labcats | Gearing up for Beyond the Mountains of Madness (Reply)

I'm hoping to have folks over for character generation next week. We have a 5 hour window, as I do not think anyone will be up early enough to get to our place by noon, including us, especially as the #7 train will not be running between Queens and Manhattan (which means an extra subway transfer, which adds time to the trip).

We need to end at 5, since

mnemex and I want to get to

crash_mccormick's place for the annual Halloween / Barbara's Birthday Bash.

So, I'm hoping for mnemex,

jlighton,

lordess, Dan, and, possibly, Dave. I'm re-reading the Lovecraft story.

I've also read several previous gms' runs of the game, and managed to dig up some stuff via the Wayback Machine, where one of the authors of Beyond the Mountains of Madness explains a few things that got cut from the text. I'd like to ask him a couple of questions about a couple of logistical things.

Having finished the entire adventure, and the various write ups, I've come to some conclusions.

Hell, yes, it railroads. This is not a good thing.

I am not referring to the beginning. I agree that the long set up is necessary. That said, I like what one gm did to make an early step relatively painless for the players. Anyone know how I can fake an authentic looking receipt for something in the 1930s? If not, I'll just do it up as best I can.

I'd also like to know how to do up a fake newspaper article. The ones I saw created for another campaign really added a nice touch.

Anyway, so, there's this long sequence. That's fine. There's a certain amount of railroading that comes from being on a ship heading for Antarctica. That's fine. There are a few tricky points, but I'm not too worried about those.

Nah, the problem is the climax of the campaign. Well, it's not necessarily a problem for me. It's just that the authors have a particular script in mind, one that would make a kick-ass movie. And, I agree that this should be encouraged, but I'm not so keen on forcing it.

Now, for me, I don't think it'll be a problem. Situation gets set up, odds are good it'll go as it ought, and if it doesn't, well, that doesn't really change the aftermath. The math for the next part is still the same.

But, yes, I can see a group getting really ticked at being marched through this, and forced to do x, y, and z just so.

Now, that said, while I still consider The Masks of Nyarlathotep a better scenario, Beyond the Mountains of Madness is more in Lovecraft's style. Masks beats it in terms of superior organization -- as in BtMOM is not bad, but Masks is astonishingly good -- and in terms of not railroading.

That said, in some ways, the early tight focus of BtMOM is helpful. You need PC buy-in. That is, you need PCs who won't easily come to their senses and turn back. But, you have PCs who know clearly what they are doing and why. In Masks, I don't know how easy it is for the average group to put things together.

All of this gets into the question of GM fiat. That is, I'm going to need to find out how much fudging the players want. None whatsoever? Enough to get them to the climax, but no more?

imogena is adamant about allowing the possibility that PCs will totally, disasterously fail, because, otherwise, victory is meaningless. I see her point, and I think I agree -- but with the caveat that PCs shouldn't fail so early that everything goes *poot* instead of down in flames. This, you understand, I hope, is a style preference, not a deep statement on how anyone's games Ought to Be Played.

BtMOM was a scenario I thought about running as a time travel adventure for mnemex and

ebartley for Cthulhupunk, but I decided I just couldn't do that. I want to run it as is. This will be the first time I'm actually running CoC itself, rather than adapting a CoC scenario.

I don't yet know how I want to work Dodging. I've prefered it when Dodge is a free action. When it isn't, the game gets brutal. But, the rules are quite clear that it isn't. So, this is something else to discuss with everyone.

And, I don't want random rolling of stats for an expedition where at least some of the PCs are probably specialists. Something like the system we used for crash_mccormick's D&D game, base numbers plus X points, is probably best.

Two extra rules I'm thinking of taking from one of those runs. One I'm fairly sure I'll use. The other, I'm not so sure.