Help with CoC newbies session

[Corey]

I’m going to run a CoC session (that may or may not become a campaign) for three new players, two of whom are rather dubious about the whole RPG thing.

They are: a Buffy fanatic, a 2001: A Space Odyssey and other such heavy on the real world science novels enthusiast and a first person shooter video junkie. The 2001 type says she hopes the game can be funny.

My thinking is a more action oriented session, a la Indiana Jones, may get them interested in continuing playing. I plan to just drop them in front of wherever they are supposed to start and maybe even begin the session with a quickie fight to get their blood up.

Any suggestions on setting (modern era), goal or encounters?

Thanks,
Corey

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Corey, here is some help I hope.

Hay,
Horror roleplaying games much like horror movies depend on mood and setting in order to convey the situation. I would suggest reading some of the original stories by good ol' HP himself. Also think about your favorite horror movie and try to figure out what it is about that movie that really got to you.

In the original Evil Dead movie the characters were trapped in a house with something horrable outside that is untill they remember that there is a basement and have to go into it to see if anything was left down there. The horror begins when they find out that they aren't alone and can't escape. If they go outside they will be attacked and killed for sure, but if they stay in the house they have a chance. The evil spirits possess(sp?) one of the characters and the others have to determine how to save their lives and are faced with the fact that they may have to consider one of their friends as already dead.

Something to me is that they never really followed up on the characters getting blamed for the murders and the aftermath of the incident. I know in evil dead 2 they did repirse the whole story again with Bruce Campbell getting the heck beat out of him again but that is whole new thread.

As for your original request for help. I have alwasy thougth of C.o.C. as a thinking game rather then an pulp adventure game but if you want to go the whole Indiana Jones action route then I would suggest the following.

Each of the characters shold be in a position that they become aware of some strange goings on in the campaign setting. On one pretext or another you show them a the edges of a mystrey, players love this kind of stuff and they will explore what is going on pretty quickly. Then when they least expect it have some horrorable incident happen. The person they thought was the culprut is killed by something darker. That will draw them deeper into the plot. You could insert battle here and then things are off with a bang.

Something else you might try is starting en media ras with them in the middle of a fight for their lives and then at a important moment do a flashback as to how they got to the sutation in the first place.

Here is a plot straignt from old HP himself.

The first person shooter guy gets some intersting information that could lead to a possible muder in the campaign city. The evidnece could be dirt or anything related to the field of science of the 2001 guy. They talk and find out that the evidence seems to point to something strange going on outside of the town.
The buffy character is out hunting strange things in the night stangely enough in the same area as the first two characters. She follows them because she doesn't know if they are what she is looking for or not.
The all come across evidence of cult like activity in the area and then the biggie shadowy figure that attacks them and drives them into a small shack near the old graveyard outside of town. (Yeah, I know it is cliche' but what do you expect for spire of the moment yeech! One thing that modren horror movies to is take the characters out of the comfortable enviroments of their homes and puts them in stange almost alien situation where they have no controls over what happens. This shouldn't be any different in the game. After all the objective is to scare the players as well as the characters.) Anyway they are trapped and with only one option fight or stay put until day break. Add a scary book of incantations to some old dead gods for the Scientist to decipher and ping instant plot.

Now for the back story of what is really going on here. The old gravetender's father was part of a cult in that met at the graveyard on special nights to renew a pact with a messenger of the gods. The messenger would tell the cult members secrets in return for the occasional sacrifice. Well the cult was broken up long ago and the majority of the members shipped off the the looney bin for "help" and the mysterious murders stop. Now some time later the son of the cultist has found the book and perhaps some friends of his father and stated up the cult again. But unlike his father before him he has decided to leave before the law comes to investigate the goings on. Unfortunatly he was arrested while trying to leave for non-payment of child support and is being held till the judge can see his case. The cops arent looking into the stange disapperances as of yet. However tonight is the night the messenger come looking for its regular sacrifice and when it sees the characters it decides that they are it. The cultists are there to preform the ritual but without the man with the book they are at a loss as to what to do in order to appease this creature. The characters are in a bad spot and have to find a way out on their own.


This leads to a few points for the ongoing campaign. What happened to the member of the original cult? Did some recover and become upright citizens or just seem like upright citizens and still deeply involved in the mythos activities. Good plot twists to explore.

Where did the new cult come from are they childern of the older cultists or new followers?

What happens when the Gravetender gets out of jail and finds out that someone has been in his home.?

What about the Gravetenders child will he have the same tendindacy as his father and his grand father.
Here is a twist have the grandfather possess the grandchild in a bizarre ritual and have the characters explain why they want to kill a young child.

I hope this is what you are looking for and it is beginning of a great campaign.