Cthulhu Dark: Actual Play Notes

My  first playtest of Cthulhu Dark used a published Delta Green adventure. Because I will run this adventure again for another group and/or at conventions and game days, I don’t want to give away too many details. What I want to focus on is the experience of running the system itself.

Converting a published adventure was easy. all you need for Cthulhu Dark is the name, occupation, and description of the character, and every published Call of Cthulhu adventure gives you at least that.  I could pretty much stick to the NPC description, motivations, and flavor text and ignore all of the stat blocks. The only thing I needed to keep an eye out for were skill exceptions that fell outside of occupation, such as a farmer who can also fly an airplane or nurse who’s really good with a shotgun.

Investigation was the first thing I had to tweak, but I stayed with what was implied by the rules but not implicitly stated. Rather than adding dice together, I took each die as a separate result. On your “anyone” die, I gave results that anyone could find out. On an “occupation” die, I would give details only someone with that occupation might have access to (the NSA character having computer access, the HomeLand Security having access to FBI files, and so on), OR I would give them addition “anyone” information if there was no specific occupational information. This stayed within the spirit of the rules while allowing my to maintain a manageable 1-6 scale. I had figured that a roll of 6 means they figure out everything available from that source, but it provided to bang for the buck to people who rolled higher on 2 or 3 dice (I’ll get to Insanity die in a moment). It also forced the players to work cooperatively; the Army CID agent and the scientist will both be able to find the matchbook cover (“anyone”) but only the scientist could figure out the widget and only the CID agent could know the soldier was carrying the wrong sidearm (“occupational”).

The hardest part was helping the players understand when they could roll the Insanity die. It came down to me, as the keeper, offering the opportunity at first, until the players caught on and started asking. It broke down to what was situation-appropriate. If it involved direct Mythos investigation, talking to crazy people, or poking an existing issue the character had, absolutely. If a character started formulating a theory that involved the paranormal, I’d ask if they wanted to throw in a green (in the case on my group, black, because I didn’t have enough green d6′s to go around) die. As long as they kept on that line of investigation, even if they were wrong, if they thought it was paranormal in nature rather than of human origin they could use the Insanity die. This was great, because a character could go slowly mad as they became more convinced otherworldly forces were at play, even if it was completely mundane. What’s more, they’d start to suck other player characters into their delusions as they started believing, too. It’s wonderful.

As with “anyone’ and “occupation” dice, I took the Insanity die as a separate result gauging only how much Mythos or paranormal info they gained. If there was none, I would give them additional “anyone” or “occupation” information but put a misleading sinister spin on it. I never gave them bad or false information, I simple misled them in their interpretation of that data. Yes, I’m evil.

Combat was something that I worked in for no reason other than there are no combat rules in Cthulhu Dark and I needed to work some out. Having a crazy person with a shotgun show up unexpectedly in the third act also provided a twist, especially when they thought the investigation was over and the game session was wrapping up. A bad horror movie cliche, maybe, but the players liked it. I had everyone roll appropriate dice for initiative; trained agents got to roll 2, while the scientist with no combat training got to roll 1. Add them together, and figure who goes first. I did it as opposed rolls; I shoot at you, we both roll, if I roll high I hit, if you roll high I miss. Easy. I did damage as “rounds until you bleed out unless you get medical attention”, and I made the player roll 1 die. If they laid down and put pressure on a wound themselves, or someone else stopped to attend them, they were simply down for the remainder of the combat. If they chose to keep going, they could go for a number of rounds equal to their roll before they passed out. If no one got to them on the very next round, they died. Brutal, but simple, and it worked.

The game was a one-shot, so I told the players I wasn’t going to pull punches. I would kill them or drive them insane without a second thought. They could come up with a new character (name, occupation — thirty second character generation!) and I’d introduce them in the next scene if possible. They fared really well, with one player getting to 5 Insanity but hanging on to that last scrap of her mind, and one player taking a shotgun blast to the chest at close range but surviving. In a longer campaign, that “destroying evidence to regain sanity” rule will come in handy, and I can also see the fun in having the characters work at cross purposes. How do you solve the mystery when your teammate keeps burning the clues?

The players enjoyed it enough that I may possibly run a full campaign somewhere down the line. I may hand a couple of hacked-in mechanics for a larger game, namely Fate-like Aspects to give characters more background and motivation. They’d work just like occupation, roll a d6 for a relevant Aspect, but I’d also work out a way to Invoke and Compel. I also want to allow players to Tag resources; if you have the victim’s computer, or the mad scientist’s journal, and so on you can Tag it to roll an extra die to find a clue.

Overall, for an extreme light system it did nearly everything we needed, and the mechanics provided a tight enough framework that it was easy to hack so I could do things not covered in the rules.