the Dark and Stormy track for outside scenes, and Existential Dread for inside scenes. (Both are by Tabletop Audio and I found them by exploring the jukebox.)

Actual play

Rotate the map?

So I ran the adventure with my regular players, Jon and Terry. They took the antiques dealer and marine biologist. Once they were on the island, they immediately sought shelter from the rain and went into the lighthouse cottage, ignoring my suggestion to explore outside. (In hindsight, I wonder if rotating the map so the investigators encounter the outbuildings first would have been better.)

They made a perfunctory scout of the cottage (ignoring everything interesting), before climbing the lighthouse itself to see if they could fix the light and prevent more ships from foundering on the rocks. 

So of course they encountered the grisly scene long before I had hoped they would.

They replaced the lighthouse lamp, but then I had the power go out. So they went out into the dark where they found the dead body there, and a generator that had shorted out. By this point they were aware of strange fish-horrors and shapes in the night, and didn’t want to hang around trying to fix the generator. So they holed themselves up in the windowless pantry, barring the door against Things Outside banging and scratching to get in.

By daylight the things had gone, and we ended the game with post-credit scenes for each character. The antiques dealer took the gold coins and was later murdered for them, while the marine biologist took the fish-thing specimen back but was discredited and became a laughing stock. So happy endings all around!

Both Jon and Terry enjoyed the simplicity and bleakness of Cthulhu Dark. They ended up with 3 and 4 Insight respectively, and I think the rule that a fight always ends in the Investigator’s death worked in the games favour. They were hiding from the creatures not trying to fight them.

We took about an hour and 45 minutes to play—so a good time (and as I suspected, longer than the hour advertised).

So what have I learned?

Roll20’s Jukebox: There’s not that much about Roll20 that I can’t get elsewhere, but I did like the jukebox. I’m not sure if the players enjoyed it as much as I did, but it worked for me.

Roll20’s GM layer: The Lightless Beacon introduced me to the GM layer, it’s not something I used before (I’m a Roll20 newbie). I can see me using that in future. (And as I said, I think The Lightless Beacon could be run from a good annotated map.)

Cthulhu Dark: Cthulhu Dark was just right. While I didn’t get the final horror I had hoped for, we had no stumbling over clues or missing anything because of a failed roll. And when they rolled 6, I enjoyed the challenge of finding a supernatural insight for them.

Other people’s adventures: I’m enjoying running other people’s adventures more than I thought I would. I still have yet to find one that really works—a compelling adventure properly laid out and concisely written so I don’t have to do so much homework to run it.

So all in all, a success.

Running Cthulhu Dark

So finally, after writing about it back in 2017, I have finally run Cthulhu Dark. I ran In Whom We Trust on a wet Sunday afternoon in March at GoPlayLeeds (GPL), which wasn’t as atmospheric as I might hope.

In Whom We Trust was originally written for the Call of Cthulhu tournament at Convulsion ’96. Since then it has been played a number of times and suffered a variety of edits.
In Whom We Trust was also used as the RPGA tournament scenario at GenconUK 2001.

I last ran it at Continuum in Leicester in 2016 and wrote about that here.

For Cthulhu Dark, I made a few changes:

• I deliberately made the characters more powerless. So rather than white European explorer types, I made them unemployed locals.
• I changed the expedition from being a Miskatonic expedition to one from the University of São Paulo.
• I added detail in the form of themes, creeping horrors, and what rolling 5s and 6s would reveal.

But apart from that, the scenario is pretty much as it was before.

How did it play?

I had four players, Nathan, Kip, Gary and Daniel. Two experienced players, and two very new to roleplaying. (One had apparently seen roleplaying on Critical Role, found GPL on meetup and turned up to find out what was going on. My how times have changed.) Happily, I don’t think I put them off.

The game went well, if perhaps shorter than I expected. We finished in under two hours. (Although perhaps I should have remembered that, as looking back on that run in Continuum I think that finished in a couple of hours as well.)

Still, two hours is plenty (not every session has to be a five hour marathon) and it gave us lots of time to relax and chat afterwards.

As for Cthulhu Dark itself:

• Playing the game was pretty painless. It’s about the level of rules that I like - very simple, not very difficult. As this was the first time I’d played it there were a couple of moments where I had to look something up, most only now and again.
• Insight worked well - one player reached 6 insight just at the end, the others were on 4s and 5s.
• There was one survivor, which isn’t unusual for In Whom We Trust. It was nice and depressing. Nobody was upset about that - I pitched it as “Doomed investigators in the Amazon jungle,” so they knew what was coming.
• I totally forgot about the creeping horrors, which didn’t surprise me as I had a feeling that would happen. My plan to overcome that was that I repeated them on the worksheet at the end of the scenario. Only I never looked at it. I don’t use a GM’s screen, and maybe if I did I would have written them out so that I couldn’t miss them. (Still, given that we were playing in Geek Retreat, I’m not sure it would have made much difference.) 
• I found a few glitches in the scenario, which I’ve since sorted out.

Overall I’m enjoyed running Cthulhu Dark - it worked well with In Whom We Trust. I’ll probably use it again, if I’m running a horror game (which to be honest doesn’t happen much these days).

Try it for yourself

Here are the game files for In Whom We Trust for Cthulhu Dark.

Cthulhu Dark: some thoughts

Scaring players is hard. I've been roleplaying for over 35 years now (admittedly with some long gaps) but I can only remember two occasions of real fearfulness.

In the first, I was a player. I can't remember the details of the game, but we were playing Call of Cthulhu and we were exhuming the body of what we thought was a sorcerer. And I remember being on the edge of my seat as I imagined what we would find.

In the second, I was running Call of Cthulhu and the players were exploring the derelict half of an old mansion. There was nothing there for them to find, but I just made it as creepy and unsettling as I could. The players soon fled. I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that the players fear of what they might find overcame their boldness and they retreated to safety.

So my experience of playing and running Call of Cthulhu (and writing adventures for it) is that most scenarios involve solving a complicated puzzle - one with monsters. But they're not actually scary.

Cthulhu Dark is different.

Kickstarter

Cthulhu Dark is Graham Walmsley's cut-down rules set for playing Lovecraftian horror. He first published them as a free pdf in 2010, and in 2017 he Kickstarted a full hardback, which I backed.

Physically, the book is lovely. It has a gloriously understated cover by George Cotronis, black and white full page illustrations by Matteo Bocci, and maps by Stentor Danielson. The text is simply black on white, with the occasional boxed text.

If I had to pick one word for it, that word would be elegant.

The rules are wonderfully simple, and distils the Gumshoe "you never fail to find a clue" system to its essence. I won't describe them - you can read them here (it will be quicker for you to read them than it is for me to explain them).

As the basic rules take up two pages in the hardback, the rest of the 190 page hardback book is taken up with a more detailed review of the rules, excellent advice on constructing a horror scenario, a look at Lovecraft's creations and how to use them in Cthulhu Dark, and four settings, each with a detailed scenario.

The Cthulhu Dark Philosophy

What the full Cthulhu Dark book brings is its philosophy (which the free pdf doesn't explain). This philosophy can be summarised by three statements:

• The investigators are doomed.
• Investigators should be powerless.
• This game is meant to be scary.

There's nothing stopping you from playing Cthulhu Dark using the basic free rules and treating it just like Call of Cthulhu. But I think you're missing a trick if you do.

Doomed investigators

Most of the Call of Cthulhu scenarios that I've written can be "won" in one way or another. There's a solution, an evil to be defeated. And that's fine - I'm happy with them all.

But my favourite Call of Cthulhu scenario (of the ones I've written) doesn't have a happy ending, and that's In Whom We Trust. That scenario typically ends with most of the investigators dead or having succumbed to a foul great old one. (If you want to see what I mean, you can find it here.)

And that's the Cthulhu Dark philosophy - investigators are doomed. The mythos threats are not there to be beaten, they're immense forces of darkness. The scenarios are about the investigators uncovering a truth that dooms them. (So much closer to Lovecraft's stories.)

Next time I run In Whom We Trust, I will probably use Cthulhu Dark. (But more on that below.)

Powerless Investigators

Cthulhu Dark recommends that you play powerless characters. In his design notes, Graham Walmsley notes that this came about following his response to the usual dilettante Call of Cthulhu characters. So instead, Cthulhu Dark is full of the poor and working class.

Aside from any social commentary, I do think that taking power away from investigators increases the fear and horror. I approve of that.

As example, Alien features powerless working-class space-truckers, and is exquisitely scary. Aliens, on the other hand, is filled with powerful space marines. Aliens is a thrilling ride, but Alien is the scarier of the two.

And if you don’t like the idea of powerless characters, there’s nothing in the rules preventing you from playing the usual dilettantes if you want.

This is a scary game

Cthulhu Dark contains 38 pages of Director’s advice about creating a scary game. That’s something that was missing in Call of Cthulhu (although as I haven’t seen the latest edition, maybe that’s changed). Still, I’ve not seen such advice elsewhere. Such advice includes:

Lovecraftian Threats: There are no statistics in Cthulhu Dark’s list of monsters. Instead it is much more interesting and instead includes discusses how the threats might be used in a story. Cthulhu Dark limits itself purely to original Lovecraft (no Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath here), but also pushes that limit by including less obvious threats like the rats in the walls and reanimation solution.

Creeping horrors: Creeping horrors are “unexplained, unsettling moments of weirdness, which repeat throughout the mystery.” Their purpose is to unsettle the players. Cthulhu Dark suggests creeping horrors for each of the threats, such as the stink of the sea (deep ones) or sudden darkness (shining trapezohedron).

Themes: Themes are the topics that a scenario explores, what it’s really about. Again, themes are suggested for each threat. Suggested themes for the elder things are doomed civilisation and imitation (in relation to shoggoths).

Scenario/story design: Cthulhu Dark’s story/scenario advice is superb - I think it’s the best I’ve seen. This section covers themes, creeping horrors, locations, final horrors - and more. And it’s then followed by a way to look at your potential story from different perspectives. For example, The Descent suggests imagining your mystery as a descent into darkness. I am now tempted to go back to some of my old Call of Cthulhu adventures and “darken” them. (And I don’t think for a minute that’s as easy as just removing the stats.)

London 1851, Arkham 1692, Jaiwo 2017, Mumbai 2037

I have previously stated that I don’t like reading backgrounds, so for me, the four Cthulhu Dark backgrounds are mercifully short.

The backgrounds are London 1851, Arkham 1692 (written by Kathryn Jenkins), Jaiwo 2017 (a fictional African country written by Helen Gould), and Mumbai 2037. So that’s two “standard” horror settings, and two unusual horror settings. I was pleased to see that Cthulhu Dark omitted the usual 1920s and 1930s settings; I think enough has been written about them already.

Each background is 10-20 pages long, including a full page map. Over half of the background information is given to typical investigator occupations, and ideas for making sure their occupation is relevant in your mystery.

The occupations themselves are unusual - so the London 1851 setting includes cleaners, costermongers, mudlarks, housewives and toshers. Not your usual RPG characters then.

The rest of the setting provides enough to be able to run a game, and there’s a bibliography for each if you want to dive deeper. From my perspective, that’s just about enough background for me - if I need more I can look it up (or make it up).

The mysteries

Cthulhu Dark contains four mysteries: Screams of the Children (London 1851), The Doors Beyond Time (Arkham 1692), The Curse of the Zimba (Jaiwo 2017), and Consume (Mumbai 2037).

The scenarios are all equally doom laden as the investigators work their way to the final horror. There are no happy endings for anyone. I think they’re great, with Screams of the Children and The Doors Beyond Time standing out as the creepiest.

I also like the fact that the mysteries are usually longer than the setting material. That’s the right mix of setting and background in my opinion!

However, I have two criticisms of the mysteries.

The first is that, for a book with “Cthulhu” in the title, none of them use any of the threats described in the rules. I actually think that the mysteries are all the more effective for that (and I can’t really complain about not using mythos creatures - I’ve done that myself). But it does seem odd that none of the mysteries in Cthulhu Dark uses the threats (with the exception of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to “man-faced rats” in The Doors Beyond Time).

My second criticism is layout, which doesn’t look as if it will help actual play. Cthulhu Dark is laid out in elegant blocks of text that are somewhat stark and minimalist. I really like it for most of the book - but not the mysteries, which need to be easier laid out so that information can be quickly found during an adventure. Here’s an example page:

Okay, I admit that I chose a particularly bad page here, but that’s not how I like my scenarios to be formatted.

I’ve not tried playing any of these - but if I do I’m going to have to make lots of highlights and notes to make it easier to run.

From Call of Cthulhu to Cthulhu Dark

I really like Cthulhu Dark - it’s a simple elegant system and next time I run a Call of Cthulhu adventure I’d like to use the Cthulhu Dark rules.

Which of course I can - I can use them for exactly that. (And I probably will, as I’m not as familiar with Call of Cthulhu as I once was.)

But I think I’d be missing out on Cthulhu Dark’s philosophy of personal, doomed horror.

So I’ve been thinking about running In Whom We Trust again. And while I could run it exactly as written using the Cthulhu Dark rules (it is almost systemless as it is), I feel that if I did so I’d need to add creeping horrors, themes and think about what rolling a 6 means. I then started thinking about more structural changes to suit Cthulhu Dark’s philosophy, but then I may as well write a new mystery from scratch.

The fifth mystery - and a nagging problem

As part of the Kickstarter, Cthulhu Dark includes Mo Holkar’s As Good as a Feast pdf, a mystery set in dust bowl America that, again, doesn’t use any of the Lovecraftian threats. It’s laid out just like the mysteries in Cthulhu Dark itself. I don’t know if it will be available separately.

However, it was as I was reading As Good as a Feast, something else started to nag at me: all the mysteries are basically the same. All five are basically railroads where the investigators start to discover something untoward and are slowly drawn in before facing an evil entity. I don’t mind that as a storyline in itself, but I would have liked to have seen some variety. Maybe that’s what happens when your mysteries feature doomed, powerless, characters. But I hope not.

Overall

I really like Cthulhu Dark. It has done something few other games have done: it’s changed how I think about roleplaying. Before, I didn’t really find horror roleplaying scary. As I’ve said before, most gaming really isn’t scary at all - horror or otherwise.

But Cthulhu Dark has given me the tools to create unsettling, creepy games. And while I may use Cthulhu Dark’s elegantly simple ruleset, I suspect I will find those techniques creeping into my other games as well.

My biggest complaint is that about the sample scenarios/mysteries. I would like to see some variety, so maybe I won’t change In Whom We Trust too much. I like its current structure, but I think I can darken it and make it more unsettling.

As for the layout not being easy for me to run, maybe that’s just me. After all, I have read reports of people running the scenarios successfully. So perhaps I should get over myself and just run one.

When I do, I’ll report back here...