A play report on Murder Shack!
SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!! And once again SPOILERS!!
- System: Cthulhu 7th ed
- Scenario: Murder Shack
- Played on: Good Friends of Jackson Elias discord server and Roll20
- Keeper: Diesel680
- Players and investigators names:
- Stef1885 – The Carpenter
- Sarah D – The Film maker
- ColonicAnimal – The Journalist
- GailC – The Nurse
If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says
15 miles to the Murder Shack
Murder Shack, yeah, yeah
I'm headin' down the Des Moines highway
Lookin' for the murder getaway
Headed for the murder getaway
I got me a car, it's got a freaky woman in it
And we're headin' on down to the Murder Shack!
I promise that will be the only reference to the B52s Love
Shack record….but its to much of an opportunity not to mention it – as I am
sure everyone does that plays this Scott Dorward scenario. I am sure Kate Pierson and co will be happy
to know their song of love and happiness is being used by me to describe a
truly horrific scenario with as much gore and blood as can be shoved into a few
hours. So actually a great way to spend
the evening (or day depending on your location).
I was lucky enough to join this game via the Good Friends of
Jackson Elias discord server. There are
always a wide array of games on there, and when this popped up with Diesel680
as Keeper I knew I had to sign up.
Diesel had reffed a game of Vaesen I had been in a few months ago so I
knew this would be high quality stuff.
The Scenario itself is included in one of the Blasphemous
Tomes that the GFJE pod crew produce for their patreons. I have a copy but hadn’t read it for months,
although you don’t need to be a gnome seer to foretell how this goes – lets
face it, MURDER SHACK kind of screams at you what to expect.
I think what is tricky for The Keeper is this exact problem
and Diesel handled it excellently with us as a group. There was no point in doing the intro bit and
then saying as a PC ‘lets not go to the shack’.
It kind of defeats the purpose! Diesel was very upfront and made sure we
all knew that this wasn’t like playing a Masks campaign. Going in knowing the
PC was going to probably not have the best time at the MURDER SHACK and that
skill checks afterwards were not on the agenda was probably the best approach.
There were four Investigators in total and we all chose a
pre gen character (a carpenter, nurse, journalist and a film maker). We started by filling out some of the
personal details and had to choose which one of our next of kin or friends or
close ones had been murdered the previous year in a shack. We had all nodded our heads to the usual
warnings that this is a pretty brutal scenario and had the X card talk etc, but
how far could we take this? I did
retreat from my original idea (never quite sure how far to go with players you
don’t know) and went with my son who was a teenager who had been killed at the
shack. Others chose girlfriend, daughter
and a twin brother.
The starting point was a self help group for relatives of
those that have been murdered – you know the kind of place you go to find
‘closure’. What made this really good (I
felt) was that the awkwardness of us as players who didn’t really know each
other, kind of made the whole atmosphere for the Investigators in that scene
more absorbing. What to say? Who to converse with? How to approach this
whole issue? We all had some moments in
the spotlights and tried to emphasise aspects of our characters. My PC was hot headed and quick to temper
frustrated with the lack of progress made on the case by the Police. The session was being led by a Pastor who had
introduced a NPC called ‘Annie’ who didn’t say anything but kept looking at us
all and looking away.
In particular we all started talking about how we wanted to
find out what was going on and maybe review all the evidence from the
case. As a group of players this gave us
a really good hook to really start to talk with each other in character and
discuss a plan, and provide us with an excuse if it was needed to get to the
lov…I mean Murder Shack. It probably
seemed a bit meta but we knew we had to go there so it was nice we all played
along and made the relevant excuses to ensure we could end up there. Probably the only instance when meta gaming
is actually required to move the scenario along.
To help with this decision making and just in case we wanted to not all die at the MURDER SHACK the Keeper handily has Annie show our PCs pictures of our loved ones after the meeting and says she talked to them earlier and knows where they are. Cue the roleplaying of disbelief, outrage, handwringing etc etc, but quick as you could say ‘The B52s’ we were all in cars heading up the highway to the MURDER SHACK without a second thought.
Would we as a group scout around? Would we have a party discussion and consider the best approach? Nah of course not, my character being the hot head walks straight in with his hunting rifle shouting for his son. Everyone else follows and then we all start hearing the voices of our loved ones that pull us into different parts of the MURDER SHACK. Did I mention the lights don’t work? As you would expect from this point all hell breaks loose as SAN rolls start happening at a rapid rate and before you can say ‘Roam if you want to’, my investigator has lost his shit and attacks one of the others. At the end of the fight I am gutted and holding my fellow investigators head after he fumbled and fell onto his own knife. I then get attacked by the mad film maker who has suggested we all kill each other at the same time (cray stuff huh?) – but as carpenters are generally a bit better at that fighting lark than film makers I managed to take off the top half of her head with my sickle (oh yeah these started appearing for us to kill each other with – how convenient). So, it was left to the Nurse and the Carpenter to duke it out. In the end the pepper spray the nurse had along with a fine roll that gutted my investigator ended my night after 3 damage was taken. But there was more to follow.
The first player whose investigator had died was given Annie
to play and the Nurse was making her escape from this crazy place. Somehow the nurse got hold of the gun and blew
a few holes in the horrible shack, this resulted in splinters showering the
nurse but a hole opening – out she dove through that hole – safe at last! Was a investigator and player going to make
it out of the MURDER SHACK! Off the
nurse drove, even managing to persuade police that the blood and gore all over
themselves was nothing to be concerned about.
Back at home, in the shower – time to relax…not exactly, the splinters
are pieces of the shack that burrown in the skin, the skin erupts and the black
protoplasm engulfs the nurse as they understand that actually they never left
the shack and never will.
Meanwhile…Annie has found a trap door leading down into the
dark. The obvious thing to do like in
all good horror movies is go down there right?
No lights, no problem! Lets just
say Annie doesn’t make it out either.
Diesel680 asked me to clarify just in case there is any doubt ‘I
don’t know if I got to it in all the excitement: the dead investigators and
their loved ones were all in that big living wall of protoplasmic slime and goo
at the end of the game.’
Really enjoyable, deffo one for a convention or a one off
game with friends and one I shall be running in the future. Its elegance is in its simplicity and as long
as the Keeper sets the expectations at the start everyone will have a great
bloody time. In some ways this kind of reminds me of the Kobayashi Maru
Scenario from Star Trek where you are destined to fail – except in this version
you can’t cheat and all would be wearing the dreaded red security shirt…..
Until next time remember Parrying is for wimps!
PS – I really do like the B52s – check out Cosmic Thing
album if you want to hear Love Shack :>
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