Call of Cthulhu: Missed Dues - RPG Review
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- Опубліковано 2 кві 2019
- A look at the scenario Missed Dues from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack. It's a short adventure set in Arkham and features criminals as our heroes.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC.
Lovecraft: "Neither time nor matter stretched before me, but only chaos without form, without place."
Skorkowsky: "Reality has gone completely bye-bye."
Seth certainly has a way with words.
Truly Seth is a wordsmith without peer.
Seth is more of a Howard literary style.
>Sees horrible creature that causes instant insanity
>Hears worst music in the universe
>Slams door
"Do not go in there!"
I love the idea of the investigators, the cultists, the enforcers, and some green demon thing chasing each other through the same 6 doors while Azathoth's pipers play the Benny Hill theme. 😂
Or with Scooby Doo chase music
"Summoned Azathoth into the apartment "
This is like finding Darkseid on the sofa.
"Hey man, we're low on TP, and get nachos when yer out!!"
I mean, Darkseid first introduced in Jimmy Olson comic. So shit happens.
I now have this image of Azathot in his most monstrous form just chilling on the sofa and smooking weed, the Mythos are now ruined for me!
So that's where I left him.
@@paulll47 is it bad I’d be tempted to try out the eldritch kush? I haven’t smoked in close to 15 years and I couldn’t pass that chance up.
sees the ultimate god of chaos, embodiment of pure insanity and absolute madness, loses 1 sanity.
"well that was a bit odd, guys I saw a weirdo in there, reminded me of that time I was at the aquarium and saw this weird octopus, anyway, I think it's an eldritch god. Ideas?"
The best way to handle this deity, in case of a failed sanity roll, character loses 10d10 instead of 1d100 sanity points. This way the minimum you can lose; is the max you lose if you had made your sanity check.
he just flipped cuthulu trope
So, having just finished running this, I can say that your advice helped.
So, one of our players (a gambler) had gone from 70 to 60 sanity in the course of the adventure, having opened EVERY door on the way to the final one, dodging a few crazed cultists, and getting dropped by half-hit points in one knife fight with a crazy apartment owner.
So after the fun house, they finally get to the apartment. They went to the correct door and found Sticky Jack, who asked them for help. The gambler picked him up and shoved him against a wall telling him to stop this. They could hear the music coming from the other door, and I had used your advice to ward them away from it (great advice, by the way). The gambler picked up that something was wrong, put Jack in front of him and opened the door as a threat.
He then saw Azathoth, failed the sanity roll of 60 and I rolled a 59 on the percentile die. I ruled that in his sanity, he shoved Jack into the court of Azathoth (ending the events of the adventure), shoved the door shut, and fell into a fetal position. The gambler now has a pathological desire to be inside light (photomania), and his PLAYER has a fear of doors.
I think giving a player a phobia puts you at a new GM level.
Well, the fear of doors was built up over a year of gaming. Before we did Cthulhu, he was a part of my D&D game, where his monk had a improbable habit of being in front of every encounter that I had keyed as having a monster kick the door open and attack. And his bad reflexes meant he got smacked in the face every time. Opening the door to Azathoth just cemented the whole thing for him.
@@jesternario Hey, I gave one of my players a fear of doors when I ran this, too! I think it was Pug!
@@SSkorkowsky POLKAPHOBIA - THE ENDLESS FEAR OF LAWRENCE WELK!!!!!
@@jesternario monk having bad reflexes? Oh my
... Scott Brown Real Estate seems to have lost some money on this property. Thanks a lot, Sticky Jack.
@R Mcdud With Sticky Jack dead, wouldn't Azathoth technically be the one on the hook with Scott Brown? After all, he's yhe one who actually trashed the place, Sticky Jack just invited him in. In a straight punch up between the idiot god at the center of the cosmos, and a Scott Brown Agent hellbent on recouping company losses, who do you think would win?
Tyler Durham Tough choice but Scott Brown. Nobody messes with Scott Brown
@@christiangarza8122 Not even the Blind Idiot God can defeat Capitalism.
alright you guys convinced me, time to make a halfbreed of call of cthulhu and cyberpunk so I can play lovecraftian AIs versus the real estate market
@@nicholasstoll4457 check out the GURPS book named Chutlhupunk, if you need inspiration, you can buy the pdf a couple of places.
Seeing the dreaming creator of all things and only suffer 1 sanity is basically the pinnacle of what an eldritch lore scholar can hope to achieve.
A friend of mine once saw Nyarlathotep and also only lost 1 sanity
Proper response to crazy haunted/maddening apartment... Kill it with fire. I've only played 2 call of Cthulhu games, and I tried to burn down buildings in both. I say tried because only one was successful. The second time, I doused this shed that had become an elevator to an insane abyss in kerosene and torched it. The kerosene burned, but it didn't do a damn thing to the shed. Then the flames started changing colors and whispering to me. Man, I miss those sanity points.
If you went insane, I would reccomend them essentially becoming a Cthulu bibke hobo priest who spreads the odd word of the burning shed to all whom listened X3
So, I'm playing "Edge of Darkness" right now. My character has already bought a bunch of gasoline, just in case it all goes to hell and "Kill it with fire" becomes the plan, lol.
That's why you play as a chemist who has access to chlorine trifluoride (or as I like to call it, Hellfire Gas).
@@gingermcgingin1733 isn't that the stuff so unstable and dangerous the Nazis said nope to it?
@@skillganon606 'volatile' is more accurate than 'unstable', but yes
Heh. It is amazing how often I've seen characters over the years face a d100 sanity loss and roll single digits like that. "Meh. Writhing otherworldly abomination at the heart of creation. Seen worse." Of course that sort of luck is usually followed by them maxing a san loss roll against a Mi-Go or a zombie or something equally lame, going insane, and the spending a nice long vacation in Arkham Asylum.
That's because your brain blanks out the big stuff. The little ones are what gets you.
The minions were the final straw that broke their back...
One way to run this would be to take the tiles from the board game Betrayal at house on the hill, and every time the players step through a door have them draw a room card. Kinda like your random dungeon tile video from a while back.
That's actually a cool idea. 😋
That is amazing. Too bad I already ran this adventure. :(
I'm rewatching this video in prep for running this - and this is a great idea I'll definitely use! Thanks!!!
"DO NOT GO IN THERE!" - that line always cracks me up!
I had a lot of fun with Missed Dues as well. Totally acted out the sermon. And yes, one of my players opened the door to Azathoth even after Sticky Jack freaked out on them about not opening that door. And she went insane for the next few in games months. They ended up blowing Jacks head off with a shotgun though. I figured, that’ll do it. Good times. Great review.
7:04 Dog Eats ALL THE PIES?! Oh my god! It all makes sense now! How did we not see it? This is the ultimate clue that ties everything together! D:
That horrid little mutt! 😤😡🤬👿🐶🥧🍰
This game led to one of the best RPG moments I’ve ever seen. A player opened the door to azathoth and only lost two sanity points!
“Hmm...must be Tuesday.”
Slams door shut.
"I never got the hang of Tuesdays."
Given how the preacher was ranting about a flame of hope, I'm surprised he isn't a cultist of Cthugha. He's only the eldritch god of fire.
Jack saying “Consider me your number one guy” is the most sly Batman reference I’ve ever witnessed.
“Don’t forget your lucky deck.”
Yay! New Seth Video. Thank god, I was starting to get withdrawals. Seriously you’re quickly becoming, if not already are, my favorite youtuber. I keep you playing most days for background music and occasionally I just go deep dives watching a ton of your reviews.
Hell yeah! Your videos are what I live for.
Thanks for the dopamine.
That shooting the window getting sucked into the void scenario actually played out in a madhouse one shot I was playing in one time. It was me. I didn't get dropped into another room. I got killed. Almost immediately.
Was it the davenport chronik? I lost an arm doing that
One of my players was adamant about opening the door to the void.
I pause the spooky ambient music I have.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
/He is ABSOLUTELY positively sure/
I up turn the speaker volume to the max.
*A HA - TAKE ON ME - SHITTYFLUTED*
What a brilliant use of music.
Yeah, I think I’m just going to stick to my plan of using the warthog music from Red vs Blue.
jesternario random music player yells "YEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!!!!!"
I pray that shittyflute will continue to keep the great one asleep
watched several videos of yours now and i have to say "Jack the NPC" is such an awesome idea. Keep up the great work.
Really impressive that Seth could mimic Jack's voice to a T when he mentions the aught 1 for SAN loss.
As far as the missing street, I would have that it had been renamed recently. You could have someone in the group just remember that, an NPC remember that or have to go to City Hall or some other official place to find this out. It could be cool to have the PC thugs and criminals trying to goto City Hall and look through records and or old maps. Imagine all of the dirty looks or they might even have the cops called on them. Or now that I have watched the entire video the street name could just be different because of the warping of reality. The name is just different in the reality that they came from. Also I am going to use this as the final thing in a CoC 8 week mini campaign. I am going to kinda cross the whole Kolchak/X-files with CoC and run it that way.
Great, as always. You're way too nice to your players. If one of them opened the Azathoth door and HAD gone insane, I'd have encouraged him to get the rest to look as well. "C'mere! Check this out!"
The dude failed the sanity roll, but he basically didn't lose any sanity, so he was still in control of his character
I just ran this! It took one 5 hour session, which included one massive detour. After a shootout at the church, where JS was killed, the two surviving PCs ran for it. However, one was a police informant and called in backup while the other jumped in his car and had to shoot his way out of Arkham. It took him a while to successfully escape the manhunt by disappearing into nearby Beverly. The two of them eventually teamed up again in the apartment since they’d both gone after Jack for different reasons at that point and neither wanted to die. Thanks Seth!!! I was much better prepared because of this review.
This sounds awesome. I'm glad you had fun with it.
JS?
I *need* to know what that music was that you used for your Azathoth void apartment sketch.
Love the video reviews! They got my friend into CoC when even I couldn’t!
In this video you mention a better, higher-resolution Arkham map from the “Arkham
book”; which book would this be? Thanks!
The "H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham" book. www.chaosium.com/h-p-lovecrafts-arkham-pdf/ I saw a comment that the version on DriveThru RPG doesn't have the separate large map file, so you'll want to get it direct from Chaosium to be sure.
Sticky jack the NPC
My gm ran this as an intro into CoC. We avoided the church entirely, found greasy spoon and went right to the apartment. A full third of the session was spent in a fight with the land lady who nearly TPK’d us. Never met Azathoth and we ended up killing Sticky Jack via emptying out a shot gun, point blank into his skull. As a result of the music my character went temporarily insane and developed a fear of flowers.
Burnt the whole apartment to the ground like professionals, I approve.
When I first ran this scenario my group accidentally read the words and finished the game 😂. Accidentally started, accidentally ended.
Then I ran it a second time for another group and every character saw Azathoth. Six players to begin with, two to end with.
When I ran this scenario one of my existing players was playing an established criminal, so it was relatively easy to work in The Hammer. I LOVED roleplaying the sermon. I think my players enjoyed it too :)
You are without a doubt my favorite UA-camr, love your stuff man
That cult leader section is great lol
Your timing is perfect as always. Will be running that one on weekend
I love your reviews Seth and Jack rocks the house!!! I think Jack should have his own fan club lol.
Wish I would have caught that you did a review on this scenario before playing it on Halloween with my group.I would have appreciated some of the tips you gave here. But, playing the German translation of Call of Cuthulu made it a bit unlikely that you would cover some of the translations that are available.
One Shot or not I found the scenario a bit bare bones while reading and feared that there was not enough content to make the investigation feel satisfying, so I used the Arkham source book to enhance the city a bit more and switched locations around so my players see more of Arkham. I also made the freebie info something to gather through meeting other criminals in diners and poolhalls and such (the sourcebook provided so many of those locations).
What made the scenario unique to me was the utter lack of mythos horror right until the end. None of the players saw it coming and they were completely hooked once it started with the crazy housewife. But one the other hand it sort of irritated them that nothing eerie happened up to this point and they felt like they did something wrong/made no real advancements towards the mystery while gathering info. Though they all confirmed it was worth the wait.
They managed to reverse the ritual. But they had to teamkill an investigator who went insane and wanted to open azathoths door after they barely managed to close it the first time.
“Your number one guy!” I see what you did there.
That sermon was great
Just bought mountain of daggers, sea of quills and damoren. Really excited to get through them. Btw I really loved mist of L. Great story. Look forward to leaving you a review.
Thank you very much. Hope you enjoy them.
That preacher bit was great.
Playing this tomorrow! I cannnot wait. I’ve watched this at least four times in prep! Love your videos!
Keep up the great work, mate! Always enjoy your content!
love it - going to play the clip of you doing the preacher to the players when they go to the service!! so great!
2:06
How did I never notice the wavy background?!
If you want ideas for weird floorplans I recommend looking at NanQuest by Weaver. The opening chapter has a lot of freaky ideas that would be perfect for this scenario
Great review, thanks for sharing! Still looking forward to the review of S. Petersen's Guide that you mentioned a while ago!
9:53 -- I'm just bookmarking this so I can add my "Choir"
Okay that preaching was really well done
I just ran through the majority of this (we left off just before they decided to search for Curzon st, the rest taking one whole day of game time.
Thanks for the walnut idea. It really hammered home the idea that O’Leary would hammer their gourds in if they didn’t get the job done. Playing out Jacob Smith’s sermon also helped and really creeped out the players.
Hammered home. Heh
When you casually summons the chaotic mass of flesh that sleeps in the middle of existence, who never am i right?
Hey Seth! I just wanted to ask if you have any plans to explore or review Down Darker Trails and any of its supplements. I absolutely love the setting and recently got the PDF for Shadows Over Stillwater. I also know the setting is supposed to play well with Pulp Cthulhu as well. Either way I just want to say I really love all your videos, keep on making them awesome!
No plans at the moment. UA-camr MaxWriter has been playing Down Darker Trails and seems to love it.
19:35 Considering since this video a Lovecraftian movie set in a bathroom has literally been made (Glorious) this aged hilariously well.
Ran this one tonight with my regular group and they made the decision to stack three deep on Azathoth's bedroom, all failed their san rolls, and all three went to negative san. One guy out of four made it out
Love the map or Arkham! Great review, bud.
Oh I'm definitely going to run this. I didn't realize I had a great one shot with pregens sitting on my shelf this whole time.
I have this adventure and as a new Keeper just getting into the game I am really excited to (hopefully) run it one day. I actually bought the Keeper's screen (and the starter set) on Seth's recommendation, and am very happy with my decision to do so.
Good gracious. That Hope preaching thing gave me severe goosebumps! And then the words spoken? Jeepers creepers 😱
The only question I have is...why is Azathoth is contained by an apartment's walls? Is it unfamiliar with drywall? Or plaster. Plaster is more 1920's
The walls create a prison that is less physical, and more symbolic. Magic tends to work with metaphor heavily. It's why wards are created by drawing lines on surfaces, to form a "wall" that things cannot cross. _Actual_ walls have all the more mystic "weight", dividing "Inside" categorically from "Outside". If nothing else, while Azathoth might not be affected by science, it might be hemmed in by Symbolism.
It makes about as much sense as anything else in the Cthulhu Mythos.
But, but everyone loves a Polka :D
That appartment sounds like a classical hallway Scooby-doo chase.
SETH !! I'm totally weaving the gangster of Crimson Letters with the Missed Dues hammer man. Also your rev Smith really inspired me for that character to be the precursor seed where my player will see him as the Ring Master in the "Carnival of Chaos/ cooger and dark pandemonium". So when They see Jacob Smith in his top hat at the carnival.....ooooh nooooo HIM!!!!
Another possibility for including a character that remains outside.
As the party makes their way through the apartment, the character that remained outside emerges from one of the rooms. Basically, this close to Azothoth, the probability that the character did, in fact, enter the apartment was high enough that the event actually realises. The character is both inside and outside the apartment simultaneously: Schrodinger's investigator!
The character proceeds in both locations. The other player's are likely to think that this is an evil doppelgänger or some other sinister entity, but you should stress the fact that the character's are not aware that the character is simultaneously inside and outside.
When the apartment event ends, the less probable inside character event collapses and the inside character ends with it. Any damage, insanity and experience earned by the character is lost as the more probable outside character persists. The character should separately track all gains and changes whilst inside the apartment.
If the outside character enters the apartment during the event then there are a couple of possibilities.
- The inside character vanishes (along with any damage, insanity or experience earned) and the player simply controls their outside character going forward.
- both character's persist and the player controls both. When the overall event ends, the inside character vanishes (again taking damage, insanity, experience with them) but the outside character still has any damage, insanity and experience they earned. Or you could allow them to make a roll (POW, or Luck or Cthulhu Mythos) to integrate the two events. Extreme success they chose which of each character's damage taken, sanity lost and experience earned they keep - best of both worlds. Hard success they can choose two out of the three and take the worse of the remaining one. Normal success they choose one and take the worse of the other two. Fail they take the worse of the three qualities. Fumble they take the combined totals of everything: combined damage, sanity loss and experience.
Never actually tried this, but it seems suitably mind-bending, in-defiance-of-the-laws-of-the-universe and freaky, whilst ensuring that everyone gets to participate and have fun.
My family is coming to visit in a few weeks and Ive been planning on running this scenario as a one shot. This was a super helpful video. Thanks
I'm intrigued. When you say you're running this for family do you mean for siblings/cousins around your age, or is it more "Roll for sanity loss grandma!"
@@thebolas000 im 30 my wife's age two brothers 21 & 10(who fumbles at the most hilarious of times) and my 52 year old mom. Wish my maternal grandmother was alive to play. She would have and it would have been hilarious. Love the comment by the way
@@mikethetooth That's fantastic. I'm glad you're able to share a game with your family.
Finishing this module with my players tomorrow, it’s gonna be great! 🔍
I’ve been excited for this video ever since I saw your reddit post asking about street names in this scenario.
Seth: Insane music
*plays polka music*
You know, I can agree with this.
While I somewhat enjoy polka, I agree in it being insanity inducing, because just about any time I hear it, I gain a crazed smile and am liable to start cackling like a mad man
You make me want to play most every game you review.
My two cents regarding non euclidean maps: I map it out on a hex grid with a lot of obtuse angels, but I describe it all as right angels, as if it was mapped on squares. That way I can map it out in as much detail as I want, while the PC's can't figure out how the layout makes any sense
Great review thanks! :D
I saw your review on "Paper Chase" and wanted to get some tips before I try running this one!
I also need to rewatch the "Robot Hell" episode of Futuramanow! xD
Cool water effect on the spoilers into!
I really love your reviews! Call of Cthulhu is the first system I’m getting into besides D&D so these reviews are really helpful. Would you consider reviewing Cthulhu Dark Ages at any point? Cosmic horror in the medieval period sounds like a great time.
Glad you've been enjoying them. I haven't tried Dark Ages, though I'm trying to talk my group into some Roman-era Cthulhu Invictus.
First also love your stuff so much Seth you actually got me into call of Cthulhu also say hi to jack for me will you?
Just a note, Curzon Street was added to the map in the new Arkham (7e) book that just came out.
Great review. Loved the sermon. Agree with you about the map, it's always best to start an improvisation with a clear idea of what the start point is. Which leads me on to my main beef, in Blackwater Creek the pre-gens have quite detailed backgrounds, this is entirely missing from Missed Dues. All the players have for clues are quick notes on the character sheet. It's not very helpful if you're planning to run this as a one-shot at a convention.
Your number one guy
Jack
Jack Napier
Batman reference? Awesome 😎
Was NOT expecting the event at 12:36! Damn!
I spy a copy of Cthulhu Invictus in the background, might we expect a review in the future?
Played this scenario for my players a couple of weeks ago. My players really liked to roleplay so we had to stretch it into 2 sessions, but they really liked it. I took a lot of points from this review, like having Jacob Smith show up with a few goons, channeling the movie Bright a few times and making one of the players have an insane insight on how to complete the scenario. IMO there should've been more tips on how to help the PC's figure out that you had to read the spell again. And a small nitpick: Offer suggestions on what could happen if the players refuse to take the items to O'Leary. As a new keeper, I was completely blindsided when the PC's decided not to take the items to O'Leary, since 1st session I described the walnut-scenario with intence. Since the session was already 6 hours long and I just wanted to wrap things up quickly I kinda railroaded the end by having O'Leary show up to the front of Sticky-Jack's building right when they were exiting, threaten the PC's when they started demanding him not to do anything with these items and then take off.
I ran this a while ago and I'm planning on running it again as a back-pocket one-shot. I like the larger map of Arkham, but I was also able to find one that clearly labeled the districts of Arkham. To make the map even easier to navigate, I have recently also highlighted some of the no-brainer locations in blue to get players started [continued below in the Read More for spoilers]...
.
(the local Catholic church, both speakeasies, and the locations of each of Jack's robberies). The hope is that those initial blips on the map will give them landmarks to reference when using it to find other locations such as the Church of Hope and Jack's hideout.
I ran this adventure just this evening. Player opened the door to Azathoth and, while not a 1, he only rolled a 4 on the d100
Maybe have a table of random effects that the PLAYERS roll for when they're in the apartment? That way it's like THEY are in control of what's going on, and the GM isn't just being cruel? Maybe keep table entries with a theme, or have a set of appropriate options that start when triggered - but make sure it feels like the PCs are triggering things, not just the GM piling it on? Really fine line. This is why GM good will is something you want to cultivate throughout interactions with players: you never know when you can seem like you're railroading, or being too harsh. Need some street credit so you don't push too hard, y'know?
I like that.
You're the best, Seth.
The gang boss reminds me of a cfemale charater I use in some of my fiction whose favourite and signniatutre weapons are sledgehammer and lump hammer (she's actually queen of a warrior race).
I love that this fucker accidentally summons a mad god like he dropped his mac n cheese.
14:34 & 17:52
This made my day
I feel like cults of Azathoth should be all about getting as much sleep as possible. Less evil, more narcolepsy.
A gentalmans 3rd!!
So many campaigns. I never picked this game up because i didn’t think there were this many scenarios.
has anyone played the adventure Cold Harvest my group was thinking about getting it and wanted to see if its any good
Hey, I want to use this one as an intro into Call of Cthulhu games for my RP group. Do you think it's a good idea, or is it too hard for newbees?
Another great video! Though I might have missed one thing. How come the crime boss did not know where Sticky Jack's apartment was located and not have sent some of his people there earlier? Also, a possible video(s) you could do is CoC adventures you might have missed or are too expensive to get now. and/or trying out other versions of CoC, ie, Achtung! Cthulhu(either FATE or Savage Worlds), the Gumshoe version, or Cthulhu Dark. Looking forward to your next video!
The crime boss didn't know where Sticky Jack lived. That's why he brought in the PCs. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't still be able to find out where Sticky Jack lived through some other means after the PCs left his office.
I guess Sticky Jack may not have had a permanent address. and that is why the pc's are hired. That is a good explanation as any.
Big fan of the 10:00
Mike does a good hellfire
What an amazing video '-' congrats
Everyone is playing this system now? Is it worth it? Where should I begin, bookwise?
There is a very good play through of this scenario on the Yogscast Games Night channel that is worth checking out
You totally look like Val Kilmer when you were giving the sermon!! Haha
That music...
Was that...
Brave Combo?