Masks

Tonight I finished running the epic Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for Call of Cthulhu. It’s not the first time I’ve run it – in fact it’s the third time – but it’s the first time in more than a decade I’ve revisited this Cthulhu classic, and I thought I’d share my approach and reflections.
I describe Masks as the James Bond Call of Cthulhu campaign. It features half a dozen exotic locales, improbable villains, deadly threats, all based around a fairly tenuous plot. In short – it is a blockbuster with all the good and bad that entails. The problem with this setup is the lethality of the campaign as written – I usually end up with a box full of character sheets donated by all the players whose characters have died or gone insane during the course of the campaign. Such a high character turnover can have negative impacts, stretching the already weak continuity of the chapters, diminishing player investment in characters, or even initiating ‘the Indiana Jones effect’.

To be fair to Masks, you have to consider the context of the campaign. It was written in 1984, when the gaming world was dominated by modules featuring monsters, treasure and dungeons. It added investigation, glamour and unusual encounters to this framework, even allowing the players to determine the order in which they resolved the chapters of the campaign. Since it's first edition it's had a whole chapter added along with a plethora of entertaining side adventures. Nevertheless, while innovative for its time, the campaign still has its fair share of linear plots, railroads and dungeons. In short - Masks is an imaginative classic that set the benchmark for all subsequent Cthulhu campaigns and continues to attract new Keepers, despite suffering from most of the pitfalls of old-school games. Judging by posts on the Yogsothoth forum there is pretty much at least one Masks campaign happening at any given time, someplace in the world – probably a lot more than that. The oft discussed fan-written Masks Companion has been years in the development and will apparently weigh in at more than twice the size of Masks.

As a GM, when facing the fairly harsh setup of Masks, you have three choices: play it straight and butcher a lot of PC’s; pull your punches and effectively run a watered down version of the game; or, change the game setup to support the campaign style. This run I chose the last option. I wanted more-or-less one set of characters to run through the campaign. I wanted to keep the continuity and play a style of game that supported the tenuous leads and unremitting, escalating and overwhelming danger of the campaign. So I designed the Pulp Cthulhu rules to support this style of game.

Players received an open cheque to create their characters – I wanted over-the-top characters and was willing to consider anything. Most players received a special advantage based on whatever background they came up with, all had the option of starting with Cthulhu Mythos and spells and everyone started with 1D3 Fate Points. Each fate point could be spent to avoid a catastrophic wound, reduce the impact of temporary insanity or gain 2D6 sanity points between chapters with an appropriate narration. In addition each Fate Point would generate a fortune point each session, which could be used to re-roll any failed skill check or automatically pass a luck roll. Characters gained 1 Fate Point for each chapter of Masks they completed.

Because I expected the characters would be a lot tougher I also introduced the major wound rule from Basic Roleplaying, which meant serious injuries would have consequences both in terms of stats and story for the characters, despite their hardy natures. And this system worked very well – we had a sorry collection of severed noses, horrific burns, major muscle damage and scars by the end to add plenty of colour to the characters journey.

All in all, it was immense fun. I greatly enjoyed the characters and the game, and loved traversing the familiar terrain of his campaign through a setup and system that better supported the game than in my previous outings. Many thanks to all the players who helped bring this game to life.

Campaign Statistics
Sessions Played: 16
Chapters: 7
Number of Players: 7
Number of Characters: 8 (plus Bullit the dog)
Total Fate Points Expended: 39
Fate Points Expended in Final Session: 12
Character Deaths: 0

EDIT: You can check out a players perspective of this campaign over at Andy's excellent blog.

The Indiana Jones Effect

After some spirited discussion with the Grand Experiment about the merits of 4th Edition D&D in the comments of my first post, I need to pause for thought before posting the second part of my TPK post, which is about a D&D campaign.

In the interim, I’d like to briefly mention a phenomena which I’ve observed, largely in Call of Cthulhu games. Most players new to Cthulhu start the game with a quirky or interesting PC. An artist or author, professor or doctor – characters drawn, for the most part, from real life. These characters do well in the initial phase of the game, and are often successful investigators. However, while 85% of a Cthulhu game will be about investigation and character play, there usually comes a time when there is a confrontation, combat or even a monster to face.

When these worthy starting characters succumb to oblivion (hopefully not on their first outing), the next character will, most likely, bear a strong resemblance to Lucas’ Indiana Jones. A tough, whip toting, brawler who can handle most weapons, and would love nothing better than to roughhouse with cultists in the heart of their temple – and also probably knows his/her way around a library.

An entirely natural reaction to the death of a first character due to a failure of physical prowess.

But, of course, Call of Cthulhu is not kind to such innovation. A tougher character, willing to take risks and even be provocative, often meets the full might of the Mythos head on, and much like a meeting with a freight train, the results aren’t pretty.

The third character is then often a compromise. The player will take all the elements of the first kind of character, but make a small concession to violence in the form of an increased dodge or weapon skill – hopefully justified by character backstory.

I mention this phenomena not to pass judgement, just to observe that no matter our intentions when running games, and framing encounters, people will often view things on their own terms, and for some that means that character death, however noble, is a failure.