Occam's Razor is a seven scenario anthology published by Stygian Fox, a relative newcomer to the world of horror adventures for Call of Cthulhu RPG. However, where other Stygian Fox scenario collections sport various authors, all seven scenarios in Occam's Razor were written by Brian Sammons, who is somewhat of an old hand when it comes to Lovecraftian adventures.
Occam's Razor was one of Stygian Fox's several Kickstarter projects before their project Innsmouth '86 was canceled by the crowdfunding site due to too many unfulfilled projects. However, to Stygian Fox's credit, they are working quite diligently to fulfill their obligations, and the publication of Occam's Razor is a testament to that.
The premise of Occam's Razor is somewhat deceptive: they are scenarios in the Cthulhu Mythos where the supernatural is merely the backdrop; the real source of the mystery in these scenarios comes from mundane human tragedy. Each scenario also includes ways to insert Cthulhu Mythos elements into the mix, if desired.
Occam's Razor was marketed towards Call of Cthulhu GMs, with players too jaded or experienced with the genre allowing their assumptions to take over the investigation. This is a topic recently discussed on the Green Box podcast based on a neat FBI article, and there's a lot of discussions that could be had about assumptions in investigative roleplaying games. Are these scenarios a violation of the RPG social contract? When players expect a monster, how might they react when they pull the mask from the monster and find that it's a Scooby Doo situation? Is it ever okay to lie to the players in your game?
Let me be clear: this is a review based on a reading of the scenarios. If I run them it will likely be as a Delta Green game and with some modifications. When I do, I will post a follow-up with further thoughts.
With that out of the way, here's a quick synopsis of some of the scenarios in Occam's Razor, but be warned:
THERE WILL BE BLOOD SPOILERS.
(probably a lot of blood, too)
From Occam's Razor Kickstarter page:
Deep and Dark – the investigators find a snuff film on the dark web, but one of a pretty girl getting mauled by a Fishman monster. Did the deep ones mess up and accidentally get filmed in this modern world where everyone has a camera phone or is it something else?
Eye of the Beholder – an art student goes missing while doing late night research in a museum tied to the local university. Maybe it's a coincidence that the museum just got a huge statue from South America of a little-known death god called Thul'Cathul. Yep, total coincidence.
The Watchers – a woman living alone in an apartment in the big city notices that people are watching her. Following her. They even broke into her home. But why? What do they want and how far will they go?
A Whole Pack of Trouble – a group of film school students go to an isolated, abandoned, and reportedly haunted asylum to make a found-footage horror movie and make a fortune? Whatever could go wrong with that? Well, when the filmmakers go missing the investigators will have to find out.
A Cleansing Flame – People are dying by fire. No one knows why and no one knows how. When the latest victim is a friend to one of the investigators and an astronomer who reportedly made a recent discovery of note, it's up to the investigators to put out these flames.
Visions From Beyond - Tommy is a friend who makes some new friends. That's nice. Unfortunately those friends have a strange reputation, they get up to some bizarre practices, and then one night Tommy calls one of the investigators in terror, begging for help, then the line goes dead. What's a friend and an investigator of the Mythos to do?
Somewhere along the way, Sammons "cooked" up a bonus scenario, Frozen Footsteps which I would best summarize as "A friend of the investigators who is interested in the Occult sets off to examine a mass grave in Michigan's Upper Peninsula but goes missing when he stumbles onto the dinner plates of a centuries-old cannibal family.
With the synopses out of the way, here is my ranking of them:
GREAT TIER
A Whole Pack of Trouble
A Whole Pack of Trouble is a scenario that I would recommend to new investigative horror GMs because it is scary and explains how to take away control and foreshadow the awful things to come. A pack of starving, ravenous dogs awaits players once they become stranded at the insane asylum with flat tires, and this is the heart of what makes this scenario great; Sammons demonstrates the power of isolation in a horror story and shows how to adapt existing media to roleplaying games to great effect. In addition, there are instructions here for how to recreate the terrifying scenes from Cujo (a direct inspiration for this scenario as stated by the author).
Another reason to admire this scenario is that it fits with Sean McCoy's (Mothership RPG) Survive, Solve, or Save - Pick Two design ideas; players are presented with various choices with decisions that matter in this scenario with consequences for their choices. Players can try to save the surviving missing student, escape the asylum, or delve deeper to find the source of the mystery.
The Mythos red herrings in this scenario that might compel veteran players to dig deeper are obvious: it's an insane asylum which is a staple of the genre; ghouls could be responsible for the dug up graveyard; either of these options are compelling enough for investigators to want to stay and figure out what is happening.
Compared to the other scenarios in this collection, A Whole Pack of Trouble stands out because the initial premise - missing college students - leads to a whole other adventure without necessarily having to lie to players (more on this later). There's no need to lie; the mystery and shenanigans are waiting to be discovered.
GOOD TIER
A Cleansing Flame
My second favorite scenario in this collection, A Cleansing Flame stands out as a cat and mouse game between a serial arsonist and the investigators. The stars are right for the misdirection in this one, as the deceased astronomer was investigating a "rogue star" that could cause experienced Mythos investigators to believe that Cthugha or Groth is at play. While investigators attempt to find the killer and figure out exactly what his research entailed, the killer has taken one of the investigators as an obsessive target and harasses them with personalized threats that escalate.
The killer torched the professor with a homemade flamethrower a la the Boring Company, but with various chemical materials that would be nearly impossible to detect. This is a good premise. Let's suppose for a minute, that the investigator looking into this mystery is someone with knowledge or experience of arson investigations, such as a Delta Green character with a high Forensics or Demolitions skill. Even so, the knowledge that the fire may have used accelerants that would be harder to detect is not a lie, it's just an idea that is open for debate or as a possible lead. It is not definitive; it's a concept that can be investigated further while still maintaining the possibility of a spooky cause such as a Fire Vampire or unnatural spontaneous combustion. This premise feels straight out of an X-Files episode, something that Scully or Mulder would argue with each other about.
Once player characters get on the killer's trail, they are also quite likely to be motivated to find them because of the personal nature of the attacks; these aren't happening to NPCs, they're happening to the them! The rest of the scenario is structured like a time bomb that the players may only be vaguely aware of the ticking noise.
Compared to the other scenarios in this collection, A Cleansing Flame only has the Keeper (GM) omit the truth rather than outright lie to the players. Therefore, there's very little chance that the Keeper could be called malicious for maintaining the mystery.
Frozen Footsteps
Frozen Footsteps left me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, I really loved the movie Ravenous, which it feels like this scenario is a nod to. But, on the other hand, it's also a just-barely-believable concept: a cult of mostly-family cannibals has been hiding in the woods since the 1790s, snatching up people for meals, and disposing of the bones in a mass grave.
The gonzo nature of this scenario makes it stand out and I believe that it would be the most memorable if ran for a group. This scenario is probably the most likely of the pack to make the players feel like there are Mythos elements at fault, with tons of misdirections from the missing friend's library to the spooky totem pole. Still, there are so many red herrings that it makes it hard to pinpoint which element is supposedly "at fault."
However, it feels like there is not a lot for the player characters to do once they arrive on their friend's trail. Of all of the scenarios in the pack, this one feels the most straightforward. There's good atmosphere that comes from interacting with NPCs who can tell ghost stories about the area that hint that things aren't right out there. Still, the onus lies on the Keeper to make the scenario a terrifying journey through the cannibal-infested woods. I would have appreciated suggestions from the author to make this happen.
Frozen Footsteps has a similar inciting incident to A Whole Pack of Trouble: a missing friend in a questionable situation with possible Mythos connections that starts in earnest once Investigators get to the remote location. However, unlike AWPOT, Frozen Footsteps paints a heavier picture that there is Mythos involvement in the form of a missing magical talisman that the victim had but was stolen by the cannibals; it seems that this may be a key part of the scenario but it essentially only serves as a confirmation that the friend was killed by cannibals.
The Keeper seldom has to lie to players in this scenario, but they are instructed to spam the players with red herrings that don't pan out, which feels almost like a sin in the world of investigative horror gaming.
OKAY TIER
Visions from Beyond
The setup for this scenario is simple: a bad acid trip causes a person to stumble into the woods and die of exposure, but only after they place a phone call that raises red flags and cries for help. Personally, I would like for the phone call to have had something that sounded a little bit more spooky or Mythos-y, but it's a fine setup. Arriving to look into the missing person's life reveals that he is a member of an occult club on campus and it has caused him to be alienated from his friends.
Members of this club have legitimate reasons to lie to the investigators; their illegal drug use (especially the non-consensual drugging of members which caused an exodus for some) and responsibility for the missing person are enough reasons to offer resistance to questioning.
The Mythos herrings for this investigation all point towards the occult club, resulting in an investigation that will probably involve hammering NPCs (who aren't going to open up) with questions about the missing person, which may feel frustrating. The scenario is very solvable, but in my opinion it's a bit boring and hard to be invested in.
Like A Cleansing Flame, this scenario involves describing the clues in an open-ended way to investigators, not blocking off any investigation avenues for them. However, there is a line between regular old occult clues and the unnatural that allows players to wonder if the line has been crossed.
Dark and Deep
Investigators come across a video that seems to show a woman being chased and mauled to death by a fishman before her body is dragged under the ocean waves. The fishman in this scenario is just a really well-made costume that just happens to look remarkably close to a Deep One, and the "death" is an attempt at making a convincing snuff film by a creepy director.
As with the other scenarios that work in this collection, the key here is to sow just enough doubt seeds to make investigators dig deeper into the mystery. Don't outright tell the players that the video is fake, merely saying that it's edited is enough to make them want to dig further. Instead, consider posing questions, "What was edited? Was some content cut out? Is something else being hidden?"
The twist that comes once investigators arrive in the area is that the actress from the film is actually still missing and presumed dead, but the timelines don't add up. Eventually, the discovery is made that she relapsed, overdosed, and her body was thrown into the ocean by her panicking dealer.
The assumptive Mythos element is strong in this one. Still, once investigators find out that the scene was staged, the Keeper has to hope that the missing woman becomes a strong enough hook to keep players invested in solving the mystery of her disappearance. It is an evocative hook, and the inevitable discovery of the woman's body resurfacing (literally) is terrifying.
I would be concerned that some elements of the scenario would never be utilized, such as the entire filming of the next project by the cast at the lighthouse. A clever Keeper will obfuscate the mystery long enough to play up a suspenseful showdown at the lighthouse. I don't know why there is a SAN reward for convincing Lucas to stop making fake snuff movies, especially since he's not responsible for anything bad that happened in this scenario.
BAD TIER
Before I go any further, I'd like to explain what I mean by "bad" here. None of these scenarios are terrible, I placed them here only by comparison to the other scenarios in the anthology. They are redeemable with a little bit of love and rearranging and adding elements, but otherwise, I foresee problems in running them.
Eye of the Beholder
A missing college student was last spotted at a small-time museum with unique art pieces. Some of the art pieces, particularly a life-like statue of a monster in the basement, have a supernatural element to them, but the culprit responsible for kidnapping the woman is a delusional homeless veteran, which could elicit a "Yikes," from some folks without proper handling, but I believe the author handled it in a manner that is believable and compassionate by listing out exactly how the world has failed this NPC and what manifestations of mental illness looks like for him. The difficult part comes from Keepers who may struggle to portray a person with mental health issues.
I have an issue with this scenario because it can be solved within a couple of minutes or completely by accident. For example, the missing woman is tied up and gagged in an unlocked door in the basement. Nosy investigators could stumble down there, open the door, and walk away without ever engaging with any of the NPCs or other scenario elements. Or, even worse, a paranoid investigator could find the woman without ever entering the building by doing a sweep of the perimeter and finding an open basement window. Maybe I am jaded by playing with experienced investigative horror gamers, but remember that this book was marketed exactly for Keepers with those kind of players.
But the worst sin in Eye of the Beholder comes in asking the Keeper to outright lie about the unnatural elements. The idea is to hope that players have read Lovecraft's, The Horror in the Museum and make that assumptive leap that the statue is coming to life, but what the scenario calls for, regardless of the outcome of a Cthulhu Mythos roll, is to tell the players that it is a specific minor/unknown servitor race of an obscure outer god. This could end poorly and be interpreted as malicious if players ever find out what occurred, violating the RPG social contract.
The Watchers
The Watchers may be the most controversial scenario in the collection. The woman who hires the investigators suffers from schizophrenic delusions and believes that she is being harassed and watched by unknown people across the street. Unfortunately, the reality is that she is off her medicine and forgetting that she left the door unlocked, making too much out of people who see her looking out her window from the bar across the street.
If the mentally ill homeless man from Eye of the Beholder seemed like a minefield to navigate in terms of effectively portraying them, then the schizophrenic NPC who hires investigators to look into the people she believes are stalking her is going to be even more difficult. Like EOTB, The Watchers can also be solved by accident or by a particularly nosy investigator finding medicine in the bathroom. At this point, the most logical player move is to decline the investigation and not look back. Another instant end to the scenario could come in the form of an investigator with any amount of Psychotherapy/Psychology or other skills related to this interacting with the woman and seeing that she's suffering from an acute episode. The author is aware that these skills exist, but assumes that players will only use it to see if the NPC is telling the truth. My experiences with PCs having free reign to interrogate an NPC are reminiscent of Sandy Petersen's advice to provide an out for NPCs or else expect them to ask and exhaust every possible lead.
Moving forward, if players progress past the opening scene, they are then asked to tediously conduct staekout operations where a whole lot of nothing happens until something suspicious goes down. Again, if the scenario makes it to this point, I could absolutely see them engaging with the suspicious events as threats and then diving off into the deep end.
If I were going to run this, I would frame the scenario a little bit differently. Putting a reliable person in front of the schizophrenic contact screens the investigators from walking away from the scenario. Instead of player characters being able to grill the mentally ill complainant, they can instead ask questions of a concerned friend who is orchestrating the stakeout and doesn't want the investigators to contact the woman, to not blow their cover. The in-between person could have been convinced by the initial NPC into believing that she is the target of a cult harassing her, building a more believable backdrop.
The ending of this scenario, once players have discovered the truth about the woman's condition and that there are no threats to her, involves a series of social skill checks with bonuses or penalties depending on the approaches that they make. It's difficult to navigate through social encounters enough as it is, and this scenario requires walking along the edge of a knife while the winds of bonus or penalties blow the wind one way or another. I imagine that Keepers expecting nuance and thoughtful approaches may find themselves frustrated when players barge their way through these encounters.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, I would recommend picking up this scenario collection, to run the scenarios inside and to study the very solid investigative framework that most of the scenarios have. In addition, the way that optional Mythos elements are listed as sidebars is an excellent way for Keepers aspiring to write their own scenarios could learn how to slot in supernatural elements.
I applaud the author for the somewhat dark and grisly take on the horror that we can find in reality, and the way that these circumstances are signposted ahead of time is great. The collection was marketed as an adult book, not-safe-for-work and rated X (it even says so right on the cover). The use of content warnings at the beginning of scenarios is a good safety tool.
One issue I had in reading through the scenarios was that sometimes the secret of what was actually going on was hidden further down in the text, as if the author was trying to make the Keeper reading the scenario also try to guess the mystery. When writing modules with the intent for others to run, it's important to plainly spell out what is happening for the Keeper. An executive summary and suggested timeline is always helpful.
Before reading this collection, when I was discussing this book with a friend, we agreed that Stygian Fox books usually have good maps. Both Fear's Sharp Little Needles and The Things We Leave Behind had good small scale (tactical maps) and large scale (operation-sized maps). Unfortunately, Occam's Razor only has small-scale maps, and only for some of the scenarios in the pack. Some of the scenarios might have benefitted from an approximation of a larger area map, or at least a not-to-scale map that shows basic relations between different areas.
At times, it seemed like personal assumptions or opinions by the author were laid out in the pages, particularly attitudes towards the dark web, drug habits, "bad art", and police response to mentally ill people (side note: I'm a seven-year police veteran, the author overgeneralizes the police response towards the schizophrenic NPC in The Watchers. The author asks for nuance from investigators in determining the outcome of the scenario but then paints the picture of how the police would treat them in broad strokes, which has not been my experience on the job. I'll openly admit that I am biased here, though). The focus of "what is art" also is hinted at different scenarios without further elaboration, only providing NPCs that give arguments about what is or isn't art.
There were a few other consistent habits of the author that jumped out to me. One of them was where NPCs can be flirted with to progress through the investigation, something that happens in 5/7 scenarios in the collection. While there's nothing inherently wrong with this, it just stood out to me due to how often the option is presented as a way to move forward.
The other consistency I noticed that seemed to weaken the collection was the number of times that a missing person was the hook or inciting incident. 4/7 scenarios have this premise, and most of them call for the missing person to be somebody that the investigators care about, either requiring the Keeper to introduce them earlier and hope that players latch on, or to have the missing person be a family member or friend and hope that the players care enough. If you are running these scenarios in a system like Delta Green, or with the premise that the investigators belong to an investigative agency (such as the one introduced in the appendix of the book), I would suggest mixing up the way that these scenarios are introduced by altering the hooks or inciting incidents.
Another consistency was that anytime there was a personal computer present, the password was easy to guess by observing the surroundings of the person that it belonged to. Of course, there is a fine line between progress and problem solving, but it seemed strange to me that it would be so consistently easy to guess passwords. If computers are the new diaries in investigative scenarios, it would make more sense for there to be no passwords or for the password to be too difficult to simply guess, requiring a skill to progress through.
I really liked scenarios with an NPC guarding information, which would be a normal part of any investigative scenario. Some of the NPCs have valid reasons to want to not disclose information to investigators, which is to be expected and comes off as suspicious, elevating player paranoia about the NPC. The best NPC interactions also come when they pivot and react to the player character's actions. The most notable example is a scenario that I didn't particularly enjoy reading, Eye of the Beholder. In EOTB, the NPC museum guards shift from being helpful and curious to stonewalling and in CYA (cover your ass) mode once investigators make the assertion that the museum may have had something to do with the missing person's disappearance.
Some of the scenarios capture the horror part of investigative horror, while others emphasize investigation more. The scenarios that I thought of the most highly (A Whole Pack of Trouble, A Cleansing Flame, and Frozen Footsteps) had a great balance of both and a huge amount of entirely optional clues misdirect and sow the seeds of paranoia into players. Conversely, the scenarios that I didn't enjoy as much had weak investigative or horror elements or were balanced too heavily one way or another.
Occam's Razor is a great addition to any Cthulhu Mythos gaming collection, whether you are a veteran Keeper with players who have assumptions about the genre or a new Keeper looking for a slow dive into investigative horror.
No comments:
Post a Comment