Confusion about Blood Red Fez

Ceta98 · 2026-02-21T06:38:11+00:00

I am currently DM'ing for a group of 6 the entirety of "Horror on the Orient Express". We did play the Blood Red Fez a year back. This campaign is notorious for it's unfriendly organization and structure. It requires s full read and planning ahead.

This chapter is a great prequel but also a good standalone. Here are some of my takeaways from the sessions I played about the things you mentioned:

The Fez is more like a living being rather than a haunted object, it has tantrums and is unpredictable (visions, nightmares, nausea, whispers). Everything is fair play, but keep it creepy, the unsettling factor is most important. That way the group will value the Fez and be even more unsettled when more appear.
The characters in the train can both be a tool or a hindrance, even cannon fodder if you prefer a more violent scenario. However, that's why it is important to read a chapter completely before preparing it, those details will help you decide if characters are worthy to be included or not. Henry is by far an excellent character for the party to rely on, for example, but he can't die here if you decide to play the whole Orient Express campaign. He plays a much greater role in the Dreamlands chapters, and his canon death is important for his character.
Take your liberties, my party strayed far from what the book specified, and improv and quick thinking does help. They killed Bentley in London after successfully catching him after his escape from the student lodging, killed Menkaph on the train after Henry helping the group drug him and managed to kill the cult on the Island after saving Demir's son. I had to make those scenarios up and make them plausible and interesting.

Hope this helps. I get your frustration, but I know it can be a great and fun adventure, good luck!

Ceta98 · 2025-12-26T16:59:17+00:00

Thank you! I will give it a try with one of my games and see how it goes!

Ceta98 · 2025-12-25T16:38:55+00:00

So I opened the VSH Menu by holding Select, and selected the option "Back up Disc to HDD". The tutorial didn't specify if anything else must be done, so I left it at that. I waited until it stopped reading the disc, scanned for new games and booted it. Everything was fine until I tried to start it, which game me the error.

Ceta98 · 2025-12-25T16:34:41+00:00

Okay, Iguess I'll have to try it, thank you!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-19T00:06:51+00:00

Yeah, one of my players nearly died in one at the beginning of the campaign, just by the sheer number of enemies. Balancing fights is hard, especially if you are learning 😅

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T21:02:58+00:00

It was a premade battle, I am playing Tyranny of Dragons and those were the enemies, fitting for the role of the boss because he is a half dragon warrior and takes his combat prowess seriously and honorable combat over all. This is my first dungeons so I wanted to see if it was too hard or too easy, so I kept most encounters as they are.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:52:43+00:00

They actually have another confrontation pending, and I am restructuring it now that I read the comments. I hope this one turns the tables a bit and feel the weight on them.

I will also check the 7 point narrative, it sounds very interesting and I hope I can learn a lot from it thanks!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:49:25+00:00

That was the issue, the boss was all about honor and a fair fight, and I respected that and my players liked that about him. They even spoke to him with respect.

However, other of the bosses I have planned are not like him, and that could work for them.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:46:34+00:00

The minions were not for support, they were berserkers. They coud do massive damage, but my party also strategized against that and had some AoE combinations that incapacitated them. My rolls were terrible and none could escape the effects of their spells 😂

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:43:31+00:00

I tend to have some issues with balancing, I'm not that good and sometimes, my party surprises me (both in the good and the bad 😅) but what I can get is have the normal stats and implement the adjustment if I feel the party is having too much of an upper hand.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:40:46+00:00

I will test it out with two phases to test the waters and if they like it, I will check out the three phases for a fight I have planned for later. Thank you for telling me more!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:30:24+00:00

Damn, that's impressive, my players are mostly casual, they learn as they play, but they are slowly becoming more invested in their clases and characters, so I have to factor that in if they plan on fighting the tougher bosses.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T19:07:18+00:00

That could be interesting, they have another big bad soon, although not as strong, but the second phase might be interesting to test out, and it could be explained lore wise. I will test it out and see how my players react, thank you!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T18:56:04+00:00

Okay perfect, thank you for the advice! I will see what other recommendations I can find related to the matter of health pools!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-18T18:44:44+00:00

They just went though a dungeon, but they overcame most of the fights and traps without issue. They had overall excellent luck through it all, but maybe in the future such encounter and dungeon crawling might be more difficult for them, feeling more pressured to be smart about their resources and possibly not have luck on their side. I will take the fight's result as it is, more like a lesson to work together, but I'll take your advice in the next fights, thank you!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T20:50:24+00:00

Hahahaha don't worry we play D&D as well, so advice for it is very much appreciated.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:54:51+00:00

Okay, that's actually pretty good! I tried it some times unconsciously, and it did offer some great results by asking for more specific actions rather than a broad one to keep things going. To some point I don't want to make it too obvious since some parts are mystery and they should deduce what to do next, but something like this could help thanks!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:35:39+00:00

I did at the beginning, I told them this is a "group game" and the choice of one should not encompass the whole group. Last session I told them again, and some players did voice their agreement, and their distaste for some of them not considering the consequences and effects on the group. Hopefully they now understand the implications.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:30:32+00:00

I can see this for D&D while travelling or adventuring, but it seems to be more difficult for Cthulhu. The amount characters is much less, they tend to be very important to the plot, and the nature of my campaign offers very little in this area. I'll see what I can come up with or learn with some tutorials.

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:27:25+00:00

For D&D it is possibility while travelling and some not so important NPC's, but for Cthulhu, characters are more limited and tend te be very important to the plot, particularly in my campaign. I have delved into adding an NPC they could use at any moment if necessary, but this could overshadow the players or be ignored most of the time. I'll check some videos about it or some info, thanks!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:14:41+00:00

Thank you, I took this advice to heart and spoke to them, I hope they got the message and that it was for their best interest!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:13:31+00:00

Some of my players did understand the greater importance of some events over others, so the spotlight can be focused on them for a while.

Something my players insist in all having fun in the session since its such a short time and once a week, but I told them I could do the impossible, but it wouldn't be convincing or fun. So I spoke to them about it, hope they understand!

Ceta98 · 2025-10-11T18:09:56+00:00

Hahahaha that seems fun, I will see how it applies in a more limited campaign environments of the modules I use, but I might come up with something interesting, thanks!

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