No comments about Minions (Call of Cthulhu).

2 comments about The Complete Dreamlands (Call of Cthulhu).

1. If you like Lovecraft you will love this it is quite amazing. You will find all sorts of useful stuff i got and im still playing it !



2. While this is primarily a game book, "The Complete Dreamlands" is a well-researched (for the most part) guide that collates information from Lovecraft, Lumley, and other authors (as well as some bits added by the book's creators) together- painting a terrific portrait of this fantastical counterpart to the "real" Cthulhu Mythos universe.

No comments about CTHULHU DARK AGES - FOR THE CALL OF CTHULHU ROLE PLAYING GAME.

2 comments about Horror's Heart: A Short Call of Cthulhu Campaign in Montreal (Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying).

1. At first read-through, Horror's Heart is a well thought-out campaign. It presents characters, clues, and events in logical, sequential steps in a day-by-day format. Unfortunately, it is this very format that is ultimately its downfall.

   In order to advance the plot, investigators MUST pursue clues as they are presented in the book, IN THE ORDER they are presented, otherwise they end up at a location with no real idea what to look for; characters that are set to be presented at certain locations cannot be presented if investigators failed to locate a clue or character, or go to a place beforehand.

   Example: My players pursued information given in handouts. On Day Four, because they shamefully have Free Will, they ended up in locations, coming into contact with characters that were not presented in the book until Day Six. Needless to say, this presented some problems. It takes a quick-witted Keeper to rewrite entire sections of a prewritten scenario on the spot. In many instances, the investigators had to backtrack and revisit previous locations because they had no idea what they were supposed to REALLY look for the first time around.

   Here's a question: Do your investigators really have time to read through an entire Mythos tome during the course of the adventure? They'd better, or else a very needed piece of information will be missed that will ultimately spell their doom. If they're anything like my investigators, they take the book with and read it at a more leisurely time--like when gigantic tentancled monsters AREN'T chasing them.

   If you, as a Keeper, don't mind having to lead your investigators around by the nose, or you, as an investigator, don't mind being led around by the nose like an idiot, then by all means, Horror's Heart is for you.

   I have some personal issues with the presentation of Loup-Garous in this story as well, such as why one infected garou could pass on his curse to other members in his family AS A DIFFERENT ANIMAL FOR EACH (They're ALL called Loup-garou, but in fact there is only ONE Loup(wolf)-garou in the story--the rest are not loups at all.), but that is more a pet peeve than anything else. The family, despite this, is fascinating. Keepers may want to, as I did, present the family as ALL wereWOLVES rather than different animal weres. It makes more sense.

   A far better effort in terms of flexibility is the 1990's campaign At Your Door. Not only are there many different ways to obtain vital information, the campaign is very very playable and entertaining.

   'Nuff said.




2. I wrote the former review before actually completing the campaign with my players. Here's one more glaring error:

   In the book there is multiple references to a group called "The Lords" who are the mortal enemies of "The Bloods". The Bloods are who the investigators are trying to stop. Time after time, reference is made to the Lords working toward a climax to thwart the Bloods, even going so far as to mark the very night the investigators are supposed to sneak into the Bloods' ritual as the night the Lords are supposed to attack the Bloods. After this, no further mention of the Lords exists in the book. Not only do they not show up (according to the text), but it's as if they've all disappeared. No explanation for the Lords' absence at this significant event is given.

   My investigators expected the Lords to somehow be involved, maybe even as allies against the cult and its god. Needless to say, they were quite angry when the Lords didn't show up. They left the city of Montreal in disgust, vowing never to return and hoping the whole damned thing burned to the ground.

   Unfortunately, this is NOT a very playable campaign scenario. There were some good points, but the link between the loup-garou family and the rivalry of the Bloods and the Lords is arbitrary at best. The whole thing seems forced, and in fact it is when a Keeper has to throw up walls to prevent their players from visiting places out of sequence.

   Any keepers wanting to run this campaign for their players is in for some major reworking of the text and adding some scenes and/or characters to make the whole thing flow better.

No comments about Green and Pleasant Land (Call of Cthulhu).

No comments about Adventures in Arkham Country (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, 1920s).

1 comments about No Man's Land: WWI Mythos Action With the Lost Battalion (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, Chaosium# 2385).

1. This book is a refreshing twist on the Cthulhu RPG. The story is a perfect blend of mixing gothic horror with historical fiction. Fans of history will enjoy the backdrop of the infamous "Lost Battalion." The potential to play this scenario as a prequel for older characters shows great appeal, since the scenario takes place in October of 1918. There is even a good section on portraying mood with music, props, and sound effects, something I have been doing for years.

   There is however, one major disappointment. The artwork is less than satifactory, and actually detracts from the mood of the writing. Although the cover art is is dark and moody, the interior art is unforgivable. I was very dissappointed to see such historical accuracy in the writing and almost no historical accuracy in the art. It was obvious that the artist did almost no research to World War I uniforms and weaponry. The characters looked more cartoon like than dark and gothic. As I was reading, I literally stopped and began thumbing through a World War I history book I had in order to separate the images portrayed in the writing from the images portrayed in the illustrations.

   The art and cartography for the maps, murals, and altars were well done.

   Overall I would recommend this product to Cthulhu goers that have a thirst for history. I was just hoping for interior illustrations more akin to that in "Escape from Innsmouth."

3 comments about At Your Door (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, Modern Era, #2326).

1. This is one of the classic modern campaign supplements for Call of Cthulhu, and I'm surprised to see it still available 13 years later. There's a lot of good ideas to mine here, but I've never known anyone to run it without major modifications. It seems like everyone hates different sections. The root problem is, it's too all-over-the-place: Too many widely divergent scenarios, themes, and creatures, haphazardly slapped together. Even so, there are a lot of parts that I love, and some bits--such as Mr. Shiny, Tcho-tcho restaurants, Dawn Biozyme, and the City of Samson--have become enduring parts of CoC canon.

   What I'd really like to see is a total makeover of this supplement, along the lines of the redone Day of the Beast and Masks of Nyarlathotep. The scenarios could be made more consistent, the monsters more logically related (I mean, really, why would shoggoths and cthonians work together in a vast consipracy? Gimme a break.). And it's a perfect opportunity to add a chapter on how to turn the whole thing into a Delta Green mission.




2. Wait, this is Cthulhu. Sorry, wrong game. I was confused; you see, in AT YOUR DOOR you play investogators who travel the country, meet a wide array of monsters and chum up with guest stars (like Mr. Shiny, before he was famous). All that's missing is Don Knotts making a cameo. Actually, I'm sorely tempted to try the idea...
   
   I have heard many people complain that AT YOUR DOOR suffers from "monster-of-the-week" syndrome. In a sense that's true; there are dark young, serpent people, a shoggoth lord, mutated humans, tcho-tcho people, and chthonians, and it's hard to grasp why the investigators would be encountering this much weirdness. You can always sweep it under the End Times rug, when anything can happen and usually does. Alternatively the GM can play up the Shub Niggurath connection. All of the disparate adventures have some connection to that Mythos deity and some minor tweaking would allow this aspect to come to the forefront. Alternatively, the campaign could be played as a series of independent adventures. The weirdness doesn't have to be connected in some subtle conspiracy; if you look hard enough, the sane world falls away and you discover what is happening beneath the surface. If the PCs feel that there is some terrible conspiracy to uncover, let them run with that.
   
   As a series of loosely connected adventures (MANSIONS OF MADNESS is like this), I think AT YOUR DOOR is outstanding. As an actual campaign, it feels disjointed. Most of the adventures are interesting and, as mentioned by the previous reviewer, have become classic bits of Mythos lore. If you don't know about Mr. Shiny, bak bon dzshow, or the Milk of Shub Niggurath, this is the place to find it. AT YOUR DOOR seems to have strongly influenced the unofficial Delta Green mythos, and I would particularly recommend that it be converted to Delta green scenarios.
   
   As a bonus, the cover art is outstanding.



3. I bought this scenario in hope I could use it as a challenge for a Modern campaign. After all, there is a wonderfully evocative, creepy cover, and covers don't lie? Or can they...?
   
   While the campaign does introduce an intriguing opponent in "Mr. Shiny," it fails to live up to its promise due to the contrived way each scenario seems to lead to the next one. You have to practically railroad the players to go forward as they puzzle over how the last scenario had anything to do with the one they are embarking on. Any player taking notes would be baffled after a few sessions of this campaign, which incidentally introduces us to a giant canine and a B-movie style giantess, which begs the question, "Is this just an extended "Blood Brothers" scenario?" I like camp, but the tone in this campaign just never settles down enough to play it as "Call of Cthulhu" or even as "Attack of the Giant Woman." (Did I mention it features a giant dog? I am not kidding.)
   
   The completely random assortment of opponents keeps the pace moving, but really most of the threat is having one or more of the players raise their hand and ask, "What that heck was that about?" Like the other reviewers, I had to significantly revise it to make it flow, but if you spending money on a complete campaign, there is no excuse for having to fix a botched attempt. If somebody sold me a bicycle with two bent rims that caught fire periodically, I wouldn't give it four stars and kindly suggest that "its a flawed classic" or needs revision to make it work. No, I would be mad as hell that the bike I paid for makes me look like a drunk, Special Ed version of the Ghost Rider riding to school on a banana saddle.
   
   But I digress...
   
   "At Your Door" is very bad science-fiction excruciatingly pounded into a "Call of Cthulhu" campaign. Lacking atmosphere and cohesiveness from the get-go, "At Your Door" is badly written, and graced with awful interior art that succeeds only in showing us in pictures that yes, "At Your Door" really does belong "In A Landfill."