As its a long video, I write the comment as I watch. Its perfect as I was waiting to get and literally just ordered it with other books yesterday (3x CoC, 3x Runequest btw): I agree that few but great books are totally better than a mass of mediocre. We are past the 90s. Still catching me saying Time FOR Harvest instead. ;) Children of Fear is another I finally ordered. Still have to read my copy of the Two-Headed Serpent (as I watched the Seth Skorkowsky Reviews first back then), I read a Cold Fire Within though, which has some corners but great concept and potential. I prefered non-US stuff, but i think this is an awesome way to go back. I like the ideas. The pics of different mi-go just draws u in right away. The Body Switch is indeed an intriguing feature. And yeay for Armitage too. Moon Trotting heh. They seem to take always good care with the pre-mades. Agree with arcane vs weird science. It can be a good start alone for the base of playing students I think. Mi-Go are just all fun. Even the little bit they played that pulp scenario was nice. agree, it just makes sense in CoC that they dont care about us. all hail the monstrorum, but yesh more deep dives are always wished for. the university part was what got me initially interested even. agree, you can easily use a lot of it otherwise. that is a lot of time to improve indeed and glad they had it. good to hear once again news about the new book. and thx for relaying those answers too. and so much agree with the representation.
I'll admit, I had kinda dismissed this campaign early on. The aspect of playing college kids didn't light my fire at all, and I've only ever used Arkham in a game once. But this looks a lot more interesting to me, now. I certainly tend to lean my games toward the Science Fictional side of Lovecraft, often thinking of spells & such as unknown mathematics or what have you. But if I don't have to work hard to make that happen, all the better. If you had to guess, how long do you think this campaign would take? Like, assuming a weekly, three-hour session. I'm trying to find some mid-length stuff. Your mentioning being able to split pieces of it into mini-campaigns/adventures certainly makes it more tempting.
My tendency was to dismiss it as well, but I was pleasantly surprised. Its so hard to predict timing. I would say Chapter 1 is 1-2 sessions, Chapter 2 is 2-3 depending upon how much a group likes to RP. Chapter 3 is probably 1-2, Chapter 4 is 2-3, and Chapter 5 is 1-2. Chapter 6 is one session. The more players like to plan and RP, the longer it will take.
Can you give some hints about what sorts of content warnings the book should (or does) have? I love Call of Cthulhu and horror gaming in general but there are certain kinds of horrors I try to steer away from.
Violence against children and child suicide. Children committing acts of violence. Obsessive relationships with a power imbalance (college professor stalking student). All of these elements are optional, but I understand that just reading about them may be stressful.
I am a little surprised this is presented as a beginner campaign. Irrespective of Cthulhu, my experience in RPGs is that as the number of important NPCs increases the complexity of running a game increases more than linearly. More for the GM to keep track of & play multiplied by more for the players to keep track of! That, plus what would seem like a LOT of combat - which until you have experience can be kind of clunky (more streamlined in Cthulhu than many RPG systems) would seem to make this intermediate level. Do you think Chaosium pegged it right as 'intro' level?
I consider it "beginner" in that each location is pretty much self-contained. So, a beginning GM can run it, but will likely not have as enriching of connections between the NPCs as an experienced GM would. I think you make a great point. I think the Keeper is the one who turns it intermediate.
I bought this intending to run it, and I am reading through it. Having got through the end of chapter 1, I am torn. I really like the concept, setting, and characters. But the action is sooo scripted, down to what has to happen every day, and how to railroad the players to make that happen. There is no pc agency at all and really nothing important to do in this whole chapter. It is just a setup to experience some mild to moderate horror. It seems very difficult to run given players propensity to wreak havoc with heavily planned scenarios… perhaps the rest of the campaign is better… I’ll keep reading.
I forgot to mention: I love the name of the campaign (subtle yet somehow ominous), but I really dislike the cover art. It is pulpy and gives away way too much. Would have loved to see some sort of New England landscape with some sort of vague creepiness to it, rather than this in your face tentacle monster fight scene.
You bring up an excellent point. I am viewing this through the lens of an experienced GM. I view this as a framework for me to play with. I rarely run anything as written. Some people want "finished" modules. We could debate whether that actually exists or is even wise to publish.
@delenius1 To be fair, they make it clear that it can be adjusted for a Pulp Game; even having adjustments to certain areas and the Pre-Generated characters.
I really need to get my hands on this book, thank you for the share. 👍
What a great review! Absolutely gonna pick this one up to run!
I really liked how this review was structured! Thank you :)
Was really surprised by this, you don't hear a lot about a time to harvest, kinda undeserved tbh because it's a great book.
O really appreciate your work. It's inspiring. Thank you very much.
Badmoon rising with a trip to the moon...
As its a long video, I write the comment as I watch. Its perfect as I was waiting to get and literally just ordered it with other books yesterday (3x CoC, 3x Runequest btw):
I agree that few but great books are totally better than a mass of mediocre. We are past the 90s.
Still catching me saying Time FOR Harvest instead. ;) Children of Fear is another I finally ordered.
Still have to read my copy of the Two-Headed Serpent (as I watched the Seth Skorkowsky Reviews first back then), I read a Cold Fire Within though, which has some corners but great concept and potential.
I prefered non-US stuff, but i think this is an awesome way to go back. I like the ideas. The pics of different mi-go just draws u in right away.
The Body Switch is indeed an intriguing feature. And yeay for Armitage too. Moon Trotting heh.
They seem to take always good care with the pre-mades. Agree with arcane vs weird science.
It can be a good start alone for the base of playing students I think. Mi-Go are just all fun. Even the little bit they played that pulp scenario was nice.
agree, it just makes sense in CoC that they dont care about us. all hail the monstrorum, but yesh more deep dives are always wished for.
the university part was what got me initially interested even. agree, you can easily use a lot of it otherwise.
that is a lot of time to improve indeed and glad they had it. good to hear once again news about the new book.
and thx for relaying those answers too. and so much agree with the representation.
Tell me more about the Canadian sidequest.
Really great review. Since this has a ton of Miskatonic University stuff, would you say it's somewhat comparable to the Miskatonic Sourcebook?
It has some similarities to the 2005 book, but is just a gloss over. The idea is that this is a preview of upcoming Arkham Country books.
@@RPGImaginings I figured it didn't go into much detail about semesters and studies, but it is cool that it has a university layout and staff profiles
@@alienhoboszombies Oh, absolutely. "Better than a poke in the eye," as we say. LOL ;)
I'll admit, I had kinda dismissed this campaign early on. The aspect of playing college kids didn't light my fire at all, and I've only ever used Arkham in a game once. But this looks a lot more interesting to me, now. I certainly tend to lean my games toward the Science Fictional side of Lovecraft, often thinking of spells & such as unknown mathematics or what have you. But if I don't have to work hard to make that happen, all the better.
If you had to guess, how long do you think this campaign would take? Like, assuming a weekly, three-hour session. I'm trying to find some mid-length stuff. Your mentioning being able to split pieces of it into mini-campaigns/adventures certainly makes it more tempting.
My tendency was to dismiss it as well, but I was pleasantly surprised. Its so hard to predict timing. I would say Chapter 1 is 1-2 sessions, Chapter 2 is 2-3 depending upon how much a group likes to RP. Chapter 3 is probably 1-2, Chapter 4 is 2-3, and Chapter 5 is 1-2. Chapter 6 is one session. The more players like to plan and RP, the longer it will take.
When is this being run at your FLGS?
I'm almost ready to run FLGS games. Semester needs to get under belt.
Can you pull some decent one-shots out of it without using the rest of the campaign? (4 hour max)
I think so.
Can you give some hints about what sorts of content warnings the book should (or does) have? I love Call of Cthulhu and horror gaming in general but there are certain kinds of horrors I try to steer away from.
Violence against children and child suicide. Children committing acts of violence. Obsessive relationships with a power imbalance (college professor stalking student). All of these elements are optional, but I understand that just reading about them may be stressful.
@@RPGImaginings Thanks, I appreciate this a great deal.
I am a little surprised this is presented as a beginner campaign. Irrespective of Cthulhu, my experience in RPGs is that as the number of important NPCs increases the complexity of running a game increases more than linearly. More for the GM to keep track of & play multiplied by more for the players to keep track of! That, plus what would seem like a LOT of combat - which until you have experience can be kind of clunky (more streamlined in Cthulhu than many RPG systems) would seem to make this intermediate level.
Do you think Chaosium pegged it right as 'intro' level?
I consider it "beginner" in that each location is pretty much self-contained. So, a beginning GM can run it, but will likely not have as enriching of connections between the NPCs as an experienced GM would. I think you make a great point. I think the Keeper is the one who turns it intermediate.
I bought this intending to run it, and I am reading through it. Having got through the end of chapter 1, I am torn. I really like the concept, setting, and characters. But the action is sooo scripted, down to what has to happen every day, and how to railroad the players to make that happen. There is no pc agency at all and really nothing important to do in this whole chapter. It is just a setup to experience some mild to moderate horror. It seems very difficult to run given players propensity to wreak havoc with heavily planned scenarios… perhaps the rest of the campaign is better… I’ll keep reading.
I forgot to mention: I love the name of the campaign (subtle yet somehow ominous), but I really dislike the cover art. It is pulpy and gives away way too much. Would have loved to see some sort of New England landscape with some sort of vague creepiness to it, rather than this in your face tentacle monster fight scene.
You bring up an excellent point. I am viewing this through the lens of an experienced GM. I view this as a framework for me to play with. I rarely run anything as written. Some people want "finished" modules. We could debate whether that actually exists or is even wise to publish.
@delenius1
To be fair, they make it clear that it can be adjusted for a Pulp Game; even having adjustments to certain areas and the Pre-Generated characters.