[Games That Shaped Me] Part Two - Call of Cthulhu

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.
― Howard Phillips Lovecraft

So, here's Part Two of my introverted reflections - as stolen from David Chapman.  I have to say that when I was thinking about writing this 'series' I had to seriously consider which RPG had shaped me the most; Call of Cthulhu or Dark Conspiracy. Sure, Dark Conspiracy - as I detailed - is the game that means the most to me personally, but on reflect Call of Cthulhu has probably done more to influence my writing and game development skills...

Call of Cthulhu

Creatively, I've probably spent more time writing, thinking and developing ideas for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game than  all the rest of the RPGs in my collection combined: I've written scenarios; published a fanzine; and even done some official playtesting.
 
In a narrative common to many, I was introduced to the writings of Lovecraft (umm, in this case August Derleth in the guise of Lovecraft) well before I even knew of the existence of an RPG. I'm always thankful that my gaming mate - Mike Ross - lent me that first book (The Lurker at the Threshold, I think it was called), as it ignited an interest in the horror genre that's never been extinguished. This 'enlightenment' occurred way back in my mid-teens, when I was living in a small New Zealand town that has since been called 'the dullest place in the country' - a statement I can attest to*! But while the community offered little in the way of excitement for a growing lad, it did have an inordinate number of second-hand bookshops (none of which, unfortunately, survived the town's 'revitalisation' in the early 2000s). Hunting through those myriad of shelves and forgotten boxes I was able to get a fair selection of real Lovecraft's stories, usually in short-story collections, like the Del Ray editions. To this day I remember how I consumed them with such interest and wonder, and can readily see how they influenced my creative interests. (In fact, as I write this I've had flashes of memory - of me tucked-up in bed, braced against the cold, reading At the Mountains of Madness, and on the downstairs couch, in the bright Saturday morning sun, flicking through The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.)

In those days I wasn't interested in writing Call of Cthulhu scenarios, as I didn't even own a copy of the rules until I was in my 20s, but rather I just wanted to write like Lovecraft. Thankfully none of those first terrible pastiches survived my moving away from home afew years later, but my love of the Mythos and its nihilistic approach to humanity and our future was ingrained.

* - I always say that the only good thing to come out of that town was my wife :P 

Why to I love Call of Cthulhu so Much?

The People...

That probably sounds weird, but my interest in Lovecraft, which - obviously - soon morphed into a love of Call of Cthulhu, has led me to meet with so many great people - from authors such as Tim Wiseman (creator of the most 'mythos' of all Call of Cthulhu adventures - Tatters of the King) and Chaz Engan (co-author of the fantastic Beyond the Mountains of Madness) through to the old guard such as Mark Morrison and Richard Watts**. I even got to chat with the likes of Lynn Willis (the grandfather of Call of Cthulhu) and Keith Herber (who I think is a bit forgotten as was the force that really grew the game in the late 80s and early 90s) at one time or another...
     
Everyone I've ever spoken to has had some insight into the game, why they loved it and why they created for it. Like me, they all saw Lovecraft and his writings for what they were - good, simple horror with a tinge of something different - and how each, in their own way, was influenced by these ideas and concepts. I have to say it was an honour and pleasure to what spend the time I have with such talented people!

** - and so many, many more - I don't want to name them all as I know I will miss someone!!!

The Creative Experience...

For me Call of Cthulhu is the easiest and simplest game to come up with ideas for. I prefer the 1920s and Gaslight settings and avoid the more modern eras, but I never seem to be short of yet another idea for a campaign, scenario or adventure seed. Now, let me temper that by saying that while the ideas come quick and fast, closing the loop on them - and actually finishing what I've started - is a bit more difficult. I must admit that I feel a certain level of pressure in creating for Call of Cthulhu, because in my own way I know I'm stand on the shoulders of so many giants. Not only that, but they bring with them a horde of fans and critics that I often get, what I think of as, 'stage fright' as I edge nearer the conclusion of my creations. I start to become more critical and begin to out-think myself around what others might read into the story, this piles on the pressure and with it the pleasure of writing goes... which means I never get near to a finished product!***

That said, when the going's good and the words flow there's nothing better than creating a Call of Cthulhu adventure, because at its heart you can write about 'real' people and 'real' motivations, even if they are doing strange and wondrous things. Hell, even if none of the hundreds of thousands of words I've written over the years for this game ever see the outside of Word - Right now I've got to say I've enjoyed every moment!

The Community...

Of all the games I've created for, Call of Cthulhu has the best community. To this day I still get positive comments on Monophobia (the one serious product Mark Chiddicks and I produced), and places like Yog-sothoth.com and BRP Central are always talking and speculating about all things Cthulhu! I think especially we need to thank Paul Maclean for his efforts with YSDC, as I suspect the game mightn't have survived the dark years of the 00's and early 10's so well without his site's support!

I'd also have to extend my thanks and love to everyone who has played in one of my games - especially those poor souls that playtested one of my unfinished abominations... oh the humanity!

*** - worse still, this makes me feel like failure, which in turn makes me feel bad, so I abandon one idea only to immediately become determined to do better next time... a whole horrid cycle really! 

Why Has Call of Cthulhu Shaped Me?

I think everything I've ever learnt about writing roleplaying material comes from reading and running Call of Cthulhu scenarios. In particular these have shown me how to structure my writing - especially on how to take an idea and turn it into something usable. They also taught me about tension and horror, and how having the threats remain hidden is always best approach; The Crack'd and Crook'd Manse is a perfect example of this, as is Michael Wood's 'Rise of Xnaaki'. Like good-old Lovecraft himself these types of scenarios are more about the mystery than the reveal, and the fun is in discovering what and why events are taking place rather than just the 'fight' at the conclusion. I think in some ways this is way the newly released Pulp Cthulhu doesn't quite have the same appeal to me as the 'classic' edition, but I'm sure some campaign will come along to change my mind some time soon! 

Finally, Call of Cthulhu shown me that there is no 'perfect' way of creating a roleplaying scenario - and just like any good battleplan - no adventure survives contact with the enemy... I mean players! As a writer, the best thing you can do is create an atmosphere and the aspects you want to guide the Keeper/Referee/GM with - the outcome is - regardless of your well-honed plot, epic storyline or urge to tell the platonic ideal of a story - out of your control. This is why I think Masks of Nyarlathotep is such a classic, it has a simple plot and yet provides myriads of unique and interesting concepts that can be drawn on as required; nowhere does it try and railroad the players down any one path of action! Let's be honest, the best experiences at a gaming table always come from the players themselves, and the game/setting/scenario is simply the sandpit in which they act - I will always recall running Horror on the Orient Express for exactly this reason; not for the campaign itself but rather due to the way the party conducted themselves and their interaction - in the guise of humour, fear, anger and even romance - with its plethora of NPCs! 

  

I love writing for Cthulhu, and I know that when I shuffle (kicking and screaming/quietly?) off into whatever waits for me in the beyond, I will still have umpteen unfinished Call of Cthulhu adventures awaiting for some bugger to purge off my PC. Sucker!

[Games That Shaped Me] Part One - Dark Conspiracy

“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.”
― John Dewey

It probably goes without saying that I’ve always been a fan of Dave Chapman’s work as an RPG designer and as such I'm an avid follower of his blog. In recent days he completed a series of posts called [Roll Your Own Life] The Games That Shaped Me that looked at the Role Playing Games that influenced and guided him in his writing and personal life. These brief snippets are fascinating, and they've inspired me to do the same, although maybe a little more critically.

So without further ado … unashamedly stolen (with permission) … this is Part One of “Games That Shaped Me”.

Dark Conspiracy

I know, I know, you’re think ‘duh, he’s posting this on his own Dark Conspiracy fan site, so it’s pretty obvious that this game affected him’*, but honestly I don’t think I can ever exactly say how much DC as been a core part of my make-up as a human being (maybe my wife, Emma, could, as she's been there most of this wild ride?). Still, let's give it a try...

[* - Okay, I was going to post this up on my darkconspiracytherpg.info website but the formatting there drove me crazy... hence I posted it here]

Let’s see ... there’s lots here ... so bear with me on this –

• It was the first RPG I purchased with my first-ever ‘real job’ paycheck way back in 1992 – the job was at a gas station BTW so nothing too exciting,
• The first game writing I did that appeared in public  – for Dr Mike LaBossiere’s “Opifex Bi-Monthly: Random Universes” – was for Dark Conspiracy,
• I was a founding editor of the well respect “Demonground” Fanzine which was dedicated to the game,
• My first published RPG product “Of Gods and Gates” was for Dark Conspiracy 2nd Edition,
• My gaming company was the licensee of the game back in 2005 and 2006,
• Since 2006 I’ve owned and run the Darkconspiracytherpg.info (and.com) website and to this day continue to pop out the occasional article or adventure idea, and
• I was (am?) one of the writers for the upcoming 4th Edition (currently stuck in development hell).

So why do I love Dark Conspiracy so much?

The answer to this is two-fold - as a gamer I find the setting interesting and unique and as an individual much of my creativity and drivers for personal change has been aligned with my involvement with the game.

In regard to the setting itself, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such an open, and yet well constructed world as Dark Conspiracy. I know that others differ in this, but to me DC is the events, attitudes and zeitgeist of the 1980s extrapolated thirty years into the future; a time where technology is stuck in this juxtaposition of future possibilities and retro-styled production. It has gritty cyberpunk-like cities, post-apocalypse type wasteland, and unlimited and unknowable enemies. Most importantly, it is a place where the characters can actually make a difference, but that ‘difference’ is simply a ripple in a pond that vanishes as quickly as it appears. I'm sure that Michael Stackpole's novel - the Fiddleback Trilogy - has a massive influence on how I imagine the world DC, but there is also so much more!

As for the personal aspects, so many key events in my life are intertwined with Dark Conspiracy. My – to date - sole trip to Gencon was for the publication of my DC book, some of my favourite articles for Demonground were written when my personal life was on a real high (not that it isn’t now), and today, when I’m at my most creative, ideas for articles, adventures and discussion points for the game to flow unbidden from my mind. In some ways DC reflects my state of mind and creative centrepoint.

Why has Dark Conspiracy shaped me?

Again my answer is two-fold…

Number one, it taught me that if I’m not comfortable or happy with something or someone then stop being involved with them/it. If I had realised this twenty years ago, then I would have done a number of things different with both my writing and the relationships involved in the publication “Of Gods and Gates” and “Demonground”, and I suppose it those events that lead me to develop a professional toolset that has seen me become a successful IT leader.

Number two, it showed me that I can’t do everything myself. Back when The Gamer’s Conglomerate held the licensee for Dark Conspiracy, I thought I had to do everything – write a new game system, publish lots of new material and build a social network. That was impossible to do as a single person unable to dedicate more than a few hours a week to the game. If I had my time again, I’d outsource the writing of the system (based on some clear guidelines), have others provide a collection of scenarios, articles and the like and finally pay someone to be the ‘social cheerleader’ of the game… honestly the cost in all that would be minimal and I could focus on the thing I enjoy most – the creativity and the programme leadership.

So there you go, I’ve revealed why DC has shaped me, and shared a few secrets I’ve been hiding away for way too long… I promise the next Parts won't be so introspective (or will they?).

-------

Been a While...

So I has been almost 12 months since I last wrote on this blog. I guess I saw it as shouting at the ether there for a while - yell about what you are doing for long enough and suddenly no one hears it for the noise.

I hope that by writing even this simple 'refresher' my urge to get back into regular blogging about my writing will return.

I guess time will tell!

[Weekending 26th June] Gosh... That long?

So it's been a while since I updated this writing blog. This is the result of a number of factors; work, illness... and just not writing.

To be honest I was on a bit of a downturn in regards to my writing up until last week, when suddenly my inspiration was back (I suppose spending 3 days in bed with a head that feels as if it;s full of cotton wool might do that to you). So undertaken this past 7 days (plus a bit more) we have:

• A review of the Conspiracy X 2nd edition rulebook
• A further edit on my Advanced Fighting fantasy adventure, and
• 4000 plus words on an old Call of Cthulhu adventure - Dire Consequences. 

Maybe this is the start of delivering again?

Until next time! 

Week Ending Update - 23rd May 2016

A week of editing and review, with a number of pieces of work almost ready to go -

• Completed a one-sheet adventure for my Sundered Skies blog - you can grab Prize Fighter here.
• Incident at Redview, the Dark Conspiracy adventure I've been chatting on this blog since it began, has a completed draft. Just waiting the last bit of art from Domi, and a good edit. I hope to have it posted on my DCtRPG.info site in June (I've posted a mock-up of the cover on that site's forum, if you're interested). 
• Finally I'm about half way through the edit of my Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure - The Oldest Tower. It's taken longer than expected due to the change of plot I made mid-adventure, and now I'm having to tie it all back together. 

Week Ending Update - 16th May 2016

Another quiet week; I blame my wife, who has been home for the last couple of weeks. Jokes...

• I drafted my next Sundered Skies article for one of my blogs.
• I reviewed a couple of adventures I've drafted and need to push over into completed stage. These are for both Dark Conspiracy and Advanced Fighting Fantasy.

Week Ending Update - 9th May 2016

Another family focused week, with a bit of this and that done mainly over the Saturday and Sunday -

• Tapped away on a The Esoterrorist idea I had. I'm guessing it'll be a long time before I get around to doing anything more on it...
• Completed the May article for DCtRPG.info. I'm quite proud of this one...
• A first for me - I banged out some very simple sci-fi wargame rules as well. My eldest son and I are going to play test these tonight.

[Update] Week Ending 2nd May 2016

Feeling good about my writing this week, with the completion of a draft and the release of the Conspiracy X blog (as discussed last week) -

• Completed the draft of my Advanced Fighting Fantasy Adventure - The Oldest Tower. Should be edited and out next week.
• Released my new Conspiracy X blog - http://conspiracyxrpg.blogspot.co.nz/ - to the public. This includes a lengthy interview with Dave Chapman, and a summary of the existing publications in both the 1st and 2nd edition of the game. As an aside, the blogger tools aren't the easiest to use to get a functional layout (the code is a mess!).
• Not exactly writing, but I also updated the forum software over at darkconspiracytherpg.info, and the theme template.  

[Update] Week ending 25th of April

The quietest week I've had in a long time in regards to writing. School holidays and family events limited my free time to just reading RPG material rather than writing it. Of everything on my plate, the only real progress I made was on a new Conspiracy X blog. That said, I did write a bunch of content for it, as well as conduct a text interview with the previous Line Dev - David F. Chapman...
 
I'd provide a link, but at the moment I'm simply working on the content and structure.

[Update] Week Ending 18/04/2016

Another one of those weeks when things I've previously started begin to be delivered. This week it was:

• An article on the Shattered City and Gateway for my Sundered Skies blog.
• More work on various Dark Conspiracy ideas, including 'Incident at Redview' as well as my April update for the DCtRPG.info site - In the Referee's Toolkit.
• Finally I worked further on 'The Oldest Tower', which has become more complex than I'd originally hoped*.  I normally refrain from predicting what I'll work on in the upcoming week, but I suspect this draft will be done this week.

* I was looking at another 'The Well' type of adventure, but my poor brain hates random dungeons that have no real reason to exist - I mean who has a tavern in a room you've got to fight your way too?

Week Ending 11th April

Another quiet week on the writing front, with lots going on around home and at work. My achievements this week include:

• More work on 'Incident at Redview', my Dark Conspiracy adventure.
• Putting together a one-off supernatural noir Skype game. It went down pretty well, and might deserve a sequel this week. Lots of referencing Nameless Streets, a urban fantasy sourcebook by Charles Green. 
• I have started adapting an old Mini Six setting I wrote - Guardians of Milndor - to the Dark Sagas game system. I like the simplicity of Dark Sagas and Guardians, a game of playing dark fantasy city watchmen, suits it well.

Week ending 4th April 2016

Two months down, and I'm still going strong with this Marcus Writes blog!

A quiet week for me after Easter's massive update, but, shock and horror, I got side tracked reading an actual physical book! Will wonders never cease!

• Did more work on my Dark Sun based Fantasy Age setting. It's pretty much ready to go...
• I posted a post up on Marcus Muses - my thoughts of games where the setting and system fail to match.
• I revisited an old Dark Conspiracy scenario idea, and once I got my head around some of the structure it is looking good. As part of this I got side tracked with another DC idea... but fortunately I wasn't distracted for too long.
• Finally, my Esoterrorists adventure - The Breeders - got some work. I have to say that writing in a book seems much easier than typing up the notes - I have some sympathy for someone like Tolkien now :P

[Update] Long weekending 29th March 2016

It was a long week this week, with 4 days off for Easter. I have achieved a huge amount of writing (near on 10 thousand words in my estimate) across a number of projects, including some that actually saw the light of day! I think that is the real benefit of this blog so far, the number of 'things' that I've started to actually complete. Sure I've still got years of half done writing still sitting on my Hard Drive, but at least now something is getting done with it.

So what did I do this past week?

• Completed an article for my darkconspiracytherpg.info fan site - this is an examination of The Pale, one of the major antagonist races in the game. 
• The biggie, I released A Night on the Town, a demonstration scenario for Pelgrane Press' The Esoterrorists. Designed as an introduction to the GUMSHOE system, is comes complete with sample characters and a bit of gaming advice.
• Talking The Esoterrorists, I also updated the page covering this game on my Unbound Publishing website. I've also popped up all the bits and pieces I've produced for the game, and am surprisingly impressed on just how much I've written for it over the years.
• As you can imagine, releasing a product really gives you a shot in the arm for similar ideas, and so I spent some time working on The Breeders, a longer Esoterrorist adventure (I've previously mentioned here).
• I also got the map from my friend Domagoj for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure I started a while back. As a result, I ended up rewriting a whole swathe of changes to improve the background elements to the story (i.e. actually have one :P).
• Finally, inspired by an actual play podcast, I threw together a quick background for a Fantasy Age version of the old D&D setting Dark Sun. What started out as a simple conversion morphed into a similar but different setting. Unsure what, if anything, I'll do with it, but I'm definitely in the mood for some Fantasy Age gaming.

Update - Weekending 21st March 2016

I've found that websites take a lot of effort to update and change, and more than one evening this week has been taken up with editing just one section of my Stormbringer site.

That being said, this week I:

• Updated the Catalogue page of my Stormbringer site.
• Created a page here on this blog summarising the various websites and fan pages I support. I realised this is the first time I've attempted such a summary, and I'm sure I'm missing things (in fact I know I've not noted my Mini Six fan site!)
• I've picked up an old Stormbringer adventure (I've run a couple of times) and started editing it. 
• I completed the full draft of my The Esoterrorists Demo adventure - A Night on the Town. This should be up on my Unboundbook.org site later this week. 

Getting Things Done - Week Ending 14th March 2016

If you could sum up last week in a few words, they would be, 'review and reflection'. Looking back on my writing over the past 7 days, I have to say that I achieve a lot more than I had first thought, and, if nothing else, it demonstrated to me just how many projects I start without guiding them through to completion. Again, on of the purposes of this blog is to ensure that I focus on some of these 'products' and see them through to to some sort of result.

So this week I:

• Wrote a post over at unboundbook.org summarising the status of a number of Call of Cthulhu scenarios I've mentioned over the last decade. Suffice to say the related thread over at Yog-sothoth.com raise the idea of Patreon again... 
• Completed an article for my Sundered Skies blog, and posted that up on the site. Heir to the Throne, is a scenario idea that I've previously run for my Skype group, but this was my chance to put on paper.
• Finally move forward on an old The Esoterrorist adventure. For the longest time I've been inching my way through a demon scenario - much like the one for Ashen Stars - designed to introduce new players to this specific style/flavour of GUMSHOE. Over the weekend I settled on a completed draft, and have received some great feedback from my editor-in-grief - (i.e. Emma, my wife).

Week that Was Websites - 2nd to 7th March 2015

This week I didn’t do much in the way of writing, as I mostly focused on updating a couple of the websites I run supporting my favourite roleplaying games. Back in September 2015, almost all of my Wordpress (this is the name of the Content Management System I use) sites were hit with malware, which took quite a bit of effort to recover from. As part of this I noted a couple of my more venerable themes (think style templates) were starting to get outdated (both in look and feel, as well as their core code). Life, time and laziness delayed this until last week when I wanted to make a post on one of the pages, at which point my desire to update the site kicked in. For convenience (i.e. because I’m into simple), I decided to utilise the same theme for one of the other sites that needed updating, but as per usual I can never leave good enough alone, and was soon tweaking the code and settings in my vain attempts to create the ‘perfect’ design. Of course, with any new Wordpress theme, the size and type of images on the site needed review as well, and this probably took most of my effort over the past week. So as a summary:

• I updated both my www.stormbringerrpg.com website, as well as the www.unboundbook.org one. There’s no new content on these sites, but they look much nicer!
• I did get an evening one of my Sundered Skies adventures as well, and as such A Heir to the Throne is almost ready to pop up on my Sundered Skies blog.

[Update] 29th Feb 2016

One of those quiet ones this week, where family and gaming took priority over writing. When I did get to write, my focus was on older material I've previously started by not seen through to completion (who'd have thunk that from me :P).

• I added quite a bit to one of the Conspiracy X adventures I planned out a few years back (and ran at Kapon 2015). 
• My Advanced Fighting Fantasy adventure continues a pace, with it now being called ' the Oldest Tower'. A map is being produced by a mate of mine, and while it is a rather simple adventure, I like where it is going. 
• Finally, I discovered my old The Esoterrorist folder (which I had thought lost in the great Hard Drive Collapse incident of 2015). As is my want, I charged head first into reviewing and rewriting some of these, and I've a hope they might see the light of day soon.  

[Update] 22/02/2016

Another week down and I surprise myself by actually updating my blog. As per usual I can barely seem to focus on one particular thing at any one time, but at least I'm doing something!

Highlights for the week include:

• More work on my Advanced Fighting Fantasy Adventure - The Loneliest Tower
• Completed my January article for my Dark Conspiracy fan site - a review of A Gathering Evil novel (yes I know, I'm running late okay :P). I also started on my Feb article as well...
• Completed some Dark Heresy Cheat Sheets for my Thursday Skype game. These worked well, even if they were underused (yes the mechanics are dense at first glance, but the basics are pretty straight forward).
• I also updated my live journal blog with a personal observations on my game mechanics perspective. To be honest this was more to keep the blog from being deleted than anything else, and covers a bugbear I have with RPG mechanics.
• Finally, I created a whole new blog to become a repository for the various articles, adventures, etc. I've written over the years for one of my favourite game settings - Sundered Skies.

So yeah lots and yet...
 

Weekend writing

As per usual, I was stop-start in my writing over the weekend. However, I did achieve a bit on  a number of things:

• Kingdoms of Qadar - This actually started life as a setting for the Mini Six game mechanics, but after reading through Fantasy Age (the generic incarnation of Green Ronin's Dragon Age RPG), I've started to adapt it to this simple D20-like clone.  ETA - unknown
• The Oldest Tower - My Advanced Fighting Fantasy Adventure - I planned out the core narrative.
• Gamebook Reviews for Fighting Fantazine - After reading through Stormslayer (again) I have collected all my notes into a structured document.

Looking further into the week, I'll be focused on both the Oldest Tower, as well as creating some 'cheat sheets' for the players in my Dark Heresy game (to speed up combat over Skype),

 

Welcome to the first post...

As I settle back into a regular work schedule, it is my goal to be more proactive on managing the creative projects I am focusing on. At present my focus is on a couple of ideas for:

Advanced Fighting Fantasy

After a great session with my sons and their friend, I have a renewed interested in this game (as published by Arion Games). In the last week:

• I've started writing my own adventure - the Lonely Tower.
• Created a number of cards detailing the damage/damage-reduction stats for each weapon/piece of armour in the game (this is to help the kids in future).

Dark Heresy, 2nd Edition

Last night we completed the 2nd session of our initial adventure (Dark Pursuits) from this campaign. As the intro scenes from this published scenario are quite linear, I've written an extensive number of leads/subplots to 'flesh' out this introduction.