So, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've been running some friends through the classic Call of Cthulhu campaign, 'Horror on the Orient Express'. I'm running it with the D20 rules, which has worked fine so far, largely converting the stats and challenges on the fly.
The basic plot of the Horror, if you haven't heard, is that the PCs are tasked with gathering the parts of a mystical statue, the Sedefkar Simulacrum, which has been broken up into six points and scattered among towns which all coincidentally lie at stops along the Orient Express. As could be expected, the plot is a bit railroady, but it's got some interesting and different episodes along the way. There was the city where you had to enter a twisted sort of dream to find the piece, and the city where it was hidden in a clock, and so forth.
And then there's Belgrade, which has problems. I've had to patch them, and spent all night getting ready... and now we might not play because of outside forces. *sigh*
Now, I'm going to be getting into spoiler territory here for a moment, so if you think you might be run through this sometime, you probably want to skip onto the next Friends entry, which is probably a quiz of some sort. I'm almost certain none of my players are on lj or have friended me, so I'm not too worried.
SPOILER
Belgrade is a problem. It starts off well enough - exploring the city, finding contacts to track down the statue piece, and going through some bureaucratic red tape to finally get a lead to the town where it is at. The players trek out there, find themselves (effectively) in the 19th century again, and then finally find their way to Baba Yaga's house. And then she tries to eat them, and it's a horrible run back to civilization with the piece, trying to escape the country before this female goddess can catch and eat them all.
Yeeeah. Riiiiight.
It just doesn't work. It's completely out of the style of the previous bits. In preceding chapters, the horror's been subtle and odd. Never this powerful, never this obvious. And it's pretty much GM fiat that they survive, really - I can't think of any reasonable reason why they don't all die right here - which is stupid.
So, my plan is to use an idea from this page (SPOILER HEAVY) on running the campaign. We're going to go all Hammer Horror on them - Gypsies, wolves, evil bloodthirsty cults, moldy old castles holding old secrets. We're a stone's throw from Transylvania here, and it's easy to laugh at vampires in the modern age when we've got all this stuff - but this will basically force them back into the 1800's, and have to deal with things with a more primitive method.
Besides, as the link says, it's good preparation for Sofia, which is a bloody mess in the right manner, a setup for Constantinople.
Any other hints or suggestions or ideas are warmly welcome.
END OF SPOILER
The basic plot of the Horror, if you haven't heard, is that the PCs are tasked with gathering the parts of a mystical statue, the Sedefkar Simulacrum, which has been broken up into six points and scattered among towns which all coincidentally lie at stops along the Orient Express. As could be expected, the plot is a bit railroady, but it's got some interesting and different episodes along the way. There was the city where you had to enter a twisted sort of dream to find the piece, and the city where it was hidden in a clock, and so forth.
And then there's Belgrade, which has problems. I've had to patch them, and spent all night getting ready... and now we might not play because of outside forces. *sigh*
Now, I'm going to be getting into spoiler territory here for a moment, so if you think you might be run through this sometime, you probably want to skip onto the next Friends entry, which is probably a quiz of some sort. I'm almost certain none of my players are on lj or have friended me, so I'm not too worried.
SPOILER
Belgrade is a problem. It starts off well enough - exploring the city, finding contacts to track down the statue piece, and going through some bureaucratic red tape to finally get a lead to the town where it is at. The players trek out there, find themselves (effectively) in the 19th century again, and then finally find their way to Baba Yaga's house. And then she tries to eat them, and it's a horrible run back to civilization with the piece, trying to escape the country before this female goddess can catch and eat them all.
Yeeeah. Riiiiight.
It just doesn't work. It's completely out of the style of the previous bits. In preceding chapters, the horror's been subtle and odd. Never this powerful, never this obvious. And it's pretty much GM fiat that they survive, really - I can't think of any reasonable reason why they don't all die right here - which is stupid.
So, my plan is to use an idea from this page (SPOILER HEAVY) on running the campaign. We're going to go all Hammer Horror on them - Gypsies, wolves, evil bloodthirsty cults, moldy old castles holding old secrets. We're a stone's throw from Transylvania here, and it's easy to laugh at vampires in the modern age when we've got all this stuff - but this will basically force them back into the 1800's, and have to deal with things with a more primitive method.
Besides, as the link says, it's good preparation for Sofia, which is a bloody mess in the right manner, a setup for Constantinople.
Any other hints or suggestions or ideas are warmly welcome.
END OF SPOILER