The Murderer of Thomas Fell

[Legbody]

I'm running this as my first ToC scenario this weekend, and would greatly appreciate input from anyone who's played this one.

Thanks in advance!

[Khelbiros]

I've got an actual play here:
http://yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13552

I've run it twice - the first group quite liked it, but the second group didn't like the 'twist' ending and said it was too railroady. Just be careful with the ending - don't block or force the resolution; just roll with whatever the PCs decide to do.
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Regards,
Belinda

[Mulciber]

It's good fun but potentially very, very bleak, my players would have probably preferred it a little more pulpy. It's the only TPK I've ever participated in as Keeper (or player for that matter), including two suicides.
One player had nightmares afterward.

[AJKM]

I'm not running it until next week sorry, but it'll be my first go at running a TOC game too.

I'd be really keen to hear how it went, especially in terms of timing.

[Legbody]

Thanks all. The railroadiness is probably my 2nd-biggest concern, right after my nervousness about trying out this new system.

I'm all set for bleakness, though.

[Legbody]

[SPOILERS BELOW]

So this happened. A huge hit! The players really responded to the pregens. There was some amazing roleplay between the Fell brothers after Roger realized that his brother's bite was going to be fatal. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't convince the gang to off Thomas, so instead they teleported off to some gonzo dimension and got scarfed down by a giant something. Afterwards, I asked them if they'd understood that killing Thomas would have gotten them home, and they said, "Yes, that was clear, but I just didn't believe we'd actually do it."

What I was most excited about was the fact that the Investigative Abilities mechanic really, really worked. I was concerned going into it that it would be difficult to get players to call out the skills they wanted to use, but everyone really latched onto to the concept. I did have one player who kept trying to game the system by, at the beginning of every scene, launching into a list of all of her skills. I was able to rein her in by asking her to specify how she was using those skills, and what kind of information she was hoping to find.

Best of all, everyone expressed an eagerness to play again, and to bring in more players. I think we'll jump into Arkham Detective Tales next.

[brehaut]

[AJKM]

Glad to hear it went so well and that your players go so into it.

How did it go with the timing? How much time did you spend in the first half of the scenario versus the second?

Also were your previous concerns about railroading justified?

[Legbody]

We spent about thirty minutes going over the rules, and then played for three and a half hours, with maybe one hour spent on Part 1 and the rest on Part 2.

I asked the players if they'd felt railroaded during the game, and they assured me that they did not. I think it's because I kept asking them to specify which direction they were heading across the plateau, which gave the impression that that had an effect on what they encountered.

[Gaffer]

[AJKM]

Thanks for the tips. I'm running the game tomorrow night so I hope it goes well.

Just wanted to get your thoughts on something small though.

*SPOILER ALERT*



Did you guys treat the Mouth as a supernatural creature or a Mythos creature in terms of the difficulty for sanity checks when seeing it? On re-reading the scenario, I'm leaning towards it being a supernatural creature, so being a 4 point test for sanity. Thoughts?

[Legbody]

I definitely treated it as a Mythos monster. In general, I think non-Mythos monsters would be things for which the characters at least of some sort of point of reference, even if it's just through pop culture (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc.).