I ran this scenario yesterday. The antiques dealer accidently killed the injured cassidy thinking he was hostile. The Detective Player killed the Antiques dealer player for going Crazy. And while they were fighting, the Marine biologist burned the whole Place down with fuel from the Generator. 👍 they were not even fighting the creatures at this point
I've run this brilliant scenarion three times for players new to CoC. And I didn't manage to finish it under one or two hours as suggested - 4-5 hours of pure gameplay instead. As a sandbox it encourages players to slowly explore locations and become familiar with different aspects for the game so I decided not to force them till the climax and let them play in a comfortable manner. As always, thanks for the breakdown!
Ran this for my local gaming group, and this video was very helpful for preparing! I took your suggestion of keeping Cassidy alive and agree that it added a lot to the scenario (even though they then left him for dead after getting the gold). One of the players fumbled the Strength check for rowing at the start, so I used that to have him fall in and took your suggestion of him spotting a youngling swimming before they hauled him back into the lifeboat. Thanks for the video!
I agree with you about the oddity of the setup (cultists of Dagon using a terrestrial lighthouse? Their boat just sinking without a trace? The lighthouse has to randomly malfunction to cause their crash before the plot begins?) What I changed it to was making Samuel/the third lighthouse staffer an amateur pearl diver. He would dive into the oceans looking for pearls, and came across a cache of the gold coins. He brings them back to Cassidy who starts seeking out buyers and that's how the plot starts. Your suggestion for leaving deranged Samuel/his corpse in the generator helped a ton with that since he could then point the investigators in the right direction (by having large extremely-developed lungs and sleek athletic musculature)
Great breakdown, and your recommendations to improve the scenario are fantastic. Your ideas make the scenario so much better, especially the suggested cliffhanger ending. Bravo.
I'm about to run this with my players, but I'm also using the Eldritch hack system that really simplifies the mechanics of the game. I'm hoping they have a great time
If you have ever seen the film cold skin, I think some elements of that could be worked in. Esp since it's pretty much this one shot expanded into a rather disturbing film. Have the boat go down somewhere in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. That way, the players will feel truly stranded on a small island. Somewhere that remote, a supply ship may call be every few months. I don't want to give away too much, even if the film came out a few years back. But I think I will steal a few bits to flesh this out a little.
Your take on this and how you ran it worked amazingly well for my game. I wish you did these for all the scenarios, your logic and way you play was really inspiring and our game went great.
Fantastic breakdown and suggestions! I've played CoC as a player many times now, but this'll be my first time running as Keeper so I really appreciated those tips and the runthrough.
I just ran this (my first scenario past the one player starter set one) with your suggested tweaks and it went great. Players talked the lighthouse Keeper down and stabilized him (he was still incoherent) then surprised me by throwing him to the monsters as part of convincing them to let them live by giving back the gold. Very dramatic. Thanks for the great advice! Edited to add: it definitely didn't take one or two hours, ran to 4 or 5 since I had a big group (6) and started them on the ship with the shipwreck escape.
Glad it all went to plan! Sounds like you had a good showing, yeah 6 people will always increase the game length usually by 1 hour per extra person over 3/4 as a rule of thumb for myself. Well done on the success and good luck with your next outting!
thanks, used some of your comments yesterday, for two of my players. They seem to enjoy it :). they had to persuade to get out of the island, failing to repair radio and failing to swim out of the island on the boat. Tension was slowly rising, so I am happy how it played out. They finished in the nearby village, eating breakfast, spoting one person in the pub, with wider eye sockets sitting nearby... Now what to get them into now? :)
Love your input! I’m running it this weekend. I like the idea of having the deep one hybrids around. Would you put two on the island? (One at the generator torturing Samuel and one by the boat) Or would that be too much in terms of difficulty with the younglings about?
Probably a bit much, since there are so many younglings. You could have one of those instead looking after the boat. The idea was just to give some social interaction to the whole thing. Depends on how many players you have to be honest. But if you plan to add in the lighthouse keeper in the lamp room you could have him live and help out. Still trying to keep his gold even after all this, backstabbing the players to get away in the boat scot free with the gold while they deal with the monsters.
Thanks for this overview! I’ll be playing my first session as a keeper soon with my D&D group who’ve never played Call of Cthulhu before and this has been extremely helpful. Got a question though. First I was thinking about running The Haunting but I’m not sure if that’s suitable for 6 players. This seems to be a bit better. Which scenario do you think is the better for a group of 6 new Call of Cthulhu players?
I think Lightless Beacon can work with 6, but the Investigaton really doesn't have enough for all those people to do, once th assualt starts it should be good tho as you can tailor that to the group size.. The Haunting is a better fit for that number, some others i'd look at are Dead Light, Amidst the Anicent Trees, and Blackwater Creek. If you are a seasoned DnD DM, Crimson Letters, but its not an easy one to run. Good Luck, and let us know how you get on!
@@RPGNook Thanks for your input. I'm going to run Lightless Beacon on 5 dec with the group, might tweak a few things based upon what you said. I'll definitely share my experience!
@@RPGNook The session went great, though it was difficult to track the players when they decided to split up and it took a bit too long (around 5 hours) but my players really enjoyed it! I kept two NPC's alive just like you suggested and it made for some great RP moments. Though most of my players prefer the fantasy setting D&D provides, they are now willing to mix it up with a few CoC sessions in between which I may host. I will buy the keeper screen pack and look into Blackwater Creek, maybe Dead Light as well, as I've heard great things about those scenarios! Once again thanks for this great overview, it helped me tons!
Very interesting. Just two questions : why did the investigators took the boat to Rockport and not used the road (bus, train, car) ? In wich town did they took the boat the scenario begins ?
It's an ocean vessel. So it's assumed to have come into the coast from the ocean. However these things are left to the keeper to decide. But I'd assume Europe somewhere or down the coast in somewhere like florida.
When my players asked that, I claimed a railroad strike had shut down the train to Rockport, and it was a remote city on the tip of a peninsula so it was cheaper and easier to ferry there than to drive.
Apologies for the necropost but it's not uncommon along the coast of New England, especially from the cape up to Maine, to have small commuter/transport ferries, because they can be faster than roads, which have to do a lot of twisting and turning, making for much longer travel. Especially back in the 20's when cars weren't as common, small boats were used for "commuting".
I ran this scenario yesterday. The antiques dealer accidently killed the injured cassidy thinking he was hostile. The Detective Player killed the Antiques dealer player for going Crazy. And while they were fighting, the Marine biologist burned the whole Place down with fuel from the Generator. 👍 they were not even fighting the creatures at this point
Investigators going feral. Love to see it.
Detective, antiques dealer and a marine biologist... meta gamers, pretty gay
@@VarnasL Those are the premades that come with the module
My hatchlings wanted the gold AND the lighthouse keeper. To survive, my PCs wracked with guilt, handed the keeper to the deep ones.
Very traumatising! Definitely a good addition.
I've run this brilliant scenarion three times for players new to CoC. And I didn't manage to finish it under one or two hours as suggested - 4-5 hours of pure gameplay instead. As a sandbox it encourages players to slowly explore locations and become familiar with different aspects for the game so I decided not to force them till the climax and let them play in a comfortable manner. As always, thanks for the breakdown!
Ran this for my local gaming group, and this video was very helpful for preparing! I took your suggestion of keeping Cassidy alive and agree that it added a lot to the scenario (even though they then left him for dead after getting the gold). One of the players fumbled the Strength check for rowing at the start, so I used that to have him fall in and took your suggestion of him spotting a youngling swimming before they hauled him back into the lifeboat. Thanks for the video!
Glad it all went well for you, sounds like everyone had a blast.
I agree with you about the oddity of the setup (cultists of Dagon using a terrestrial lighthouse? Their boat just sinking without a trace? The lighthouse has to randomly malfunction to cause their crash before the plot begins?)
What I changed it to was making Samuel/the third lighthouse staffer an amateur pearl diver. He would dive into the oceans looking for pearls, and came across a cache of the gold coins. He brings them back to Cassidy who starts seeking out buyers and that's how the plot starts. Your suggestion for leaving deranged Samuel/his corpse in the generator helped a ton with that since he could then point the investigators in the right direction (by having large extremely-developed lungs and sleek athletic musculature)
I come back to listen to the review every time I prepare for it.
Great breakdown, and your recommendations to improve the scenario are fantastic. Your ideas make the scenario so much better, especially the suggested cliffhanger ending. Bravo.
I'm about to run this with my players, but I'm also using the Eldritch hack system that really simplifies the mechanics of the game. I'm hoping they have a great time
If you have ever seen the film cold skin, I think some elements of that could be worked in. Esp since it's pretty much this one shot expanded into a rather disturbing film. Have the boat go down somewhere in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. That way, the players will feel truly stranded on a small island. Somewhere that remote, a supply ship may call be every few months.
I don't want to give away too much, even if the film came out a few years back. But I think I will steal a few bits to flesh this out a little.
I really like your run through of scenarios. Some awesome tips to help prep for running a great session. Thanks for the great work!
Perfect timing for this. Was planning on running this for Halloween next week. Great breakdown!
Awesome! Thank you!
Your take on this and how you ran it worked amazingly well for my game. I wish you did these for all the scenarios, your logic and way you play was really inspiring and our game went great.
Glad it worked out well for you. I'm hoping to do more, just time factors.
Well done run-throughs like this are always welcome -- great work.
Fantastic breakdown and suggestions! I've played CoC as a player many times now, but this'll be my first time running as Keeper so I really appreciated those tips and the runthrough.
Glad to help! Come back and let us know how it goes!
Very good info here. Running this tomorrow and loved your suggestions on adding a chase and having the Keeper alive. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
I just ran this (my first scenario past the one player starter set one) with your suggested tweaks and it went great. Players talked the lighthouse Keeper down and stabilized him (he was still incoherent) then surprised me by throwing him to the monsters as part of convincing them to let them live by giving back the gold. Very dramatic. Thanks for the great advice!
Edited to add: it definitely didn't take one or two hours, ran to 4 or 5 since I had a big group (6) and started them on the ship with the shipwreck escape.
Glad it all went to plan! Sounds like you had a good showing, yeah 6 people will always increase the game length usually by 1 hour per extra person over 3/4 as a rule of thumb for myself. Well done on the success and good luck with your next outting!
Nice breakdown you keep the game illuminated.
:D i see what you did there
Always glad to see a new breakdown from you pop up in my feed!
Thanks!
Great breakdown. Thanks as always!
Appreciate your comments! thanks dude.
thanks, used some of your comments yesterday, for two of my players. They seem to enjoy it :). they had to persuade to get out of the island, failing to repair radio and failing to swim out of the island on the boat. Tension was slowly rising, so I am happy how it played out. They finished in the nearby village, eating breakfast, spoting one person in the pub, with wider eye sockets sitting nearby... Now what to get them into now? :)
Love your input! I’m running it this weekend.
I like the idea of having the deep one hybrids around.
Would you put two on the island? (One at the generator torturing Samuel and one by the boat)
Or would that be too much in terms of difficulty with the younglings about?
Probably a bit much, since there are so many younglings. You could have one of those instead looking after the boat. The idea was just to give some social interaction to the whole thing. Depends on how many players you have to be honest. But if you plan to add in the lighthouse keeper in the lamp room you could have him live and help out. Still trying to keep his gold even after all this, backstabbing the players to get away in the boat scot free with the gold while they deal with the monsters.
@@RPGNookThank you so much! 🦑
Thanks for this overview! I’ll be playing my first session as a keeper soon with my D&D group who’ve never played Call of Cthulhu before and this has been extremely helpful.
Got a question though. First I was thinking about running The Haunting but I’m not sure if that’s suitable for 6 players. This seems to be a bit better. Which scenario do you think is the better for a group of 6 new Call of Cthulhu players?
I think Lightless Beacon can work with 6, but the Investigaton really doesn't have enough for all those people to do, once th assualt starts it should be good tho as you can tailor that to the group size.. The Haunting is a better fit for that number, some others i'd look at are Dead Light, Amidst the Anicent Trees, and Blackwater Creek. If you are a seasoned DnD DM, Crimson Letters, but its not an easy one to run.
Good Luck, and let us know how you get on!
@@RPGNook Thanks for your input. I'm going to run Lightless Beacon on 5 dec with the group, might tweak a few things based upon what you said. I'll definitely share my experience!
@@RPGNook The session went great, though it was difficult to track the players when they decided to split up and it took a bit too long (around 5 hours) but my players really enjoyed it! I kept two NPC's alive just like you suggested and it made for some great RP moments. Though most of my players prefer the fantasy setting D&D provides, they are now willing to mix it up with a few CoC sessions in between which I may host. I will buy the keeper screen pack and look into Blackwater Creek, maybe Dead Light as well, as I've heard great things about those scenarios!
Once again thanks for this great overview, it helped me tons!
@@Plectrum61 Thats awesome! Well done, love to hear people branching out from D&D into other things. Can't go wrong with Blackwater.
Very interesting. Just two questions : why did the investigators took the boat to Rockport and not used the road (bus, train, car) ? In wich town did they took the boat the scenario begins ?
It's an ocean vessel. So it's assumed to have come into the coast from the ocean. However these things are left to the keeper to decide. But I'd assume Europe somewhere or down the coast in somewhere like florida.
When my players asked that, I claimed a railroad strike had shut down the train to Rockport, and it was a remote city on the tip of a peninsula so it was cheaper and easier to ferry there than to drive.
Apologies for the necropost but it's not uncommon along the coast of New England, especially from the cape up to Maine, to have small commuter/transport ferries, because they can be faster than roads, which have to do a lot of twisting and turning, making for much longer travel. Especially back in the 20's when cars weren't as common, small boats were used for "commuting".