He Who Laughs Last: A Playtest

A couple weeks ago I was invited to playtest and review a Cthulhu Dark adventure called He Who Laughs Last. It was an enjoyable and entertaining read with some really interesting takes on police involvement, style of magical power and methods of PC involvement.

Boy is this a hard review. So many potential spoilers!

The characters are pretty solid and well-rounded, giving the first half of the game a police procedural feeling to it with a few NPC interviews that could get pretty colourful pretty quickly. Regrettably my players leapt on the nudges toward social media and technology that were indicated when they got their hands on a certain mobile phone and because their character sheets were decorated in a Facebook style.

They let their fingers do the walking and quickly determined the most important NPCs, identified prior events that were similar in nature to their current investigations, avoided one witness who looked pretty dangerous once you took a look at him (they later executed him in a *knock, knock* "Hello?" *headshot* kinda way), and leapt ahead to the guy who had all the answers. It was pretty amazing watching them use modern technology to quickly move through the scenario though.

Since they were taking a rather streamlined approach, I ran with it. I could've nudged them back on track but there were even chances they'd keep circling the obvious baddies rather then branch out to interview the red herrings and character witnesses. While it meant the game was a little lean, and they missed out on an epic scene by having the right *key* earlier then they were supposed to, it still all worked out and was a fun and interesting game. Not as scary as it could be, especially since they didn't try to engage the police, but still worked out great.

Their shortcuts cut the game down to three hours, though if they had followed the trail correctly I think it would still have only been 4 hour longs, not the 6 - 8 hours advertised. While you could bulk it out depending on individual play styles and the length of time players spend roleplaying their characters, I would advise folks to expect it to generally take 4 - 5 hours. This isn't a bad thing, though, since most folks' sessions are about that long so there's a good chance it can be done in one night.

So in short, my players played the game in a way it wasn't quite supposed to be played, utilising all of the modern world's technological marvels to discover information that is now more readily available. They enjoyed the chance to do that since most games actively work against that style of investigation whereas this one opened the door a little, inadvertently or not.

The adventure, as a whole, was inspiringly creepy to read and though I didn't manage to play it to its full creepy potential, it's still nice to know it can still take a bunch of dedicated and experienced players leaping toward the conclusion without falling apart.

My only real complaint is that there's not enough advice on the ending. I understand they left it open to the Keeper's discretion, but it really needs some advice or anecdotes to get the creative juices running. I've mentioned that to them and as they're still planning on going through the editing and layout phase, that should hopefully be rectified in the finished product.

Delta Green RPG

I've been reading the Delta Green campaign book and I've got to say that other than a fair few typos in the hard cover edition that I've got, it's a pretty solid book.  Nice lay out, absolutely beautiful and evocative pictures, and some really interesting text that tells a story even as it delivers the detail.  That latter point is very important, I find.  I've read books where the text is just text and, whether fluff (world building, etc.) or crunch (mechanics), it's incredibly dull and doesn't have to be.  It's important that a game book tells dozens of little stories there as it is, in the end, a story reference.

I don't mean that each section starts with 'Once upon a time' but that there's a sense of pacing to the revelations, perhaps an anecdotal feel to some of the facts like a friend were telling them to you, and certainly a sense of bias that runs throughout it to give you a sense of the mood and atmosphere of the game.  The government may be deluded in Delta Green but it is out-matched, out-paced, and involved in conspiracies, or so the bias in Delta Green goes.

So what is Delta Green about?  Well it's Call of Cthulhu updated for an X-Files vibe and set in the modern era.  I haven't read it all but already I feel that it's a great resource for that type of setting just because the text itself is so interesting it's easy to get inspired.  It also has a really good timeline for FBI and CIA actions (especially CIA actions) and government conspiracies, real or fake, so even if you weren't running Call of Cthulhu you could read it and get ideas.  This is especially the case since there is a focus on Majestic-12, Karotechia, and the alien race, all of which could be transplanted from a literal Call of Cthulhu world quite well.

Would I play it myself?  Well I love conspiracies and investigations, so absolutely.  I'd be a little sad if it occurred now that I've read the source book but that's just what happens sometimes.  Since I run so many games and take advantage of a lot of source material, it is quite hard to get me to play something I haven't read something about.  Not impossible, but difficult.

Would I run it?  Possibly.  It would depend on the player base I had at the time.  I'd probably have to put it in World of Darkness rules simply because some of my players aren't keen on learning new systems although BRP is an easy one to learn.  I've never run that kind of modern science fiction before but I'm sure that after watching a couple seasons of X-Files I'd be all set to jump in the deep end and get something cranking.

All in all, a good book.  No wonder its still in vogue.