- System: Call of Cthulhu (modern) - A Tableau of Red
- Played on: RPG Nook Discord and Roll20
- Players: Yeti / Orf / Speed / Newman / Hedge / Jeremy A
I remember having an argument with my daughter when she was choosing her options at school. She wanted to do ‘art’ and as parents we thought she should do something more academic. However, she got her way (as she does with most things :>), completed two years of artwork (we even went to the Lake District so she could take photos of herself in a lake for her final project!) and came out with an A. as I tell everyone who will listen, if you do something do the best you possibly can and don’t create excuses for yourself or listen to those who think they know better than you (although she did drop art after leaving school as it wasn’t what she hoped it would be…so I was right in the end…lol). What has this to do with a scenario by Helen Yau for Call of Cthulhu? Well first of all the story is based around a bunch of artists who end up having to create a ‘Tableau of Red’ to allow some Bloody Horrors into our world to teach us how to do art properly….and by that I mean causing mass carnage and killing and generally showing how crap humans are in face of unfolding cosmic horror.
This is a modern day scenario available via the Miskatonic
Repository, and I ran it via RPG Nook and their players as part of our regular
‘review a scenario sessions.’ So what
artistic lessons did we glean from this scenario in terms of Keeping and
playing……..
First, the artwork I really liked. It has a certain style to it that is pleasing
on the eye. Mainly this relates to the
pregens that are provided. The pictures
of the pregens immediately allow you to start constructing the traits and
foibles of the pregens presented. There
are 6 pregens provided, which is more than needed to play the scenario but at
least you have a range of options.
The root of the story starts with a summer school art
student that starts having strange dreams.
He shares the dreams with his classmates and all of sudden we have a
contagious dream state that is encouraging the art students group to forget
about all that fine art and get into butchery.
They must create a portal of meat (A Tableau of Red) to allow the
strange dream creatures to enter our dimension.
They are compelled to do so as they are driven mad by the dreams. The students have been taught over the summer
by an artist called Shawn Lexington based in Barcelona. It is the end of the summer (and the summer
art school) and Shawn has invited his friends (the players) to Barcelona for a
relaxing weekend. The scenario starts in
a restaurant in Barcelona with the players and Shawn enjoying a fine wine and a
meal….then things take a turn for the worse as one of the maddened artists
comes into the restaurant disturbing the meal while ranting about ‘the red just
isn’t right’, during this scene the NPC reveals deep cuts and lacerations to
her arms indicating the level of her madness and cutting herself while trying
to get the right shade of red. She targets her madness at Shawn as her art
teacher who didn’t help them enough to get the red right. She then runs out of
the restaurant causing a ruckus and flees into the late summer Barcelona
evening.
The expectation after this is that she escapes and
eventually Shawn is kidnapped by the crazy artists who sacrifice him to be part
of their final art sculpture. This
kidnap is the hook that is meant to get the players to follow the crumb trail
of leads to the final showdown with the students as their plans to release the
‘Bloody Nightmares’ come to their conclusion in a horrific battle.
The idea of the story is good one, but if you have to run
this scenario as a Keeper there are a number of inconsistencies that make it
difficult to pull together into a coherent story for players to engage
with.
The Hook
The glaringly obvious issue is the hook. Although we all suspend belief when playing any RPG and players often have to ‘buy in’ to a story for the scenario to proceed, there are points in a story where you think – any sane player would do X which would then effectively end (break) the scenario. In this case for example, why would the players (who are all artists or some other non-investigative nature in terms of the careers) go on a wild chase around Barcelona for their friend who it appears has been kidnapped by some crazy cult that kills and mutilates animals and other humans? Surely, they would just go to the Police and hand over the case to them. To be fair the scenario does say that the police are effectively ‘too busy’ and won’t follow this up. Maybe at the very start when the players have no evidence apart from Shawn going missing the police may not pay too much interest into a adult male who has gone missing, but with photos of evidence gained during the course of the investigation its pretty clear someone in authority would start paying attention. Also, once it was reported to the Police why would the players carry on investigating? They are not PIs or Police themselves, they have work and jobs etc to be getting on with. Sure, they may be concerned with their friends absence but would there really be a group of architects and others chasing a murdering cultist group around Barcelona with no skills apart from a bit of spot hidden?
As players and a Keeper you enter into a agreement about the game - that normality is suspended, but this felt like a stretch to far. So how could this be fixed? I think there are several ways a Keeper could reinterpret this to get the hook to be more enticing for the players– for example, maybe Shawn Lexington is the corruptor of the students and invited the players to be with him so he could work them into his sacrificial ritual? Maybe the players are a group of religious investigators who have found evidence of disturbing practices and are following this up on behalf of their respective faiths (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!). Or the players are part of the homeless community (missing homeless people is one of the clues in the scenario that something strange is happening) that knows some of their friends have been abducted and are following this up and get embroiled in the search and finding out about the artists plans. Maybe the players are cops who in spite of their bosses are convinced there is more to the missing animals (lots of these are going missing as another clue that players can find out about) and homeless situation and start digging into the situation to find out what is going on, what if one of the crazy artists was the son or daughter of one of the cops? Another way to interpret this would be to change it to a Delta Green game! As Agents you are bought in due to reports of strange animal and human mutilations and you have to stop the unnatural threat in secrecy. A perfect situation for a DG scenario (the more I think about it the more I like this idea….). The idea of a contagious dream would also be quite cool – maybe the players are potentially exposed to the dream (POW rolls?) and secretly start to work against their colleagues or lead them into a trap to become sacrifices….is the scale of the infection amongst residents of Barcelona larger than just the art students depicted in the scenario? This could go in lots of interesting directions with a bit more work.
Location
The scenario is set in Barcelona – a lovely location, however
the scenario fills several pages with descriptions of the city – its various
regions and what is found there. Kind of
like a travel guide. This has no impact
on the scenario story or play and just seems a bit strange to include when you
can find all this info out with a simple web search.
The main scenes could make for a nice sandbox scenario – the problem is that the clues provided to get between the scenes are difficult to reconcile with what the investigators (as written in the scenario) would be doing. My players skipped several scenes as they just weren’t needed to reach the final conclusion as to what was happening and where the location of the final encounter was going to be.
In the first instance, the players decided to go to Shawn
Lexingtons art studio where he had the final art projects completed during the
summer by the students in storage. I
also played it that he had the students home addresses here so he could pass
those onto the players to follow up as needed.
The players did play the hook such that they were concerned for the
mental state of the young woman who had come into the restaurant in such a
distressed state and wanted to ensure she was ok (but again surely this would
be reported to the authorities to be dealt with by professionals). This scene is an example of how the Keeper
has to embellish the minimal information given in the scenario – partly to help
with pacing but also to start bringing in the SAN losses and make it a
compelling one shot. The provided
information has a few descriptions of the artists work left in the studio but
it needs to be ‘beefed up’ so to speak.
For example, one of the artists pieces is described in the scenario as:
‘Item 9; ‘The living forest’ - Created by Mateo, this
is a large canvas which is streaked in reds and purples, creating dark
interlocking branches. Cut into a knife, the white of the canvas can be seen
through the thick paint. With a hard Spot Hidden or relevant Art skill, the
colours are not randomly placed, and the whole canvas depicts a face with small
eyes, set far back from a large gaping maw. Rows of crooked teeth protrude at
unnatural angles.’
This kind of description is all well and good but how does
it impact the players at a mechanical level?
What can we bring to bear that will challenge the players, get some
rolls going and potentially have an impact on their SAN and roleplaying. I changed these descriptions to include
simple additions like:
‘The living
forest’ v2 POW roll - if fail -the jaws snap and bite and they start to devour your arm.
but it is a delusion. SAN 1/ 1d4.
The idea being
that the player is having a delusion which is a fun roleplaying moment while
having the players get the impression that this is pretty significant horrific art
they are dealing with that has consequences when you interact with it.
This issue is relevant throughout the scenario, but a good Keeper can work through these but it takes a level or preparation that in some ways makes you wonder why you are paying for the scenario in the first place.
Lack of playtesting ??
As I stated at
the start, the idea behind this scenario is sound but it feels like it wasn’t
play tested enough. There are just too
many holes and inconsistencies that signify to me a lack of play testing.
The end scene
with the Tableau and the summoning provides opportunities for the Keeper to get
the pace going and that final ‘big boss’ moment – but as with other scenes in
the scenario, it is less than one page and has minimal description leaving it
to the Keeper to think about details and how to run it. In a standard homebrew scenario you write your
own notes and as a guide to provide a framework for some players, this is fine,
as other details are needed as you make them up on the fly and in response ot
the players actions. For a product that you have to pay for as a finished
scenario (as in this case), ‘A Tableau of Red’ is a bit too near the ‘not yet
ready to be published’ side of the spectrum.
I’d like to see the author produce an updated version that has gone through
more robust play testing to provide more details and remove some of the
inconsistencies within the set up – as in here is a really nice idea that just
needs to be knocked into shape. Think of
it as the rough draft before the final masterpiece…………………..
Summary..
So to summarise,
good idea, potential for lots of horror, potential to have a contagious dream
included. On the down side – it needs
more play testing and ideas to be fully rounded before an updated version is released. The Keeper at the moment has to put a lot of
work at a basic level to ensure the players can have a coherent experience.
I will leave you
with a scene from the tortured artist Johnny Painter (Fast Show fame) who
although not dealing with Red has a certain madness when it comes to ‘Black’.
That’s it for now, until next time – remember Parrying Is For Wimps!
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