Sunday, February 5, 2017

Play Report: Pulp Cthulhu Campaign Session 1

This past week I ran the first game of a Pulp Cthulhu campaign that I'm running at the Malted Meeple and it went amazingly well. I had advertised the game in multiple places, and it paid off as I had 7 people show up to play in the game - the largest table that I've run in years. Two of the players had never played Call of Cthulhu before, and for one this was their first RPG ever.

This is my play report of the game. Its probably going to be long. :)

Character Creation 

For the first hour we did character creation. The character creation process for Pulp Cthulhu is pretty straightforward and doesn't deviate much from the 7th edition character creation process. Since Pulp Cthulhu is a more action-oriented game, the characters get better stats, higher skills, and more HP.

In Pulp Cthulhu, there are two additional things the PCs get: an archetype and talents. The archetype is different from their occupation, and describes the PC's look on life. Some example archetypes are adventurer, hard boiled, and rogue. The archetype gives them more skill points in specific skills, and a core characteristic in which they get to roll (1d6+13)*5.

Talents are special skills or abilities the Pulp character has. Talents are broken up into four categories: physical, mental, combat, and miscellaneous. These are used to give the PC just a little more of an edge to make them just a little better.

In the end, we had 2 author-explorers, 3 criminals, and 2 detectives. Not super balanced, but as a group they ended up doing well.

Play Report - The Initiation Ceremony

The game started with the PCs being invited to a mansion on the outskirts of Arkham to join a secret society called the Order of the Hawk. Each arrived and were led to a magnificent ballroom where they met a number of the members, including the Order's leader, a gruff British officer named Major Rupert Ellis; his daughter, Marilyn; and the Order's resident "researcher", Professor Arthur Emery.

After being led to a secret ceremonial room encircled by men in robes, Major Ellis explained that the Order was hundreds of years old and worked to prevent evil from succeeding in the world. All of the PCs had exemplified themselves somehow and were being invited to join.

As an example of what they protect, the Major showed them the Sun Fragment, a circular obsidian fragment engraved with the black circle, an ancient occult symbol. The Major explained that this fragment had been entrusted to the Order many years ago to protect it from those who would wish to use it to do evil. As if on cue, explosions, gun fire, and screaming could be heard from the mansion above.

The door was flung open and in walked a Nazi Thule Society officer, Colonel Hariman Muller, followed by a man in occult robes. The men around the room threw off their robes, revealing themselves to be Nazi soldiers holding machine guns. Colonel Mueller, wanted the Sun Fragment. The Major refused, and soon a gunfight ensued.

Unfortunately for the PCs, the man in occult robes began to chant and soon transformed into a Formless Spawn. Unfortunately for the PCs, again, they only had guns which proved ineffective. Fortunately, Prof. Muller was there with his experimental lightening gun that seemed to hurt the creature. As the melee was winding down, the group saw the Colonel leaving with the fragment.

A car chase then occurred, with the PCs tailing the Colonel. It ended with the PCs shooting out the tires of the Colonel's car, it flipping through the air, and landing on the banks of the Miskatonic River. Unfortunately, a boat was waiting on the edge of the river for the Colonel who sped away, victory in hand.

The PCs met up again and - with the help of an ancient Greek paper found in the Colonel's car, and a captured Nazi soldier who mocked them before biting on a suicide-tooth - learned that the Sun Fragment was the center piece of a tablet that was broken up thousands of years ago by unknown ancients. The fragments were scattered around the world, as if they were joined together the tablet could be used to call down Cthugha to rain fire and destruction on any location.

No one knew where the fragments were at. However, a scroll within the Library of Alexandria gave hints as to where the fragments were located at. The paper stated that while most of the Library had been destroyed, ancient protectors had transported a portion of it to a cave beneath the Mediterranean Sea to protect it from Cthugha cultists that wanted the scroll. With the location in the paper, Prof. Emery was convinced he could use his new "gate" technology to transport them there. (It was perfectly safe - all of the monkeys had came back fine, just only losing a little hair.)

To allow them to return, the professor gave them a sphere, which they could throw at the location the gate appeared at to reopen it. However, they could only use it once.

The PCs were reluctant, but Major Ellis begged them to go. They were part of the Order now, and most of the other members were injured or dead. If Col. Mueller were to get his hands on the fragments, the devastation would be immense. The PCs agreed to go, and before they knew it, they were stepping through the gate to the hidden Library of Alexandria.


This was only the first half of our game, but this post is getting long. In my next post, I'll detail their exciting adventure at the Library, and how I freaked two players out by giving them 3 minutes to survive in my trap of watery doom!



1 comment:

  1. Sad I missed this one. Question, do you like "Keeping" a low action/high role-playing session or the high action/low RP session. The DMs(GMs/Keepers) I have had the pleasure to enjoy usually fall to one side or the other.

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