Sanity Loss Guaranteed

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Mi-Go Had a Very Shiny Brain Case As a late Christmas gift I've decided to update my PBTA Cthulhu Hack with a few new things. Find it here TOMES AND ARTEFACTS Mythos Tomes and artefacts are described using four areas of study where each area of study can have several steps required to reach the full understanding of the book or the artefact. For books, the areas of study are these: Subject Matter . This is the subject matter that the book itself covers. Author . What can be found out about the author or authors of the book. History . When was this written and how can the book be put into its context of the time? Versions and Editions . What other editions and versions are available? Is the book based on older original texts? For artefacts the areas are different, but the setup is very similar. DOWNTIME I've also added a chapter about handling downtime between adventures where you can advance your character. During this chapter each ...

Good evening. I've added a chapter to the PBTA hack about creating mythos stories. The link to the full PDF is here, but I've also reproduced the chapter below for ease of reference. Hope you enjoy it. It's a theme I will certainly return to as I think it's one of the most challenging ones when trying to capture the magic of the stories from HP Lovecraft. CREATING A MYTHOS STORY Creating a roleplaying story about the Cthulhu Mythos is like creating any story. It has to be exciting, filled with interesting characters and memorable locations.  CHOOSE MYTHOS ENTITY All mythos stories should pertain to only one single mythos entity and it’s servants. Whether it’s Nyarlathotep, Azatoth or The Colour Out of Space will make a huge difference to the story. Nyarlathotep can be described as malevolent, whereas Azatoth is blind and insane and doesn’t even recognise the existence of human beings. The Colour out of Space is almost like a force of nature. It...

The second part of my N-part series on running a long campaign touches on the subject of character mortality. Put bluntly: How many damn times can my character die before I stop caring about the next one? It's a difficult question to answer of course and depends on every single group, player and game master. The trick is to get it just right, which you already knew before reading this, so I'll try to get a bit more specific. First, lets talk about the positives coming from player characters dying during your campaign. There aren't many, of course, but there's one important one. That is that the players won't feel safe and secure that their characters will make it through whatever bind they get into. It makes them keep on their toes and think through any decisions they make. In other words, they get more invested in the story because there's the possibility they'll have to pay the ultimate price. The main negative, apart from the obvious like you having...

While we are closing in on the end of our Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign I feel like I can start writing about it in general without running the risk of revealing anything new to my players. I'd like to talk a little bit about one thing that I've always struggled with while running longer games, which is motivation as a GM. It is vital to keep motivated to be able to keep the game running to its conclusion. I can't tell you how many times I've started a longer campaign just to have it fizzle out due to lack of inspiration and just general boredom. I will use our Masks campaign as an example, so here's a brief overview of it... - Our first session was played on the 10th of January 2017. - Our latest session was played on October 30th of 2018, and we still have at least a couple more to go. - To date, we have played 55 sessions, each one between 2.5 and 3 hours long. - We are spread out between Spain, Sweden and the UK so we use Roll20 and Discord as our tools...

Right. This is my first post in this series where I will write down random reflections and ideas about things that I have learnt while playing and game mastering for more than 30 years. To be fair, most of this I've learnt recently, or at least I have only begun to think about it consciously in the last year or so. Fourteen year old me just wasn't that interested in actually analyzing what he was doing. This post probably seems like GM:ing 101 for most of you, and not something you should discover after playing for more than 30 years. But hey, shit happens! When you run any game, short or long, you need to think carefully about when and how you present information and clues to your players. This could be the single most important, and hardest, thing to do as a GM. Some of us GMs are good at roleplaying our NPCs, some of us describe the settings and set the mood wonderfully and some of us are just great at coming up with interesting story lines and plot twists, but not a...

Hey Following up on my post with the PDFs for my PBTA Call of Cthulhu hack I am now posting my first scenario to the very same. It's been inspired by the HP Lovecraft story The Colour Out Of Space and is a short scenario, probably doable in a single session. My aim was to write a scenario that had a Lovecraft feel to it, which I hope comes across in this one. Anyway... Download the PDF here. PS. If you think there's a chance I will run this scenario with you, please don't read it before I do.

Good morning fellow Lovecraftians! Inspired by Kult:Divinity Lost and a long running campaign of Masks of Nyarlathotep (we are close to the end now and there will be posts about this once we have reached it) I have decide to create my own PBTA Call of Cthulhu Hack.  Why? Because I love Call of Cthulhu BUT... the rules feel outdated and not quite suited to the type of game I want to run. It feels a bit like going back to the 80s again where everything is just a single number without any real depth to it. And don't get me started on the Sanity system... Also, I am working on a scenario for Kult: Divinity Lost that may or may not see the light of day as a published thing and I just LOVE the system. To me it seems like the perfect combination. For anyone who doesn't know what Apocalypse World or Kult: Divinity Lost, you should look them up. http://kultdivinitylost.com/ http://apocalypse-world.com/ They are both awesome! So much better than this little hack that I...

Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog about pen and paper roleplaying games. I can't guarantee anything but sanity loss to all who enter here. Stay posted for more...