Call of Cthulhu: Crimson Letters - RPG Review

[@mrblopsfiner]

“Hello Internet…”, always feels like a warm, welcoming hug from an old friend. Keep up the great work, Seth.

[@numapompiliusful]

True!

[@TurboWulfe]

It's a good feeling

[@johanneskaiser8188]

Agreed. Just lights up tedious days and improves those already good.

[@Tboysupreme]

He hasn’t even finished the welcome when I click a like. We the "internet" already know this will be great.

[@BrotherVoidBomber]

He's like your quiet fun uncle that everyone knows that always comes to every house party regardless of the home situation. ALSO HAPPY 100K I was here since the days of you going over COC 7th edition in depth.

[@yng1234]

This was the first Call of Cthulhu adventure I ran. Ever. It took 15 sessions, a lot of roleplay, time travel, a manifestation of Kezaiah Mason herself fused with the Horror in the Ink, and my favorite: Anthony Flinders becoming an unlikely ally as he was the first culprit, but became stuck in a time loop due to the effects of the book. His Groundhog Day experiences really mellowed him out. After that, Kezaiah Mason became the main bad gal. What an adventure. I absolutely loved it. But damn, heck of a first time.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Damn. You walked into your first game like a boss.

[@gmradio2436]

War Story please.

[@SneakyNinjaDog]

Wow - 15 sesions!! With a group (like I have) playing around once a month that would mean taking a year and a half almost for this short introduction scenario... 😀

[@paulll47]

First off congrats, this is quite a feat, I am actually curious on how you handled the development phase.

[@GreasusGoldtooth]

Words cannot express how happy hearing "hello internet, Seth Skorkowsky," makes me.

[@hariszark7396]

It's "Seth Sko-rko-- ..wsky"....😆😉

[@truebeliever4144]

​@@hariszark7396 I know I'm late, but what were you on about?

[@hoodieinfestation]

I don’t even play the games you typically review but I watch them all because you have good GM tips in general, and they are entertaining. Don’t comment much, but nice work on these Seth.

[@MrDmitriRavenoff]

I'm in thr boat right next to ya. Hand me that paddle and I'll help.

[@cabanamaldita]

A great review, as always! But mostly, thanks for mentioning my Handouts pack on DTRPG. I really enjoy seeing people satisfied with them, serving the purpose of adding more to the game and, more than anything, making the Crimson Letters experience even better.

[@dutch6857]

For sure picking those up before I run it, they look fantastic

[@goadfang]

I like to think that Jack went on to be a founding member of Scott Brown real estate, using an alias of course due to his years of fighting thr mythos, and so all those rental properties Scott Brown is hocking in the Cyberpunk future of 2020 are really built on haunted burial grounds, ghoul warrens, and ancient sites of mythos related terror. But hey, he got a great deal on them!

[@oz_jones]

This is canon now

[@cameronjames3499]

I'm assuming the "We're Scott Brown MotherF-, Get the F- Out!!" actually originated as one of the lines from the default exorcism ritual taught to initiate estate agents.

[@jesternario]

There is a book that ridges the two settings called Cthulhupunk. I think it’s for GURPS, but it probably has some great general advice for that.

[@shayulghul]

Agreed. I ran this adventure as an experienced GM and still struggled a bit. I did use this as an opportunity to set up the Arkham city map and give the players the chance to explore the city a bit (hoping to make it an intro to an ongoing campaign). The adventure should be tightened up and show a preferred path. The "make this your own" approach should be an option but not the default. It was still fun, and my group occasionally begs me not to throw a "worm bear" at them ever again.

[@justinjanicki6561]

It seems Flinders is a chase curse lol. In my game I had Flinders attack Lucy in her apartment trying to see if she had the papers, the players chased him up the fire escape for a little rooftop chase, one of the players rolled a nat 100 trying to jump onto the next roof, fell off the roof, then botched their luck roll to break their fall, then splatted in an alley. In the midst of the chase, Oaks and Shaunessy showed up because they saw Lucy talk with the investigators at her work and wanted to ‘talk” to her, only to see this goofy chase and decided they wanted to know if anybody knew where Leiter or anything of value he had was(They were settling the debt one way or another, and became essentially a rival party ) and then started chasing the PCs. It was one of the most fun , chaotic moments in an rpg I’ve played.

[@dutch6857]

Did anyone else have Benny Hill's "Yaketty Sax" playing in their head as the chase was being described?

[@Omnicrom]

Yes, extremely

[@JKevinCarrier]

Jack needs his own show on the Home & Garden channel: "Supernatural House Flippers" :D

[@maciej6102]

I made an occult circle inside the papers that was used to summon the monster. Leiter in his madness started to write a reversal of that magic circle to save himself, but at some point he ran out of paper and started to write on his forearms. He didn't make it in time and was killed. Wheatcroft made a set of photos of his body and he wanted to sell them to Abner Wick (I made Wheatcroft into a gambling addict also, he was selling dead bodies and photos of them to Abner for money), but police came and he, scared everything would be uncovered, hid the photos. Leiter body has been cremated after he rose from grave and killed police coroner, raising the importance of Wheatcroft's photos. Investigators had 3 sets of clues to get the formula needed to banish the monster-> Letier's notes, photos of his body from Wheatcroft and original circle in the book and copies. I wish I could post these images here, but yt doesn't allow it :/

[@BF-up5xw]

"Hi, I'm Jack the property mogul; and I am too rich for this sh$t now. Seth, you're on your own!"

[@Ulysses-xl4pv]

Seth brings funny moments, I’ve watched since 2016, I remember getting up at 5:00 in the morning and watching his videos before going to school. It’s was awesome.

[@JohnSmith-qq7fm]

My players were pretty oblivious, so I had to make a trail of bad guys, each stealing the papers from the previous dead one, and they had to follow the trail of dead bodies. And we also did that "Damn Flinders", even to the point of his mother (Maude) showing up after her son died

[@mollywantshugs5944]

That sounds like quite a story

[@JohnSmith-qq7fm]

@@mollywantshugs5944 It was a fun time. It took multiple sessions, and in the end, only Abner Wick and Emilia Court survived, and even that was because one of players was a rival book dealer and didn't want to be complicit in murdering his competition. So, unfortunately Abner lived, but they stole his ritual, and because of rolls, eyes bled and storms raged as the creature was banished, and Hobbhouse's house burned to the foundation. It kicked off our campaign and they went through Dead Lights, and the Books of Uncle Silas, except I changed that book dealer to Abner (and they still didn't kill him off!).

[@zachmckinney2497]

Seth thank you for calling that out. Refering to your aside on basic floor plans. Always easier to not use an elevator that exists than forcing one to appear out of nothing.

[@jameselsbury9478]

I remember running this- the best moment was during a chase scene where the investigators were racing after the suspect, with the rolls making it so that only one caught up in an alley- the suspect got possessed and the gaze triggered a amnesia bout of madness, so I described how the other investigators entered the alley to find the suspect dead after the mad investigator smashed his head into a wall. Edit: they also fed the mobsters to the half-ghoul. Those adventurers had a habit of tying up loose ends.

[@dutch6857]

I was hoping that you would review this one, I was intending to run it soon and your advice is always invaluable. After watching I wonder if I want to get another few cases under my belt first, even with your suggestions. (After reading it I totally saw the the tendrils of the monster as smoky wisps that if you looked close enough you could see were made of floating letters in ornate, old-fashioned handwriting)

[@sniperluigi6488]

Going from "This module sounds interesting." to "Wait I already ran this module!" was an unexpected suprise.

[@steveanderson963]

A little Seth Skorkowsky and Call of Cthulhu make Monday feel a little less Mondayish.

[@larsdahl5528]

Yeah, time to regain some Sanity Points.

[@FreshCoatKustoms]

Nothing in this world has helped me more in becoming a good Cthulhu GM than your videos. Thank you so much.

[@richmcgee434]

Wait, so Flinders survived this and is just looking at some time in the jug for assault? Time for Jack to get a new recurring nemesis. Bonus points if he comes back as part of a 1920s Satanist version of the Mystery Inc crew, complete with talking Great Dane mascot.

[@jaylouis4679]

really excited to run this adventure using the newly released Arkham book, got the leatherette so that's some awesome handouts

[@AlVainactual]

Congrats on 100k Seth! Here's to millions more!

[@holdetminbror365]

Am I the only one who can totally hear the Benny Hill-show score playing through that chase scene??

[@evilscientistrecords]

Our dungeon master puts that song on whenever we have a chain of fumbles... Rickety Sax!

[@severinevalles2423]

This was the first CoC adventure I ran. I choose to make Flinders the thief of the papers but only has some kind of pawn of Wick, who promised him actual mythos knowledge (but actually planned to get rid of him once he used him). Emilia Stone was just a genuinely helpful NPC with some backbone. Thing is, I introduced Flinders to the PCs by making him 'casually' watch them when investigating Leiter's office. Flinders then proceeded to ramble bullsh*t about Emilia being a witch and other sketchy theories. For a moment I was afraid of making him too suspect from the get go, but one PC in particular just completely bought his witch theory and overall invited him to help on the case. How your players sort of blindly trust Emilia to help them made me smile as it resonated as the somewhat similar but reverse situation that developped in my game. Also about your point on the written adventure leaving too many details out to be welcoming to new keepers, I agree. I did put the work to flesh out locations ahead of time (except the Manse, and I got lucky the PCs did not try to visit there). I also planned clues/handouts but if I would try it again today, I would probably plan for more. Overall the amount of work was significant for a first adventure, but it turned out quite well in the end.

[@nessdragon]

This was a fun one when I ran it. I took full advantage of the "variable culprit" aspect, because originally, I had picked Flinders to be the villain, but my players got a bead on him too soon, so instead I just ran with the "Satanist in a Mythos world" angle and did the bit with him stealing a lock of a PC's hair to cast a spell. They tracked him back to his home and found him in the basement with his cliche altar and all his goofy Laveyan setup, and one of our PCs, a former boxer who had become a priest, decided to fight him and beat him unconscious hand-to-hand on general principle, and the rest of the PCs let him do it. So the doofy Satanist got his ass kicked by an old man while his friends cheered him on, which was just hilarious. I went ahead and made Wick the culprit after that and made them going down into the ghoul warrens the climax of the adventure, and that worked a lot better since it was their first encounter with ghouls and had plenty of creepiness and shock value. And the priest character had actually talked the two mob goons into helping them go after Wick to get the money they were owed, so they had extra manpower and firepower for the fight, which worked out well.

[@jesternario]

This is kind of like a mini Two-Headed Serpent story. And just as fun to watch.

[@traumachild1737]

Flinders the ultimate in eldritch horror

[@paulaseabee8442]

I bet Nathaniel Hawthorne's ghost is gnashing his teeth! It's not that far a step from 'crimson' to 'scarlet'! 😁

[@GreyMage]

This was a very fun video. I haven't run the adventure myself, but it certainly will be an option now.

[@dicewrites]

Jack need to call up Scott Brown to help manage all the real estate he is racking up.

[@travismix2844]

Just wanted to say before I head over to Amazon to leave a review that I just got done reading the first chapter of Damoren and so far its really great. Looking forward to the rest in the series.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Hope you enjoy the rest of it.

[@robinfood]

저도 "crimson letters"를 플레이 해보았습니다. 매우 흥미로운 시나리오 입니다. 저는 gm으로서 플레이를 했습니다. 하지만 player로도 플레이 해보고 싶습니다. 범인이 매번 바뀐다는 점이 아주 매력적입니다.

[@johanneskaiser8188]

The Flinders Chase sounds like slapstick comedy underlined by Benny Hill music.

[@FuriousJorge]

It was.

[@brothwood4108]

Rest in Peace Alan. You had such great imagination and were a lovely bloke.

[@ReustersPlace]

Jinkies... you guys went all sorts of Saturday Morning ghost hunting teenagers... you needed a Great Dane though.

[@drskelebone]

I'm unreasonably upset about Wick's Store Map. The boiler is located approximately at the middle of the house, but the first floor bathroom is on the north side and the second floor bathroom is on the south side? The only thing non-Euclidean in this nightmare is that plumbing! :) Anyway, great video as always!

[@cygnia]

I now wanna see a sketch of Jack flipping those haunted properties

[@dutch6857]

"Huh, new realtor in Arkham... Scott Brown. Well he sounds nice, lets get him to show the place to us."

[@richmcgee434]

Given the number of them he's inherited from deceased long-forgotten relatives and random semi-strangers he's going to need to hire agency to handle them all. I hear Scott Brown's supposed to do good work.

[@dutch6857]

@@richmcgee434 Thinking about it for a bit, the CoC Scott Brown would have a very impressive skillset. "Ain't no two-bit spook gonna keep me from my showing! Scat! Scat! You don't want me to come down there!" Intimidate through the roof, SAN hanging by a thread. (edited for grammar)

[@richmcgee434]

@@dutch6857 I kind of assume their reps' SAN is already at zero and nothing phases them any more. The company CEO is probably a mask of Nyarlathotep with a weird sense of humor.

[@EvilDMMk3]

When I ran this I actually used a handout where the professor had been keeping track of the bids for the papers. This included three future enemies and one future ally of the PCs. Oh and the PC is managed to trick a couple of mob enforcers into picking a fight with a couple of proto-ghouls.

[@StephMcAlea]

Sorry @Seth, I draw what I'm asked. I had no idea that the letter and receipt wouldn't be included but my memory is hazy. X #KillFlinders

[@OgamiItto70]

I like the NPC portraits. _None_ of them look particularly trustworthy. Delicious. (I love good game art.)

[@FairyEvergardens]

Thank you for making and sharing this video. Your content always makes me feel better ✨

[@smjsuperscott]

I combined all the starter adventures into an intro campaign for my friends with this as the finale. I had it be that everything was the machnations of Githlanki, from the starter adventure with the lake. A fun twist was that by this point one of the players was actually a ghoul under Githlanki and in the conclusion where it was for me the student, he kidnapped and ritualistically sacrificed one character, then the other 2 came in and got into a fight with him, with the actually turned one watching the door. The other player actually won, but was severely wounded. The ghoul player snuck up behind him with a shotgun and tried to execute him with a shot to the back of the head, but the player got a hard dodge roll, spun around, and got a perfect headshot. We had the finale be him having to permanently be on the run from the agents of Githlanki.

[@EHAmos]

I have been dying for you to cover this one because it seemed so complex, thank you! EDIT: I'm going to write out a timeline for the stolen papers to keep track of who had it when, but I want all of the culprits to have had it at some point but it only ended up with one of them

[@teamarcaniun336]

Yes yes yes! God this is my favourite part of the day now.

[@sinmaan7568]

With your expertise with horror, both as a writer and game master, as well as your sense of humour, I would LOVE to see your take/reviews as well as game play regarding DEADLANDS. To me, that setting offers such a good balance between horror, action and "tongue in cheek" humour, all wrapped in tropes of cowboys/Indians, trains, steam tech and weird. You would rock that genre! I personally like the Savage World adaptation (very simple rules and quick to run), but the themes stay the same no matter the version. Cheers!

[@bigsarge2085]

I like the time contraint/countdown aspect. Stupid Flinders!

[@PsychesGamingAddiction]

Awesome video as always ^^ Do you write the extra scenes down or something? Or do you more or less improv them? I know you’ve made a video on how you prep (print out the pdf, etc) but a detailed version on how you prep a scenario from start to finish would be the best thing that ever existed on the internet :D

[@SSkorkowsky]

For that one, outside of my notes for the module itself, I simply had the handouts I wanted printed out. I noted on Post It notes where they could be found (some had 2 possibilities depending on where the PCs went), I printed the mansion map straight out of the Mansions of Madness book, and the rest I improvised as we needed.

[@AmonDevilman]

I know Flinders is going to be my villain in my game.

[@oz_jones]

Stupid culty Flinders!

[@Crabinton]

I just now notice he has 100k subscribers

[@MrJHM007]

Sounds like that chase should have been set to Yakkety Sax.

[@Gabrong]

i am always a bit nervous until i hear "and I'm Jack the NPC.." I just love that line. i would use it as a ringtone if my phone wouldnt been muted for... since i have turned it on.

[@craftsmenMC]

YES! Been looking on tips for this scenario forever! I’ve always been to scared to run it! Thanks Seth!

[@luckyleo25]

That chase scene sounds so "Keystone Kops"!! 🤣🤣

[@arbrawlchamp]

Everytime I've run this, I've always had Wick not as the thief, but as the true villain. He uses the destruction of the Witch Papers as an excuse to get the investigators to help him perform a ritual to summon Tulzcha. Yeah, it consumes the Witch Papers, and the horror in it's green flames...buuut it's gonna inevitably herald Azathoth's awakening. :)

[@ArchangelMiniatureGaming]

man. I miss Alan Bligh's stuff. RIP. Alan

[@TheEldritchGoth]

This review came out just in time! I had been planning to run this adventure for my crew for some time now, and this video dropped about a week after I started taking notes and prepping for the game. The tidbits were great, and I loved Emilia Court's potential witchy turn so much that I also made her the villain. There was a new player introduced during the session - a history professor at MU. This was perfect. The session started after he wrapped up a class, with his current star student Anthony Flinders reminiscing over the loss of Charles Leiter and his most talented postgraduate student, Emilia, coming in to catch up with him and direct him to Fallon's office to join the rest of the crew. By the end of the session, Emilia had incinerated herself and his teacher's pet Flinders was revealed to be an insane Satanist that tried to kill him for the papers. Needless to say, Professor Fillman had a horrific introduction to the Mythos. Edit: The spell list I used for Emilia was candle communication, incinerate, contact Nyarlathotep, gate, and send dream, for anyone looking for a thematic and Keziah Mason inspired tool set for your villain.

[@TheFleahost]

I’ve never played CoC or Travelers, but you give a lot of great tips that are system independent. “I got a showing!”

[@nicholashurst780]

I don't mean this as a criticism of you or even really have Call of Cthulhu the game but everytime I see an illustration of a Lovecraft Ghoul that isn't a leathery man dog who is in fact a good boy my heart breaks a little

[@bobherse1997]

I've been running this game for my guys and it's gone quite well, using his old army connections one of the players with the ex army police lieutenant to help them, the lied about the mythos connection and showed them the forgery case and persuaded the police aid them. Funnily enough, when the players were taken hostage by the mobsters, they were forced to show them leiters body, Leiters zombie killed oaks, shaunassy an one player shot at it, another had a short bound of madness and our lawyer fled into the halls thinking they were being chased by glowing eyes. After the fight the players saved Wheatcroft who was having a heart attack and let shaunassy leave with Oaks body. it was good fun and the body started talking to oaks, convincing him to kill Cecil Hunter who'd carved Voorish signs all over his body to protect himself. Made for a fun encounter at the asylum with the mad Shaunassy and a zombified Oaks. If anyones wondering the thief was Emilia during this game and the players have gone to Hobhouse mansion to confront her, as she's preparing to sacrifice one of the uni professors who's name escapes me at the moment

[@danacoleman4007]

Seth's videos actually make me glad I don't have any friends. I can watch these wonderful spoiler-filled videos with complete abandon and enjoyment, knowing that I will never have an opportunity to play them.

[@danacoleman4007]

Well said, loser

[@ryke_masters]

My personal explanation for Wick knowing more than he should is simply that he has his ghouls snoop on anything related to the papers or of mythos interest. They searched the PC's hotel rooms, turned up around other locations when no one was around but left tracks, etc. And in preparation for this adventure, I had minor artifacts disappear (e.g. I ran Crack'd and Crooked Manse before, and some mythos statue that they had left in the house disappeared by the time they came back to the ruins after the climax of the scenario, complete with strange "animal" tracks) so they could turn up in Wick's shop or study. With all that, PC's didn't really need to ask for an explanation: he's just that shady. He offered to bind the beast back in the papers and give them minor occult knowledge in exchange for the papers themselves and nonspecific later "services", and ended up as an extremely shady patron the PC's never dared look too close into. Him threatening/bribing the PCs into going somewhere or doing something was a convenient way to cart them off to further scenarios.

[@elgoogkcuf]

I love and appreciate your videos! Do you have any Tabletop War Stories videos lined up? I love those.

[@oldhatAN]

It's a bit annoying when they just leave stuff out and tell me that I can fill it in myself. I pay for scenarios so I don't have to do that stuff.

[@dallaspark9100]

Dang! I ran this for my players a week ago! Wish I would have waited for your video (I also chose emilia court as the culprit) great video anyways! :)

[@FuriousJorge]

Ironically Emilia was the LAST PERSON to get investigated. Literally went through all the options before her.

[@dallaspark9100]

@@FuriousJorge true! my players ruled out everyone else before her, they loved it! :)

[@Jsay18]

Just pay $50 to some random thug to steal the book. It worked perfectly.

[@nickmanzo8459]

This is one that I ran after I had a few scenarios safely under my belt, but it was still when I was fairly a novice at running games. Basically, Abner Wick was a character that really spoke to me, I really hammed it up and created a character that was a combination of Humphrey Bogart, Peg Leg Pete as the Ghost of Christmas Future, and a little hint of John Lithgow that my players absolutely loved (and were terrified of). I introduced him as a man capable of handling some Mythos matters the players couldn’t, but always at a price. When I ran this scenario, Flinders was the guilty party, basically because I thought my players would be so angry that it turned out to be this relative nobody causing them this much grief (and they were). A bunch of dumb kids on campus who were wannabe Satanists and he met for a late night Satan calling ceremony with the papers, and the horror in ink turned up instead. The players had to flee with the papers, Abner Wick paid them for the papers, and managed to capture the fiend inside it. They kept reading of rivals of Wick’s dying under mysterious circumstances after that, causing them to lose sanity with their guilty consciences, but they also came to rely on Wick as a Hannibal Lecter type. They knew he was bad news, but they couldn’t help needing his expertise. I also used the connections they made in this scenario to connect it to the one in Doors to Darkness called None More Black.

[@originaluddite]

What could be more 1920s than a chase scene with lots of slipping around?

[@alonsoaguilar313]

I think a cool thing you can do with this adventure is stretching it out over time and letting it play out amidst other related scenarios, really emphasizing the sandbox aspect. I ran it as a combined scenario with Missed Dues, simply replacing that scenarios' maguffin with the Hobbhouse Papers. For Hobbhouse Manse I used Delta Green's Music From A Darkened Room, a Black Man / Keziah Mason scenario that fits perfectly. Naturally, it became more of a 20-session campaign, but the groundwork that's within the scenario is really great as inspiration and for futher expanding.

[@thetoweroftomes]

Ran this as my first ever Cthuhu adventure. It took us two sessions of eight hours and everyone at the table had a horrifyingly fun time. Recommended.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

I eagerly await the next episode of Call of Cthulu: House Hunters Edition

[@witchdoctor1394]

"House Haunters"

[@WoobooRidesAgain]

8:52 You know how you say that art can be hugely inspiring? This picture is inspiring me to play Abner like Sydney Greenstreet in _The Maltese Falcon_ . The far shot of this artwork makes me immediately think of how that film used low angles to make Gutman look even larger than he already was.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Funny enough, I used my Sydney Greenstreet voice for him for that same reason.

[@MaxWriter]

Nicely done, as usual. I've never run this one and, though I love the idea of the detailed npcs to interview, I hate having to determine who did it myself. I also don't see any of those missing parts being features at all. I like what you did with it.

[@brianojeda5695]

I hear your videos just to hear about Cthulhu mythos and enjoy the bits of Jack npc, keep it up, I was waiting for the next call of Cthulhu review and can't wait for the next one

[@bjornehlert5544]

A good ol' Cthuhlu Review. 👍🏻 My favorit...

[@swoleinvictus213]

I think Ive Run thus adventure 6 or 7 Times already for different groups. I absolutely Love it! I dont wanna brag but I think I can Run it without Notes at this point! This adventure is super lovecraftian imo and I have it very dear to my Heart aß it also was my First COC adventure. Last Time I ran it. When the Players asked "Is there any Magic in this setting?" I Said No. They were in for a suprise. Trying to explain the Events With everything from Plutonium to Aliens Till a certain kipping point.

[@kevinberent9068]

I cannot agree strongly enough with you that this is NOT an adventure for beginner Keepers or players. When we first got into CoC after COVID-19 hit, I spent A LOT of frustrated time trying to plan how to run it. Luckily, I figured out that we just weren't ready for it, and moved on to other scenarios. Now that our group has a lot more experience, we'd probably have fun playing it...right after filling in all of the missing pieces you covered! Thanks for this and all the other videos ----- they have really helped me/us. Keep up the great work!

[@willywonkascreepysmilewonk3200]

Always brightens my day to see a Seth upload

[@DarkVeghetta]

Thanks for these, Seth. My wife's currently in bed with a fever and you're the channel I've put on to help her relax/sleep (we sometimes watch you together; though she's very busy with work, so not all the time). Cheers.

[@jacobcarignan1]

This is great! I was just looking for resources on this adventure the other day. Crossing my fingers for amidst the ancient trees

[@andersschmich8600]

Great to see it covered! In my campaign I changed the bear wormy thing to a shade of Keziah herself with a blurred, hideous face. I totally agree that while its a great adventure, it is totally unsuited for a novice keeper, even though I had been playing for a few years when I ran it, it still took me a while to prepare it. The Corbitt House or Edge of Darkness are much better starter modules.

[@kwagmeijer26]

I ran this twice for my first two times keeping (2 different groups) and had a blast as the sandbox nature really differentiated them, and allowed me to make use of my improvisation chops. One thing I liked to do is any place the horror had appeared, I made it so the investigators might notice "dead worms dried up like they had climbed onto the sidewalk to escape the rain". First group was crazy, at one point they made a huge enemy of Wick, which resulted in some chase scenes, and a great scene involving a ghoul searching a person's office while they stayed hidden in a closet trying their best to keep their breathing quiet. They got locked down in Wick's secret basement at one point and had to run from the ghouls to find another way out. Also had a great nightmare scene after they had found the papers and went to sleep in one of the character's mansion and locked them in a safe. Finally, it ended with them killing the horror but burning down the mansion in a fit of insanity, having to make constitution rolls to not pass out succumbing to the smoke. Second time there was a great scene where they finally tracked the papers down to a house, and when they entered, it was covered in crawling worms that they had to walk on to get anywhere and touch to interact with anything.

[@seandraws1999]

Ah Crimson Letters, the jumping off point for what has been a 3-4 year long campaign. Highlights included a mobster car chase, a near death ghoul encounter on an island in the Miskatonic, and Wick framing a PC as a cannibal and getting him locked up in Arkham Sanitarium.

[@andrewdiaz3529]

That was a wild chase, almost a Tabletop War story!

[@adamtifone9243]

I have one question Seth is Jack in every one of the modules you run that's awesome if he is

[@SSkorkowsky]

The real Jack was around for a brief while on a few adventures, then sort of faded off because the players didn't need him anymore

[@snakeyman5560]

R.I.P Alan Bligh

[@Tabletop_Nonsenseverse]

Yesssss more Seth Skorkowsky. I have been consuming Seth's content in the background for 4 days. Love how it feels like someone's telling me a story.

[@DarkAutumnScribe]

Another great review! Thank you!

[@dartandarigaaz3393]

Hey Seth, I've been watching your videos for a while, mainly cause of Traveller (Your video on arcturus station convinced me to get it and I bought your updated version) and recently you've sold me also on CoC, so I've been looking for good adventures to run and your videos all have been very helpfull with that. But in your CoC starter set review you mention a personal selection by you and a friend of yours of 7 classic adventures 3 of wich are already in the starter set and the fourth being wail of the witch, I'm just curious cause I really would like to check them out so my question is, what where the other 3 adventures? Anyways, keep up the good work, have a good day, and thanks for everything (especially the "arcturus station" update 😆)

[@Krissosik]

I ran this adventure once - made it in a story with players actually meeting Leiter before his death and choosing Fallon as culprit (he wanted piece of Leiter "business"). Emily saw and hear them arguing and after Leiter's death was so scared, she was also scared of PCs working for Fallon. Our rich player was able to convince Hobbhouses to cooperate, I even made wife of old Hobbhouse actually insane from reading the documents and it worked nicely as clue. Unfortunatelly players fell into trap Fallon prepared - used fake document to frame Emily, she went to jail - even though they vere certain that she was innocent (after at first trying to convince university and Fallon to search her office - which he stoped at first, then next day said he was "convinced" and found documents he placed himself... they did search her office that night, finding nothing).PCs missed few clues in general story, so all ended with Fallon going mad, creature actually possesing him, killing Flaunders who was following him (as he thought he had those documents), killing few more bystanders and creature was free. Rich PC also missed meeting date with Lucy, so she fled, next lost clues. I was happy with outcome, PCs little less, but the story itself was great. Story itself need some experience from Keeper or lot of prep. Its open/sandboxy, so its good for roleplay. Lots of good npcs, good grounds for interaction. As first story - not recommend, but can be used as mid campain break or starter for more experienced Keeper.

[@Shenaldrac]

Yeeeeah... "Make it your own!" feels like a cop out whenever I see it in P&P modules. It's exactly like you say, I'm the GM I can already change whatever I want about a module to better fit my group and our game. Having suggestions for alterations GMs could make depending on certain plausible situations (what if they don't care about an important NPC, what if they're mobsters instead of average joes so you could have them be investigating based on a racketeering angle, etc) is one thing but simply not filling in details, not providing a core path that is the creator intended experience, that's not a story, that's not a module. That's not even mad libs.

[@richmcgee434]

8:00 Is that backdrop a vintage 1920s morgue or funeral parlor back room?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Hospital Morgue. Built in 1920, but photo is 1940s, so probable anachronisms that some die-hard morgue enthusiast will bust me on. But it was suitably large, less grainy than the others I found, and lacked anyone standing in it. The fact it's the Shaughnessy Hospital Morgue is total coincidence. searcharchives.vancouver.ca/shaughnessy-hospital-morgue;rad

[@richmcgee434]

@@SSkorkowsky See, that's how you (usually) spell Shaughnessy. :)

[@Tomyironmane]

Don't think of it as "replayability..." Think of it the way wargamers think of the extra bits in a kit that allow model customization, "Things that you can tuck away for later and shamelessly use for other purposes."

[@WestOfEarth]

Is there a CoC adventure / campaign that is remeniscent of the Hellraiser series? Specifically Hellraiser II. Absolutely enjoy your vids, the commentary and suggestions.

[@bweh387]

Just had our first session of this the other day - my players didn't know to target Lieter's zombie's head, so one of the players wound up using resurrection offensively to reduce Lieter to his essential salts - at which point he went through a bout of madness and went through with actually resurrecting the guy. Of course, he came back at zero sanity. Leaving the players in the fun predicament of figuring out what they were supposed to do with this crazy guy who everyone knows should be dead.

[@SL-sc8iw]

Perfect timing!! I’m literally planning to run this in 2 weeks!!

[@maxstone3779]

At.thr very least the choose the suspect makes it relatable to other players with the same GM, or the player can GM and run it differently. Plus players cannot look up the solution. I am planning to run this and having fun deciding who did it. Party based on what is fun and player knowing who my players wouldn't outright suspect.

[@williamhazzard9457]

One criticism. Odds were, in 1920, at least one car would be model T. Model Ts only got electric starters in 1919, and every model T ever made had a hand crank, so a dead battery in 1920 wouldn't have been a real impediment.

[@doomhippie6673]

As usual top notch. Thank you so much.

[@wolfing]

classic chum being the one that gives trouble to the god slaying heroes, never fails to entertain me...except when i'm the player i suppose, forever dm had to have some good things