After a strange death, the Investigators are hired to locate some missing documents. They soon realize that not only are others hunting for these letters, but something sinister is hunting the Player Characters. Written by Alan Bligh, the scenario appears in the 7th Edition Keeper’s Guide, and one interesting feature is that it lets the Keeper decide who the culprit is.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC
source
Great review!
Hey Seth I had an idea to run a pulp cthulhu campaign set in ww2 but I can't for the life of me think of what monster's to put my players against ik where I want it to go and how I want them to get there but I can't think of how to throw the mythos at them during a war
I combined all the starter adventures into an intro campaign for my friends with this as the finale. I had it be that everything was the machnations of Githlanki, from the starter adventure with the lake. A fun twist was that by this point one of the players was actually a ghoul under Githlanki and in the conclusion where it was for me the student, he kidnapped and ritualistically sacrificed one character, then the other 2 came in and got into a fight with him, with the actually turned one watching the door. The other player actually won, but was severely wounded. The ghoul player snuck up behind him with a shotgun and tried to execute him with a shot to the back of the head, but the player got a hard dodge roll, spun around, and got a perfect headshot. We had the finale be him having to permanently be on the run from the agents of Githlanki.
I'm unreasonably upset about Wick's Store Map. The boiler is located approximately at the middle of the house, but the first floor bathroom is on the north side and the second floor bathroom is on the south side? The only thing non-Euclidean in this nightmare is that plumbing!
🙂
Anyway, great video as always!
저도 "crimson letters"를 플레이 해보았습니다. 매우 흥미로운 시나리오 입니다. 저는 gm으로서 플레이를 했습니다. 하지만 player로도 플레이 해보고 싶습니다. 범인이 매번 바뀐다는 점이 아주 매력적입니다.
Always brightens my day to see a Seth upload
I think Ive Run thus adventure 6 or 7 Times already for different groups. I absolutely Love it!
I dont wanna brag but I think I can Run it without Notes at this point!
This adventure is super lovecraftian imo and I have it very dear to my Heart aß it also was my First COC adventure.
Last Time I ran it. When the Players asked "Is there any Magic in this setting?" I Said No. They were in for a suprise. Trying to explain the Events With everything from Plutonium to Aliens Till a certain kipping point.
I didn’t run any of the adventures in the rulebook, but reading through them didn’t really grab me. I had no interest in running either, but it’s still good to have adventures in the rulebook.
Sorry @Seth, I draw what I'm asked. I had no idea that the letter and receipt wouldn't be included but my memory is hazy. X
#KillFlinders
I bet Nathaniel Hawthorne's ghost is gnashing his teeth!
It's not that far a step from 'crimson' to 'scarlet'! 😁
Going from "This module sounds interesting." to "Wait I already ran this module!" was an unexpected suprise.
Thanks for your impressions and wow, that escalated quickly. It really does seem like a rather complicated adventure. I would describe myself as an inexperienced keeper and have to say I can clearly feel how much time it takes to prepare, I'm still not ready yet.
I do have one small question though, if you read it:
There are quite a lot of "properties" to explore and not all of them are fleshed out. How do you keep up the tension in the Hobbhouse estate, for example, where there is actually nothing to find? I have a hard time with the idea of describing every room somewhere palatable to the players, especially since there are many rooms and many properties which the players could visit… At some point it just gets boring if there's not much to find and my imagination fades. Not to mention the flats of Hunter or Flinders etc….
Heh, a couple of months ago I posted on reddit about exactly this issue: how can the players even learn how to deal with the tome.
My idea (we haven't gotten to play the scenario yet, so I haven't tried it yet) was that Wick will always openly offer his help, but reading the tome should give them hints that destroying it is safe. My personal gripe was that just randomly destroying an artefact in CoC can have dire consequences and I really don't see the players just attempt that…
If the players do any real research on Wick they'll most likely find out that he is at least very shady, maaaybe even his full secret.
So they would probably know that using him is a kind of "deal with the devil" – yes it'll solve the problem, but Wick will get something important out of it for himself and who knows what that means in the future.
Reading the tome I will probably try to have it happening as somebody reading the book, who will get ferociously attacked by the horror – anybody else present can help protect the reader, attempting to fight off the horror enough that they can read the important info.
I will combine that with the idea of partial copies giving hints as well, I think I'll set a fixed time required to read the book to get the info the players seek, but if they'll have read the partial transscriptions before part of that reading will be done and they need less time with the actual dangerous book.
Sounds to me that with all the chasing shenanigans Seth had going that game, I'm surprised he didn't break out the Benny Hill Chase theme.
Don't think of it as "replayability…" Think of it the way wargamers think of the extra bits in a kit that allow model customization, "Things that you can tuck away for later and shamelessly use for other purposes."
I love and appreciate your videos! Do you have any Tabletop War Stories videos lined up? I love those.
man. I miss Alan Bligh's stuff. RIP. Alan
Sounds like you had a fun time, but there were also at least one dead end or red herring (Flinders) in the investigation. Did players find this frustrating at all , out of character?
Another great review! Thank you!
1:05 Top row middle… is that Anne Frank?
Great to see it covered! In my campaign I changed the bear wormy thing to a shade of Keziah herself with a blurred, hideous face. I totally agree that while its a great adventure, it is totally unsuited for a novice keeper, even though I had been playing for a few years when I ran it, it still took me a while to prepare it. The Corbitt House or Edge of Darkness are much better starter modules.
As the great and mighty Jack the NPC was describing the chase I couldn't help whistle the Benny Hill theme lol
I’ve never played CoC or Travelers, but you give a lot of great tips that are system independent. “I got a showing!”
I describe you to my friends as rpg Bob Ross
Appreciate you loads Seth!
Thank you.
Great video as always mr Keeper. Have you run or ever considered running Mask of Nyarlathotep? I just started out with the prop set by hplhs and my players are having a blast
This was the first CoC adventure I ran. I choose to make Flinders the thief of the papers but only has some kind of pawn of Wick, who promised him actual mythos knowledge (but actually planned to get rid of him once he used him). Emilia Stone was just a genuinely helpful NPC with some backbone.
Thing is, I introduced Flinders to the PCs by making him 'casually' watch them when investigating Leiter's office. Flinders then proceeded to ramble bullsh*t about Emilia being a witch and other sketchy theories. For a moment I was afraid of making him too suspect from the get go, but one PC in particular just completely bought his witch theory and overall invited him to help on the case. How your players sort of blindly trust Emilia to help them made me smile as it resonated as the somewhat similar but reverse situation that developped in my game.
Also about your point on the written adventure leaving too many details out to be welcoming to new keepers, I agree. I did put the work to flesh out locations ahead of time (except the Manse, and I got lucky the PCs did not try to visit there). I also planned clues/handouts but if I would try it again today, I would probably plan for more. Overall the amount of work was significant for a first adventure, but it turned out quite well in the end.
Hello, here is my like, I love your shirt.
classic chum being the one that gives trouble to the god slaying heroes, never fails to entertain me…except when i'm the player i suppose, forever dm had to have some good things
Lol my characters bought the one with the mushroom forrest in the undercaverns… very useful as a shooting range and the former occupant needed to money for his psychiatric treatment ..
I was hesitant about running this, but after hearing this I think it might be a great transition game to kick off an episodic Pulp campaign. Thanks Seth!
A great review, as always!
But mostly, thanks for mentioning my Handouts pack on DTRPG. I really enjoy seeing people satisfied with them, serving the purpose of adding more to the game and, more than anything, making the Crimson Letters experience even better.
Stupid Flinders…
What could be more 1920s than a chase scene with lots of slipping around?
I'd like to point out the gouls can be quite reasonable. They generally aren't interested in fresh meat.
What is this book in the left background? DÄMONEN?
Have you spooken about this book in one of your Videos?
Stupid sexy Flinders.
i am always a bit nervous until i hear "and I'm Jack the NPC.." I just love that line. i would use it as a ringtone if my phone wouldnt been muted for… since i have turned it on.
Hi Seth! I've loved you reviews and insight for years and finally saying so! I am curious…what would be your pick for the first adventure a first time keeper should run? Thanks so much!
Your video was very, very interesting. I wanted to run this adventure for my players this summer. I felt that it would be a little difficult for me so I chose instead « none more black » from « doors to darkness » with player characters that are all teachers in the university. I feel the idea is quite the same in both scenarios, so I managed last night to use some of your ideas in my session. Thanks a lot !
But now if I want to run the crimson letters to my players I will have to wait a very, very long time ! 🙂
That was a wild chase, almost a Tabletop War story!
Awesome video as always ^^
Do you write the extra scenes down or something? Or do you more or less improv them? I know you’ve made a video on how you prep (print out the pdf, etc) but a detailed version on how you prep a scenario from start to finish would be the best thing that ever existed on the internet 😀
I agree with this, especially that this is not a beginner's scenario and it really didn't belong in the Keeper's book. It would have done better published independently, with enough pages to provide more maps and handouts and fill things out more (I like that there are multiple suspects, but there is no guidelines for clues they might have left or other details, so it is less support than an experienced Keeper will want from a printed scenario, much less what an inexperienced Keeper needs). I've run this a couple of times (using Roll20/Discord) and I flipped through my collection of Edgar Allan Poe to find apt things for Cecil to quote. Again, something that could have been done for me if the scenario had come more filled out. But Seth failed to mention one big issue, KEZIAH MASON. While the dates are kind of fuzzy, this scenario will very probably be run before the events of "Dreams in the Witch House" (if during those events, the situation is even worse, especially as the scenario points the PCs at the Witch House!), which means that Keziah Mason is alive and well. Furthermore, it is October, which means that she is actively haunting the streets of Arkham, selecting her next sacrificial victim. This is never addressed. At all. She's sometimes in the company of an avatar of Nyarlathotep, and is a powerful witch in her own right. If she bound the creature, she's an interested party. The easiest solution for the Keeper is to drop the name check, use another witch, and don't let the Witch House light up. OTOH, if you want to use her, she can easily be either an ally (she probably confined the creature for a reason), an enemy, or a dangerous red herring.
Seth brings funny moments, I’ve watched since 2016, I remember getting up at 5:00 in the morning and watching his videos before going to school. It’s was awesome.
hello i am here because steelysam recommended you