Call of Cthulhu Scenario Recommendations
I know Call of Cthulhu very well, and I have been running sessions for about 30 years. For the first post of this blog, I will summarize the recommendations I have been giving on Reddit and Discord for Call of Cthulhu scenarios.
I will first discuss campaigns and then individual one/two-shot scenarios. This text (with one exception) will not include Trail of Cthulhu material, as I will leave that for a subsequent post.
Eternal Lies is the "Masks killer" campaign. It does everything that Masks does, just a little bit better. It would be first on my list, except that it does adhere pretty close to the basic structure of Masks and technically is not Call of Cthulhu but Trail of Cthulhu. Like Masks, it will take 1.5 to 2 years of weekly sessions to run, and again it does require a very resilient playing group.
Tatters of the King: a great campaign if you like a slower, less adventurous affair, with large stretches of investigation, complex NPCs, and difficult moral dilemmas to address. As written, it does suffer from some serious shortcomings. I will soon write a post about it, based on material I have already posted on Facebook and Reddit. It will take you about 3 to 6 months of weekly sessions to run it.
The Two-headed Serpent: the best Pulp Cthulhu campaign; with wild action scenes, retro-sci-fi, jungles that hide eldritch dangers, and forgotten treasures that Indiana Jones would love to explore, THS is a very refreshing change of pace. It is adventurous and fun, but still manages to deliver some really scary moments. It will take you less than 6 months of weekly sessions to run it.
The Blood Red Fez is not technically a campaign but a scenario within Horror on the Orient Express, but it is easy to expand into a mini-campaign and it is really nice (in some ways, it is what you would expect GotOE to be, from the title). It will take about 5 sessions to run if you take your time.
B. Short scenarios:
B.1. Starting adventures:
First, The Haunting or Edge of Darkness. Not only are these two adventures classics, but they are also easy to run for a starting GM, they are easy to play by starting players, and they have a lot of Lovecraftian flavour to them. Each takes 4-5 hours of play.
Dead Light: a very tense horror scenario in the woods at night; scary and mysterious; it gives lots of opportunities for role-play. It is short and intense, and it can be played in 3.5 hours. The only thing that makes it slightly more difficult than the previously mentioned scenarios is that the Keeper has to handle a rather large cast of NPCs.
The Lightless Beacon: short, intense, very simple to run, and it can be played in 2.5 hours.
Waiting for the Hurricane (uses Pulp Rules): a very good choice for your first Pulp Cthulhu adventure. Relatively easy to run, very action-oriented, many memorable set pieces and encounters. Runs in 3-4 hours.
The Condemned: a really nice, complex mystery that explores some of the themes of "Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Thing at the Doorstep". 6 hours
The Sanatorium: the investigators must deal with a terrible threat on a small isolated island. This is one of my all-time favorites. 5-6 hours of play.
B.4. Scenarios from Conventions/Organized Play
Aurora Dawn: an expedition by airship to the North Pole encounters Mythos trouble. It feels very epic. You can play it in 5-6 hours.
4 Hours to Reno: Agatha Christie-type whodunit with cowboys and monsters on a train, that can turn into a shootout or something far far scarier, or a mix of both. 4 hours to run, of course.
Old Carker Estate: more cowboys, but this time on an abandoned farm in the Sierra Nevada; the family that rented it disappeared without leaving a trace. Creepy and fun. 5 hours to run.
The Kids are Alright: modern, shocking, really scary, and intense. It is particularly stirring for people with children, especially small children. Some could feel uncomfortable with the child endangerment theme. 3.5 hours.
The Inheritance: visit Innsmouth to attend the hearing of the last Will and Testament of a woman who seemed not to age. A spooky location, with lots of role-play and action, all in 4-5 hours of play.
B.5. The most awesome of all adventures:
Bad Tidings: If you want something like a whodunit, with a good balance between mystery, horror, and action, with some WWII vibes, you should get my scenario "Bad Tidings".
A. Campaigns
The Masks of Nyarlathotep: it is a seminal campaign, an example of how to design a campaign for both Call of Cthulhu and most traditional RPGs. It uses an ingenious sandbox-of-sandboxes structure, with many interesting locations, NPCs, and suggestions of set pieces to include in your campaign. I ran Masks to completion once, and I am in the process of finalizing two other runs, I can tell you that no two runs feel the same. Soon I will write about what I learned from running Masks. It will easily take 1.5 years of weekly sessions to run it. It is not for the faint of heart, and you better be sure you and your players have the resilience before you start.
Eternal Lies is the "Masks killer" campaign. It does everything that Masks does, just a little bit better. It would be first on my list, except that it does adhere pretty close to the basic structure of Masks and technically is not Call of Cthulhu but Trail of Cthulhu. Like Masks, it will take 1.5 to 2 years of weekly sessions to run, and again it does require a very resilient playing group.
Tatters of the King: a great campaign if you like a slower, less adventurous affair, with large stretches of investigation, complex NPCs, and difficult moral dilemmas to address. As written, it does suffer from some serious shortcomings. I will soon write a post about it, based on material I have already posted on Facebook and Reddit. It will take you about 3 to 6 months of weekly sessions to run it.
The Two-headed Serpent: the best Pulp Cthulhu campaign; with wild action scenes, retro-sci-fi, jungles that hide eldritch dangers, and forgotten treasures that Indiana Jones would love to explore, THS is a very refreshing change of pace. It is adventurous and fun, but still manages to deliver some really scary moments. It will take you less than 6 months of weekly sessions to run it.
The Blood Red Fez is not technically a campaign but a scenario within Horror on the Orient Express, but it is easy to expand into a mini-campaign and it is really nice (in some ways, it is what you would expect GotOE to be, from the title). It will take about 5 sessions to run if you take your time.
I haven’t run it yet but I think Walker in the Wastes is another great globe-trotting campaign.
B. Short scenarios:
B.1. Starting adventures:
First, The Haunting or Edge of Darkness. Not only are these two adventures classics, but they are also easy to run for a starting GM, they are easy to play by starting players, and they have a lot of Lovecraftian flavour to them. Each takes 4-5 hours of play.
Dead Light: a very tense horror scenario in the woods at night; scary and mysterious; it gives lots of opportunities for role-play. It is short and intense, and it can be played in 3.5 hours. The only thing that makes it slightly more difficult than the previously mentioned scenarios is that the Keeper has to handle a rather large cast of NPCs.
The Lightless Beacon: short, intense, very simple to run, and it can be played in 2.5 hours.
Waiting for the Hurricane (uses Pulp Rules): a very good choice for your first Pulp Cthulhu adventure. Relatively easy to run, very action-oriented, many memorable set pieces and encounters. Runs in 3-4 hours.
B.2. Classic period adventures:
The Condemned: a really nice, complex mystery that explores some of the themes of "Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Thing at the Doorstep". 6 hours
The Sanatorium: the investigators must deal with a terrible threat on a small isolated island. This is one of my all-time favorites. 5-6 hours of play.
B.3. Modern Adventures:
Forget Me Not: investigators start amnesiac, after a car crash. What happened to them? 3-4 hours.
Hotel Hell: isolated hotel in the woods, the end of the world is coming. 3-4 hours.
Love's Lost Children: this is a very shocking, intense scenario, that deals with very heavy and mature themes of child abuse and drug addiction so handle it with care. It does not fit all types of players. 4-5 hours.
B.4. Scenarios from Conventions/Organized Play
Aurora Dawn: an expedition by airship to the North Pole encounters Mythos trouble. It feels very epic. You can play it in 5-6 hours.
4 Hours to Reno: Agatha Christie-type whodunit with cowboys and monsters on a train, that can turn into a shootout or something far far scarier, or a mix of both. 4 hours to run, of course.
Old Carker Estate: more cowboys, but this time on an abandoned farm in the Sierra Nevada; the family that rented it disappeared without leaving a trace. Creepy and fun. 5 hours to run.
The Kids are Alright: modern, shocking, really scary, and intense. It is particularly stirring for people with children, especially small children. Some could feel uncomfortable with the child endangerment theme. 3.5 hours.
The Inheritance: visit Innsmouth to attend the hearing of the last Will and Testament of a woman who seemed not to age. A spooky location, with lots of role-play and action, all in 4-5 hours of play.
This is if you run it as I do. I always make the investigators arrive at Innsmouth in the late evening of the day before the reading of the will. This allows the investigators to explore Innsmouth. (Read The Shadow over Innsmouth before running it).
B.5. The most awesome of all adventures:
(But I may be biased here)
Bad Tidings: If you want something like a whodunit, with a good balance between mystery, horror, and action, with some WWII vibes, you should get my scenario "Bad Tidings".
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