The Stochastic Game

Ramblings of General Geekery

Everything I Learned About GMing Was With Call Of Cthulhu: Automatic Clues

I got into TTRPGs around the turn of the 1990s and, after my first few games, fell into a long tunnel of Call of Cthulhu gaming. I pretty much exclusively GM’ed Call of Cthulhu from the mid-90s to the late 2000s, including a lot of Delta Green, which back then was a Call of Cthulhu sourcebook.

I wasn’t online much at the time, so all the GMing techniques I picked up during that time were through adventure books, friends, or by myself. I suspect that investigative horror games like Call of Cthulhu are uniquely positioned to force the GM to develop good technique, and that’s sort of what I want to explore here through the lens of my own formative GMing years… and let’s start with “automatic clues!”

Read more…

∞ in Roleplaying Games

This week’s mail call was Free League’s Invincible TTRPG! It looks super great, and will probably be my group’s next “interlude” game, especially if we manage to get together face-to-face.

The Invincible Kickstarter loot: the core rulebook with the special cover, the Starter Set box, and the first issue of the original comic, but with a new cover.
Contents of the Starter Set, including some dice, some initiative cards, a bunch of standees, lots of character sheets, a rules booklet, an adventure booklet, and a few other tidbits. This looks like a Free League Starter Set alright!
A spread from the core rulebook, showing the great-looking layout that makes good use of the comic-book's art and feels very comic-book-y.
Another page spread from the core rulebook.

∞

I just learned that apparently the version of “The Name Of The Rose” that’s on Amazon Prime has removed the sex scene, which would of course be ironic, given the movie’s theme of religiously-driven censorship, if it wasn’t just sad. Once again, piracy is the best user experience.

∞

It’s blackberry season! Go around your neighbourhood and pick a bunch! Remember to taste before taking: some bushes are more sour than others. AFAICT, the more sun exposure (such as south-facing bushes), the sweeter the taste (but I need to look into it properly)

Some blackberries. More picking tips: if the berry doesn't naturally detach with a gentle tug, it's not ripe yet and you can leave it for later!

∞

I just realized that the excellent mini-series “The Lost Room” and the promising but abandoned “Parallels” TV movie/pilot were both done by the same guy, and now I really need someone to throw money at Christopher Leone to make more cool weird shit.

Poster for The Lost Room, a 3-episode mini-series that came just before, and probably helped kickstart, the whole SCP and creepypasta internet culture
The poster for "Parallels", which is basically "Sliders" but the parallel universe travelling device is a whole building, and it stars Jessica Rothe, both of which are good enough to grab my attention

∞

Yay! I have joined the ELITE club of people who say cool stuff like “where did I leave my darn reading glasses?” or “can you get my reading glasses from the table?” or “my knee hurts!” or “what?! speak up!!”

Excited about this new chapter of my life.

A pair of Flexon glasses (with the case) on a white table. There's also a Kobo e-reader, currently set on Asimov's "Foundation and Empire".

∞