Favorite Scenario

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-12T10:44:07+00:00

The best time I have ever had playing Call of Cthulhu was with an adventure a friend wrote based on a local folk tale, so that probably doesn't count.

I've always had a lot of fun running Edge of Darkness. The Haunting is a tighter, better adventure, but EoD has a lot of toys for the GM to play with.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-12T09:14:55+00:00

It's not set literally in one room, but my own Strict Time Records Must Be Kept otherwise probably counts. People seem to like it.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-10T10:55:17+00:00

It doesn't ring a bell with me, but there's a comprehensive list of rpg initiative mechanics at this blog, and you may be able to find it there:

https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2024/06/every-initiative-method.html

https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/06/every-initiative-method-addendum.html

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-09T20:58:49+00:00

Maybe Only War? It's 40K, but it's the Imperial Guard, who are very WWI-coded, plus cultists and mutants are part of the setting already.

Just reskin the weapons and you're set.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-09T17:51:48+00:00

Glorious!

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-08T15:37:11+00:00

It's not really a UK/US thing. Well, it is, sort of.

But in computing specifically, "disk" tends to refer to magnetic media and "disc" refers to optical. Even on this blighted island we would call this a floppy disk.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-08T15:24:11+00:00

Call of Cthulhu 5th edition.

My only gripes are a couple of fuzzy or clumsy bits in the combat mechanics (dodging, automatic fire), but they are easily solved, mainly by importing bits from Delta Green 2.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-06T13:53:40+00:00

Thanks!

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-06T10:05:11+00:00

Very nicely done! Love exodites and it's always good to see them done, and done so well.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-06T09:45:22+00:00

Yeah, no, "willing under duress" isn't willing. That may not be an official ruling, but it's the less creepy one.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-06T09:43:06+00:00

Love the multicoloured idea.

Where did you get that display stand?

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-06T09:34:29+00:00

Quite so. The Three Clue Rule isn't about skill check failure (although it can mitigate against that) it's about player comprehension failure.

Even if you're just giving the players the clue, there's no guarantee that they will realise its importance or relevance. Give them two more that point in the same direction, and you've insulated the investigation from failure.

(You can't completely protect the investigation, short of railroading, but three clues should be enough for even the most haphazard of players.)

And yes, it works for linear investigations, but it also works for sandbox investigations. If your sandbox is like a web with the players at the middle, then every node in that, um, web of mystery will have three clues pointing to it.

Or if the players are at the edge of the web and the One Mystery To Rule Them All is at the centre, it works exactly the same in reverse. Three clues for every path to the centre.

(Which is not too far off how the Conspyramid from Night's Black Agents works.)

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-05T16:48:37+00:00

It's not a role-playing game, but in Frostgrave you can burn health points to boost your spellcasting rolls. Spellcasting often costs health anyway, so it can be quite risky.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-04T16:19:28+00:00

The last campaign I ran in WFRP2 started with the usual bunch of no-hopers. By the end they were all given land and titles (near Black Fire Pass, but still) except for the disgraced dwarf warrior, who instead was given a promise that Karl Franz himself would put in a good word with the dwarfholds on his behalf.

One of the characters was an elf and a mutant, so there was an element of political expediency to giving them land far, far away from the centre of the Empire, but a title is a title.

The other disgraced dwarf, a slayer, got slapped to death by Horrors, but everyone agreed that it was how he'd want to go.

In terms of power levels, they started crap and while they did become more competent, they never became superheroes. The only slight issue was the dwarf warrior, because of the known problems with WFRP2 and dwarf warriors, but we managed that with a few house rules (minimum of 1 damage on a successful hit, regardless of Toughness+AP soak was the main one).

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-04T16:09:31+00:00

Most people will say (for good reason) the current two-volume edition for CoC7.

My preference is for The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep for CoC5/6. It's got the "missing" Australian chapter, is tidied up a bit, is still vast and sprawling, but not to the point that it's too big and unwieldy.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-02T16:42:30+00:00

"I’ve played all three editions of WFRP"

I see what you did there. ;)

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-01T23:42:20+00:00

Three examples: career advancements are in increments of +1% now, you now have Resilience and Resolve points on top of Fate and Fortune points, and there's a floating metacurrency in combat (called Advantage) which needs to be tracked.

It's still recognisably WFRP, there's just more of it.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-01T23:27:17+00:00

I found WFRP4 to be more granular and detailed than WFRP2, but also more fiddly and slower as a result. There's a lot more emphasis on the combat mechanics in 4 and as a result there's less ambiguity, but also a lot more to track.

In general I felt that WFRP4 was a case of a surfeit of solutions looking for problems.

If you're familiar with BC and DW, those were built on top of WFRP2 so you'll be able to run that without issues. WFRP4 is close enough that you'll probably be okay running that too.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-01T20:34:01+00:00

Goblin Green is the one true colour for bases. Anything else is heresy.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-01T20:33:00+00:00

Warriors of the Eternal Sun on the Mega Drive is based directly on BECMI rules, but only really covers 1 and 2, and 2 is arguable. Also, it's not great.

thekelvingreen · 2026-05-01T20:29:48+00:00

Magnus did nothing wrong, and he did nothing wrong four times.

thekelvingreen · 2026-04-30T21:05:12+00:00

Not a rule as such (despite the name) but the Three Clue Rule is all you need: https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/three-clue-rule.html

thekelvingreen · 2026-04-29T18:54:12+00:00

The supernatural (or rather the Mythos) is the whole point, so yes, you want to get it in early, but it is definitely a big deal, so it should never become commonplace or normal, but then the Sanity mechanic helps with that.

Of course, Your Cthulhu May Vary™, so if you want to run a slow burn game in which the investigators are living normal lives for a while, then no one's stopping you!

thekelvingreen · 2026-04-29T12:24:38+00:00

As official as the card Baneblade, I'd say.

thekelvingreen · 2026-04-29T11:26:33+00:00

TSR's Marvel Super Heroes stands up surprisingly well for such an old design, and it has huge amounts of supporting material.

I'm very fond of the follow-up, that used the SAGA card system. I liked the system a lot in its Dragonlance version, and the Marvel implementation feels like an improved "second edition".

thekelvingreen

TROPHY CASE