Remarks: Lovecraftian Tales from the Table

This classic post originally ran on March 26, 2009.

This is a collection of recorded game sessions, taken from two published Call of Cthulhu campaigns: Horror on the Orient Express and Masks of Nyarlathotep. When I first heard about this project, I was at once excited and dubious. Recording actual game sessions as podcasts, and releasing them for public consumption, could either be interesting to listen to or boring as all hell. The scope was certainly perfect — take a well-known published campaign and serialize it, so there’s a definite plot to follow and a definite end point, rather than some nebulous never-ending homebrew campaign that runs indefinitely until it peters out. And at least one person, Paul “of Cthulhu” Maclean, was well-known enough to entice people to give it a listen.

Now, I have to admit here that I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts. I’m literally phoning it in from the late 20th century, on a dial-up internet connection. I don’t listen to anything on a regular basis, only grabbing an episode of any given podcast here and there based on a topic of extreme interest, because they take for frickin’ ever for me to download. That’s why I became very excited when I found out that not one but two of Paul’s campaign podcast series were being released on a DVD, along with a metric crap-ton of other cool stuff. All the listening enjoyment, none of the agonizing download time!

So how are they? The audio quality varies, as one would expect from a stationary microphone on a table recording people seated around it. Orient Express uses “binaural audio”, which I understand to mean two mics embedded in a styrofoam head to simulate what an actual person would hear. The quality of these recording is much better. As for the content, it is surprisingly engaging. The Bradford Players are obviously seasoned roleplayers, and entertaining to listen to. It was fun to hear other peoples’ table talk, as well as the way they played each of their characters. If you’re new to roleplaying, listening to some of these recorded sessions will give you a firm idea of what it’s about (although I’d at least expect the listener to understand something of the Cthulhu Mythos). As an experienced roleplayer myself, I gleaned a lot from hearing how another group handles things, both in the way players worked their characters and the Keepers of Arcane Lore (gamemasters)  dealt with keeping things moving and dealing with mechanical system bits.

The graphic design and artwork is top-notch. I don’t know what it is about the Cthulhu Mythos that attracts so many talented people (other than the obvious dreams, Ia! Ia! Injoke f’thagn!) but everything from the DVD box cover to the illustrations in the menus are gorgeous. The fact that someone composed a soundtrack for this is insane, but in the good way and not the “make a SAN check” way. Color (or should that be colour) me impressed.

The disc contains the following:

• Both HotOE & Masks games at the highest quality MP3s available. Many hours of entertainment audio.
• Interviews with the game and adventure developers including Sandy Petersen (author of Call of Cthulhu), Greg Stafford (founder of Chaosium), Charlie Krank (Head of Chaosium), Larry DiTillio (author of Masks of Nyarlathotep) and members of the Cthulhu Conglomerate (authors of Horror on the Orient Express).
• Quick Start Start Guide to Call of Cthulhu and PDF character sheets.
• Music by Alex Otterlei (HotOE) and Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.
• Photo Gallery and Player & Keeper interviews.
• Prop Documents by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
• Artwork by Earl Geier, Eric M. Smith, Francois Launet and others.
• ’Best of’ Yog Radio (including interviews with Robin “Wicker Man” Hardy & Bob “Dr. Phibes” Fuest).
• Post-game discussions by the players of both HotOE and Masks.
• Videos, handouts, previously unreleased extras and easter eggs!
• The Freeport Trilogy and Cults of Freeport gaming supplements by Green Ronin Publishing.
• 8 page full colour DVD booklet designed by the HPLHS.

Here’s a potential revenue stream for other podcasters or even bloggers — release collections of your best downloadable products on disc, with some extra goodies. It’s one more channel to get your stuff out there into the world.

Buy Lovecraftian Tales from the Table