Hello, I DM'd a 12 session campaign for 5 people. Now, I want to DM a more grounded, Call of Cthulhu Campaign. I started DMming because my group was always saying "DUDE WE SHOULD PLAY DND" but never doing shit about actually setting it up, so I did it. I read the books and built their characters in discord calls. I'm not really good at DMing, but my friends enjoyed all of those sessions. It started with two players but word of mouth got around and at the end we had 5 people.So, what's a good setup for a Cthulhu campaign? I want to stray away from the basic innsmouth shit. My initial ideia was a murder mystery in a train, where when they found the killer the train got swallowed by a tidal wave, and now they had to rely on him while shit went down on the shores. BUT, I feel like that's pretty lame. Can you guys give me suggestions and tell me your favorite Cthulhu tabletop experiences?
I DM'd a Pathfinder 2e campaign*
>>97936504>Can you guys give me suggestionsRun the Haunting. It is the most cliche answer I could give but it is unironically the perfect starting adventure for Call of Cthulhu, as it perfectly introduces the concepts of an investigation to people that are not experienced with that sort of thing, both as Investigators and Keepers. After that you can so your own thing. Also if you want a murder mystery on a train, look into Horror on the Orient Express.
>>97936531I really like the 63 movie, so this is a good answer. Thank you!
>>97936504Dont worry about running a campaign your first time out. Run a series of one shots. Running a mystery is quite a bit different than running action fantasy. Another anon recommended The Haunting; that's an very good starter scenario, it also has a lot of "how to" videos about it. I recommend Seth Skorkowski's, he gives some really good advice.Also, read the Alexandrian blog about running mysteries in general. Scope out the three clue rule, but pretty much everything in "game mastery 101" will be useful.Also, as sort of general advice on this most people mess up, remember that you don't need to make the investigators roll for every single thing. Rolls are for when things are unsure, if they have no pressure and the appropriate skill, don't make 'em roll. And don't overuse hard and extreme rolls
>>97936559I thought he was referencing the movie, but I looked out the actual campaign and I really enjoyed the basic bits.Thank you for the tips, specially about the three clue rule. I'll definitely check it out. And I'm pretty free-flow on dice rolls, I only make them roll if they do something out of the ordinary. They're beginners just like me, so back in the pathfinder times, when they wander aimlessly in the woods I try and say "you're a ranger btw" but I stopped that as they got a hang of their characters.
>>97936593>They're beginners just like me, so back in the pathfinder times, when they wander aimlessly in the woods I try and say "you're a ranger btw" but I stopped that as they got a hang of their characters.This alone, and the fact that you're actively trying to play other games, probably already puts you in the top 5th percentile of game masters, good for you anon.
>>97936672Thank you, no joke but that means a lot. This was back around 2022, but on our first session the boys were playing kind of as a joke, and I'm really bad with words so I was trying my hardest.When the 2 of them were lost in the woods, I remembered Fleshgait, which I just read recently. So I non-chalantly said "You three wander through the woods, lost". And one of the players said "you three?" and I said "Yes, you find yourselves in a ravine". "Wait, us three?"Then, they looked at the third character, and he just stared at them, and I did a gutural scream, then his flesh fell off, he got on all fours backwards and scattered through the woods. They started taking the game really seriously after that LOL taking turns while sleeping and stuff like that.
>>97936721Cool story bro (for real, I bet they loved it). I second what anon above said about The Alexandrian Gamemastery 101 stuff. Don't take anything he writes as gospel but there's some good stuff there.
