Last night I played some Call of Cthulhu with some of my regular gaming buddies.
It's a very different game than what I normally play. Set in 1927 rural Massachusetts, my character Teddy Jacobs was a drifter hired to do some photography for a big paper in Boston. I arrived after a night of driving to an inn where a reporter, psychiatrist, and parapsychologist were staying. Let me tell you, from the hungover reporter to the bickering between the two "psychs" ol' Teddy was ready to get back in his/her (in disguise and indeterminate) 1925 Dodge Roadster (wish it was a Packard Phaeton) and turn that camera equipment back around to Boston.
However, Teddy stayed and had some fun encounters with a very superstitious priest of some kind. Quickly taking the man's picture after being told by him that cameras could steal a piece of the soul...
I enjoyed it a lot. It's a game with a different pace and a heavy RP factor, where you must take notes and pay attention to clues. If you liked playing detective when you were a kid (GUILTY as charged) then you will enjoy this game. Your character has percentage based skills and when you try to do something you roll a percentage skill check. I like that, but it makes it a bit tense at times. The other different part is if you want to enjoy the game you really should try to tune out what the other character's are doing when you go solo. There is a lot of solo investigation that shows the true skill of your Gamekeeper (the DM in this system). Luckily, Evil Celt, our regular DM is a true god. He can have you talking to a little girl, an old man, and everything in between and make it believable.
So, at the end of the night what happened? Well Teddy got some of the photos taken around town developed and they were all very off. It was a bright, sunny day outside with a well-kempt town as the subject, but there was distortion wherever the camera picked up people. That priest that Teddy so mischievously disobeyed, photographed and ran from, came out with a horribly blurred face...
Next time we game Teddy will put on a suit and escort the reporter, Maureena to a club to meet one of the big whig bankers. Things may not go well. Meanwhile, on the edge of town, the true threat, the haunted, cursed or maybe just diseased (but don't we know better if the Cthulhu mythos is involved) Blackfield Farm waits.
Yeah, your current campaign sounds a bit more subdued than my first one, which was Horror on the Orient Express. Ernst Faust, my character, was a socialist sympathizer in London, who left the world in the most magnificent of fashions: summoning Cyaegea and blowing up the earth. (Obviously, a cosmic reset was in quick order and everything returned to its normal state, sans Ernst, who had been absorbed by the GOO.)
ReplyDeleteI haven't played Call of Cthulhu but I have played Delta Green, and I know what you mean about the notes and tuning out the other characters. I had pages of notes and, well, nearly got myself into a bit of trouble. Reading this makes me want to play again.
ReplyDeleteThe detective element of CoC really appeals to me. I'm working on coming up with a story for some people who've said that they'll maybe play with me. *crosses fingers* Or I need to find a game in my area to join.
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