OOC: Chapter 1 - NEW YORK, Starts 12th Jan 1925

[thewhatchamacallit]

I'm going to assume you only want us to roll against NPCs when the outcome could directly affect the direction the story takes. Timour boozing and womanizing isn't really a required roll because it has no baring on the main plot or side plots you may have planned. Correct?

[Raiko]

Yes that's right. If you introduce a minor NPC purely to tell your own story (rather than effecting the plot), then you can do whatever you want with them.

I've had absolutely no problems with any posts that anyone has made so far, so just carry on the same way.

[Raiko]

Once you've finalised who's going where, I'll move the IC thread on to new locations.

[thewhatchamacallit]

I'll stick with my Bro.

[coffee demon]

About seperate threads when people split up: (I'm not trying to convince you about this at all, Raiko, just continuing the conversation):

Maybe it wouldn't have to happen all the time, but I could see it being very cool when one group enters a life-threatening situation.

Imagine if half of the group goes to a library, and are split into another thread. The rest of us do something else.

The next day, we still haven't heard from the others. Because we don't know what they're up to, our (the players') imagination can run wild.

And imagine if we go to the library the next day, to find them all beheaded in the basement! oooh, that would be intense! because you would have -no idea- what happened! Of course, our Investigators would always pretend they had no idea, but its a lot easier to imagine when the Players don't know either!

Anyways, I'm not trying to convince, I just think its a cool thing that you can achieve with Play-by-Post, that you can't get with live RP-ing.

Another thing I like about play-by-post is, you can research the 1920's while posting. No wondering if there are phones/coffee purcolators, etc... just look it up on the 'net!

[coffee demon]

Just read through the General Campaign Information. Eep

Yeah, how cool is that? "Chances are good that everyone will die/go insane before the end."

As much I like Andrei, there's nothing better than high potential for death/insanity.

Most DM's I know from other RPG's take it easy on characters, and it drives me mad. What use is it making it to level 6, when the DM helps you out of every situation? I want to survive because i'm lucky/smart.

This is my first CoC game ever, and I'm -thrilled.-

[Decrepit]

Short of playing Paranoia, this is probably the right game for you, CD.

[Laraqua]

I'm a fan in the belief that people should have a chance for their characters to risk the end. I'm also a fan of the fact that not dying is a chance for further agony ... there's ways to punish foolishness that don't include permanent insanity or death, like taking away their beloved NPCs, inflicting yet another insanity, playing on the character's personal issues and torturing the little beggars.

In Demon the Fallen I could have killed two characters. One was a demon, one was a human. Of course the vampires killed the demon, but the human they trapped in a nightmare in her own head for five years, which means that she's very much crazier than before, is very submissive and obsesses a little over her two apparent saviors.

And the greatest thing is, she's under the effects of Dominate from one of them (a form of mind control) and so is technically a double agent for the two NPCs whose goals are just a little clashing against each other and fairly clashing against the group's main goals.

[Grafster]

It would be cool if the different sections of secret stuff could be tagged /sblock. So if you want to read the whole story you can but players whose characters aren't privy to info could "opt out".
But that's both board-tech dependent and more of a personal desire.

This is a slightly random question but iis it possible to get an RSS feed of threads somehow?
(Some boards offer that as a feature... it would both lower bandwith pressure on the server and let people who access the forum from work do so in a more.. subtle... manner).

[warhammer]

I'm all for restricting info when your character isn't there (through split-threads for long sections, or spoiler tags for short ones for example) so that what the players know is as close as possible to what their investigators know.

As has been pointed out, it might turn out to be a lot more exciting to not know what happened to the rest of the team, and it'll also mean we'll have to rely on their version of the events, etc. I can only see it improving the overall atmosphere, if that seems manageable for the DM.

[Raiko]

Lots of stuff to get through, please bear with me

Firstly the OOC Stuff:

Player Death / Insanity:

As I said in the general information section this is a very dangerous campaign. It is pretty “pulp action horror” style though. This means there will be lots of oportunities to fight (you don’t have to take all of them though). Some will be easy fights, but due to the fact that this is CoC some may be literally impossible to win (at least through non-magical means).

You need to judge when to fight, when to run and maybe when to surrender. If you choose to always fight to the death, then I’m afraid that’s what will happen sooner or later.

The “pulp” nature of the campaign is helpful here though, it should be quite quickly obvious if you are out of your depth, so sanity allowing you’ll still have time to try and run, or surrender. The “pulp” thing also means that surrender is more likely to lead to “James Bond” situations than a bullet in the head. So escape or rescue should always be an option. I've done this in "private threads" in my WFRP forum game and it went well. 8)

As far as insanity goes, you will be allowed to play on with “indefinite insanity,” so per the 5.5 – 6th edition rules (you’ll just be a little loopy), beware though that some of the potential TPK encounters are those famous CoC “sanity shattering” moments.

I agree with Laraqua’s points and I run games in the same way myself, but this campaign is what it is. I just thought it was best to warn everyone up front.


Secret Threads:

I’m going to go with coffee demon’s suggestion that if a group enters a potentially dangerous location (real or imaginary) I’ll start a separate thread. Please leave me to decide when to do this though. The “secret threads” won’t be locked or restricted in any way though, I trust you all to stay out of threads that you aren’t aware of (as with the secret dice rolls).

I won’t do this every time you split up, because you’ll split up lots during the campaign, but I will do it quite often so you’ll never know if the danger is real. I’ll also sometimes switch at the last possible moment. For example if the “soon to be headless” investigators are in that library I way post as normal up until someone notices the door handle turning, then move to a separate thread. Again this is to keep you on your toes.

I’d like this campaign to be helpful to other Keepers who want to run Masks so I don’t want the threads to become too muddled. I’ve found other Keepers’ online resources very useful both for this game, and for BtMoM so I’d like to repay the favour.

Note that it is entirely possible that two (or more) groups of character could end up in entirely different countries, this would of course require totally separate threads for each group (it would also be pretty cool 8)).

Making your own rolls:

If you do this please remember to prefix your characters name with [MON].

ie Maksim’s rolls should have had [MON]Maksim for the character name, not Maksim.

Please could you also include the chapter and the skill that you think should be used in the “note.”

ie both Maksim’s rolls could have included Chapter 1 - (Psychology 70%) in the note.

This will make it much easier for me when I’m double checking skill checks at the end of the chapter. Even though there is only one “Maksim” on invisible castle, there won’t be only one Elizabeth or Thomas, and I want all the rolls in the same format.

[Raiko]

Now the IC Stuff:

From your posts I’m going to assume this:

The Rukov Twins and Johnny are going to try and meet Erica Carlyle.
Note to the Twins: You can roleplay a reluctance to allow Johnny to come if you like, but he will be quite insistant (as indicated to me by Grafster).

Caroline and Thomas are going to the library, this may as well be the NY Public Library as it’s both massive and open to the public.

Elizabeth and Andrei will try to meet with Jackson’s publisher Jonah Kensington.

Please give me a little time to write up the “location change post” before you continue, it will hopefully be done in the next hour, otherwise I’ll definitely post later today.

None of the groups will be in private threads for now.

Maksim’s Psychology Roll:

This roll was a success, but as you haven’t AFAIK discussed it with her, I think that the best Maksim could have learned was Caroline’s body language towards the different party members. Maybe Decrepit could send you a PM with an indication of this.

[Laraqua]

Okay, first of all, what is AFAIK?

Secondly, yeah, it was kinda a spur-of-the-moment thing. The joys of posting during my Cognition and Perception course.

Hehe, in our gaming group, there are a fair few resisted rolls made between the varous party members. Creates the most interesting circumstances on a botch...

[thewhatchamacallit]

And imagine if we go to the library the next day, to find them all beheaded in the basement! oooh, that would be intense! because you would have -no idea- what happened! Of course, our Investigators would always pretend they had no idea, but its a lot easier to imagine when the Players don't know either!

Note to self- if coffee demon's group is the one that finds everyone else beheaded in the library make sure you're always in his group.

[Raiko]

Okay, first of all, what is AFAIK?

Secondly, yeah, it was kinda a spur-of-the-moment thing. The joys of posting during my Cognition and Perception course.

Hehe, in our gaming group, there are a fair few resisted rolls made between the varous party members. Creates the most interesting circumstances on a botch...

AFAIK = As Far As I Know, sorry no more forum abbreviations, I promise.

Regarding your roll, no problem, I didn't mean to single you out, but nobody else had made any rolls. It's just to make it easier for me to keep track of lots of PCs in two separate very long adventures.

[Decrepit]

If Erica isn't discussed much or at all in the library's records of the Carlyle expedition, Caroline will suggest that she and Thomas split up the research, one looking for information on the expedition itself and the other on Erica specifically, including current activities.

If there's time, Caroline will also try to look up just a bit about Elias as well.

[thewhatchamacallit]

Timour still has his eyes and ears open searching for danger and anything unusual that might catch his eye.

[coffee demon]

For example if the “soon to be headless” investigators are in that library I way post as normal up until someone notices the door handle turning, then move to a separate thread. Again this is to keep you on your toes.

Awesome idea! Just another way to freak us out a bit...

For what its worth, my money's on Johnny for staying healthy and sane the longest. He's an awesome character!

[coffee demon]

So, according to Thomas, Carlyle died 6 years ago? Maybe we don't know that yet. I guess I'll have to wait until the dinner party.

I don't think his wife would still be "in mourning"... and the armed guards with submachineguns sure is wierd. Maybe she's a rum-runner.

[Raiko]

Sorry for the short hold up, I've been much busier than expected today.

I've done all the preparation for posting, but I haven't writen the next IC post yet.

It's very late now so I need to sleep, but I'll post as soon as I get to work, should be in 6-7 hours from now.