Miskatonic University Campus

This episode is just Murph and Dan as Chad is off doing work stuff and Jon has vanished into the ether. Or, more likely sleeping. We cover topics that all strangely tie together. We talk about reading tomes, running a campaign vs. a one-shot, and character down-time between investigations.


Campus Crier News:

Posted to Facebook from Golden Goblin/Oscar Rios-
"De Horrore Cosmico is Latin for Cosmic Horror, it is also the title for an upcoming Cthulhu Invictus collection from Golden Goblin Press. Writers include Stuart Boon, Chad Bowser, Phredd Groves (a new face), Oscar Rios, Jeffrey Moeller, and Penny Love & Mark Morrison.
I'm happy to say that two of these scenarios are already in-house with work on the other four underway! Look for Golden Goblin Press to launch its Kickstarter Campaign for this in early 2014.
Tales of the Crescent City is still the second project from GGG. The tentative date for the launch of this Kickstarter is January 24th 2014."

Astounding Adventures, the BRP Pulp Adventure Supplement, is now available as a PDF from Chaosium.

This didn't make it into the show at recording, but the 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules have been released to the general public!

There is a new podcast out, called Modiphius Calling.
Hosted by Josh O'Connor and Chris Birch. They cover the happenings at their company as well as the RPG hobby at large. http://www.modiphius.com/modiphius-calling.html

The Raiders of R’lyeh Kickstarter will have only 2 days left when this episode drops. They just reached their $22,000 goal, so they're funding!


Sponsor thanks to Aaron, who supplied this episode's side topic.


We got a voicemail question from DM CoJo.
He asks about how to portray reading tomes in your campaign. Do you just hand-wave it and lose and San, or roleplay it out more.

Our side topic is from Aaron. He says he would be interested on hearing a discussion about the difference between preparing one offs and campaigns for CoC. He's worried that the high fatality rate for CoC will make running a longer campaign difficult if not impossible to do.

And the main topic is from Bosco Boy. He asked Murph (while they were at NecronomiCon) about character down-time.

Another way to approach the whole book reading thing is to do it in phases.
ie:
library use check - allows you to find the appropriate other books to research this book (language ciphers or text that will help you identify things in the book or help to explain what is available).
library use check - properly handle and identify the best way to keep the book in the condition it is in.
Language check - to properly identify the language the book is written in and maybe again to properly read or translate those sections. Failure could lead to them researching the wrong language or finding a expert who just tells them this is not Spanish thanks for wasting my time.
Spot Hidden - to discover hidden code in the text or just things that someone has hidden in the pages of the book like a newspaper article tucked into the covering of the book ect that could lead to some insight of the text or maybe a adventure hook
I'm sure we can postulate a few more ideas for this also.

Know roll - to check to see if they comprehend what they have been researching. This is where you get the sanity loss and you gain the new spell if they can make this. Therefore making this check should finalize the overall process and it's the way the keeper puts a limit on when they can receive the spell from the book.

This could lead to interesting things in the campaign such as if you allowed the player to explore the book with 2 checks a week. If he chooses to do certain thing with the book that happen to lead him down the road to get a spell early by having stunning rolls that week it could help the group by having the spell available sooner.

You could kind of run this like a skill challenge in D&D 4th ed (the edition that shall not be named) where they have to have so many successes over a certain period of time to learn each spell in the book. They can never fail at getting the book research finished. I think this type of set of challenges gives the book a little more of a life and more of a sense of discovery than just telling them they got 4 spells it will take 1 year to research.

Good Episode.

I especially like the Campus Crier section: You guys definitely keep me up to date on current events in the Cthulhu world.

I am a backer of the Raiders of R’lyeh Kickstarter. I am happy that it has reached funding.

Prepare. I will be calling in to ask questions about rules and such...

Love what you guys are doing.

Great show guys... and yes, I was sleeping. But, only because I had to work Saturday night for several hours on a software deploy to production that did not go as smoothly as desired.

So, yes, I was in no shape to get up and record after only four hours of sleep. But I'll be there next time, for sure.

Well done, as always!

I just thought I'd chime in, as I'm a big fan of using downtime between sessions. Anytime I run a campaign, I set up an Obsidian Portal site for it. I then use the forums to facilitate conversation between myself and the players. I might post some images of general or specific interest (I usually start a "Scrapbook" thread for this purpose), and I encourage players to contribute as well, which they often do.

Something else I've started doing is using the forums to do what my friend (and fellow GM) Alex has termed "Mid-Week Tasters"--basically just an updated version of bluebooking, really. I don't always use this technique (for one thing, you need a group where people are comfortable interacting with the forums and willing to contribute, so it doesn't work very well if you have one or more casual gamers in your group), but I used Tasters to great success in the Cthulhu by Gaslight campaign I ran earlier this year.

Here are the rules I laid out prior to the start of the campaign:

What is a Mid-Week Taster you ask? Well, basically it’s a mini side-adventure I run one-on-one with you in between sessions. These mini-adventures will be designed primarily to add depth to your character’s storyline. Here are some ground rules:

1. Mid-Week Tasters can be initiated by the Keeper or the Player at any time the main session isn’t running (you don’t really have to wait til the middle of the week). I have created sub-forums for each of your characters where you can post accordingly.
2. Combat, while not strictly forbidden, should be avoided, and, if initiated, will be handled in a narrative fashion consistent with the points laid out below. Situations leading to a loss of Sanity will likewise be kept to a strict minimum.
3. Tasters are delivered in a narrative format, both by the Player and the Keeper. That means putting what your character says in quotes, writing out nice descriptive sentences and paragraphs for your actions, and placing any out-of-character comments on their own line with the OOC: preface.
4. Experience checks (if any) will be awarded for good roleplaying and problem solving. Generally speaking these side quests will not award many checks, as they are designed more to give your characters a sense of depth outside of the main adventure rather than substitute for the main action.
5. These adventures should not deviate the characters too far from the main storyline. If they do, I may reign them back in before the next session begins.
6. Keep in mind that these sub-forums are viewable to anyone in the party. I will leave it to your individual discretion whether you choose to read others’ Tasters.
7. You may bring in other players by mentioning them in your write-up and checking the appropriate Email Notification box, but please refrain from dictating the actions of other characters.

Another good episode guys.

After some consideration you finally persuaded me to back Raiders of R'lyeh!

Which, by the way has just finished it's Kickstarter at nearly 130% of target which is great news.

So in a few months when we get the rules out, anyone fancy a game?!

Another great show guys.
Even with just the two of you. Ever thought of having regular schmoe's (like posters here) as guest hosts?

Every episode I'm hoping for a new episode of 'Professor and Jimmy' but alas....I'm jonesing.

I will have to send you guys a voice mail, I've got a few comments that I will hold off and use for it instead.

Yes please. And yes we have thought about having fans on, but typically we don't know we will be short until 5am on Sunday mornings. That makes it skittle hard to get coherent guests involved as you might imagine.

A new Jimmy & The Professor is coming. I just need to get the sponsor wraps recorded for it.

Keeper Dan wrote:A new Jimmy & The Professor is coming. I just need to get the sponsor wraps recorded for it.

Awesome!