Call of Cthulhu: Panacea - RPG Review
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- Опубліковано 27 жов 2021
- A miracle cure drug hides a monstrous side-effect. The Player Characters find themselves facing off against a sinister pharmaceutical company, a conspiracy, and a refreshing take on a popular Mythos creature in this modern-day scenario.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC and his super-sweet moustache. - Ігри
That "Hello internet" always feels like a warm smile ^^
Except, this time, it is delivered by a jacked-in Dark Young 😱🦑
That is when I press the like button.
You think so? I always thought it sounded like something like a serial killer would say to you when he comes home to his torture dungeon he had you locked up in all weekend.......maybe that's just me?
"All I know is our ability to delay action is infinite."
From one GM to another: I know that feel, bro.
Those drinks you had at the party were supplied by Zymed-Bio. They could just be alcohol …
Playing an Edge of Darkness game right now.
I started by saying the research phase of the module is short. Added that Rupert says that he got everything to banish the lurker in the house. Party spent 4 hours doing everything but going to the farmhouse.
This scenario needs a cubicle farm full of office workers.
A loud noise makes them all pop out of their cubicles to watch.
They are all prairie dogs.
I like the idea of the Dark Young having access to Alexa or something similar, and talk through that.
Specifically because you could literally use text to speak to make that dialogue.
Well, it certainly can't use the usual TTS software. The Emperor protects...that app. Roughing up warp entities is pretty much His thing.
This is why I come here. Great ideas.
Heck, the way phones are connected to the internet, you could have the Dark Young even Call a player, pretending to be someone they know. You know, because it’s hungry and ones some take out.
@@jesternario The pizza man thought he was delivering dinner. Poor soul. He didn't know how right he was.
microsoft sam would probably a recommended tts voice
Maybe set up a date where they are going to send out the "drug" for human trials across the country... unless somebody goes in and stops them before the shipment goes out on, uh, lets say Tuesday?
Theranos meets the Mythos!
A pending FDA approval and distribution across the country is a fitting deadline
Tuesday?! You mean last Tuesday? Shit, we delayed too long.
This is what I was thinking. There's already a baked in 'ticking time bomb' it's just not stated how long the timer is set for.
Outlandish UA-cam theory: the infamous eldritch Algorithm is, in fact, a facet of Yog Sathoth that touches this reality, hence why we can’t fathom it’s nature and arcane angles. We do know it responds to sacrifice & supplication, so let this comment appease thee, Oh Lurker at the Threshold!
As shit as GW is, I'd rather supplicate the Omnissaiah for protection and wisdom in navigating the algorithms.
Edit** actually... Might be fun to run some warhammer fantasy characters thru a cthulu mythos game. They would be pretty well suited against ghouls, night gaunts, and dark young, but dealing with the gods still ends in madness and death.
@@NotoriusBEN1 The GW execs aren’t just shit, they’re the literal worst. I’m loyal to the creators of Warhammer and the lore, but not the business ghouls. I think most of their flailing around was desperation with not keeping up with the times - 3D printing, internet file sharing, etc.
@@Military-gradenutella3068 oh i know, i've kept up with all the latest hubbub with regards to the money grubbing that GW has been doing and the quasi illegal NDAs and copyright strikes and such. but as we can see, the sudden tightening of the first has just accelerated the fans' look for alternative products. 3D printing boomed so hard that for a couple days people in that community were wondering what the sudden interest was all about. Even manufacturers were like, holy crap for a couple of days.
Actually, I'm wondering if that's why there are so many shitheels (they were always there, but the warhammer types always had a standard deviation more of them) in tournaments and in game store scrimmages... they drop like 2000$ on an army and someone else beats them and then they have that mute voice saying to them, ''what did I spend all this money on?!'' Make the game affordable, a normal sized army for 30$ or 40$? Maybe people dont get quite so 'invested' in winning?
Someone should have given that "Way to go Chuck!" guy another drink. Lovecraftian horror needs more insane levity.
Having an adventures BBEG actually TALK to the PCs before any conflict is always a power move. :)
ua-cam.com/video/a8qTjTpV1Fg/v-deo.html
This is awesome and thank you!! This makes me want to run this as a Delta Green mission
Delta Green could be super-easy, with the agency getting a tip from someone in the FDA about the reports, or maybe an existing file on the Anak Brothers, or a report on the freaky escaped lab animal that attacked that dude in the parking lot that the police originally investigated before getting pulled off the case. Maybe the agency were who found and put down that creature and are researching where it came from, and that's pointed them toward ZyMedBio. There's a lot of ways to work it in. Hope you all have fun with it.
I love Seth's honest break-down of adventures. Knowing what the flaws are going in is tremendously helpful. And even though I personally don't play CoC, I watch these videos to help my own understanding of game design. The players in my group benefit from better scenarios even though we're using a different rules set. Thank you for all your hard work, Seth!!!
Spotting a Seth CoC review pop up has just made my day!
Having the big villainous corporation in Plano is 100% on point.
I dunno Seth, sounds like you could replace ZyMedBio with Biotechnica or Aztechnology and run this scenario in Cyberpunk RED/Shadowrun with no problems at all
Set it in 2021 and substitute Big Pharm company of choice, with the miracle drug also being peddled as a COVID cure.
And no, that is not me suggesting that real-world COVID vaccines are derived from the milk of an eldritch deitiy. But I'm 100% sure some dipshit thinks that. Probably quite a lot of them, actually.
@@richmcgee434 At this point, I don't even blame people for assuming the worst of Big Pharm
@@richmcgee434 I'd take being corrupted into an eldritch being over worrying about some dipshit who thinks vaccines are bad getting me or a loved one sick.
@@thronezwei4412 if you’re vaccinated you have nothing to worry about. Fact of the matter is getting the vaccine doesn’t make sense for everyone and the booster makes sense for even less.
@@marcar9marcar972 I agree that everyone should assess their own risk factors when deciding what treatments or preventatives to consider. I would like to add, however, that no vaccine is 100% effective, and the COVID-19 vaccines, being rushed into production, have a particularly low rate of effectiveness. It is also worth noting that vaccines don't particularly lower your risk of transmitting the virus, even if you remain asymptomatic. So, even if you are vaccinated, it pays to take reasonable precautions. Stay hydrated, intake plenty of vitamin C daily, and just try to be generally healthy.
At "and he was out all night eating rodents...", I spat out my drink laughing.
I guess you could say this Panacea is....
a beast of a cure.
YYEEEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
_CSI:Cthulhu will return after these commercial messages_
20:30 That art is SO foul and SO awesome it instantly made me want to run the scenario. Seth often talks about how important it is that game art *inspires* you-this is a GREAT example of that principle (for me anyway).
I think I lost a bit of sanity from that picture alone.
-You have a giant computerized eldritch horror hooked up to your mainframe.
Probably just open the door that way since it's probably hooked up to electricity.
Automated door opening, the real horror of Call.
Looking forward to reading your section in the new CoC book!
Thanks. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it once it comes out.
As soon as you suggested using the dark young to bring the PCs to the building, my idea for the "motive" for bringing them in is for freedom. I'd think that even with the power from connectivity, it would like to be back outside, and not trapped in essentially a massive cage. Then I got to the point of the dark young trying to seduce the PCs
And upon further thought, I think there is stuff on the internet that could make even The GOOs and Outer Gods run screaming
Aww yeah, Yog-Sothothery meets Deus Ex. I really dig integration of the eldritch horror into the high-tech setting.
My sanity loss is augmented
@@oz_jones I didn't summon Shub-Niggurath's eldritch udder for this.
A thought just came to me that's unrelated to the video, but I kinda want to see 80s Miami undercover cop Jack the NPC.
This game also comes off a bit as a Resident Evil game. Just without rocket lunchers at the end XD
Good review also!
A Call of Cthulhu review with Halloween coming up? Nice.
This channel should have a million subs. Just amazing writing, narrating and production. I cant believe this is free.
Your love of awful movies must be rubbing off on me, because when you talked about the Dark Young tracking the PCs through electronics I immediately thought of "Eagle Eye".
Yoooo those investigator-focused quotes really hit hard.Just what I really need to host this oneshot with my friends ! Thanks again for a nice review, Seth !
Google Maps really should be nominated for an Ennie or Origins award for "best GM accessory".
Only after Crown Royal receives their Lifetime Achievement Award for all the dice bags they've provided over the decades.
@@SSkorkowsky LOL, I'd definitely vote for that! Sounds like we may have the seeds of a plan to correct some serious rpg award oversights!
@@SSkorkowsky My cousin made a cosplay cape to go with his chainmail shirt out of Crown bags.
@@andrewdiaz3529 lol, now that's quality entertainment!
At this point, every time I watch a new scenario review from Seth I have to get my wallet ready to buy whatever book that scenario appears in.
I got to be in this game at Necromonicon and was gm'd by Sandy himself. You are right about stalling out in act 2. We were following too many red herrings. Sandy eventually pushed us to the building. I died before that point, but it turned into a tpk before the group entered the building. Great review
Oof. Maybe Sandy isn't the legend people make him out to be... 😑
Hi Seth. I've gotten back into Call of Cthulhu after probably a 15-year absence due to the pandemic. I found your channel fairly recently and I have to say I'm thoroughly entertained by it! Keep up the great work!
And one of my friends doesn't understand why I refuse to accept a free Alexa device...
Seth, I had an idea for you: Take the Graboids and related monsters in Tremors and use them in Call of Cthulhu. They'd fit right in.
Definitely. I see Graboids as a cousin species of Cthonians.
Old issue of Inquest Gamer in the 90s gave them CoC stats.
Simple love this channel, good job Seth 😀
I think the idea of having enemy monsters take control of electronics or cause weird interference with internet & mobile phones is a really cool way to keep things scary, risky and uncertain in modern horror scenarios!
I love this, more modern setting stories!
Also Jack, that outro idea... you are a monster! 😈 that idea is going to live in my mind rent free!
The milk turns you into your power animal. Slide!
Lol "Way to go Chuck!" cracked me up
"Goat Boy?" Bill Hicks intensifies...
…you nasty, shaggy thing… 😂
@@Wraithing Hur Hur Hur...
Congrats on being able to play in person again! CoC sounds like a great way to get back into it.
I like the touch at the end with the animals.
Good tips as usual!
Love those rpg reviews. I am not playing Call of Cthulhu, or Traveler, but I can take pieces of story into my different settings and I love the advices you give us, as I am learning how to be better GM from those.
Haven't played an RPG since AD&D 1 but I love this channel - S really makes these stories fun
What I love about him is that you can feel i love is game. Doing not just the reviews but given us link to great hand-out...😊
Great video! Of all of your awesome content I always enjoy the scenario reviews the most! =) I ran this scenario twice and fortunately I never had any of the problems you discussed. My players pretty much know that if we're playing a one-shot, they have to play their investigators in a way so that they team up quickly and if there's an evil corporation, of course they'll investigate the building ASAP. But I understand that many players might be less cooperative if the scenario and keeper don't give them better reasons, so it's good that you discussed this! Keep up the great work, Seth! =)
Your videos are always entertaining and informative. Thank you.
I have been waiting for this review for a long time.
Thanks for the review Seth. I'm definitely going to run this one sometime in the future. I think for my group the pressure I'm going to use to remind them that the laboratory is where they should be going is something I'll lift from the Devil May Cry most folks don't like. Basically whenever they go to investigate somewhere a TV or computer monitor will come on and some famous media personality will come on and try and entice them, making allusions to the fact that its, "Almost free," and stuff like, "There is so much knowledge out here." Then in the final fight have all the floating LED screens taunting them, even with their loved ones in instagram videos or tik toks.
I liked the Bob Barbas boss fight.
Dante: Hey Bob, try to put a Spin on this! :)
"I find You Nauseating, Disgusting, and a General Annoyance! The World would greatly Benefit from ceasing of your Existance."
Dante: "I'm Taking you Off the Air!"
"Oh YEah!? I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY!"
My first thought about the Dark Young was, if it's plugged into all this stuff, let's rewire the breaker panel to send mains voltage right into the thing!
Unfortunately, electricity is among their many immunities.
@@SSkorkowsky
Wait, so an EMP doesn't kill this thing?!
Love that end scene you did... Perfect.
Jack at the end suggesting a mythos-twisted fursonas
Hell yes!!! Love the Cthulhu reviews
That thing at the end about having the PCs turn into the object of their phobia: that is evil. Lol
Excellent review. I love Jack's Reno 911 look. 😎🥸😂
What a great day, I see Seth drops a new video. While watching it check the mailbox and received my 40th anniversary Keeper book. Between the both Christmas in October.Great video Seth.
Thank you for all your work, I’m actually getting back into running campaigns again all this Cthulhu stuff inspired me to leave adnd for a bit and venture into this world.
"Your mind is struggling to process the horrible fact that 'oH mY gOd iT tAlKs!" And if it talks, it thinks and you can't stand that, can you?"
- Hunter, The Reckoning videogame
Too bad the house at 6:50 wasn't from Scott Brown. That whole situation would have been a hit to the deposit.
Was that picture and map part of the module, or was that an addition of yours?
It's from the adventure.
"I'm Scott Brown, I gotta a, HOLY SHIT!"
@@themaninblack7503 In his house at R'lyeh, dead C'thulhu waits dreaming... knowing that when he wakes up, he has to pay the rent to Scott Brown.
Awesome review as always!
Hello you are so good at Cthulhu stuff i had to write this little msg.
I have played CoC since 1985,
i hesitate to Switch to 7th edition.
But new stuff seem interesting (Berlin wicked city, children of fear and so on). Anyway you are very competent and talented including humour. Greeting from south west Atlantic coast of France 😉🇫🇷
Thank you very much. The great thing with Call of Cthulhu is converting adventures between editions is very easy. So no need to switch to 7e unless you decide that you want to. Sadly, those beautiful French 7e books went out of print due to some issue with the licensee or something. They looked gorgeous.
Those weird lab dogs remind me of those weird as fuck lab dogs from that old Basement Jax music video of Where's Your Head At. That video was freaky as fuck, man!
Think I'm gonna be adapting this adventure to my Cthulhupunk game :D . Thanks for the critique and introduction ^.^
Excellent review!
23:10 The trigger discipline is beautiful.
"One session" scenarios are but a myth in my experience :D
I've pulled several off, but the most effective ones are usually closed environments, such as entirely within a building or ocean liner. Open environments tend to lead to PCs wandering a hundred different directions, which eats a lot of time. Essentially, if you're trying to get in and out and be fully done in one session, the players need less room to get lost.
Didn't know you lived in my area Seth that's pretty cool. This weather these past two days has been feeling great
My instant though was to use (instead of a pharmaceutical Company) a sports drink company or soda company like slurm from Futurama!
Also this is extra cool since I live in/near plano !
great video as always
It's like coming back to an old friend. Missed you man. Thinking about buying the 5e version of Sandy Peterson's Cthulhu monsters to be used in a Pathfinder setting. Lots of good background stuff there. Play on, amigo!
Hello Seth, long time no see. Happy to have a nice meaty review from you. Hope all is well.
So Seth have you ever looked at lancer? A criminally underrated system bogged down by the fact it wasn't marketed like, at all.
It's worth a look, especially since you can see pretty much all the crunchy parts in the free download available at Massif's site. Quite a bit of youtube content for the game too, with 11dragonkid's channel perhaps being the best if you want a preview of the setting fluff and analysis of the kinds of mechs you can build in the game.
OTOH, it is rather combat-intensive, which might not be to Seth's tastes, or his usual group's. And he's a big fan of Cyberpunk, so he might be more interested in R Talsorian's Mekton game instead. Still a rock-solid mecha RPG after all these years, although stylistically quite different to Lancer - or the even newer Maharlika RPG.
the cyber dark young concept is incredible, casting spells through the internet is such a neat idea. imagine asking alexa to put some music on, instead it starts playing some eldritch chanting and your own shadow suddenly animates and tries strangling you or something equally spooky
'Thorougly polluted.' Good way to phrase it.
Time flies when you are having fun. Especially when you are playing RPG's with your friends.
So, what I'm getting is... perfect intro to a campaign against the PCs' illusive nemeses, "Pinky and the Brain".
"Maybe AFTER being turned into animal people DOESN'T drive people crazy okay?"
You wake up in a warm bed, not sure what time it is but you feel rested. The smell of newly made coffee fills the air, and you hear someone is preparing breakfast in the kitchen. You close your eyes for a minute, allowing yourself just to do nothing. Suddenly a voice from the bedroom door says "Hello Internet!", and a smiling Seth Skorkowsky stands there with two cups of coffee, one for him and one for you.
Why haven't i seen this upload? Well, it has to wait until tomorrow
You had me at extra-dimensional teat!
*GASP!* Seth, you're advocating for writing in a book!?!? Just kidding, I think you called it sacrilege in an old video. Love the channel
Except... I said that I print the PDF and write all over that in my How to Run a Module. My books are writing-free. Because yes, it is total sacrilege to write in an RPG book and those who do it shall be judged for all eternity.
@@SSkorkowsky What if you got something print-on-demand from Drive-thru RPG?
Even asking such questions is heresy. You take that POD book and you love and protect it.
@@SSkorkowsky I'll start erasing immediately, sir.
@@SSkorkowsky I love this channel. From the video to the banter.
I love the idea of this one. I work for a public hospital system and the idea of the villains being pharma execs makes my heart sing. Brainstorming fixes to the flaws discussed...
I could see the PCs being the only ones who get into the room and see Chuck's real form clearly, and they exchange numbers including with Marina even if she isn't a PC. From there, the Dark Young learns of exactly who knows the truth, and after a day or two, leaves a simultaneous voice mail on every one of their phones with the invitation to the facility at a specific time at night. If there is any doubt among the PCs that they should go, their phones are listening in, and they all receive simultaneous text messages with a photo of a vulnerable loved one with just the word "please". After finding Jim's key card fallen behind a potted plant in his office and then meeting Jim in the restricted area, he has the keycard of another employee (a top level researcher) on a lanyard dangling from an antler, with a bit of fresh blood on the card. Then when they meet the Dark Young, it can still only speak through the overhead speakers of the facility. By bonding so much to the flawed human technology, it loses a lot of its usual power and is relatively easy to defeat, or at least have the equipment damaged to the point where it gates out of there. With it gone, and all networked systems being down, torching the place becomes doable.
Also, watching your adventure reviews is really inspiring and makes me want to run some Call of Cthulhu one-shots with my friends. Everyone dying or losing their minds takes some of the pressure off of having to do a campaign. 😂
These modern Cthulhu videos are very useful because I can easily adapt a bunch of the stuff for Demon Hunters or Resident Evil games.
0:52 That guy in the upper-righthand corner looks like quite the chad. 😎
Ahh.. that refreshing pitstop at the chiefs gunsafe.... the good old tooling up scene..
Awww... face-to-face role-playing after an absence. :)
I'm a fan of maps, even of modern suburban houses, so I noticed that the word 'bedroom' appears once too often upstairs. :)
Act 3 recommended time clock and call to action? I recommend perhaps in the warmup hearing that it is actually going to be going for public availability starting a couple days from now. IE, perhaps try to plan out timetable so is a friday, and come monday everybody will be able to get it.
Weekend has benefit to the not mattering anymore if day or night.
Now the incentive to stop it can be trickier. Without myself having fully gone through this in a prep, I can only go by your review. Personally, I would probably take advantage of a modern time period and have it being distributed all over the world globally. This can be set up from the start just by tweaking it to be a well known upcoming thing going net viral.
I feel this would work well because players will already know what it actually does. And being shipped all over the world creates the "If we don't stop it, world is doomed" because through the acts sneak in tidbits that important people are interested too, misled in the info.
So deadline is the product launching. Motivation is that just leaving town wont stop it. Going to other authorities will be too late. Weekend giving plenty of ways as to why say cannot just contact FDA or somebody to stop it since already approved.
Edit: It also can set up a lead in/tie in to others. Imagine the campaign opportunities if they fail and now have a world where rich and powerful are taking this drug...
This sounds like a Delta Green adventure...which might be the solution to character motivation for Act III. Any way....sounds great. Cheers Seth and Jack the NPC.
This scenario also sounds like it would be a good night at the opera.
A Call to Action for Act 3. The drug's product launch is in 2 days. Have it mentioned in some News media, perhaps mention that it's FDA Approval was almost impossibly fast.
That’s one intriguing thumbnail. Didn’t realize it’s in Peterson’s Abominations. I might have to pick it up. Btw, since it’s Halloween season, does anyone else run Halloween oneshots? My group does every year and their favorite is a scooby doo style CoC scenario. I’m running it again this year with people who never played it and my one veteran is going to play the “ghost” villain.
Usually on Halloween I coordinate with my players and we try to pick something unusual to do. So two years ago, I did a Call of Cthulhu one shot instead of our typical Pathfinder. Last year we didn't play because of covid and this year it's a little different because For the First Time in 20 years I'm not the only dungeon master, and the other one is running a Cthulhu campaign.
In general though I just look for something different. This year we were thinking about running an old world of Darkness adventure, maybe Palladium Rifts, but life got in the way and I wasn't able to pull something together so we've just kept with the usual
Now this one sounds like right up my alley!
I'd probably change the key card to a puzzle where they have to go to administration and print out their own key cards. If they failed, the key cards would print out automatically so they know something is up. And for a hook to bring them there, have a loved one scheduled for a trial, so they go there in the night to stop them
This whole scenario sound like my relationship with the office after working at home during lockdown.
This'll be a starter adventure for my group. They can choose to join or resist!
Transforming into an owl bug demon, perhaps? Hoot, hoot!
I really like the sound of this module, it reminds me of body melt
Another Dallas resident here... and yeah, Plano makes perfect sense for this.
Medicinal Milk of Shubniggurath? Where have I heard that fluid being used before?
The story of this adventure is fantastic!
I just realized: this scenario is almost like the backstory of Bloodborne. Main differences are that the timeline of events is much, much shorter and the party (presumably) manages to prevent the “miracle drug” from being distributed
I ran this as a one-shot for my players when we were forced to online play during the pandemic. It was great fun. They found the room where the flammable chemicals were stored... and the rest is CoC history. ;-)
I live how Joe looks like a 70s cop.