Call of Cthulhu: The Star on the Shore - RPG Review
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- čas přidán 30. 09. 2017
- Review and Game Master tips on the Call of Cthulhu adventure, "The Star on the Shore." It's a sandbox-style mystery that after a few tweaks and a lot of GM preparation, is completely worth it.
Handy Links:
Hardcover Module: www.newcometgames.com/product...
Softcover Module: www.newcometgames.com/product...
PDF Module: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2...
My own fiction can be found here: amzn.to/2zLTxAb
Alright, let me tell you a story. This game, this one right here. Took my players nearly an entire year to complete, due to the fact they got so deep into the roleplay. They got to know nearly everyone, one of them managed to get into a romantic relationship with this library assistant that I had made up, going on a few dates and even managed to become engaged. Another player had their character get really close with Gabriel(as in Gabriel became sort of a father figure to that player, I had changed Gabriel to be much older, like in his 90s as well). Rockport became their home basically, and when they finally got everything sorted, and found out that Gabriel was behind it all(which, by the way was a heavy scene for the player who had gotten close to them, rped it beautifully in my opinion), and the final battle with the Star Spawn. It was... Exhausting, but in the most glorious, amazing way possible.
Holy crap that is actually amazing
How'd they do at the end? Anyone survive with sanity intact?
@@jakecarroll9500 I unfortunately don't remember everything(it's been a long while since we played through it), only 2 of the five members of the party made it out alive. One was killed by his fiance(the library assistant) in the tunnels underneath the town, another one was killed by the crows that Gabriel had control of and the last one got killed during the fight with the Star Spawn(I didn't mention this in the original post but one NPC I had made was a pilot who had made his own plane in a barn just outside of town, the player died flying that makeshift plane filled to the brim with explosives into the Starspawn).
Hysterical man, I actually liked the idea of the characters getting together.... hope you guys and gals had fun!!!
@@hysterical5408 k
I love all the little hints you give prospective keepers, it makes your reviews so much more useful than just an overview of the narrative.
I love that the butcher just casually suggests a place to get booze to complete strangers in the middle of Prohibition. Clearly the local authorities just don’t give a shit and that’s hilarious
You'd be surprised how common that was.
@@docsavage8640 I remember an anecdote about a Prohibition agent who traveled to New Orleans intending to see how long it took to find illegal liquor...only for his cab driver to immediately offer him a flask and tell him where to get more
I suggest laminating the map. This way investigators and the keeper may mark locations with a wet erase marker. If a keeper intends to run this scenario several times or, travel with it. This would be additional benefit. It also helps keep the map intact if a spill occurs or, someone leaves a cup on the map that could cause a ring spot.
One clever way to handle telling the players the location number without breaking immersion is to incorporate the number into the address of the location, have them write that down, and ask them for the address when they want to revisit the place.
Smart!
"Keepers should probably prepare for it to take three [long sessions]."
Me: "...Well. Knowing my players, this will take at least 3 months."
This. Lightless Beacon is supposed to take an hour and it ended up taking three sessions.
As a result I ended up extending the siege and adding a few more weapons to the scenario, and a hidden passage at the bottom of the lighthouse where a better weapon AND TWO gnarly new monsters that might follow them up, meaning that barricading the bottom of the lighthouse isn't without problem.
Wow, that's speedy! Mine would take 3 years lmao
@@oooooopppps12 XD
I am actually the playable lounge singer in the book. I loved helping back that game and even play it. Glad to see others loved the supplement as much as I did.
Hope you didnt spend all your money backing it or you might also be the hobo : D
Grats for making your mark on a classic module!
That is simply too good. You are now an eternal figure in history! ;-)
Ultimately, the challenges of a simple sandbox like this are what make Masks of Nyarlathotep so intimidating to me: multiple sandboxes like this, all intertwining and weaving together. Just so many moving parts.
When I run this, I plan to build it off the "Idol of Thoth" scenario, and have the PC's be brought in by the museum of fine art directly because they have experience dealing with statues stolen under mysterious circumstances and they're in good standing with the museum.
It serves as a reasonable way to get the characters back together again, as the Idol of Thoth was their first adventure together.
14:14 The strange thing about the FDR article is that they obviously did research to know that his family did have a home on Campobello Island and that he was paralyzed there in August 1921, but they didn't do the research to see if he was President at that time.
A non-searchable PDF is a dealbreaker for me. That’s the whole appeal of digital formats as far as I’m concerned. If I wanted a non-searchable medium, I’d just buy the hardcopy.
It doesn't really take much effort to run any PDF through Acrobat or a similar piece of software to make the document searchable. I've done it more times than I can count.
FWIW, as of 2018-11-27, the PDF is searchable. However, it has no bookmarks, nor can any be added, as the PDF is "locked."
@@1stPCFerret Foxit Reader. Bookmarks - checked!
Digital copies do have other advantages: portability and storage being just two. That being said, it is lazy to not add bookmarks or allow searching.
I actually GMed the haunting for my friends not too long ago and it was really fun, i spiced it up by printing fan handouts and even making the "Jack" character, Named James Barrister, the lead detective who lead the raid on the Chapel of Contemplation back in 1912, how i plan to start the Star on the shore is that James managed to track down Rev. Michael Thomas, the executor of Corbitt's will, but the towns people are somewhat tight lipped as to who and where the Reverend is so he sends a letter to the pc's for help, i may even do the dead lights scenario to help introduce new pc's to the game on the way to rockport. would you think this is a decent way to start the module?
Fun fact: The name for that crime scene cork-board note taking thingy is “Sociogram”
This sounds like the first part of the secret world. Thanks to that I can see the adventure from a more in-depth style.
Yeah, the boss in the Polaris is essentially a star spawn, too.
I remember running this campaign, first real CoC game I was keeper for. Everything went wonderfully, until all my players *SPOILERS* decided that they would just hoof it out of town instead of fighting the Star Spawn. Such a bummer, I was even being pretty heavy handed on the dynamite, the freezer, and all the rest, but they got it in their heads that most of the town were cultists and it wasn't worth saving. At least their duel with Gabriel was pretty sweet.
Hey Seth, funny tidbit. The part where you noted the incorrect presidential reference has since been corrected in newer versions of the scenario PDF. I bought it last autumn and the article has been corrected with new contextual info for the situation being described.
More Call of Cthulu reviews!
I love these reviews, and the best part is the little warnings and suggestions about difficulties GMs might have with prep or running the game. You do an invaluable service!
So, two points. One; I love the additional effort you (both) provide to your players and hence to us, on how to make the game-play much more palatable and involving! It truly assists us with less experience in doing so.
Second; I gotta admit that I enjoy your presentations Seth (and Jack!) in providing such an entertaining and well thought out play. I in fact enjoy your vids as a wonderful story, as much as I do their assistance for the game. TYVM dear Sir(s) ! :)
i am just so glad i finally found someone who accurately reviews CoC games. Thank you very much. Never stop.
Wow - I'm hooked at 0:33 - I'm just 3/4 through 'the Haunting' and was looking for another adventure to 'level up' the players before going onto the Shadows of Yog Sothoth... so guess what I'll be getting :)
I wish i had a friend like you who enjoyed running stuff like this. Sounds so fun
I never get through one of these without cracking up. Awesome channel!
Thank`s for advice's n running this adventure. Helped a lot. Looking forward for other review from you.
I love Jack's background images! Especially the butcher shop!
The amount of bookkeeping I had to do for this adventure, really detracts from the point of running a premade scenario. I felt like I had rewritten the whole module by the end. Waiting to see your review on Cold Warning which I think is a much better scenario.
Cold Warning is on my shortlist to run soon (either next adventure or the one after. Really depends on how many players are available). It looks much easier to run, but mostly because it has a very small cast and the location is isolated. Running an entire town like this one, with dozens of personalities and locations, is a serious feat. It's beautiful when it works, but it's also taken me a long long time to learn how, and I can't do them but once a year or so because they can be exhausting with all the prep. One day I'll get around to running Dark Carnival, which like this adventure, is a bookkeeping challenge.
Seth Skorkowsky Dark Carnival is one that has always intrigued me, so I can’t wait to see what you have to say about it.
Honestly Vasileios, I almost always do more bookkeeping work on modules than I do on stuff that I'm just making up. Just seems to be how it pans out for me.
Thanks for this very thoughtful review. I run my home campaign sandbox style, and I have run some sandbox modules as well. It occurs to me that a sandbox requires kind of an intuitive brain-map, and so running your own is extremely easy as you can casually link together clues and villains, but running someone else's sandbox module can be quite difficult as it requires a lot of memorizing many different people, places, times, and things
I don't even play Call of Cthulu, but SS's insight into DM/GM'ing is always enlightening in some way...and Jack is always entertaining too!
I hope by now Seth learned how to use an OCR software to make picture pdfs into searchable ones
Firing harpoons strapped with dynamite is one of the coolest things I have ever heard of.
Pretty sure that happens in the story Call of Cthulhu
@@oz_jones I don’t think it does. Where you getting that from? If I may ask.
Great shirt :)
Love the T shirt.
CoC for the win. Wonderful advice.
Nothing says Lovecraftian horror more than a character sheet with a Baphomet on it. Haha!!
Heehee! Years ago, I ran a campaign pitting the Minions of Cthulhu against the Sons of Typhon, whose emblem was Baphomet. It ended up in a fist-fight.
Well, a good solution for this would be to make a chart and pin it inside of your screen. Location # - Location Name - Page #
That would be a nice way to handle it without giving out weird information like 'location numbers'. Personally, I would put the list not in order by location #, but in alphabetical order by name. Thanks for the review as always; I actually plan to run this 100% due to your review and recommendation.
That is an option you can try, but keep in mind you'll already have a bunch of notes behind your screen, and that you and the players will start calling locations by different names. So list them by the names you can remember best. Right now they're things like Griffon Butcher Shop (call it butcher), David Babson Co. (lawyer), and Rockport Memorial Hall (we just called it the VFW). Whatever system works best for you is the best one to use. Good luck and hope you and your group have fun with it.
Please define 'Mthyos Hoedown' for me Seth.
It's a term used for adventures, usually older ones, where an excessive variety of mythos creatures appear, often for little to no reason.
Seth, nice t-shirt!
Lol the church locations reminded me of my home town. 3000-3500 people, and 5 churches. 2 were literally right across the street from each other, and the third about 4 or 5 blocks away. All uptown. The other two being down town about 3 blocks apart. While there is about 8km between the two groups. Weird thing is there weren't tonnes of religious folks, but each of these churches were still for different groups.
I grew up in a town that was 4x5 blocks, had around 150 people, and four churches: one for each block. It was ridiculous
I got this in the kickstarter and was actually pretty disappointed with both the scenario and the writing. All told though, if your players had fun, that's what's important. I ran Dark Carnival and felt the same but the players had a blast in that one (another sandbox scenario with around 40 cultists and various mythos creatures). I'll have to take another look at this.
Another unfortunate fact is that I actually used Rockport in a scenario called Deep Trouble from an old Challenge Magazine and I'd have to figure out how to fit what happened in that scenario with this one as well.
Another great review, btw. Jack is just right and so much fun.
I find that funny because I've been wanting to run Dark Carnival for years, but the huge cast and sandboxyness of it is what has kept me from running it.
This one had so much good stuff once you get to the town.... but that intro was rough. Once they were there, it was gold. Also, the last game we did before this was Bad Moon Rising, so the players were just so happy to have a clear mission. Bad Moon was a frustrating investigation for all of us.
i was a player doing this modual, my character was a gruff irish imigrant pi that was quite paranoid and he said "bloody murder" every time the crows came about, he bludgeoned the dockmaster (i think my brother who was keeper added him) who was a cult member for entry into the "church" which ended up being useless
Is the lamb thing a joke on "A Lamb to the Slaughter"?
The fog is totally natural thing, maybe is the reason why they put the lighthouse?
strapping dynamite and firing it at a safe distance from the boss sounds like the cheesiest way to cheese a boss.
The trick is that there's really not a safe distance when it comes to star spawn.
where you get the t-shirt i want one.
I picked it up at a convention, but you can find one at SighCo.com www.sighco.com/cthulhu-shirts/
I’m new to CoC as a Keeper, I like these videos for selecting adventures to consider running. I have issues with finding fun results of failed roles. I’d love to hear how you’d run ‘Amidst the Ancient Trees’ as I found it hard not to railroad players.
I never ran Amidst The Ancient Trees. No reason other than it never grabbed me.
Seth Skorkowsky , fair I picked it as one of my first because it seemed easy: kid goes missing, wood based shoot out, artists, and a freaky creature in the water. But besides the undead freaking out my party, it started to feel more like a pulp Cthulhu campaign but they had to make it to the dig site. Do people add in more happening in the search part? I think I over thought things as it went on for more than 5 sessions at a few hours a session lol.
To be perfectly honest, at the point at which I ran into the acronym GPS in a game set in the 1920s, I would throw the whole thing in the garbage for the sin of "did not do the research". I would not sweat truly fine detail, but that is just immersion destroying,
If you're using the pre-gens, you could just wing it by going that all the pre-gens are actually Darkwing Detective members (the lounge singer and the vagrant could be on a cover job or something)
I'm leading this scenario in 2 weeks, actually this is first campaign I'm running, and from what I understand it's kind of culmination to Haunting and The Haunted. So hopefully I won't mess it up. Funny thing is my players played Murder of Crows, and one player got Spirit Stone))) I think its interesting twist and good motivation for the villain to try and get it from players.
How did it go? I'm wrapping up next week
@@mikesands4681 probably one of the most favourite campaigns in our community.
To mask location numbers and maintain immersion, just make it the address of the location. Stress to the players if they want to remember where a place is, they need to write down the address.
Example: Location 1 is 1 Agawam Lane (I just pulled up "Rockport MA street names" on google and picked the first one). If you want to do the extra leg work, you can actually tie the locations to the actual streets they are on, but for 90% of groups that won't matter. Because location numbers are a unique identifier, don't worry about reusing street names. Just don't do it immediately, because that would have the connotation that the location is right next door to another location, which only fits if that is indeed the case.
This should cause no issues unless your group lives in or frequents Rockport Massachusetts, or has an obsession with the history of said place, as potentially some street names will be anacrhonistic (streets didn't exist or were named something else in the 20s). As long as you don't plop in a "Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd" or other very obvious anachronism, you'll be fine.
Best Shirt EVER!
Hey seth, I'm about to start running this adventure in about a week. You mention having Gabriel and shadows as "active" villains, what did you do in your game to have them interact with the PC's and bring them into the limelight?
Gabriel will know about them from the beginning, so he'll be watching via crows. She'll be following them inside places. Now, it's been a while since I ran it, but I had one of the friendly NPCs mention Gabriel to them (can't remember which). Then they dropped by the churches and met them both (then the players forgot about the postcard clue). But from what I recall, he doesn't really leave the church that much (I might be wrong. I've slept since I last read it) but he should be sending cronies out to stop them once the PCs start getting close. The sheriff being a big one. Cut the PCs ties. Have the police cruise by wherever they are periodically. Don't forget to regularly mention all the crows.
It was a fun adventure, but I can't stress enough how tough it can be to stay organized if you don't prep. Mark all the special buildings with the roof-top plates on your map and mark all the churches before you begin. That really helps.
sounds like it needed to be ran through an OCR program to turn images of text into ascii
FWIW, as of 2018-11-27, the PDF is searchable. However, it has no bookmarks, nor can any be added, as the PDF is "locked."
Good to hear that they at least added a Search Feature.
Love that Seth calls out the publisher for producing an inaccessible PDF. Blind people play tabletop games too!
Probably gonna be running this as a follow up for the haunting, have one question about the butcher disappearing, the module doesn't give any info regarding this, what happened in your game?
I moved him down to the cells in the tunnels. When the PCs broke into the butcher shop they saw signs of a struggle.
I searched those coordinates but google maps sent me to Kazakhstan
Obviously Google Maps failed its San Check.
@@SSkorkowsky Nah, Just Delta Green earning their money. Not even Snowden had anything to say about those guys.
See pinned comment up top.
The N and W are important...
If you're not specifying N and W for the coordinates, you need to put a negative sign in front of the easting coordinate as you are west of the prime meridian. So type in 42.66N, 70.62W or else 42.66,-70.62 into Google Earth.
Great adventure, but very demanding for a keeper. 3 sessions? Ours went 7!
The top comment said that it took a year to run, so YMMV.
Good review. Based on some of the other reviews of this scenario I've seen, I'd say the authors forgot that the most important aspect of a scenario after the plot itself (Which sounds like it came off well in your case, though for some reason I am now thinking of the Interactive Fiction scenario Anchorhead...), is that the scenario should provide the person running it with as much support as possible, that means, all relevant details in one place, even if that means putting handouts, Keeper notes, etc in a separate section at the back to save too much page flipping, a logical layout of information, for example things that are going to happen on a journey, should be in the section covering that journey, not with an NPC that the players might travel with.
And above all the hook needs to be a good one, I'll admit the worst I ever saw was in a scenario from Challenge Magazine called "Deep Trouble", which also used Rockport as a key setting, that one (Spoiler) relied on a successful Mythos check on the part of the players as the hook.
Part of the problem with sandbox games is they're nearly impossible to layout in a perfect way. They'll always require a ton of GM prep.... but there are a lot of things they can do to help the GM along, and those were where I had the most criticisms (that and the awkward into). If a GM can quickly get to the information in the book without it slowing the game, then it's awesome. The biggest thing I've learned is to start those first few interactive hooks (sort of like what I mentioned in this one with the butcher) once the PC's start interacting, the game can pick a direction and go under it's own momentum.
Our worst experience was Bad Moon Rising. Mostly because the PCs didn't have a clear mission of what it was they were supposed to be looking for. Once they found it, the rest of the adventure was pretty much out of their control.
One thing that we are going to have to agree to disagree on is that writing in the margins of an adventure isn't blasphemy, it's pure gold. You're not likely to keep your notes with the module over the course of years and it can be incredibly helpful when revisiting an adventure for a new group to see your thoughts in the margins to guide you. More so if you're borrowing the adventure and can read another GM's thoughts on the scenario. Don't write in an adventure that you're borrowing though; that's just rude.
Hi, just starting to look at this. It's supposed to be a follow up to The Haunting, which is set in 1924, but this is set in 1921 - is there also a time travel element?
Not sure where you got that from. The Haunting doesn't have a set date, at least not the version in the 7E quick start rules
@@Sabretooth7777 From the dates of the newspaper cuttings etc.
How do I get this module? I can't find it anywhere in the U.K.
Physical copies are on the NewComet Games site. www.newcometgames.com/shop
PDFs are on DriveThru RPG: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/219322/The-Star-on-the-Shore?term=the+star+on+the+shore&test_epoch=0
If neither of those work for getting it to you in the U.K., I'd send them a message through Facebook. facebook.com/DarkCultGames/
Good luck
Seth Skorkowsky thank you kindly sir. Love the reviews
I hope you run some games at a Con. I'd pay to play.
What are your thoughts on the upcoming Call of Cthulhu game that’s coming out for the PS4 since it has roleplaying elements including dice rolls. Are you gonna get it? I most certainly am! :D
Definitely getting it. Mark Morrison (Horror on the Orient Express, Crack'd and Crook'd Manse) wrote the story for it and I'm very excited to play it when it's ready.
Hope that its sequel or even a possible DLC will have a multiplayer option like the actual roleplaying game it was based on! Then we can meet together and do a play through of a Call of Cthulhu game haha. :)
Where did you buy that t-shirt?
Find it at SighCo.com
The right hand of the Elder Thing on the t-shirt: proof that it's from Italy
Can you please post the ISBN of this module so I can locate it for sale?
I don't see an ISBN on my copy (which is kinda weird it wouldn't have one), but I do have links to purchase it in the video description.
@@SSkorkowsky Oh, duh..didn't even see those links. Thank you so much. I truly enjoy your video reviews...they are hilarious.
My general knowledge of the 1920s shows me just how much I don't know about the daily run of things.
Mythos hoedown?
Multiple monsters appearing. Thats what it means
Well if I ever have an issue with holes in a dam, I want Seth there.
The newspaper is actually accurate when it comes to Roosevelt.
I just finished playing this, and this review really doesn't do the module justice. You could explore for months and I highly recommend this. And the many, many characters you can talk to and get to know (I think it's close to a hundred, or at least it feels like it); you'll love this module if you like finding out about NPCs and their various range of stories.
...My DM found this exhausting though. He says it's pretty tiring being a keeper for this module, and he'll not recommend any of this for a first or second time keeper.
Darkwing Duck vs Mythos!
Lets get dangerous!
How many crows were there? If it’s a hundred or more, it’s called a murder of crows.
PDF2GO.com will allow you to make it searchable. Free too!
14:15Wouldnt that be a nice "timetraveling" touch for the world? Roosevelt won the election
Actually, Roosevelt was the (not-yet paraplegic) vice-presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in 1920, so him as president would not only mean that the Democrats won, but also that President James Cox had been assassinated. Plenty of interesting possibilities following that alternate reality.
Why o why do these adventure designers never produce a product that is game ready? I get it... They know it inside and out, but surely if you are crowd funding it you should have the product fully playtested by other GMs too... I'm glad these game designers don't make cars or heavy machinery... It'd blow up in a second!
...pedantic ornithologist facepalm at the phrase "flock of crows"
notoriouswhitemoth yeah, it was a murderous oversight... Sorry had to make a pun!
In pathfinder, I once had a ship with exactly two tengus on it that was called "The Attempted Murder". My players did not got the joke...
Its a murder of crows not a flock
I've considered trying call of cthulu but the sanity system has been the biggest dislike so far. If that has to be in the game why can't I just start off as insane? I would be fucking ecstatic if I could start off as the joker in any game.
If you're running the game, you DO get to start off as the Joker. Most cultists, after all they've seen, are insane. Insanity doesn't just measure madness in the game either - but knowledge of the real truth of the world and how insignificant we are.
MaxWriter sounds like bloodborns insight
Its because no one would want a joker with them. Some say they would to sound tough but basic logic dictates having a person who is likely to kill you for fun is bad. AND even if they only attack npcs or even are just obviously nuts it makes most negotiation impossible. This is why insane and or murderous characters are only fun for the guy playing hin while the group hates the character
eh, depends on the game. the only thing I've ever had to negotiate in dnd is the price of items.
One of the temporary insanities in 7th edition is violence. Essentially, if your character goes temporarily insane and that's rolled, you attack anyone around you, friends and foes alike, for 1D10 rounds.
Since I saw an advice for "LGBTQI Investigators" in Berlin for 7th Gaydition, I know this "edition" was not meant for people like me. Lovecraft is turning in his grave right now.