Anyone played Masks of Nyarlathotep?

For context I’m looking for something to follow on from WFRP’s Enemy Within for an online campaigns Dm they’re pretty thoughtful players. One is a bit disturbed but the other two generally play good characters with a fair amount of social responsibility. It sounds like it could be a good fit for them.

It would be online so interesting to hear about Foundry. I know the base system has a good character sheet. Does it also have an NPC sheet in the system. Chaosium have the full handout pack for release online for free.

payn said:

I wouldnt leap right into MoN. Id probably pick or create a one shot to deliberately display the expected differences in play. That is, of course, you and/or the players want a change from the deep deep gravity well of the D&D murderhobo play style?

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Do you think that the new Peru section could be used as a one shot to get people used to it with an option to bring new characters or play a survivor of that experience.

eyeheartawk said:

I'll second the deluxe prop set. If you're going to invest the two years required to play the campaign spending the money for the prop set is definitely worth it.

I still haven't really looked into running the new edition of Masks with the Companion. I wonder how that would work out since alot of the stuff the Companion adds back in is included in the new edition now (Australia etc). Though, I still think it would be useful on the advice side.

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Regarding the Prop Set, that was exactly our thinking and everyone was kind enough to chip in for it. The Passports were the key mementos the players took home from the campaign.

I used the Companion mainly for additional background material for each country. The information on the Mythos tomes was also extremely useful.

As an aside, I would love to see an official product that takes a deep dive into that subject: what exactly is the Book of Dzyan about? How about some extracts? Details about the author? Anything special about the spells in the book or other lore contained therein? Who has known copies of the work? I think the German edition of CoC may have had something like this for an older edition?

I honestly believe Masks would make an excellent mini-series on HBO/other. It's got the chops for a really dramatic script and show.

HorusZA said:

As an aside, I would love to see an official product that takes a deep dive into that subject: what exactly is the Book of Dzyan about? How about some extracts? Details about the author? Anything special about the spells in the book or other lore contained therein? Who has known copies of the work? I think the German edition of CoC may have had something like this for an older edition?

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Maybe it's not official, but the Companion does this for all the tomes (maybe not the known copies stuff). The Book of Dyzan starts on page 212.

I'd say what made the campaign revolutionary was the grounding in historical time (Johnstone Kenyatta), and the non-linearity of the settings. These things are less novel now, but there are several campaigns in other games that are designed with emulating Masks in mind.

The issues about lethality are valid, so a Keeper should make sure that players used to D&D drop that mindset, and are willing to be curious at the risk of their investigators' lives.

Committed Hero said:

Maybe it's not official, but the Companion does this for all the tomes (maybe not the known copies stuff). The Book of Dyzan starts on page 212.

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Quite right... I should probably have picked an example book that wasn't actually in the Companion :-D
The point I was trying to make is: A book that covers (pun!) Mythos tomes like the MoN Companion does would we awesome!

Wolfpack48 said:

I honestly believe Masks would make an excellent mini-series on HBO/other. It's got the chops for a really dramatic script and show.

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Since it was written by a TV writer, absolutely.

grimmgoose said:

Currently running it - I think 90% of the complaints in this thread could be solved by using the optional Pulp rules. Just double your PC's health and you are good to go.

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I would definitely recommend Pulp rules for the campaign as it very much has more of a Pulp feel than anything else. Go ahead and embrace fighting the mythos through superior firepower.

But to me that only gets us like 30% of the way there.

1) I would strongly recommend an introductory adventure that sets up the characters connection to each other and the NPCs. This seems to widely have been realized to be a good thing, but I've not actually seen an adventure that I think is a worthy introduction.
2) I would strongly recommend the outcome of #1 is the PC's are introduced to some global anti-mythos organization similar to SAVE in Chill or perhaps a nascent Delta Green organization founded by the US government in the wake of the Innsmouth Incident (which I think technically occurs after Masks in the timeline but you can always move things around). The sole purpose of this organization is to allow the PCs to move around the world armed to the teeth while having mysteriously been granted permission to do so by the His Majesty's Government. I just hate when the focus of the campaign is on not getting in trouble with the local law enforcement rather than fighting the mythos cult.
3) I particularly detest the "Elder God in a Closet" set pieces and really think these encounters should involve more foreshadowing and set up, preferably with minor heralds of the elder god showing up first and hinting to the players that things are about to go to heck and they really need to bail before the SAN drain gets too much to reasonably endure and more clues about what the players might be getting into if they dig too deeply that don't require players to metagame knowledge of the mythos (and the game rules!) that their characters wouldn't have.

HorusZA said:

Quite right... I should probably have picked an example book that wasn't actually in the Companion :-D
The point I was trying to make is: A book that covers (pun!) Mythos tomes like the MoN Companion does would we awesome!

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Yeah, a book like the Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic, but for mythos tomes would be amazing.

TheSword said:

I’d say, what do you like most about it?

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I’m not @Retreater but I’ll give my answer. I run a lot of prewritten material. MoN was perfect in that it allowed for the players to choose where they wanted to go and what leads to pursue. For a prewritten campaign that’s rare.

The NPCs were well done with appropriate prompts for playing them. The locations made sense and were different.

I’d really like to take it and push it into a 40k Dark Heresy/Imperium Maledictum Inquisotrial game.