[Call of Cthulhu] Alternate Plots

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Call of Cthulhu is a great game, but most of the published adventures are variations on the same plot. I want to run an ongoing CoC campaign, but it's hard when the game only seems built for one-shots. Does anyone have any ideas for non-standard CoC adventures?

[Lord Loss]

When I run campaigns, I often have the PCs fight nothing but human cultists, with the occasional strange happening, drawing out the anticipation of the players until they get into the thick of things. Instead of a bunch of adventures/investigations, as in D&D, I think of the campaign as a novel, with one large, main conflict that's drawn out for quite a while.

[Hyudra]

Consider the following (keeping in mind I've yet to play CoC):

An individual is traveling across Europe, and disaster follows in his wake. Joined together by these disasters - loved ones lost to suspicious death or left virtually cataconic by trauma, being incriminated for crimes they did not commit, loss of years of their work - the PCs set out to find this individual and bring him to justice. An investigation story spanning several story arcs, leading from London to Paris to Rome, Berlin and finally Amsterdam. In each location, the group gets closer and closer, but then loses track of the man in the midst of the chaos that he leaves in his wake. It is up to them to disentangle his intentions from the chaos (perhaps he has stirred a latent cult into activity, or let something out of a cage where it dwelt for 500 years) and find out where he is going next. Succeed, and they get closer. Fail to gather the necessary information, and it's a week or two of floundering about before a clue comes their way.

General insanity rules are toned down, at first, and the story plays just like a typical investigation story, only with just the slightest hint of Mythos in theme - the investigations lead into run-ins with cults, madness is not uncommon, and so on. But as they get closer and closer, things get hairier. The finale should be something suitably impressive.

For example, in the final arc, as they chase the man and his hostage down a corridor deep underground, they stumbling into a gorgeous, still landscape. It's an island covered in ruins, with mist hangs over everything. Massive twin suns lurk on the horizon, perpetually setting and casting the sky in a red light, the stars in the sky above are black, and there's a dozen small gray moons throughout the sky, with the stars and moons never moving when one looks at them, but in different places when one looks away and looks back. Music plays with no visible source, (have something suitably lovely and eerie on your laptop or music player) and all insanity effects (which should have nonetheless accumulated to a pretty sizable degree on your players) immediately end on your players.

[Darrin]

Call of Cthulhu is a great game, but most of the published adventures are variations on the same plot. I want to run an ongoing CoC campaign, but it's hard when the game only seems built for one-shots. Does anyone have any ideas for non-standard CoC adventures?

There are a considerable number of extended campaigns printed for CoC. The "classic" campaigns published in the 1980s:

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth (reprinted later as part of Cthulhu Classics)
Fungi from Yuggoth (expanded and republished as Day of the Beast)
Masks of Nyarlathotep (heralded by many as one of the best RPG campaigns ever published)
Spawn of Azathoth

Some other campaigns:

Escape from Innsmouth
Horror's Heart
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Walker in the Wastes

More recently:

Tatters of the King has been getting very good reviews.

[WalkingTarget]

Fungi from Yuggoth (expanded and republished as Day of the Beast)
I haven't run this one, but I really enjoyed the introductory adventure - it starts off as a straight-up haunted house thing, without Mythos connections. It gets the group introduced to some plot-important NPCs that get the rest of the campaign running. I like the idea of throwing in "normal" supernatural things that can throw experienced players off and simultaneously allow newbies a chance to get a feel for the game before things get too weird.


Masks of Nyarlathotep (heralded by many as one of the best RPG campaigns ever published)

I ran this for my old college gaming crew back in the day and it was met with favor. It sets the standard for the globe-trotting CoC investigation mentality. It was fun watching the players piecing together what was going on between all of these seemingly unrelated cults.


Tatters of the King has been getting very good reviews.

I never got a chance to run this one either, but I have to say it was pretty much the most well-written campaign I've seen for CoC - lots of useful info for how to run it/portray NPCs, etc. It's also heavily into Chambers' The Yellow Sign stuff, which I really dug since it never got as much attention in CoC as Lovecraft and his contemporaries/successors did.

[rayne_dragon]

I admit that the game really comes off as being mostly one shot adventures, but creating a campaign from them is as easy as making a campaign from the one-off dungeons that are kind of the basic unit of D&D campaigns. Basically there needs to be an overarcing plot that ties together most of the adventures. You also have to start off with less mythos-intense adventures and lead up to reveal progressively more horrible and monstrous foes, usually all under the perview of one or two of the Outer Gods.

I also recall that one of the modules in the rulebook gives out some information that could be used to tie it into further adventures for the investigators. Parcelling out little clues over the campaign and slowly having the investigators put them together to realize that a bunch of apparently unconnected incidents are all part of some grand conspiracy can be an effective way of running things as well.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

Nocturnum was a good one too. my group had fun with it.

[Eldan]

Without really knowing the rule system well, let me throw out a few general ideas.

-Corruption in the government. A cult is placing it's members in high civil servant positions, perhaps trying to get a minister from their midst elected.

-Gang war between two or more rival cults. In a larger city, say, London or Paris, there might be an entire underworld of cultists fighting over interpretations of holy lore or which old one to worship.

-Expeditions. Do something like At the Mountains of Madness. Send them to a white spot on the world map. Deepest African Jungle. Far away in the Andes or Himalayas. This can also just be tucked on to some other campaign as a finish: there's an Old One sleeping somewhere in the remote Russian Tundra. A cult is already mounting an expedition to go wake it up. Get there first, or stop them. This allows all kinds of non-mythos dangers while the adventure is still warming up, only to get progressively weirder as they come closer to their goal.

[The Big Dice]

Not everything in CoC has to be about cults and eldritch terrors from other levels of reality. The 1920s setting is awesome for good old fashioned adventure.

There's exploration of Africa (the Dark Continent was still fairly unknown at this time) and South America too, with the potential to uncover lost cities and unknown civilisations. That are real, historical cultures known to us now but almost legendary back in the 20s.

There's prohibition going on, with all the gangster and speakeasy, flappers and tommy guns type action that you could ever want. Al Capone, Nucky Thompson and so on are all active during this time. Chicago, Detroit and New York were full of organised crime that makes for a great setting for an RPG.

A campaign needs to mix thing up a bit. Cults and monsters are staples of CoC, but dealing with normal mundane humans gives things a different flavour. And keeps players on their toes, looking for things in the shadows even when those things aren't there.

[Subotei]

Cthulhu Rising is a homebrew setting (though I believe it has been published now in some form) set in a sci-fi future where mankind has colonised other star systems. Has a really nice Aliens/Bladerunner vibe to it, with the mythos element fairly low. Played it as a squad of marines on special ops and the Mythos element snuck up on us nicely. You could probably roll it out as a sci-fi setting (with a little editing of the character sheets etc) if you don't want the PCs in on it from the start. Has investigative scenarios too if you don't want a military type campaign. Worth a google.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Cthulhu Rising is a homebrew setting (though I believe it has been published now in some form) set in a sci-fi future where mankind has colonised other star systems. Has a really nice Aliens/Bladerunner vibe to it, with the mythos element fairly low. Played it as a squad of marines on special ops and the Mythos element snuck up on us nicely. You could probably roll it out as a sci-fi setting (with a little editing of the character sheets etc) if you don't want the PCs in on it from the start. Has investigative scenarios too if you don't want a military type campaign. Worth a google.

Ohhhhh... fun!
Is it anything like CthulhuTech?

[Subotei]

Sorry Ive never played Cthulhutech. CR doesn't have mechs or anything like that. We never had more than some power armour available and squad weaponry - basically a sort of now plus situation. Androids and psy abilities feature - just too good to leave out considering you want a nice level of paranioa.:smallbiggrin: