More Tales of Heroic Deeds... in Role Playing Games

This entry rated HG-13 by the Academy of Gaming Arts and Sciences for its high geek factor. It is about fantasy role playing games - specifically the horror RPG, Call of Cthulhu - and will not be of interest to everyone.

To read an account of Tuesdat night's Call of Cthulhu game session written by player Becky Stoner (AKA Marci the reporter) click this link... if you dare. It's actually the Monongahela, (moe non ga hay la) but I never could pronounce it correctly.

This was the first RPG adventure I had written since 1991 when I was game mastering the Star Wars RPG. The basic gist of the CoC adventure revolves around the small western Pennsylvania town of Shire Oaks (a real place) on the Monongahela River. Two old timers fishing at a secluded spot on the river spot a group of seven cloaked figures who enter into a cave and perform "weird chants and rituals" which 'obviously' makes them devil worshipers or cultists of some sort. The old timers report the strange activity to the local police force (of two) and they call the Armitage Trust (a group known is some circles to be interested in this sort of thing). The group of players is sent by the Trust to investigate this unknown and new cult, gather information and report back. What the players don't know is that the "cult of devil worshipers" is actually a group of high school seniors playing their own live action horror role playing game and they aren't a Cthulhu cult at all. I threw in lots of red herrings (a missing girl, pages missing from an Indian book of rituals, slain rats and beef hearts) and clues to make it all look like a real cult about to make a human sacrifice and summon forth a demon! Given my player's penchant for rushing in where angels fear to tread and shooting first, asking ?s later, my goal was to make the situation in the cave look real enough that they would rush in and start shooting. As all players do they surprised me and my plans were foiled. No one fired a weapon or threw dynamite. No one was injured or killed and the mystery of the new cult was uncovered. Curses, I was foiled again.