Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Dr. Gerard » Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:07 am

trevlix wrote: Under exhaustion: Any time you fail a physical task, you can roll your exhaustion die after the fact as many times as you want. Each time you tie with another die you rolled, increase your exhaustion by 1.

Why would you want to do that? I'm not seeing the point to roll it after failing a task.
If the result of the Exhaustion Die is higher than the original result, then you use the result of the Exhaustion Die instead.

Full Example: Wally jumps off of a moving train to get away from a pack of Ghoul Hobos. He rolls one die to determine the degree of his success (because it's humanly possible). He rolls a 1. That means he'll succeed, but he's going to suffer some kind of setback. Rather than accept the result of 1, he decides to risk his exhaustion and roll his Exhaustion Die. He rolls a 1! Since it's a tie with the original result, his Exhaustion increases by 1. He really wants to get away from the Ghoul Hobos, so he decides to roll the Exhaustion Die one more time -- and he gets a 5. Thus, the final result of his attempt to jump off the train is 5, which means that he pulls off a pretty good tuck-and-roll, and is able to run away. But he lost a point of exhaustion, so he's also pretty winded from the whole stunt.

Does that help?
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Keeper Jon » Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:09 am

FYI - I will be out of town, and unable to access a computer, over the Labor Day Weekend. I'll be back online on Tuesday.

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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Dr. Gerard » Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:24 am

Keeper Jon wrote:FYI - I will be out of town, and unable to access a computer, over the Labor Day Weekend. I'll be back online on Tuesday.
Ok, no problem -- thanks for letting us know. The rest of us can keep going with discussion of rules and character stuff, but let's save the serious action for Tuesday. I'll plan to post a description of the first group scene on Monday night.
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Scriven » Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:45 pm

The exhaustion mechanic makes sense to me. Is there a method for recovering exhaustion points? Rest?

Recommend that players publicly keep track of their character's current exhaustion and insanity levels at the end of each post under spoiler tags or simply in bracketed text for easy reference. For example:

[George Finch - Exhaustion: 3 Insanity: 2]

I have no difficulty with monitoring a separate thread for OOC comments.

Very much looking forward to this!
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by trevlix » Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:11 pm

Dr. Gerard wrote:If the result of the Exhaustion Die is higher than the original result, then you use the result of the Exhaustion Die instead.
...
Does that help?
Very much so, thanks!

I will also be out over this coming weekend, with limited Internet access. But I'm really looking forward to this, and determining who really is to blame for my brothers death!!! (*duh* *duh* *duh*)
[Trafford: Insanity: 4, Exhaustion: 2]

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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Dr. Gerard » Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:32 pm

mjmedwick wrote:The exhaustion mechanic makes sense to me. Is there a method for recovering exhaustion points? Rest?
Not one that you can count on. Part of why I'm adding this mechanic is to simulate the toll that high-altitude life takes on a body. In such a thin atmosphere, a small cut on your finger would take weeks to heal, digestion slows to a crawl, and many people find it impossible to sleep. Climbers in the best condition are often harassed by all kinds of physical complaints. So, Exhaustion will remain a downward spiral, though it's possible you might be tempted by some supernatural means of recovery...

I'm not going to be ultra-realistic about those threats; there will be lots of hand-waving about things like acclimatization and implausible levels of physical activity. But I think this mechanic helps to tell the survival story. Mostly, it will be up to you to decide whether to spend it as a resource for the chance to improve your results on physical tasks. I will, however, start to invoke it when physical exertion seems extreme. You want to leap over the huge crevasse? Ok, but you have to use your Exhaustion die. I will likely invoke Exhaustion rolls more if characters exert themselves very high up on the slope.

Remember that only ties trigger an increase in Exhaustion. This differs from the Insanity Die, where you must roll higher than the current Insanity level, on a separate roll, to trigger an increase.
mjmedwick wrote: Recommend that players publicly keep track of their character's current exhaustion and insanity levels at the end of each post under spoiler tags or simply in bracketed text for easy reference.
[George Finch - Exhaustion: 3 Insanity: 2]
That sounds like a good practice. I'll keep track on a worksheet at home, but it'd be great to keep the count updated as we go. To help make everything transparent, I'd also like to see die rolls spelled out. Example: For jumping the crevasse, George Finch must use his Exhaustion die, and chooses to also add his Insanity die. He rolls:
[Human Die: 3
Expertise Die (Mountaineer): 2
Insanity Die: 2
Exhaustion Die: 4]
So let's label the die rolls like this when applicable.

FYI, the result for this task would be 4. The Exhaustion die is highest, but it did not tie any other die in the attempt, so there is no increase in Exhaustion. If he'd rolled a 3 or 2 on his Exhaustion Die, tying other dice in the attempt, his Exhaustion would have increased by 1. A result of 4 is a basic success, so Finch leaps across the chasm and sticks his ice pick in the glacier to steady his landing. Nothing special, but he's safe on the other side - winded and full of adrenaline, but not depleted.
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Dr. Gerard » Sun Sep 02, 2012 2:17 pm

[Here's a little update on the characters and background. No need to respond unless you want to add reactions or color to your recruiting scenes. I still plan to post the first in-game action scene Monday night.]

Expedition Roster

Nawang Wangdi (Tariq): Sherpa, Climber, Logistics, Passable English. A 23-year-old Nepalese Sherpa with only four years of experience but already a competent mountaineer and climb resource manager. Nawang speaks Sherpa, Nepalese, Hindi (basic), and a little English. He is also very superstitious and wary of both sudden changes in weather and the foreigners who hire him... (could there be a link between the two?).

George Finch (mjmedwick): Australian Climber, Chemist, Skier, Oxygen Tech. Pragmatic, capable, controversial. He was part of the expedition in 1922, but was excluded in 1924 due to a scandal over his accepting money for lectures. Rumor has it that he was spurned because the British didn’t want an Aussie to reach the peak first.

Trafford Leigh-Mallory (trevlix): Beginning Climber, Pilot. Brother of missing climber George Mallory. He has trained with Charles Bruce in the Alps for one year to prepare for this mission, but has never been to the Himalayas.

Ansfrid Kolstad (Keeper Jon): Climber, Meteorologist, Skier. Norwegian meteorologist and experienced climber of the Swiss Alps. He is also a competitive skier.

Building a Team

Sir Francis Younghusband contacts three of you some weeks ahead of the mission. He asks for your strictest confidence and trust, even demanding that you swear an oath of secrecy.

Trafford, you’re contacted in June 1924, just two months after the death of your brother. Younghusband says he knows “you can be trusted with the most sensitive of state secrets. Your brother will surely watch over you during this mission. Frankly, I suspect he and Sandy reached the summit after all, and I hope to prove it for the memory of old George and the glory of our nation.”

You spend a good deal of the summer and fall of 1924 training in the Alps with Charles Bruce, who was the expedition leader for two previous Everest attempts, but caught malaria last year and had to step down.

Ansfrid, a strange figure abruptly corners you in a ski lodge while you're training for the national alpine ski competition near Oslo. You’ve never met him before, but you can tell he’s wearing an awkward disguise.

He quietly identifies himself as Sir Younghusband, and you immediately recognize the head of the Mount Everest Committee. He says he knows of your outstanding work in the “art” of meteorology and the nascent science of atmospheric physics. “What would you say if I told you that you could touch the very roof of the world, Mr. Kolstad?” he says, “a place so high that it touches the mighty Strahlströmung, or ‘Jet Stream,’ for half the year?”

“I don’t have to tell you that I was quite reluctant to invite a foreigner to participate in this mission. But your profound understanding of The Winds and the mountains…could be a great help to us indeed.”

As you shift the focus of your training from skiing to climbing in the weeks before the mission, you get a growing feeling that you might be under close watch, sometimes followed.

George, Younghusband invites you by telegram to his estate in Kent. Your friendship with him has turned very chilly since he excluded you from the 1924 expedition. But when you meet up, he is humble, apologetic, and practically begs you to rejoin the team for a clandestine mission back to the plateau. “George, please, let’s put this bad business behind us. I regret deeply that I ever brought your integrity or loyalty into question.”

“I would be more than honored to have you join our team, and we truly need some expertise with your oxygen apparatus if we are to retrace Mallory and Irvine’s trail high on the slope.”

Wangdi, your main contact for this mission is Karma Paul, one of Charles Bruce’s famous “Tigers” and the chief translator for previous expeditions. He tells you of need for utter secrecy, the grave dangers of violating Tibet’s ban on foreign travelers…and the excellent pay you will get as a result. With this one mission, you’d get enough money to be able to support an extended family of 20 for five years – and your wealth would make you an attractive provider for any of the women in your province.
Last edited by Dr. Gerard on Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Scriven » Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:33 pm

Dr. Gerard wrote:
George, Younghusband invites you by telegram to his estate in Kent. Your friendship with him has turned very chilly since he excluded you from the 1924 expedition. But when you meet up, he is humble, apologetic, and practically begs you to rejoin the team for a clandestine mission back to the plateau. “George, please, let’s put this bad business behind us. I regret deeply that I ever brought your integrity or loyalty into question.”

“I would be more than honored to have you join our team, and we truly need some expertise with your oxygen apparatus if we are to retrace Mallory and Irvine’s train high on the slope.”
If for no other reason, Finch is eager to participate in order to justify the design and use of his own oxygen apparatus in high altitude climbing -- something that had met resistance even from such accomplished climbers as Mallory prior to the 1924 expedition. Irvine modified Finch's equipment designs for the 1924 ascent, and Finch can't help feel that the failure of Irvine and Mallory to return has cast a shadow over his own expertise and advocacy for the use and necessity of breathing apparatus at extreme heights. Of course he's going back. His professional reputation depends on it. As for a mending of fences, Younghusband may need him for the expedition and is honest enough in extending the olive branch, but Finch knows better than to expect a warm welcome and bygones from the other toffs who shut him out from the last ascent.
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by Dr. Gerard » Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:24 am

Somewhere Over Tibet...

Image

After gearing up in Darjeeling, you have trekked overland to a secret airstrip near Sikkim, northern India. There, you joined your Sherpa guides and Richard Hingston, the naturalist-doctor. Noel Odell, the geologist and the last person to see Mallory and Irvine alive, has been coordinating preparations for a few weeks at the landing site, and will meet you there.

Now, you’re flying over the Himalayas in a three-engine Fokker F-VIIb ski-plane. You can barely hear yourself think over the howl of the three props, each of which are driven by the same cutting-edge engines used on Sherman tanks.

You're past the failsafe point. No turning around now. The expedition is headed to a specially prepared landing site about 150 miles north of Sikkim. From there, you'll have another couple of days’ trek to the Everest base camp.

It’s unbearably cold inside, even though you’ve bundled up in your best expedition gear.

Near the end of the flight, the weather turns sour.

Trafford, you’ve been fighting increasing crosswinds for the last 30 miles. Suddenly, the air pressure drops! You’ve been steering into the wind to keep a steady heading, but the wind drops off and now you’ve got too much yaw! The plane lurches. If you don’t recover, you’ll surely start into a corkscrew and stall right out of the damned sky…

[Trafford, roll 1d6 twice -- one die for the task, and another to account for your expertise. Please post both rolls. If you’re not happy with the result, you may roll your Insanity Die for a chance to improve, but that will risk an increase in your Insanity. You may also roll your Exhaustion Die for an additional chance to increase the result.]

Everyone else gets snapped around in the cabin pretty good, and gear starts sliding around on the floor. Trafford wrestles for control...

[Passengers, to see how well you’re each able to hold it together, please roll 1d6 and tell me the result. You may also risk Insanity or Exhaustion for that chance for a better result, but as you might guess…it’s pretty early to start risking either of those resources.]
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Re: Cthulhu Dark -- A Secret Everest Expedition

Post by trevlix » Tue Sep 04, 2012 12:16 pm

Trafford struggles against the stick, pulling it back as hard as he can in an attempt to right the plane. His breath is momentarily stolen from him as the plane begins to drop, but his training takes over and he acts on instinct.

"Hold on, everyone!" he yells. "Its going get a little bumpy!"

Die rolls: 6, 5
[Trafford: Insanity: 4, Exhaustion: 2]

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