Finished running the campaign last night - 66 sessions. Your tips are all absolutely spot on. Our group kept reporting progress back to Carlton in NYC so knowledge continuity was retained 'at HQ' when characters died and then replaced.
Congratulations on finishing this epic campaign, I'm excited to hear that you thought my tips were useful. Great idea to have your group report back and use NYC as an HQ!
Just want to say this has been an incredibly helpful video. I've gone and watched the whole thing 2-3 times to keep myself on track and come back to reference it for ideas all the time. Thank you taking the time to make these!
Weird to keep the original handouts untouched? Count me guilty - everything is mint, all the way back to the original Tomb of Horrors module for me. Lol. Great information as always. :)
On the subject of the Companion Book, I'm actually a little dubious about it and wouldn't recommend it. Being from Hong Kong I was excited when I heard it would have a section on the city as not only is it a potential stop off point for MoN investigators trying to find Carlyle, I just fancied having a good reference for my hometown to use in future games. Unfortunately, while they made a big song and dance in their marketing about its accuracy, when I read the short HK section it was full of errors and omissions. They even include info and a map location for a theme park that didn't exist in Hong Kong until 1977! A bit shocked, I looked through the other sections and saw some pretty iffy research there too. I would recommend just sticking to Chaosium's MoN books, conducting any additional research independently, and forget hunting down a copy of the companion. Its not worth it.
Thanks a lot for this video. I´m going to run this campaign in september, and i fell little overwhelmed 😅😅😅😅 I´m from Spain and have the book in pdf. We are going to play online, so i think it would be enough. Thank you so much
Looking to run via Roll20 and eventually in person. I bought the HPHLS prop set while at GenCon - 100% worth it! The handouts are improved and worth copying over. Wanted to say thanks for the video! Lots of terrific ideas!
We need one of these for someone for Impossible Landscapes. The trouble is, Impossible Landscapes works best when you have someone who is familiar with Delta Green and how most campaigns go.
One day. One day I'll finally run this campaign. Speaking of expanding things, there's a scenario in the first issue of Bayt al Azif that I'm contemplating adding in. It's set in the middle ages, but I think it could tie in as a cool "flashback"/prequel. Not sure where I'd drop it in.
Oh! I have a great idea of where this could fit. In England, the side track adventure is called the Chelsea Serpent. There is a character that is creating some pretty weird art. There is a chance that players could get sucked into one of the paintings hidden in the attic closet. You can always adjust to make sure all your players are sucked into the painting (and the past) and inside they have to solve the mystery your adventure to get out. I think that would be a ton of fun.
I know this is an older video but I was thinking about ending it all in Antarctica, that could could be possible with some home brew? Just starting down this rabbit hole lol 🛸
Thank You for everything you do. I appreciate it as a person who played D&D in the 80’s and then never played again until 2017. Now I’m beginning to GM different games and all advice is appreciated P.s. this is a beast of a campaign
Great video!!!. I was thinking of tackling this as my first Campaign and found the video very helpful. I will be running mine online hopefully in our Discord Group using Roll 20, so going to be a challenge
Oooooh yeah the HPLHS PRO SET FOR MON IS AWESOME! Includes, passports,maps. News articles clipped from actual news papers created fir thecampaign. And,much more
@@XPLovecat I actually ran it when the compilation book first came out. Not the complete masks in her with the tip the one before that. Almost had a total party kill in the Chelsea right at the beginning. So we decided to put it off until the characters were beefed up a little bit. I've run it all the way through once I think. We got a good ways into it a couple of years ago and got distracted into something else and never came back to it. But now all of the players have some well-established characters at the very happy with in terms of skill levels and personality and motivations and such, not to mention some. Cthulhu Mythos knowledge and experience. And.. I'm running it as a pulp campaign LOL we had our first 100% luck Point casualty a couple of weeks ago when a night got snatch somebody out of a cab. Of course he was leaning out of the cab practically sitting outside the window trying to see what was flying around up there LOL the recklessness of the curious
@@colinflanigan9153 some are tiny reasons, like rhe lack of color in the book. The main reason it is requires a lot more effort compared to Masks. It has many more side track screanios so lot more do I keep this in or not. You pretty much need to run it as pulp for how deadly it is. The opening hook is not at strong compared to masks. I think it just needs a full retool for 7e to adjust classic and pulp for it. Its not a bad book just needs a good once over. Also my Tuesday group I was running it for is awful at taking notes but that is on them. I will run it again in the future just have other things in queue before I get that far. Also might run masks again for how much fun I had.
Hi Josh! Great question. I'm editing Peru as we speak and will be posting this week. From there, I'm aiming to post 1 video per month on Masks until the series is complete. I hope your group is enjoying the campaign so far!
Obsidian is better than One Note. Give it a swing, I have the Arkham book mapped out in Obsidian, it's cool because it makes a graph of connections so as you set it up you know how everyone and everything is linked together.
If you dont mind, I have a question about your One Note prep. Do you have just bullet points about the Locations (like shown briefly in the video) or are there sections that are more detailed? Would love to know the whole process :)
Great question! The screenshot you see in the video are my actual notes from when I ran the campaign so I kept it as bullet points. This was the stuff that I found the most important to remember. I would use OneNote during play as the main source to make sure I was on the right track and if I needed more details, I went to the books. I have a setting section that details important aspects like weather, travel, and gun laws. The important locations are all the possible spots players would go to and the most important things to happen at those locations, and then NPCs which is also a bullet point list with who the NPCs were and why they were important to the story/what clues they each would lead the players too. In session notes are things I need to write down quickly during play as to not forget (and how each session ended). And the reminders section is anything random that I didn't feel like fit into the other categories like extra spells, details about the investigators my players were using, etc. I hope this helps!
@@XPLovecat Thanks a lot! Sorry for the late reply didn't have notifications turned on ^^ I also used your "template" to create my masks notes. For NPCs i basically just summarized the information in the Dramatis Personae section of each chapter and also added a photo of the NPC to quickly notice them. How exactly did your NPC notes look? Would help my process a lot if you could show me a screenshot of a given chapter ^^. I always tend to overprep so anything that can reduce the workload is appreciated! Did you use the book at all? Like reading sections from it during play and so on. I don't think my `minimal` onenote notes will be enough to run the session so I will probably still use the book to know what to say during play, especially in scenes where a lot is happening. Thanks for the help!
SPOILER: Hey, thanks for the Video! We start in about 1-2 months and I am just wondering: When did your players get the hint that they actually race time regarding the Grand Conclusion?
Regular Call of Cthulhu. I think if you have a group who prefers more action and having fun talents, it could easily be converted to Pulp. But in general the tone of the campaign felt like a closer fit to regular.
I'm currently running Peru as a homebrew D&D adventure to see if my group would enjoy this kind of campaign. They just faced off with Mendoza in the museum and so far things are going well. I'm still on the fence about adapting the full campaign, but it's good to know it's got solid bones for adding extra content in case I need to pulp it up with extra threats and side adventures.
Oh interesting! Honestly if your group enjoys the combat/action more than investigation, I think giving Pulp Call of Cthulhu a shot might work. It would save you the work of adapting, and I think there is plenty of room to mix up the campaign to fit your group. If you do decide to stay within D&D, the sidetrack adventures will be gold for you.
@@XPLovecat The funny thing is I think most of them would absolutely love Pulp Cthulhu and clearly dig the investigating they've done so far, but are just unwilling to leave their D&D comfort zone. While it wouldn't have been my first choice, adapting it so far hasn't been too bad. I'm comfortable enough with both systems that the mechanics have been pretty easy to wing. The hard part has been porting story content written for 1920s Earth to the D&D Eberron setting. But it's also been a fun thought experiment and a good way to become familiar with the module. The content in both sources are too rich to just say "Peru is here on this map and Jackson is a dwarf now". I'm having to learn what makes MoN characters and places special, find appropriate D&D analogues, then consider the impact of that D&D stuff back onto the source material and deal with that butterfly effect too. Like, a quick "Speak with Dead" or "Revivify" spell could have huge implications for this plot. It's been fun to think about. And videos about the campaign are good food for thought, so I'll definitely be watching anything else you might have coming to fuel my inspiration!
I’m also running masks as a dnd campaign, but I’m converting the whole campaign into my dnd 1920s fantasy setting. While I have not run the whole complete campaign, my players that have played it do enjoy it.
I love OneNote. It's the most useful program Microsoft ever created. And I'm looking forward to this series. I'm curious, did any PC make it all the way from beginning to end?
No PC made it the entire way through the campaign. The long-hauler was a combat oriented Great War Vet that lasted 5 locations (out of 7). The PC was starting to go crazy and his stats had taken some hits due to an unfortunate spell in China. So although technically the character was still playable after 5, my player decided he wanted to play a different investigator for the last 2 locations.
I've finally given up on Masks. The lack of narrative cohesiveness makes it almost unplayable. The prologue is fantastic, everything else... not at all.
Thanks for sharing. I started with using OneNote for campaign notes but moved over to Notion. Just so much more you can do with it. Check out SlyFlourish's D&D campaign template. th-cam.com/video/8AfbMNAsyr4/w-d-xo.html
I started running Horror on the Orient Express. These tips have also been helpful to get me started.
Finished running the campaign last night - 66 sessions. Your tips are all absolutely spot on. Our group kept reporting progress back to Carlton in NYC so knowledge continuity was retained 'at HQ' when characters died and then replaced.
Congratulations on finishing this epic campaign, I'm excited to hear that you thought my tips were useful. Great idea to have your group report back and use NYC as an HQ!
Just want to say this has been an incredibly helpful video. I've gone and watched the whole thing 2-3 times to keep myself on track and come back to reference it for ideas all the time. Thank you taking the time to make these!
The prop kit from HPLHS is amazing!
They do great work.
We just finished New York last night, but this was still really helpful.
I am running Masks rn for the first time, and I am SO GRATEFUL for your videos!!
Just starting the campaign and soooooo need this. Thanks and Subscribed!
I was looking for exactly this when I started running MoN about a year ago. Fantastic work!
I am currently preparing for this campaign and your videos have already been super helpful, thanks for your amazing work!
I love your video on this cuz I’m starting a call of Cthulhu league using this
Thank you, that sounds amazing!
This really helped me to getting a good start on the MoN campaign! Great tips on organization (not my strongest side). Thanks!
Weird to keep the original handouts untouched? Count me guilty - everything is mint, all the way back to the original Tomb of Horrors module for me. Lol. Great information as always. :)
I knew I wasn't the only one!
Very helpful, thanks for making/sharing!
Glad you found it helpful, thank you for watching!
I'm running this now and we just finished session 3 in Peru. I'm subscribing to your channel. Thanks!
Thank you for the support! I hope you're having fun with the campaign so far.
Can't wait for the chapter deepdives!
I'm starting to read the campaign, looking forward to see your other videos!
Peru is posting soon!
On the subject of the Companion Book, I'm actually a little dubious about it and wouldn't recommend it. Being from Hong Kong I was excited when I heard it would have a section on the city as not only is it a potential stop off point for MoN investigators trying to find Carlyle, I just fancied having a good reference for my hometown to use in future games. Unfortunately, while they made a big song and dance in their marketing about its accuracy, when I read the short HK section it was full of errors and omissions. They even include info and a map location for a theme park that didn't exist in Hong Kong until 1977! A bit shocked, I looked through the other sections and saw some pretty iffy research there too. I would recommend just sticking to Chaosium's MoN books, conducting any additional research independently, and forget hunting down a copy of the companion. Its not worth it.
Hi, this series is great, thank you!
Do you think that the campaign could be played with the starter set rules?
Cant wait for the next videos! About to start the campaign :)
Greetings from germany!
Hallo! So exciting you will be starting the campaign!
Amazing video! have to get my hands on this campaign again.
Thanks for this, just bought it. I'm looking forward to be an keeper in this long running campaign. Please continue to do what you do ;)!
Great video! Thank you so much!
I found watching several masks campaigns to see different ideas and styles
That's a great idea!
Going to run it for the second time but will always watch tips for other keepers!
Nice! That's fun!
Very useful!! Really well explained, thank you!
Another great video, Kat x
Thanks so much! 😊
Thanks a lot for this video. I´m going to run this campaign in september, and i fell little overwhelmed 😅😅😅😅 I´m from Spain and have the book in pdf. We are going to play online, so i think it would be enough. Thank you so much
Brilliant video. Well done and thanks
I certainly hope theres no player deaths! 😮
Good video, very helpful!
Looking to run via Roll20 and eventually in person. I bought the HPHLS prop set while at GenCon - 100% worth it! The handouts are improved and worth copying over. Wanted to say thanks for the video! Lots of terrific ideas!
We need one of these for someone for Impossible Landscapes.
The trouble is, Impossible Landscapes works best when you have someone who is familiar with Delta Green and how most campaigns go.
Thank you! This was perfectly timed, I'm about to GM session 1 of Peru this weekend!
Nice, good luck with your first session!
One day. One day I'll finally run this campaign.
Speaking of expanding things, there's a scenario in the first issue of Bayt al Azif that I'm contemplating adding in. It's set in the middle ages, but I think it could tie in as a cool "flashback"/prequel. Not sure where I'd drop it in.
Oh! I have a great idea of where this could fit. In England, the side track adventure is called the Chelsea Serpent. There is a character that is creating some pretty weird art. There is a chance that players could get sucked into one of the paintings hidden in the attic closet. You can always adjust to make sure all your players are sucked into the painting (and the past) and inside they have to solve the mystery your adventure to get out. I think that would be a ton of fun.
I know this is an older video but I was thinking about ending it all in Antarctica, that could could be possible with some home brew? Just starting down this rabbit hole lol 🛸
Great advice for this campaign but works as general advice for most Cthulhu scenarios well done.
Thank you! I'm glad to hear that this advice could be used for other campaigns as well.
The prop set is very dope
Nice! Glad to hear you liked it.
Hello, this was really useful and relevant! Thanks! Please do your chapter breakdowns, you're very good at this and it would be so very useful!
Oh yay! Thank you. I just posted Peru: th-cam.com/video/EScR35LoOi0/w-d-xo.html
@@XPLovecat I saw it today on my feed! :D stoked for more chapters. I know it must be a lot of work, but you have a captive audience!
Thank You for everything you do. I appreciate it as a person who played D&D in the 80’s and then never played again until 2017. Now I’m beginning to GM different games and all advice is appreciated
P.s. this is a beast of a campaign
That's great that you're getting back into the hobby and so glad you find the advice useful! And yes...it is a beast!
It is meat grinder. Expect to lose PCs along the way so have back ups ready.
Great video!!!. I was thinking of tackling this as my first Campaign and found the video very helpful. I will be running mine online hopefully in our Discord Group using Roll 20, so going to be a challenge
Nice, best of luck with your campaign! Enjoy the madness!
Oooooh yeah the HPLHS PRO SET FOR MON IS AWESOME!
Includes, passports,maps. News articles clipped from actual news papers created fir thecampaign. And,much more
That's great to hear! When (not if) I run this campaign again at some point in my life I will have to check it out.
@@XPLovecat I actually ran it when the compilation book first came out. Not the complete masks in her with the tip the one before that. Almost had a total party kill in the Chelsea right at the beginning. So we decided to put it off until the characters were beefed up a little bit. I've run it all the way through once I think. We got a good ways into it a couple of years ago and got distracted into something else and never came back to it. But now all of the players have some well-established characters at the very happy with in terms of skill levels and personality and motivations and such, not to mention some. Cthulhu Mythos knowledge and experience. And.. I'm running it as a pulp campaign LOL we had our first 100% luck Point casualty a couple of weeks ago when a night got snatch somebody out of a cab. Of course he was leaning out of the cab practically sitting outside the window trying to see what was flying around up there LOL the recklessness of the curious
@@XPLovecat I actually found it on eBay for a little bit less.
@@SpookyGroovyPolitoCatMum Oh my this sounds amazing.
10:29 pun intended.😂
There are keys points, clues, people that the PCs must find in order to move forward.
Got this book from your recommendations along with Horror on the Orient Express. Not sure which to start first! Great advice.
Having ran both i would say masks but just a suggestion
@@zachmckinney2497 Why do you like Masks before Horror? (I think I just made the Title to my next campaign.)
@@colinflanigan9153 some are tiny reasons, like rhe lack of color in the book. The main reason it is requires a lot more effort compared to Masks. It has many more side track screanios so lot more do I keep this in or not. You pretty much need to run it as pulp for how deadly it is. The opening hook is not at strong compared to masks. I think it just needs a full retool for 7e to adjust classic and pulp for it. Its not a bad book just needs a good once over. Also my Tuesday group I was running it for is awful at taking notes but that is on them. I will run it again in the future just have other things in queue before I get that far. Also might run masks again for how much fun I had.
Yay! That's super exciting. I have not run Orient yet, but it is definitely on my list as well.
Fantasy Grounds finally added the current edition of this campaign.
Did you share somewhere you notes for running ?
Where did you find all of the clue diagrams at? I thought I had the book they were in but I dont, and Ive only found 2 of them D:
Stains of coffee and tea are excelent to the handouts. They seem much older.
Yes! Great tip, stains do a great job of making handouts look more authentic.
When can we expect the rest of this series? My group will probably finish America soon.
Hi Josh! Great question. I'm editing Peru as we speak and will be posting this week. From there, I'm aiming to post 1 video per month on Masks until the series is complete. I hope your group is enjoying the campaign so far!
Obsidian is better than One Note.
Give it a swing, I have the Arkham book mapped out in Obsidian, it's cool because it makes a graph of connections so as you set it up you know how everyone and everything is linked together.
If you dont mind, I have a question about your One Note prep.
Do you have just bullet points about the Locations (like shown briefly in the video) or are there sections that are more detailed? Would love to know the whole process :)
Great question! The screenshot you see in the video are my actual notes from when I ran the campaign so I kept it as bullet points. This was the stuff that I found the most important to remember. I would use OneNote during play as the main source to make sure I was on the right track and if I needed more details, I went to the books. I have a setting section that details important aspects like weather, travel, and gun laws. The important locations are all the possible spots players would go to and the most important things to happen at those locations, and then NPCs which is also a bullet point list with who the NPCs were and why they were important to the story/what clues they each would lead the players too. In session notes are things I need to write down quickly during play as to not forget (and how each session ended). And the reminders section is anything random that I didn't feel like fit into the other categories like extra spells, details about the investigators my players were using, etc. I hope this helps!
@@XPLovecat Thanks a lot! Sorry for the late reply didn't have notifications turned on ^^
I also used your "template" to create my masks notes. For NPCs i basically just summarized the information in the Dramatis Personae section of each chapter and also added a photo of the NPC to quickly notice them. How exactly did your NPC notes look? Would help my process a lot if you could show me a screenshot of a given chapter ^^. I always tend to overprep so anything that can reduce the workload is appreciated!
Did you use the book at all? Like reading sections from it during play and so on.
I don't think my `minimal` onenote notes will be enough to run the session so I will probably still use the book to know what to say during play, especially in scenes where a lot is happening.
Thanks for the help!
I have a big screaming minion mouth face mask I wear which now looking at nyrathotep looks like his mouth he always has lol
SPOILER:
Hey, thanks for the Video! We start in about 1-2 months and I am just wondering: When did your players get the hint that they actually race time regarding the Grand Conclusion?
Did you run your campaign in regular Call of Cthulhu or use Pulp Cthulhu?
Regular Call of Cthulhu. I think if you have a group who prefers more action and having fun talents, it could easily be converted to Pulp. But in general the tone of the campaign felt like a closer fit to regular.
I'm currently running Peru as a homebrew D&D adventure to see if my group would enjoy this kind of campaign. They just faced off with Mendoza in the museum and so far things are going well. I'm still on the fence about adapting the full campaign, but it's good to know it's got solid bones for adding extra content in case I need to pulp it up with extra threats and side adventures.
Oh interesting! Honestly if your group enjoys the combat/action more than investigation, I think giving Pulp Call of Cthulhu a shot might work. It would save you the work of adapting, and I think there is plenty of room to mix up the campaign to fit your group. If you do decide to stay within D&D, the sidetrack adventures will be gold for you.
@@XPLovecat The funny thing is I think most of them would absolutely love Pulp Cthulhu and clearly dig the investigating they've done so far, but are just unwilling to leave their D&D comfort zone. While it wouldn't have been my first choice, adapting it so far hasn't been too bad. I'm comfortable enough with both systems that the mechanics have been pretty easy to wing.
The hard part has been porting story content written for 1920s Earth to the D&D Eberron setting. But it's also been a fun thought experiment and a good way to become familiar with the module. The content in both sources are too rich to just say "Peru is here on this map and Jackson is a dwarf now". I'm having to learn what makes MoN characters and places special, find appropriate D&D analogues, then consider the impact of that D&D stuff back onto the source material and deal with that butterfly effect too. Like, a quick "Speak with Dead" or "Revivify" spell could have huge implications for this plot. It's been fun to think about. And videos about the campaign are good food for thought, so I'll definitely be watching anything else you might have coming to fuel my inspiration!
I’m also running masks as a dnd campaign, but I’m converting the whole campaign into my dnd 1920s fantasy setting. While I have not run the whole complete campaign, my players that have played it do enjoy it.
I love OneNote. It's the most useful program Microsoft ever created. And I'm looking forward to this series. I'm curious, did any PC make it all the way from beginning to end?
No PC made it the entire way through the campaign. The long-hauler was a combat oriented Great War Vet that lasted 5 locations (out of 7). The PC was starting to go crazy and his stats had taken some hits due to an unfortunate spell in China. So although technically the character was still playable after 5, my player decided he wanted to play a different investigator for the last 2 locations.
Why is this hard cover version so much larger than the softcover version? How are they even the same game?
This guy reminds me of Michael Myers a lot
Lol
Comment
reply
I've finally given up on Masks. The lack of narrative cohesiveness makes it almost unplayable. The prologue is fantastic, everything else... not at all.
Write your own shit dawg. You can do eet
@@THECOSMONAUT100 Already have, centered around Cyaegha 😏
Love the video! Do you have a Twitter or Facebook account? We'd like to discuss some review copies.
Thank you! You can message me on Facebook facebook.com/XPLovecat or email xplovecat@gmail.com. Looking forward to connecting.
Thanks for sharing. I started with using OneNote for campaign notes but moved over to Notion. Just so much more you can do with it. Check out SlyFlourish's D&D campaign template. th-cam.com/video/8AfbMNAsyr4/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the suggestion, I will definitely check it out!