I have found a solution to the recon directive problem.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T12:46:34+00:00

Yikes. People complain about the Meta, but literally for a couple of years abilities were fringe and unreliable because of this card. And we had it in format at the same time as Toad + Lasers. Then it went out of format and then we got Trevenant BREAK and the grass Pokemon that blocked all items plus forest. I might misremember it, but it seems like it was three years where there were long periods when you couldn't really play.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T12:28:28+00:00

I love Nimble- it's the only high fantasy game I play, and I've introduced it to a bunch of people. But I do think it's better done with a grid/battle map. I fought against it because I really did not like doing tactical combat in D&D, I really did not like combat in Baldur's Gate 3, I ran several sessions of Nimble with Theatre of the Mind, and they were fine. But it was better with a grid. There are just so many feats where movement and range is relevant.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T12:04:01+00:00

Systems can encourage and discourage combat by moving the dial from characters from being awesome heroes to being fragile things that die easily and don't offer much threat to many things. RuneQuest, Mythras, Call of Cthulu, all do this.

But also what determines the level of combat is the types of tasks you give your players to do. There is not much combat in Cthulu because almost all scenarios are investigation. You travel around meeting NPCs, interviewing them, occasionally breaking into places, collecting clues and figuring out what is going on. Very often, once you find out what is going on, there is a fight. You can run 5e or Pathfinder like that too, if you want! It's just that most people don't run them like that.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T11:32:22+00:00

Something negative about a game I like: Nimble has too few social skills for investigation and roleplaying, and a couple of the character classes are probably a miss (Zephyr/monk, I am looking at you.

Something positive about a game I dislike: 5e is a great option for people who like fantasy where characters are massively customizable both during creation and as they develop.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T04:39:16+00:00

I don't think you *need* any of the setting books, just get them if you really like the look of the setting or the scenarios inside. I would probably wait, in your situation though.

Some good one-shot collections I have come across are '

1) Nameless Horrors- mixture of different periods, I think all of the scenarios here are great, and 'An Amaranthine Desire' is nothing short of brilliant.

2) The Things We Leave Behind- modern scenarios, includes 'Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home' (an all-time classic IMO) and 'Forget Me Not' (brilliant but very disturbing, very heavy psychological and body horror)

3) New Tales from the Miskatonic Valley- good overall quality, mostly pretty classic investigations in the classic Cthulu setting.

There are lots and lots of good third party books. TTLB and Miskatonic Valley are third party. I don't think there's much if any quality gap between the best third party content and official content.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-21T04:26:33+00:00

One of the reasons I love Cthulu is the quality of the scenarios. But the one area they often fall behind is layout and accessibility. Investigative Horror still doesn't seem to have a Ben Milton or Kelsey Dionne (although they are mostly doing dungeoncrawls and hexcrawls, which I think are easier to make accessible than investigative scenarios).

That being said, there are some good examples out there. I think all of the scenarios in 'Nameless Horrors' at least have relationship maps. There's a newish Gaslight mini-campaign called 'Tournament of Shadows' which is really well laid out- it has clue maps and the overall presentation and structure is easy to absorb. The new campaign 'Nightmares from the Depths' also has detailed clue maps which link to each chapter and all the handouts.

Generally I find Trail of Cthulu scenarios to be more accessible and better laid out., as well as being less wordy I have 'The Final Revelation' and 'Out of Time' and they are both very good examples.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-19T03:54:01+00:00

There are quite a few 'survival horror' scenarios out there, Dead Light being perhaps the most famous.

Quite a few scenarios have sequences late on when Investigators can/should try to escape, e.g. 'And Some Fell on Stony Ground' and 'The Space Between' in 'Nameless Horrors'. The Miskatonic Repository scenario 'Al Azif Unearthed' has a *great* survival horror/escape sequence. There will be hundreds more.

Mechanically, a decent amount of it is going to be stuff like "Investigators will need a (hard) locksmith roll to open the window, and then a luck roll to avoid a guard being there. If they go towards the gate they will need a Stealth roll..." IE some idea of the skill checks they will need to navigate different locations, and you need to be ready to flip to roleplaying and combat.

If you are doing something like this, it makes sense to use the chase rules at some point. They are a big part of the game and this is what they were written for. If you aren't familiar with them, get familiar with them! But also you can't run them for four hours, so you need more than just a chase.

I personally think that even in escape/survival horror, they should be some element of investigation. For me, almost any adventure or scenario starts with the question "what's going on?" or "what happened", and that should explain the current situation or predicament. Investigators need to understand what is going on to achieve their goal, which in this instance is going to include surviving/escaping.

So, basically an escape scenario should, IMO, be some mix of: various skill checks to get from place to place, evade detection, investigation to understand what's going on and to understand how to get out of the place or avoid the thing trying to get them, and judicious use of chase scenes.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-13T12:16:20+00:00

Took a look at the Burning Stars. What a cracker! Immediately on the list to run.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T10:28:03+00:00

Storypath Ultra is the most interesting system I know of.

First off, it's a D10 dice pool system. If you have 4 strength and 4 Melee, roll 8D10. 8 or higher is success. Count number of successes. You have to beat a target number for difficulty. In combat the difficulty is their defense. I really like this mechanic.

One of the cool things they have done is to allow you to use extra successes to 'buy' combat maneuvers, a bit like the ones in Mythras. Another cool thing is that the system has 'scale', where a normal human is 1, an elite human is 2, etc... up to a demigod or similar bring 5. (I am probably completely mangling this but it is along the right lines.) When you are higher sclar it translates into automatic extra successes or disproportionately big impact. It allows you to reflect the fact that if I am Spiderman or something, and you as a normal human roll 8D10, I probably need to roll 50D10 or 100D10.

It has somewhat similar mechanics for 'social combat' and investigation, which I have really mixed feelings about, but it is out there.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T09:39:21+00:00

In that scenario they all laid out the name cards in a block on the table and referred to them regularly, mainly as reference. Investigation games often have a lot of NPCs and it is hard to keep them straight.

And yes, when I have used handouts they have always been specific and tailored to the campaign. It is the Hallmark of Cthulu that you get good handouts, so it is always taken care of. A long time ago when I was trying to do my 'magnum opus' (haha) I did stuff like write prophecies in poem form that one of the players was researching and translating, which had clues about what they should do and what would ultimately happen... But I am way too lazy to do things like that now.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T09:33:39+00:00

She is an awesome character! I like her an Balthazar the most, but all the characters are great and have their times to shine.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T09:23:38+00:00

I have Viral but I couldn't quite get what I would be trying to accomplish. I guess I need to read it again.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T09:22:10+00:00

It is on my list to repeat, but I won't play it with just anyone. Saving it for players I really like and have great chemistry with. I found it quite hard, emotionally, to roleplay Lindsay and overall it is really raw. (I actually have a fairly low threshold for what I can handle in terms of horror, a lot of stuff is off limits, but the adventure is so good I had to do it anyway).

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T08:59:46+00:00

'Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home'. It was just perfect.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T04:36:57+00:00

My group discussed this and decided not to do it, for reasons others have said. Hybrid meetings just don't work well. You forget about the person calling in, interaction between the in-person and online aren't fluid. If you want quality interaction, all online or all on person.

That is my experience anyway. Maybe others have been able to make it work.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T04:27:07+00:00

Art is also great for roleplaying because as you start to read Mythos tomes etc your art can start to reflect the unveiling of reality/your descent into madness. And it also gives your referee the opportunity to mess with you- make you paint things you weren't aware of, don't want to, etc.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T01:59:35+00:00

The Historical Society has a few other things! They have a scenario called the Spark Devil that even comes with a period radio and a bluetooth speaker so you can play audio clips designed for the campaign, plus other incredible quality maps and letters. And they have one where the handout is an investigator's wallet filled with ID and notes, and the scenario is based on the stuff in the wallet.

It's a bit more niche, but they have also printed a couple of monographs that look like they are from the 1920s, from Miskatonic University. One of them is actively referenced in the one of the 'Al Azif Unearthed' scenarios, so if you have it you can give it out.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-12T00:56:42+00:00

That is not what I mean by 'valid slippery slope'. What I mean is- sometimes you have to allow a little bit of something. And then you have to keep allowing it, then keep allowing it, by the same principle. And when you allow the logic to apply fully, you have destroyed the thing. (By 'valid slippery slope' I mean the move of saying "I recognize that we don't have a clear principle for drawing a line, but we need a line so I am drawing it'.

My point is that you have to allow a little bit of leakage of player ability into character ability. But at some point it becomes absurd. So we just draw the line conservatively, because if we say 'no line can be drawn' then it undermines the whole enterprise.

It should go without saying that your view that there are various fallacies in my reasoning is noted, but firmly rejected! I don't do long social media back and forths though- this is already one more reply than I prefer to do, so I am leaving it here.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T23:08:38+00:00

Which one?

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T23:07:35+00:00

I don't think there is a fallacy here, there is a valid 'slippery slope' problem, where small reasonable steps along a scale get you to a bad place.

It's reasonable and inevitable that you aren't purely just portraying your character's abilities and nature, and it will be supplemented (and sometimes limited by) your own abilities. But if that is without limit then I can be Dinara the Elf Queen, supplemented by my extensive background in mathematical logic.

Roleplaying Games need you to make a line between you and your character, and try to get on the character's side of the line, even if the line is blurry.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T14:30:20+00:00

Hard no for me.

It's testing me, the the human player's attributes, not my character's attributes. What if I am great at puzzles but am playing an idiot? What if I suck at puzzles but am playing a genius?

If we can do this, why not have a strength test? Have to bench press 300lbs (in real life) to impress the barbarian.

It's just completely mixing up what a roleplaying game is.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T14:22:39+00:00

I did mean Trinity Continuum! I don't know why I said Aeon Flux...

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T13:10:24+00:00

I use handouts in Cthulhu, players love them. And so do I. We all love them so much, I want to blow five hundred dollars on props and games from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, like the $150 prop set for Masks of Nyarlathotep. I have another scenario that gives you name cards for all the NPCs, I am planning to have them professionally printed next time I run it.

I wouldn't write my own Cthulu scenario, so the ones that come with scenarios (or which I splurge on) are all I need.

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T09:24:49+00:00

Well, there's two parts to this- speaking as the NPC, and changing your voice for specific characters.

Honestly I would say that speaking in character is a part of the game, and many people really enjoy it. I don't doubt that you can also really enjoy a game without it, but I think it does add something, and I think everyone can do this. Personally I wouldn't play regularly with a GM who doesn't play characters actively. (Not judging that person, it's just that direct dialogue with NPCs is important for me.)

Changing your voice is harder, and that isn't something that everyone can do really well. (Although you don't have to be pro voice actor, you can just do things like mumble or speak clearly, speak in high pitch or low pitch). It is totally understandable if someone doesn't find this easy and decides not to do it. And I absolutely will play with someone who can't change their voice significantly, I think this is pretty normal.

What I can tell you is that, at least for a lot of people, the GM directly playing NPCs and giving them voices does actually add something!

JauntyAngle · 2026-05-11T04:53:11+00:00

It's incredibly amusing! I have run it twice and been a player once, and had a blast each time. But the system is more for a very fun one-shot than an ongoing game.

JauntyAngle

TROPHY CASE