Anyone played Masks of Nyarlathotep?

[TheSword]

Anyone played Masks of Nyarlathotep? It’s pegged as one of the best published campaigns of all time but I don’t know much about it?

Anyone DMd or played in it in any system and what was your experience?

 

[General_Tangent]

I'm currently doing a second play through and it really is a good campaign. It's given me lots of hours of fun and entertainment .

The 7e version expands upon the original campaign and it is very sandboxy with plenty of things for the players to do and you can easily drop additional scenarios into it if you want to expand it.

 

[SteveC]

I have started it multiple times and gotten as far as Egypt. It has a reputation for being an amazing adventure and I have found it to be too meat grinderish for my tastes. Of the main CoC adventures, I have played Shadows of Yog Sothoff all the way through, run Horror on the Orient Express all the way through and Masks is the only one we never were able to get through. The thing is, one of the GMs I ran it with is one of the best GMs out there and he couldn't get it to work ... so I'd say it's very challenging.

For me, it suffers from being more appropriate as a pulp adventure as academic characters will just die at certain parts. It definitely has a globe-hopping nature to it. Very Indiana Jones if you were.

 

[payn]

I tried as a player. Our keeper was a relentlessly old school skill play type. I know CoC has the potential to be highly lethal, but we churned characters at an alarming rate. Eventually, it made no sense why anybody would pick up where dozens of victims had left off and we quit. It left the impression on me that CoC is best for one shots. YMMV.

 

[TheSword]

I have started it multiple times and gotten as far as Egypt. It has a reputation for being an amazing adventure and I have found it to be too meat grinderish for my tastes. Of the main CoC adventures, I have played Shadows of Yog Sothoff all the way through, run Horror on the Orient Express all the way through and Masks is the only one we never were able to get through. The thing is, one of the GMs I ran it with is one of the best GMs out there and he couldn't get it to work ... so I'd say it's very challenging.

For me, it suffers from being more appropriate as a pulp adventure as academic characters will just die at certain parts. It definitely has a globe-hopping nature to it. Very Indiana Jones if you were.

Do you think that was the major stumbling block, the academics? Or did they get chance to shine in or other ways?

I’m two thirds through The Enemy Within and the party are very combat capable and it seems like I have the opposite problem. Would a group of combat capable PCs make masks too easy?

 

[billd91]

I’ve played it through to completion with a relatively large group of college students so we were using the original publication (no Australia chapter). We finished in a term and everyone pretty much went through 2 investigators. So, ultimately about 16 characters. We had a GREAT time.

 

[payn]

I’ve played it through to completion with a relatively large group of college students so we were using the original publication (no Australia chapter). We finished in a term and everyone pretty much went through 2 investigators. So, ultimately about 16 characters. We had a GREAT time.

We had gone through 16 characters before even leaving NY.

 

[RealAlHazred]

My wife and I were playing in a campaign until the baby was born and we had to stop. It's a great campaign, that I hope to one day run myself -- I own both the original box set, which I bought new, and the 7th edition PDF. It is challenging, and long, but the GM in the one I last played made it work with the Pulp Cthulhu rules -- it dramatically increased PC survivability against the minor threats, while making the main baddies even more potent so the final battle is usually epic!

 

[billd91]

I have also run MoN until the group TPKed in Kenya. That was also a few days before my first daughter was born so it worked out OK.

It IS a challenging campaign, but not hopeless for the players at all. They just have to be willing to make up backup PCs. A mix of character types works well, some academic, some streetwise, some good at combat. I would recommend everyone have at least one combat relevant skill at moderate level and be willing to at least pack a concealed pistol. When I was a player, I made up a theologian with good language skills but I also had a good shotgun skill (even academics go duck hunting sometimes). We also had a big game hunter with an elephant gun, but he didn’t survive the Egypt chapter.

 

[SteveC]

Do you think that was the major stumbling block, the academics? Or did they get chance to shine in or other ways?

I’m two thirds through The Enemy Within and the party are very combat capable and it seems like I have the opposite problem. Would a group of combat capable PCs make masks too easy?

There is a ton of stuff for academics to do but then you move to combat. I have a couple of different funny stories to tell about the game.

It starts with a mentor figure dropping a hint at something sinister happening and asking you to meet at his hotel. We had a contest to see who could get to the hotel first and how early they could make it. If you've played CoC adventures, they tend to start with a trope about what happens to the mentor. We lost our first character in the first scene about two minutes into play.

And this is the game that caused us to implement a non-drinking policy. There's this moment where you meet one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world of the mythos. And a player who knew who he was (the player, not the character mind you...) liked to drink at the game. He is introduced to the guy and says "I say hi, and then just walk up and punch him in the face."

No more than one drink per game from that point on.

But to get back to your question, no: combat characters won't make it too easy. They may let you survive a few more sessions.