r/callofcthulhu

Hi everyone! Sorry if this question has already been asked before.

I'd like to ask the GMs what methods or techniques they use to write and create their own adventures. I'm asking because I'm still fairly new to GMing, but I have several ideas I'd love to bring to the table. The problem is that I never know how to develop them. I'm afraid of creating a story that's boring, full of plot holes, or simply not enjoyable for my players.

Thanks in advance for your replies!

I will be runnung Masks this year with one group offline - no problems with that.

With another group i want to have this as a back-up when the main campaign can not play. our DM attracts a lot of bad luck and is the main reason when we have to cancel. what VTT is recommened therefor?

One of my favorite things about Call of Cthulhu is that all of the monsters and deities are from published stories. Having the Malleus Monstorum has led me to seek out other authors who contributed to the mythos.

I am currently reading The Inhabitant Of The Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants by Ramsey Campbell and loving it. Two questions for the subreddit:

1. Has anyone read Campbell's other mythos works, aka The Revelations of Gla'aki or The Three Births of Daoloth trilogy? If so, are they worth hunting down?

2. Who is your favorite mythos writer outside of H.P. Lovecraft?

I'm going to be the Keeper for a Call of Cthulhu campaign. One of the players, who is already very experienced with CoC, created a character who used to be a police officer and was shot in the head. Against all odds, he survived. His wife witnessed the whole incident. After that, he retired from the police despite still being young and now works as a private investigator.

I'd like to create a plot twist involving his past that isn't obvious or predictable. Does anyone have any ideas?

Also, I apologize for any mistakes in my writing—English isn't my native language.

Story time with spoilers!

I'm running my group through the Edge of Darkness scenario. As soon as my group read about De Vermis Mysteriis in the letter from their dying friend they laser focused on that as being a key solution to the story. The module states there is no way they can access this book, and I had planned on maybe allowing them some information from the professor at the university if they had some really good roles but ultimately being denied access.

Well, they visited the professor and all of them had a huge string of critical success rolls, so I decided that professor would allow them to look at the book but even touching it would cause severe sanity loss. Even the professor was terrified to go near it.

Then they decided they had to have it. Professor continues to deny them. So through another series of critical successes, one player has a fake medical emergency to get the attention of the professor, who calls for help. Two other players do a quick switcharoo with the book and another book, then proceed to light the fake book on fire and scream about the devil coming back for the professor, who proceeded to go insane and flee.

Now any time anyone even touches the book they lose sanity. I even had the book curse some objects that touched it for long periods of time, and my investigators use it with extreme caution.

What are some ways you've broken the game rules for your players because they came up with amazing ideas and had incredible dice rolls?

Me and my friends have played a little bit of Cthulhu but nothing long term and I had a few questions.

1. How long should a Cthulhu campaign go for? Is it like D&D as to where it’s up to the DM and players

2. How long and how much of the mythos should I introduce? Do I drop it slowly over a long course of time or do I drop it in major chunks

3. In a longer campaign (one year +), would players stay as the same character throughout most of it or is it reasonably to say that they are going through a few characters

4. Im running a Wild West campaign, using down darker trails, I’m taking inspiration from RDR2 and such, they are following a railroad into Tennessee where I will have them get lost in the Appalachian’s and introduce some folklore, does that work for Cthulhu mythos or no? Also how much world building and such should I do before I introduce any mythos? Is it weird to run it mostly as a cowboys and have mythos be a background for most of it?

Recently I have been struck by the inspiration via the various games, shows, ect I have been consuming that I have got it in my head that WW1 could be an interesting setting to run a story through. It is in the most early, 'huh that might be neat' vague planning stage so nothing concrete.

The vibe I feel could play well to horror, the tight claustrophobic trenches where who knows what is around the next corner, the haze and fog of No Man's Land after nightfall hiding whatever might be skulking among the bodies left to rot, what madness might desperate men harrowed by the war turn to in their foxholes to try and break the stalemate, perhaps call on whatever the idol dredged up in the mud is depicting for salvation.

Now I could easily see just running this as vanilla CoC just fine as the time of WW1 is next door to the stock 1920's setting so technology, economics, ect are not too far removed. It might even add to the tension to have players that are just the poor soldiers/civilians caught out where one rifle crack across the way could kill them unceremoniously, but I tend to be a Keeper that does not aim to kill my players ASAP and prefer having the starting band in it for the long haul to see the story idea develop, unless the dice step in to say they ain't gonna make it.

To this end I am for the first time looking to the Pulp Cthulhu book that has been gathering some dust on my shelf for some options for more 'lasting' Players in a more conflict rich setting. Book itself even talks about setting how 'pulpy' I would want to make a game so its a scale almost. Its not an idea I am fully ignorant of as I have run the wild west supplement 'Down Darker Trails' a few times so I already am thinking of the 'Bonus Health' rule at the very least.

My main question being for those with history running Pulp Cthulhu where tends to be the cut off where the mix goes from horror to more the out and out 'strange action' as ideally I am wanting a middle ground, as fence sitting as that might sound. I would still like some sanity shell shock to take my players but also want the people in a warzone to have a good chance to see peace scared and rattled individuals

I had an idea for a short Hastur centric set of investigations (inspired by True Detective and Repairer of Reputations) and am thinking on the timeline/setting. Has anyone run standard Cthulhu in the 1930-40s and would it be a huge difference in rules or tone? Also any suggestions for mythos monsters would be awesome

I’m using panacea as the base for the groups’ next investigation, tweaking a few details to tie it into the overarching plot combined with the porting to 1920s. I know it’s not essential to have maps but they’re always nice to have to give the players a visual reference so they have a rough idea of the layout of buildings and potentially where they are in the building. I had maps for the Haunting and for Blackwater Creek, didn’t have any for Missed Dues so I just used pictures to sort of represent the location and if I can’t get any maps for Panacea I’ll probably do the same for it, but if anyone knows of where I could find maps for the module I’d really appreciate it. I couldn’t find the module on Roll20 marketplace so I figured I’d ask here as well as do my own searching

I certainly didn't expect Cthulhu to be pronounced like that.

So I'm kind of new to Call of Cthulhu (A pretty experienced D&D player and Dungeon Master and completely new to Cyberpunk Red) and I was wondering if I should be using Battle Maps in Call of Cthulhu, knowing that the game is more roleplay, puzzle solving and atmosphere based then combat based. So my players where being pitted up against some King in Yellow cultists in a abandoned theater, and so I pulled out a battle map I had ready and used some tokens I made to represent the players and enemies. As I'm newish to the game (I've had my own scenario going for about six months now), and I was just wondering if it breaks any of the rules to use a Battle Map

So I have recently been watching Chaotic Neutral's Call Of Cthulhu Playlist (the endings of 2 and 3 blew my mind) and I absolutely love the system and wanna try it out! But one issue, I don't know enough about Eldritch gods and beings to really piece the idea I have together.

So the Idea I had is called "Last day, 99" where its the final day of the year 1999 and there is a huge party in the woods near a lake, and a local band is gonna play at the old campground. The idea is the band themselves are doing a ritual through music that slowly warps the minds of everyone there and perhaps the landscape around them, either making the area around them seems impossible or perhaps the area around them becomes alive and not like through mood, it feels they are on a living, breathing thing. The other idea was perhaps the lake is host to bodies of many in there and they slowly come out to join the festivities of course and bring more to join them in the water's sweet embrace. Its a bit scatter shot but I think I can work with it...but there is my issue, which Entity would pull something like this? Maybe the lake itself is an eldritch being?

Really looking for suggestions or ideas from you fine followers of madness. Hit me with em!

So, just to preface, I ran ‘Amidst the Ancient Trees’ first. It was my first CoC scenario, and I don’t feel great about it, but it was overall successful. I changed the setting to a more IRL location, but my biggest complaint was how I played the NPCs.

With this homebrew scenario, it’s on a train. The investigators are traveling from the location of AtAT to Chicago and I thought “how cool would it be to make the travel session be a full on scenario!”

So, they’re on the train and a murder happens. Someone is shot in the neck with a .22. They do to their due diligence and find some things that don’t quite add up, but there’s not much to go on as far as pinning down a suspect goes. They do narrow it down to a single person, but we had to end the session before any questions were answered.

The session was 6 hours long, and I barely talked at all. Most of it was RP between the players discussing possibilities. No combat, no real major discoveries, just investigation and roleplay.

Coming from DnD where combat is almost standard, I’m shocked that the players weren’t disappointed. I even pointed out the fact there was no action and the closest I got to a complaint was that I didn’t “railroad” hard enough to direct their attention. Funny considering they’re literally on a train on railroad tracks.

Ultimately, I think my success came down to knowing the scenario inside and out, and understanding my NPCs motivations. After creating my own scenario I think it gives me a new perspective on how to run prebuilts.