Call of Cthulhu: The Auction - RPG Review
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2017
- Review and GM tips for the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure, "The Auction." It's a fun scenario with a good setup, international backdrop, great role-playing opportunity, and a healthy dose of combat.
You can download the fan-made catalog handout here: www.yog-sothoth.com/files/file...
If you want to support my channel or read some exciting fiction, my novels are here: amzn.to/2L9EFjQ
We spent so long roleplaying and preparing and researching for the auction itself that we forgot that we were playing Call of Cthulhu...until the monster showed up. it was actually pretty great.
One thing to point out as an Austrian lawyer: Austria weirdly has had quite permissive and "the authorities can figure it out on their own" gun laws for long stretches of time, especially compared to Germany. At the time of the scenario, foreign travelers - at least if they are ready to invest a bit of money and potentially some bribes - should have a reasonable time securing temporary carry and possession licenses for most weapons that don't seem particularly "threatening", e.g. military rifles, concealed guns (like guncanes), or grenades. Probably only an option for at least middle class PCs with Fast Talk or Law as skills tho.
Edit: Fun fact, the law that was applicable back then instructs authorities to respect national customs of foreigners if it is normal and usual for them to be armed back at home - might be something for American investigators to mention in their favor.
Thank you very much. I was actually getting ready to use the module for part of a campaign (VtM not CoC which is why no one will see it coming) and this will help quite a bit.
While Germany was held to remove weapons from its civilian population in the treaty of Versailles, it turned out to be rather difficult to actually enforce. There were only laws on carrying and using guns in public in the German Empire, anyone was allowed to own all kinds of weapons. The Weimar Republic had no data on who owned weapons so it'd be pretty easy to buy guns and ammunition on the black market from someone who had no use for it but needed food.
Lack of weapons makes any CoC scenario more interesting
You end up with a lot of ‘improvised weapon, impaling’
I ran this... players had the following: 20 gauge shotgun cane with a spare cartridge in the cross piece. .. hat pistol... .25 cal ... belt buckle criss blade ..... cyanide loaded hat pins..... instrument wire garrot. .....
Customs Agent: ... a bazooka?
PC: I have a permit for that.
Sounds like someone raided Bond's gadgets.
A lot of people would love for Chaosium to reprint (and possibly update) their back catalogue. Personally, I want the Lovecraft Country books-specifically Innsmouth and Kingsport. They are waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too expensive to buy second hand... plus I prefer PDFs :)
I'd love it if the Innsmouth book came back.
Oh heaven. Yes.
About the last bit, when you react to the concerns about the players getting their dirty little mitts on too powerful artifacts...
Yknow... it's not that they get powerful magic artifacts, that can instantly destroy any further adventure... The items itself might be the next adventure. CoC is notorious for its artifacts being less of a boon and more of a handgranade without a pin. A nuclear handgranade without a pin...
Count to three, not to four. Five is right out.
@@oz_jones Do not count to two unless thou then procedeth to three.
This is probably extremely nitpicky, but it seems weird that Austria would use the British Pound, so I checked that on Wikipedia. At no time Austria officially used the Pound. Assuming this adventure is set in the 1920s, it would be either the Krone (translates to Crown; early 20s) or Schilling (translates to Shilling; late 20s). Might be an interesting fun fact for others to use if they want to run this adventure.
EDIT: I am aware that paying in a foreign currency would likely be possible, but local flair is local flair. :)
The British Pound wasn't an official currency, and the module says that, but at the time and especially with foreign characters who are well-off enough to be travelling to high-end auctions, the Pound was stable. In the post-war period the Krone was extremely volatile. I just didn't mention all that in the review because the review is about the adventure and not the nuances of 1920 Austrian economics. But if you're looking for local flair... the module does go into and then adds that the Pound was sought after because it wasn't plummeting in value.
@@SSkorkowsky Makes sense (both the decision to use the Pound and to not mention it in the review). Have to give the module credit for giving details on that subject, then. Wasn't exactly expecting that level of attention to detail and just assumed the Pound was used in the module without much in terms of explanation.
Success on library use roll.
BTW, you can find images online of 1920 Austrian currency, so you always print some out as player handouts...
@@johanneskaiser8188 If you want to be really pedantic, at that point in history, the auctioneer would not be quoting Pounds, but Guineas (worth 1 pound 1 shilling or £1.05). The Guinea was how the British upperclass denominated prices back then due to tradition.
I've done a lot of research on Vienna in the 1920s and created a lot of new handouts, including a city map, hotel options, npc character photos, etc. If you want pdfs of these things let me know and I can send them your way.
May I have them, good sir?
@@muhammadanwar9540 drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_XMYxmJ832nLpjk8U0_CQPRxdt3aHa-s?usp=sharing
@@muhammadanwar9540 I would like to send them to you, but CZcams will not allow me to post a link to a Google Drive. Let me try some other things.
@@muhammadanwar9540 Try an internet search using the adventure's name. I can't even post search names for you!!
Does your offer still stand? I would love to get my hands on your work:) Maybe through a reddit post or so?
QUESTION: Do you have sessions between horrors where the group just goofs around roleplaying normal things?
This would be a great follow-up to a game that has the players inherit a lot of money, land, etc.
Back when we used to play 2 or 3 times a month, we'd occasionally have games with no huge point. It was D&D and not CoC, and I remember we once spent an entire session with them updating and tricking out their wagon and then another game of them getting fancy tailor-made clothes.
As the GM, I did have a goal for the game, but the players just sort of hijacked it and did their own thing. I think it was also made easier to do because it wasn't between adventures as much as taking a break in the middle of a long-multi-year campaign.
CoC modules really love ghouls.
Little green ghouls, buddy!
Their meeping & glibbering is sooo cute!
Ghouls: Far more interesting than zombies.
Too bad movies haven't caught on.
Austria used the austrian Krone (Crown) and then the austrian Schilling from 1925 to 1938. Considering that the countries economy was in a rather bad state after the first world war the auction itself might have only allowed for payment in pound sterling.
BTW, those newspaper clippings are no good if the adventure is set in Vienna (Wien). They are all written as if the cemetery is set in London. I recreated and revised them slightly as clippings of the Vienna Times, an English language newspaper in Vienna. Unfortunately I don't think it was around in the 1920s, but that will be our little secret...🤫
A wiz... cultist did it!
Okay, as a former Australian now living in the USA. I laughed at your opening skit quite hard.
The Asylum was part of the material for the classic boxed set reissue kickstarter from summer 2021. After watching this I remembered that I'd backed at that level. I recall playing some of those scenarios back in the 80s. Ah, the brazen head, good times!
I think I played this about 20 years ago. The reason why I say "I think" is that we did play a game in Vienna, and there was an auction, but if it was that adventure our Keeper modified it HEAVILY. For 2 reasons:
1. We were in Vienna, so he did go into details of the places that we knew currently, and it was quite interesting to see how it all changed in almost a century.
2. He was a history major, specializing in Austria between the world wars.
And he went nuts in this game. Our group was nominally British (with IIRC an American in the fold), so we kinda stood out like a sore thumb in a country on the brink of civil war, with the socialists and the fascists both pretending to nominally be democratic but at the same time having outright open street fights between their paramilitary organizations, with Nazis (who were illegal back then in Austria) mixing the whole thing up even more when our group tried to buy weapons and they thought we're sympathizers because we obviously didn't belong to either the Schutzbund or the Heimwehr, and tried to get ties with the "British Nazis" who we eventually posed as so they'd get us the guns we desired, which then in turn meant that the secret police got interested in those foreigners, which eventually turned out to be rather fortunate because since they were observing the player characters, when the brown mess hit the fan we had a few extra guns on our side... as least as soon as they noticed that the other side wasn't too human looking... and of course only from the ones that remained sane. It was a lot like being pitted into the middle of some weird twisted kind of Indiana Jones meets Cthulhuh game.
Sure one of the more memorable adventures, not only because it was the only time we played in the town that we actually played in (usually we were somewhere back in ol' England).
I was considering running this for our next session, thank you Seth good job.
By the way, I finally run In media res Larp and it was great fun, give it a try.
If you run it, I highly recommend the Yog-Sothoth handouts. www.yog-sothoth.com/files/file/482-the-auction-handouts/
I will check it out. We'll be doing a Mythos-themed party in a few months.
Nicely done, as usual. Your reviews make me want to run these old scenarios. I have pretty much all of them both as hard copies and pdfs. I especially like the idea of using an npc to get them to Vienna, as most of my players tend to lean towards the poor types of investigators.
Thanks. There's a lot of gems still hiding in the old scenario books (lot of bad ones, too).
Our PCs all lean toward the wealthier side. We'd played several campaigns where the PCs were always poor that the first chance they had to start off not being broke they all jumped at it.
As an Austrian myself I enjoy seeing an adventure set in Austria! However, I really wonder why the module says that Austria uses British Pounds and not krone or schilling
Kronen are mentioned as the local currency, but because of the runaway inflation at the time, the Pound was considered more stable, especially for the wealthy foreigners all travelling to the auction.
@@SSkorkowsky Ah yes, didn't think about that! But I imagine wealthy people enjoy bragging that they paid 3 million kronen for a piece that was actually just worth a few hundred pound :D
looks fun!!
Chill T-shirt Chomba ;-P. There's a lot of handy hints in this video (Investigator Weapons & the fan made handouts), these are much appreciated so please keep them coming in the future. One difficulty I sometimes find with the otherwise excellent CoC is that the players *know* something awful & Mythos related is going to happen. As such it can be really hard to bait the players, do you ever have this problem? I can imagine my players would spend hours investigating the auction & the various attendants before departing for Austria since they'd smell a rat.
Oh yeah. They researched every item well before leaving. It was part of why the first session was 90% setup for the investigation. I'd thought we'd clip it all in one game, but was drastically wrong.
Have you checked out the Westchester House scenario? It's a Scooby-Doo style adventure where the more the players are convinced that it's supernatural/Mythos the harder it'll be for them to realize that they're being conned.
😃👍
Going through all the call of Cthulhu scenarios again to see what's the next adventure is for my Call of Cthulhu group is going to play next.
Sometimes i'm just not sure if i should buy another or use one i have , but have not used yet.
My Exorcist got beat up in a bar in this one... the cops showed up... we all had illegal guns ... what a night
Fun, SOoo fun!
Is there a publicly available version of that pdf catalogue?
Is the auction in 'The Asylum and other tales' the same as the one in 'Cthulhu casebook'? If not which one did you run?
They're the same as far as I've been able to tell. I ran it with Asylum and Other Tales. Used a PDF of Casebook for the video images.
How close is this auction to the Orient Express?
as close as you want it to be
(THIS COMMENT CONTAINS SOME SPOLIERS!)
It can be really close. When I ran HotOE, I made The Auction a dead end side-scenario in it; it's perfect for that purpose. If you change the Bronze Head to a Marble Head, it will be easily confused with a part of the Sedefkar Simulacrum.
The main modifications I made to fit the scenario to the campaigne:
- Vienna is falls out quite a bit from the Simplon OE route, so I moved the location to Florence. The characters that way could take a short detour to here between Milan and Venice.
- The Ausperg House became the Pandolfini Casa d'Aste, and the Tor became the Porte Sante (both are real locations in Florence).
- The investigators can hear rumors or read articles about the auction in Milan.
- In Florance, they had to convince one of the invitees, to bring them to the auction, as guests.
- I added a completley inocent turkish scolar to the bidders (to be misidentified as a Brother of the Skin).
- I abandoned the antagonist's serpent ancestry and priesthood, and made him only a "simple" occultist with a tragic backstory.
- And renamed "Lesek Czernin" to "Levente Czerni", because the original one is not a hungarian name at all.
This became a really fun version of the adventure. And the best part was that at the end my investigators kept the Head, and tried to wake it up, to ask it about the other simulacrum-parts. The Head ultimatley finished in the caves of Postumia. :)
So, normally I'm with you on the whole "don't kidnap a PC 'cause then they just sit around bored" issue, but if you've got NPCs with conflicting motives who can get in on the investigation anyway? Oh man, kidnap a PC, take them aside, and give them the NPC sheet. Maximum stakes, and someone gets to play the guy who's help they need, but who's goals maybe don't line up with the party.
Do you have a link for the yog sothoth catalogue pdf?
Here you go. www.yog-sothoth.com/files/file/482-the-auction-handouts/
many thanks Seth, stumbled upon your channel by accident and very glad of it. I hope your channel grows and you can do this for a living. If you ever open an international table i'd love to join a game!
How do you get your games to run so quickly? This scenario lasted four months of weekly three hour games run for my four players.
Jesus
So Jack the NPC now has a pseudonym... Jack the mighty pissed off... Jack the MPO to nis friends
You can find a pdf of this on the trove, normally I'd say support the authors but given its out of print id say its justified.
The trove is no more :'(
@@mathieuvart shit that sucks.. there are other ways though if you know where to look ;)
Seth, do you happen to have a pdf of the black market weapons list/$$ You made for your game? And might you be willing to share?
I don't. But It was all Non-American/British weapons. Mostly German and Italian along with a few grenades of questionable reliability. Prices were a little higher (probably 20%). It was mostly old surplus from the Great War ("Great gun. Only dropped once.") Ammo was also bumped up in price. It ran from pistols, rifles, shotguns, and SMGs. Also bayonets. If you feel kind, maybe add a bulletproof vest or 2.
I just used the one Seth made. I pulled it up on my computer and after several attempts, I was able to do a screen capture of his chart. It's not high resolution, but it is perfectly usable and saves me the effort of researching and creating one...
I'm confused. Why is Klaus any more suspicious than say Lady Margaret or M.de Borsavin, both of whom also want the head?
Cold personality but also because character who make the rolls can notice he doesn't blink but once every few minutes because the module decided to make him part serpent-person for no particular reason. Once my players noticed the blinking thing, he was their only suspect.
Ah, but at 7:00 you suggest we get rid of that detail. I suppose I've watched too many detective stories where the bad guy is the one you least suspect. I do plan on having Klaus be very arrogant about his knowledge of the supernatural and dismissive of the other guests.
@@timbuktu8069 It worked for my investigators. The other clue was when asked, Herr Ausperg did admit that he was the only person who became enraged when the head purchased was refused prior to the auction....
@@johnf.kennedy5454 In my game, the police arrested one of the clerks at the auction house.
The heros snuck into the police station to question the clerk. The clerk had been given the rubber hose treatment and could tell them nothing.
Then for no reason they went to Klaus's apartment found the secret room and crowded in. There were 8 of them. They then had a battle with a mob of serpent men and claimed victory.
Then the pandemic hit.
@@timbuktu8069 Too bad. These damn PCs always ruin all of the planning we Keepers put into the game.
Here’s a recent short live-play: czcams.com/video/sEj6KrxqRy4/video.html
Eh Seth, the download does not work anymore.
Weird. Wonder if it is a technical glitch or if they took it down for some reason.
great job. if you can try ad mor detals :)
It's a rule of my that in all games unless it's important for some reason guns law work like in america like In my state of west virginia, where you can get guns and take them everywhere -places like schools and you need a license for concealed carry. And before someone says that would make the players too powerful in call of cthulhu, remember if the players has normal people have guns so can the bad guys.
I mean, sure, it's your game - you're entitled to make whatever changes you want. However, it's also utterly ahistorical and would personally break my immersion. If you and your players enjoy it though, by all means.
Am i the only one annoyed by Austria using Brittish pounds, instead of the period appropriate coinage (Kronen pre 1924, shilling 1924-1936, German Marks 1936-1945, shilling 1945-2002, euro 2002-present)
The module addresses the official monetary system and discusses that the british pound was more of a stable currency for the people involved in the scenario due to the inflation of the post-war.
No, there’s another guy in the comments that was annoyed. So hey, good news, you finally have a friend.
@Gindranis
I had the same thought and immediately checked the comment section - turns out Seth answered it.
That said, I disagree with Seth about the details not being worth putting into the review - given there's a couple of comments about it in a rather limited comment section, it seems relevant enough (somewhat unsurprisingly, DnD enthusiasts know quite a bit about history, so it's pretty natural for that detail to bug a few of us).
Be safe in Texas bud