We Love “Actual Plays”

I mentioned a while back that ever since this whole crazy-time of global lockdowns began, we’ve seen a sharp rise in the number of people downloading our free Call of Cthulhu scenarios. My guess is that people are playing online a lot more, and some free, high-quality scenarios service that need pretty well — especially for one-shot game sessions.

While seeing people downloading our games makes our tiny demon-hearts glow every time, there’s something that makes us even happier … and that’s when people go to the trouble of sharing their runs of our adventures, either as audio recordings or just as written scenario logs. Recently there have been quite a number of these, so I thought I’d give a shout out to point any curious readers to places to go to hear some Cthulhu Reborn scenario-play in action.

I should also say that we’re always interested in hearing about more recordings — so if you and your group make a great Convicts & Cthulhu recording, or a Dateline: Lovecraft recording, etc., let us know! If it’s something we can share here in on the blog we’ll definitely be up for sending you some kind of “thank you” reward for your efforts!

In A Different Light: As Played by “Collections of Madness”

“In A Different Light” is the very first scenario we ever released here on Cthulhu Reborn (back in 2011). We’ve heard back from quite a few different groups who have given it a run over the years. It’s still available as a 100% free download (albeit statted for Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition) — jump to the Downloads Page for Rescued Scenarios and you’ll find both the scenario and it’s bonus extra props.

Back around Christmas time we were contacted by a reader called Bill who was running the scenario for his group and typing up a detailed account of the group’s escapades on his own blog. That adventure summary makes for a great read, and definitely gives a good sense of what the scenario is like and how it might play out in the hands of a typically gung-ho group of Cthulhu investigators.

The four game sessions run by Bill can be read here:

• Session 1: https://rigglew4.blogspot.com/2019/12/part-1-in-different-light-by-dean.html
• Session 2: https://rigglew4.blogspot.com/2019/12/part-2-in-different-light-midnight.html
• Session 3: https://rigglew4.blogspot.com/2020/01/part-3-in-different-light.html
• Session 4: https://rigglew4.blogspot.com/2020/01/part-4-different-light-behind-screen.html

Geoff Gillan’s Machine King: As Played by Skype of Cthulhu

Of all the scenarios we’ve ever released, Geoff Gillan’s “Machine King” is the one which has received the most attention from folks who make actual play recordings of their game sessions. We’ve been made aware of at least 2 audio recordings and 1 video session recording made by groups running through this Gaslights-meets-Mechanical-Dreamlands scenario. The PDF itself is still available (with CoC 6e stats) for free over on the Downloads Page for Rescued Scenarios.

Recently we learned that the famous players over at Skype of Cthulhu had given this popular title a spin for themselves. You can hear their audio recording of the 5 sessions of play on their site (and probably also on a variety of podcasting channels and services that they publish to). Here’s some direct links:

• Session 1: http://www.cthulhu.me/2020/03/603-machine-king-1.html
• Session 2: http://www.cthulhu.me/2020/04/609-machine-king-2.html
• Session 3: http://www.cthulhu.me/2020/04/612-machine-king-3.html
• Session 4: http://www.cthulhu.me/2020/04/612b-machine-king-4.html
• Session 5: http://www.cthulhu.me/2020/04/612c-machine-king-5.html

Convicts & Cthulhu – Orphan School Horror: As Played by Innsmouth House

There haven’t been too many Convicts & Cthulhu recordings shared yet (at least as far as I know), but one very significant one is just about to come out … A week or so ago we learned that the Innsmouth House players, who have a remarkably long history of recording games and releasing them via Yog-Sothoth.com, recently tried a one-shot adaptation of one of the C&C “Ticket of Leave” publications. The ToL in question (#9) can be downloaded via this link.

This game was run under lockdown with their in-house system called “nameless” with the session being GM’ed by the capable Helen (with most players joining via Zoom calls to Innsmouth House Global HQ). To fit in with their recent Victorian adventures, this tale of ghostly hauntings at a girl’s school has been transported from its original convict-era Sydney setting to Victorian London. We always love seeing people taking our free content and finding new and different ways of using it, so we say ‘yay Helen’. The recording has been made by (at the time of writing) hasn’t yet been shared — it will probably only be available to Patrons of Yog-Sothoth.com. I will definitely be downloading it when it’s posted in the next few days and will happily share a quick precis of how the nameless session went! Exciting.

Coming Soon …

In addition to all those things that have either been released, or will shortly be released, we’re also aware of at least one other Cthulhu Reborn scenario that’s been recently played and recorded … but is still waiting in the queue for audio processing and release. That’s the Dateline: Lovecraft scenario “Bottoms Up!” which the Skype of Cthulhu players ran through around Christmas-time with GM duties being performed by scenario author Rachael B. Randolph. We are eagerly waiting for the day that recording gets released … in the meantime if you want to grab the scenario itself (for free!) here is the link.