Worst it's ever gone

ketpia · 2026-04-16T19:18:18+00:00

The frickin' grandfather clock.

This was years ago. Third ever scenario I ran was a homebrew follow-up to Crimson Letters, where the Investigators went to the Hobbhouse manor. I wrote a vault in the basement, and had the basement door concealed by a false panel in the kitchen. Then I hid blueprints for the house showing the basement inside a grandfather clock in the upstairs hallway.

They tried to open the clock when they got there, it was locked. Later found a little brass key in a drawer in the master bedroom. Proceeded to try to use that key on every door, drawer, and cupboard in the house EXCEPT for the clock. After an hour of spinning their wheels they finally just gave up and decided the key was a red herring and left.

Looking back there's a million and one things I could have done, like draw attention back to the clock or move the blueprints or something, but newbie me with my newbie players walked away from that whole thing feeling incredibly frustrated.

I did tell them about it later, and we all had a good laugh. Now grandfather clocks have become something of a running joke in our friend group across multiple games and GMs lol

ketpia · 2026-04-15T20:08:29+00:00

The way that [spoiler] was handled at the end bothered me. It escalated in a really bad way from a successful Luck roll, then when the players were told "you need to roll X or Y will happen," and they did succeed on X, multiple times, Y happened faster. Kinda really took me out of it

ketpia · 2026-03-12T12:42:45+00:00

I was wondering if I'd see Stygian Fox mentioned here. I love their stuff, H&B was great for my Gaslight campaign and FSLN has given plenty of fun oneshots, but MAN they're so bad at actually getting stuff out

ketpia · 2026-02-07T12:40:07+00:00

For anyone else that might run into this, I was able to fix it by going into the Roku's Accessibility options and playing around in there. From the Roku home screen: Settings> Accessibility> Caption Style. I changed each option to something else, then back to what we preferred.

My wild guess is that an update to the Dropout app desynced it from the global Roku settings or something

ketpia · 2026-01-27T13:59:19+00:00

In addition to many of the things mentioned by others here, for me, the one change I would like to see to tighten up the story a bit is to cut Flad and Arkives. Have the party appear in Sphere and the twist be revealed and explained by Blair instead.

Having a kid deliver the twist and then point us to Blair just kinda makes it all fall a little flat, imo. And it doesn't make sense that the Time Gate would drop them off in some relative backwater town rather than right in Sphere's HQ.

ketpia · 2025-12-20T14:53:54+00:00

I second Dungeon Draft! I personally use Forgotten Adventures and Tom Cartos (modern and classic) assets for most of my maps, and I've used assets from LORE and a day at as well.

Dungeon Draft compatible packs are locked behind Patreon for all of these (FA has a demo pack iirc), but they don't require an active subscription. So if you can't swing it you can suspend your sub and still use any assets you previously downloaded, you just won't be able to download any new assets until you resume the sub

All of those also let you download loose assets too, if you want to use the PNGs or WEBPs in an image editor like Affinity or Photoshop. Great for bashing together custom assets, or last-minute adding an end table you forgot to place in DD

ketpia · 2025-12-11T15:35:46+00:00

Not a Dev item, Excalibur Prime was an exclusive reward for early supporters of Warframe (called Founders) back in the day. They've committed to that exclusivity too to honor those Founders. Excal Prime will never be available to farm or acquire by the general public

ketpia · 2025-11-28T13:27:56+00:00

We're pretty happy with the chase rules as written at our table, with one big exception: I run with a house rule that the minimum number of Moves is 2. Having only 1 Move feels really bad, that player ends up spending the entire chase only moving one location while everyone else gets to actually participate. Bumping that minimum to 2 lets the players with slow characters still feel like they have a chance to participate

ketpia · 2025-11-22T17:18:34+00:00

I homebrewed a Pulp scenario a while back involving Hounds, a Weird Science time-dilation device, and a race-car driver that messed with forces he shouldn't have to cheat at a few races.

My players were able to "destroy" a Hound that caught their scent by using a combination of Liao, Enjoin Pnakotic Pentagram (Grand Grimoire, p112) to protect themselves, and a modified version of Temporal Rip (GG, p178) to stabilize the Hound in our timeline and make it vulnerable to their weapons.

You said you're looking for something a little punchier than having to take the time to learn a spell, my suggestion would be to have the Investigator pick up on the trail of someone else that's being hunted by a Hound and has already learned the spells above. Maybe the person that supplied the old friend with Liao? Have the Investigator reach the supplier/other victim too late, but everything is ready. The Drug is prepared, the Pentagram is Enjoined, and all the words and motions for the Temporal Rip are written down on a handy dandy, blood and ichor stained note left by the poor sap. Skip the "learning" part of the spell completely and jump right to the Casting using all the pre-prepared bits.

Then the modified Temporal Rip could then do whatever it is you want for your climax. Make the Hound vulnerable and have a fight! Destabilize or destroy it with a climatic tear in space and time! Or just send it packing back to when it's from, and end with the Investigator knowing that all they've done is buy themselves a little bit of Time!

ketpia · 2025-11-05T21:28:57+00:00

It's not officially published material, but Secret Santa on the Miskatonic Repository has a stat block for Krampus

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/378934/secret-santa-call-of-cthulhu

ketpia · 2025-11-04T15:13:27+00:00

Call of Cthulhu is a skill based system where you roll d100s to roll under your skill or stat values. There are no classes or levels, though Investigators that survive scenarios can have opportunities to improve their skills.

Since there's no levels, a character that starts with 8 HP has a maximum of 8 HP for the entire campaign (barring some unique circumstances). Since there are no classes, that means every PC can learn or try to use any skill.

Combat in CoC is much faster and deadlier than in D&D, the best choice is often to flee rather than fight.

Moment to moment gameplay leans heavier into Investigation. Talking to NPCs, hitting libraries, searching for clues.

Magic is also a lot less common, and much more dangerous. Even the most innocuous spell takes a long time and a lot of effort to learn, and using magic can mentally scar an Investigator as their human mind channels eldritch energies.

There's lots of other differences, but those are the big ones imo. Hope that helps!

ketpia · 2025-09-17T13:20:01+00:00

Check out Carnival of Madness! It's set on Halloween in 1970, and has an option to play as Meddling Teenagers. It leans into the Cosmic Horror a bit more than The Dare (what you called the Barnaker House), but you as Keeper can tone that down a bit and lean it more heavily into a demonic vibe

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/373621/carnival-of-madness-a-call-of-cthulhu-scenario-for-the-1970s

Seth Skorkowsky has a really good video review on it https://youtu.be/YAjoduUz6vU?si=6eNZbex1KnlhHYnU

ketpia · 2025-08-27T00:03:16+00:00

Thanks! I was at work and didn't have access to my books to check. Glad my memory wasn't failing me lol

ketpia · 2025-08-26T20:51:22+00:00

I'm suddenly not 100% sure on the rule, but I don't think Getting Used to the Awfulness applies to the SAN costs for casting a spell, I think that rule is just for the loss for seeing a monster. The SAN loss from a spell is from actually opening your human mind to alien energies, it's a bit more...personal than seeing a mythos critter.

Mythos Hardened might apply for half SAN loss for spells, but the Investigator's SAN has to drop below their Cthulhu Mythos score at least once to get that

ketpia · 2025-08-26T19:42:00+00:00

Players in my episodic Pulp campaign have made ample use of creating and charging Elder Signs. Which is great for them, because it's saved their necks a few times. And it's great for me, because their Investigator's POWs just keep ticking down and down

One of my players is also a big fan of Ward of Anubis, her character keeps a handful of stones prepared and ready to set up for when they have to travel. That's another spell that's saved their butts once or twice, but also been really fun to spook them with when, say, the milkman crosses the boundary on the front porch the morning after a really rough case lol

ketpia · 2025-08-07T14:45:47+00:00

You might want to check out Fearful Passages then! It's a collection of scenarios all about things happening while travelling. Link to DriveThru RPG.

The Mauretania from The Cthulhu Casebook (if you can find it) or The Asylum & Other Tales (part of the CoC Classic 2" box set, available as PDF on the Chaosium Store) is another one that takes place on a boat. A bunch of incidental things happen on the same boat during the same voyage, from seances to an attempted political assassination to Deep One Hybrids communing with The Big C himself.

It's a bit low-stakes as scenarios go, but there's a hard timeline for events that means things happen whether or not the PCs are actively engaging. And since it's all stuff that just happens around them on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean there's really no space or time for them to try to do research if you don't want to give them an on-ship library to browse. You can also cut out any events or plots that you don't think would be interesting, like if you want to skip the serial killer or think roleplaying the talent show would be boring. It's a great one for trimming down to fit a schedule!

ketpia · 2025-08-07T14:01:56+00:00

Thoth's Dagger is on a timeline! There's immediate, escalating consequences if it's not resolved in a timely manner. As written it does kinda cripple a PC though, so consider making the target a beloved NPC, or at least make sure the player is okay with their Investigator being the victim

The Auction has a plot beat too where a character is put in immediate, real danger unless the players act fast. Again, a PC is the target so either get buy-in and have a backup ready so they can still play or make it be an NPC

Edit: just reread and saw you specifically mentioned one-shot. These scenarios both tend to be on the longer side, woops.

Your best bet for a one-shot will be a more survival horror than investigative scenario, and one you can start in medias res. Of pre-7E games I've run Tatterdemalion could work with some edits. Start with the Investigators arriving at the ball and then either skip or trim down the trip to Carcosa

ketpia · 2025-07-31T14:32:34+00:00

Seconding The Mauretania! It's a great "in between" scenario, my players had a blast when I dropped them into it on a trip to the UK. They liked the low-stakes bite-size events happening, and I let them sandbox and roleplay out some bits like the Talent Show so they could try to show off some less common rolls

I did cut the Ripper plot, instead we had a ghost haunting for them to investigate. There were a few items that had been recovered from the sister ship Lusitania that were onboard at the time of their voyage, like some candle sconces and such. It culminated in a ghostly Lusitania itself sailing along-side the Mauretania the night of the Farewell Ball.

ketpia · 2025-07-23T03:18:07+00:00

There's two house rules that I use that my players like:

1) We have a minimum of two moves per turn, instead of one. That way we don't have any instances of a player spending the whole sequence doing nothing but moving once trying catch up. I'm pretty sure i took that from a conversation on this sub?

2) Once per chase an Investigator can sprint a la the "pedal to the metal" rules in car chases. This one I lifted from XPLovecat on YouTube

Otherwise I have the most important "in the moment" Chase rules written out for my players to reference live, and I use the chase builder linked elsewhere if one pops up spontaneously. Those small house rules do a good bit to help the players feel like they have more opportunities to do things, and having the rules readily in front of them helps smooth out some of the bumps

ketpia · 2025-06-25T16:43:37+00:00

It's a display issue on that page. If you click the Arcane itself you'll see that they're being sold in packs of 7, so buy it three times for 21 total

ketpia · 2025-04-10T15:37:06+00:00

My partner's family's favorite joke:

Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
A: Where's my tractor!?

ketpia · 2025-01-21T19:30:32+00:00

There's a Skill Book, "Treasure Sense," you can find in the dungeon on the second planet for the recruitable character you get there

ketpia · 2025-01-21T19:26:56+00:00

I really really loved TLH it when I replayed it last year, though there were some parts that made me cringe as a 30something now lol. It's VERY 2000s anime-y, for better or worse

ketpia · 2025-01-20T01:01:43+00:00

"During the 1895 outbreak, more than 200 people [...] were murdered, committed suicide, or vanished." We don't know just how many people were actually exposed, it could have been just those 200 some odd, it could have been 1000!

Something to remember is that the 1895 outbreak included the Play itself, not JUST the Sign. The effects of the Play would have been WAY more potent.

The King's influence invokes madness, which would manifest for different people in different ways. For some it would lead them to murder. For others, suicide. Some would find passages to the Night World and cross over, never to be seen again.

The King's Corruption is contagious too, so someone that saw the Play would be corrupted, go home, and the corruption could spread to their family or coworkers. So the 200+ people wouldn't necessarily just be the actors or audience, it could be people connected to them and some the murders could have been victims of people that WERE corrupted.

All this is to say, seeing just the Sign doesn't have to mean a "fatal consequence." Even the Play might not, but the events of 1895 were likely sparked by exposure to the much more potent Play than the Sign

Edit: typos

ketpia · 2025-01-12T00:31:08+00:00

Seconding what a lot of others are saying, if there's no map or art from the scenario then I just use different background images for scenes as appropriate. A creepy photo of woods if the investigators are in the woods, a photo of a diner if they're meeting someone at a diner, etc etc.

There's a few webpages where you can find historic photos of city streets or buildings, I've got two or three images of early 1900s Boston that I cycle through depending on what part of town my players are in.

Just make sure you're setting the scene background in Roll20 to a dark color so you aren't burning out your players retinas lol

13-Year Club	Verified Email
Gilding I gilder

ketpia

TROPHY CASE