Back in November I reviewed the Trail of Cthulhu RPG, and now it is time to turn our attention to some of the adventures that have been published by Pelgrane Press for the system. For many of gamers, a roleplaying game is only as good as the adventures that are published for it, and this is especially true as we try to shoehorn in gaming sessions into our busy lives. Nowadays, low prep or no prep sessions are almost a necessary for me and therefore I am always looking for published adventures to either use whole cloth, or at the very least to serve as models of how to structure my own adventures. In this review I will look at two different scenarios written by Graham Walmsley.
Trail of Cthulhu adventures (or what are more accurately called investigations) come in one of two flavors: Purist scenarios are designed to evoke the feel and style of H.P. Lovecraft's stories where the best investigators can hope for is to escape with a shred of their sanity intact after having gained a glimpse of the cosmic horror waiting just beyond the fringes of reality. In contrast, Pulp scenarios take H.P. Lovecraft and apply a liberal dose of action-adventure, creating scenarios in which investigators often end up fighting Mythos horrors with tommy-guns and dynamite. Both are interesting and equally fun, though they typically end up appealing to different types of players.
Graham Walmsley's adventures are very much in the Purist camp, and it's clear right from the start that Mr. Walmsley has done his homework in getting to the heart of what makes Lovecraft's stories so enduring, without simply replicating them directly. As such they are great fun, especially for those of us who love Lovecraft's creepy, ambiguous monsters and nihilistic outlook.
The Dying of St. Margaret's
The Dying of St. Margaret's comes in the form of a 28-page PDF, with an attractive color cover and a black-and-white interior with a few tasteful pieces of art. As such it's fairly reasonable in terms of ink/toner if you're going to print the book out. The layout is neat and easy to follow, although the three-column format makes it less suitable for use on a tablet since the text tends to be quite small.
The investigation, which is set in ToC's default 1930 time-frame, takes place on a remote Scottish island and is centered around a decaying private girls' academy. The standard set-up is that the investigators are all friends or acquaintances of a group of staff from the school that have recently gone missing. Strangers at the beginning of the adventure, each of the investigators meet on the boat ride over to the island where they have each taken a temporary staff position — ranging from divinity master to assistant-gardener — in order to gain access to the school grounds and hopefully discover what happened to their friend.
While this set-up may be a bit harder to fit in to an ongoing campaign, it's well suited for a one-shot, purist adventure and towards this end the adventure includes five pregenerated characters that are perfectly matched to the set-up. It also works extremely well because the ultimate outcome of the adventure is supposed to emulate that of an H.P. Lovecraft story in which the investigators come face-to-face with the realization of their own insignificance in the universe and often end up physically or mentally damaged. In other words, played as intended PCs are not supposed to exit this scenario unscathed.
This, in my opinion, is the most polarizing feature of the scenario because groups that want the bleak outcome typical to many of the original Lovecraft stories are going to really love the feel of this adventure. In contrast, those that prefer to shoot deep ones or ultimately "win" against the Mythos are going to find the adventure really unsatisfying. All is not lost though because Walmsley does include suggestions, including creature stats, in an appendix that lets you convert the adventure to a "pulp" style one.
The investigation itself is fairly straight-forward and while not built on rails (PCs can go where they want and no events are really time critical), it does have a fairly predictable flow that helps a GM keep the suspense building throughout the session. While the core clues of the investigation follow logically from one another, the PDF really could use a flowchart showing how the core clues (and some of the axillary clues) relate to one another.
The scenario is very manageable in terms of locations and NPCs, thanks to the fact that it's set in a small, isolated location (essentially the PCs only can wander the school grounds, the nearby village, or the area in between). Thus, the number of NPCs is fairly limited and easy to keep track of, although making some notes to reference is advisable. In addition, the scenario itself includes a great bunch of roleplaying tips including suggestions for body language that really help bring the NPCs to life. Kudos for that feature: I wish all of the ToC scenarios followed the same format.
Aside from the actual content of the scenario's investigation, Walmsley also has included some specific tips and scene suggestions utilizing flashbacks and specific events that directly connect to the investigators' Drives, pushing them forward at certain points and undermining their confidence at others to turn up the psychological elements of the scenario. This is perhaps my favorite part - although it is also the one that takes the most mastery to fully utilize — because done well it really helps create a sense of history initially and then pushes the investigators to the brink as their mental fortitude starts to unravel in the face of a truly cosmic force.
I have run this scenario twice and had a fabulous time in both cases. I love running it late at night, with the lights turned down and just a couple of candles lighting the table. Atmosphere is critical for really raising the suspense and horror of the scenario. I also like the scenario because it's incredibly flexible — it will work for one to five players equally well (though smaller numbers work best in my opinion) and works equally well for those new to RPGs or grizzled veterans, as long as they're on board with the Purist style. As such, it's now one of my "go to" scenarios for cons. As such I would highly recommend checking it out.
The Watchers in the Sky
The Watchers in the Sky is the second of four Purist scenarios written by Graham Walmsley, and while not meant to be a "sequel" to St. Margaret's, the two scenarios share a certain feel and setting that make them work well as a series, albeit using different investigators.
The scenario is available as a thirty-six page gray-scale PDF (the cover is color). The layout and editing are good, with just a few minor errors. The three-column layout is easy to work with at the table when printed out, but like The Dying of St. Margaret's, the layout makes the PDF very difficult to use on a tablet without a lot of zooming and re-positioning. The scenario includes four handouts at the end of the PDF, each of which looks great.
The Watchers in the Sky is designed to be a standalone scenario, using the five Investigators included with the scenario. While it can be adapted to other investigators, Keepers will find the scenario easier to run and a lot more powerful using these investigators since they have been tailored for the scenario: they each have a strong link to the story, and have been constructed to have a certain amount of friction between each other and the events of the story itself, which really helps bring them to life at the table. It also gets things moving quickly. Having used the investigators from Walmsley's adventures before, I think they really enhance the story and recommend using them to get the most out of the scenario.
As explained in the scenario's description, The Watchers in the Sky blends elements of Hitchcock's with Lovecraftian horror to create something new but which feels familiar. The scenario begins with a prologue, using the Direct Scenes technique Walmsley first introduced in The Dying of St. Margaret's. These help bring to bring the investigators to life, revealing their Sources of Stability and background in a meaningful, story-rich way rather than simply dumping info on players — in other words, this scenario is all about the principle of "show, don't tell." This technique also helps involve players whose characters aren't present in the scene by asking them to take on the role of a NPC, keeping all the players involved and helping create a unique experience.
Once the Prologue is out-of-the-way, the investigation kicks in to full speed, with the group investigating the appearance of a strange flock of misshapen birds. With three different places for PCs to start, the scenario does a wonderful job of bringing the PCs together in a very natural way, having them meet up in the University of Brichester's library after a series of set-up scenes that introduce each of them to different clues regarding the investigation, though all involve strange misshapen birds that seem to be watching those involved. Once they meet in the library the pace of the investigation picks up, as the group pieces together clues to track down the origins of the strange flock of birds, uncover cultists, and ultimately discover part of the horrible truth behind the creatures.
The Watchers in the Sky is very well-written, with an immense amount of advice and guidelines on how to bring the scenario to life, although much of it is embedded in the text and thus it requires some careful reading to get the most out of it. For example, all of the major NPCs are succinctly, but vividly outlined, complete with suggestions on how to portray that at the table — for a Keeper who likes to really get into roles, this is awesome stuff, as it is to those new to the art of GMing, though the latter may find it all a bit intimidating at first.
Similarly, the scenario works best when a GM knows it inside and out, and where players take a proactive role in talking to NPCs, searching locations (though GUMSHOE's rules help a lot here), and actively following up clues. Without this active engagement the scenario is likely to fall flat and passive, "make the connections for us" type groups will find the scenario difficult or even boring. However, this is unlikely to be a problem for the vast majority of Trail of Cthulhu groups given the nature and focus of the game.
The scenario is also written in a wonderful, open-ended manner in which not all of the details of the Horrible Truth are provided. This approach may annoy some readers, but it keeps true to Lovecraft's own approach — particularly in his more "Purist" stories which Watchers is trying to emulate — in which only glimpses of creatures are provided and much of the real details are left to the reader's imagination. This helps provide an unsettling uncertainty to the whole story which I think really ramps up the suspense and mystery. It also lets the Keeper customize the scenario to his or her perspective on the Mythos and thus make it their own.
One other feature of the scenario bears mentioning: it includes a sidebar featuring alternative to the default ToC Insanity rules ("Drive yourself Crazy") in which the players take control of when their investigators suffer Stability loss rather than the GM — the players decide when to call for Stability Checks, thereby putting control of their character's descent into madness. These rules are a great addition to the game for seasoned players, especially those who want to play a character who is clearly out of their depth or losing their grip on reality. I love this approach and it's one I've adopted for nearly all my ToC games since it both offloads some of my work as a Keeper plus rewards players for engaging both the system and the genre. I also love it for use with these single scenarios using pregenerated characters since it lets players pace their character's slipping sanity. That said, the rules are not going to work for every group, particularly if you're playing with those who are unfamiliar with Lovecraftian horror or who are extremely gamist (i.e., you can make your character essentially impervious to the horror simply by choosing to never lose sanity — keep in mind that for some characters would make perfect sense).
The Watchers in the Sky is another excellent example of a Purist scenario in which the investigators are ultimately helpless against the forces they're up against and much of the story involves their battling with this realization. Similarly, Hitchcock's The Birds doesn't end with the good guys winning but rather with the protagonists driving away with huge flocks of birds. Thus, this scenario manages to stay true to both sources of inspiration, blending the two to create something new and interesting.
The Watchers in the Sky does a fine job of this: it is explicitly designed to be played in Purist mode and would be difficult to convert to a Pulp-style game and won't appeal to those looking for that style of game. That doesn't mean Watchers is boring though. In fact it is engaging, well-paced, and has the potential for a lot of suspense. Hence, it delivers exactly what Purists want and does so in a novel way. Watchers also helps demonstrate how robust the Trail of Cthulhu rules are, focusing on the Sources of Stability mechanic, bringing it to the forefront.
My Verdict
And there we have it: two adventures which can be used back to back as a series. However, although these two adventures complement each other perfectly, they each have a unique feel to them: St. Margaret's is all about bleak despair and decay, while Watchers focuses on the mysterious and weird alien nature associated with the Mythos. As such, it's clear that Walmsley has a clear understanding of the different themes present in Lovecraft's stories and that's what makes these scenarios so great. I would highly recommend both scenarios, especially if you're tastes lean towards more traditional Lovecraftian fare.
