Blackwater Creek - Keeper preparation and ideas SPOILERS!

Preparation for running Blackwater Creek - SPOILERS If you go down to the creek today you're in for a big surprise, if you go down to the creek today you'll never believe your eyes.....

System: Call of Cthulhu 7th ed

Scenario: Blackwater Creek

Played on: RPG Nook discord server and Roll20

Players and Investigators:

Player: Verben / Investigator: Mr. Johan Dennis Hans Heisenberg / Bio: A student who spends too much time with the whisky bottle thinking about socialist theory.

Player: Scrooge / Investigator: Mr. Nathan Samuel Kay / Bio: A student in thrall to academia and forging his own furrow in the new field of ‘Forensics’.

Player: Zpectatorf / Investigator: Mr. Nelson Germander / Bio: A mature private investigator who is not adverse to bending the law if it gets the job done and gives him money towards his pension.

Player: 4AcrossIsEmu / Investigator: Prof. Watson Wolforth / Bio: An old Professor with disdain for students and others in general.  Grey is his favourite colour to match his dour outlook.

Preparation and background

I had run this scenario once before for my ‘normal’ group of friends.  By ‘normal’ I mean I have been playing RPGs with them since the late 80s.  We all grew up together playing RPGs.  More information on my RPG journey will be added to this blog in due course. The key fact is that until I ran this scenario on RPG Nook with these players I had never GM’d, Reffed or Keeped a game for anyone else except the friends I had grown up with.  Is that strange?  I really have no idea, nowadays with the explosion in VTTs and gaming it seems awfully analogue, but years ago when you could only go to your local club or meet with friends to play in person it didn’t seem to ridiculous.

So fair to say i was curious to see how this would go with people I had never actually met in person.  I have been playing games via RPG Nook for nearly a year now and it really is a great server for many games. So, I did know the players via playing in many games while on RPG Nook, but being a Keeper really felt like the bar was being raised.  I had limited experience running Cthulhu as a Keeper so could I cope?  Would the players enjoy the game?  Will the scenario run as I expected? Can I react in game to the curve balls the players will inevitably throw at me?

In terms of preparation I had a lot of material on Roll20 from when I ran the game previously.  I’d given myself about 4 weeks worth of time to prepare for the game. You can find lot of notes, gameplays, revised handouts and advice on playing Blackwater Creek on the internet, so after a quick review of all the materials I revised all my handouts and read through the scenario again.  One of the things I have learned playing on VTTs and in particular for Cthulhu games, is that you can really get away with minimal Roll20 maps. 

Very often you can have a decent looking intro screen and effectively just add handouts, as a lot of the play is descriptive between the Keeper and Players.  For other RPGs like DnD, maps seem to be more necessary due to the game mechanics, but with Cthulhu this is not so much of an issue.  As every good Keeper does, I do have some other scenes set up on Roll20 ready where they could be necessary, particularly in areas where there could be some action.  Not necessarily to provide a ‘battle map’, but more to give a visual representation to the players about the layout and approximate distances between certain structures, for example I could move the players to the maps for Blackwater Creek, Jarvey Farm, Carmody Farm and the Carmody Farmhouse.  The last scene I put together was for when the Investigators get to the Cave entrance.  I felt this was needed to emphasise the point about a change in scene that is looking towards the end game.#

 

 I added all the NPCs with portrait pictures into Roll20 Cthulhu sheets.  I like to do this to provide the players with a picture when they interact with the NPC.  I then added each location with a picture and all the relevant in game info as an aide memoir in the GM notes section of each description.  You can spend a lot of time searching for pics for locations, NPCs etc to add to your Roll20 game, so be warned! 

I provided a short summary from the scenario to help the players devise a backstory for how their Investigators are connected with the main NPCs or Miskatonic University.  The Players got their characters together using the most amazing investigator creation system that members of RPG Nook developed specifically for use in Roll20.  At a click of a button on Roll20 you get your stats and then can make up your Investigator using a Roll20 Cthulhu sheet. 

After importing the investigators into my game on Roll20 we were ready to go.  In my experience of using Roll20 over the last year, it seems the in built audio (and video although we don’t use video when playing games in RPG Nook) is pretty poor, in terms of quality and connection status so these settings are turned off in the Roll20 game.  Generally, I use Discord for the audio (and video for games outside RPG Nook) and that seems pretty standard for other games I have played in over the last year. 

Blackwater Creek is described as a ‘sandbox’ scenario with the Investigators being inserted into an ongoing story arc that proceeds with them in it.  So, from the scenario you can make your own judgement about what is occurring and emphasise certain issues mentioned. I had planned on getting the PCs involved with the power struggle between the Carmodys and Sprouston but the players had other ideas, which i'll explain in subsequent entries on the descriptions of play. 

Other narratives I had ready to use included:

• A scene where the investigators can access Prof. Roades office to gain some additional information (an idea lifted from the internet that seemed sensible to have prepared).
• I wanted to make use of the church and a service on the Sunday. The scenario actually starts on a Friday (if you look up 24^th Sept 1926), But the service is not the normal type as Sprouston is now preaching about the Mother.
• An encounter with some local farmers (or hillbillies) as they travel to Blackwater Creek.  Of course, what I thought would be a straightforward encounter to emphasise how unfriendly and out of the way the location was turned into a full on blood bath! 

So on the night getting ready start, I had my cup of tea, my pint of water, notepad and pen and the cheat sheet rules to hand.  Off to Blackwater Creek we go….what could possible go wrong...

I'll add the play description in separate entries,  I had planned for two 3hr sessions, but it stretched out to 3 sessions. So much for careful planning!

Until next post remember, Parrying is for wimps!