Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan. And I definitely can grasp
horrors from beyond human understanding.
They won't affect me at all. Really.
I guess play to find out. I'll just understand them.
There you go. And today we're going to be
looking at Cthulhu Dark, I guess, 2 E from Graham Walmsley.
Cthulhu Dark is a rules light tabletop role-playing game of
bleak cosmic horror. So so we're going to look at
that. One of the reasons we really,
well, I really wanted to look at it, it happened for a while, is
because Trophy Dark is one of my favorite games of all time and
that hacks Cthulhu Dark a bit. Makes sense, I see it.
Yeah, what do you mean you see it literally it's really dark
mixed with some blades in the dark like.
But yeah, before we we hop into that though, we are going to
look at a couple of things. One, we're fucking idiots.
And for not one but two episodes, we have forgot to draw
our winner for Hell Night, the Black Rainbow Society from
Gabriel Kuroga, who is currently funding Liquid Steel with
Masonian Arts Council over on Backer Kit.
Go back that. But also, if you liked that
post, you have a chance to win this.
I'm just going to give your address to Gabriel.
They're going to mail you this book and we're going to select
that right now. So let me find where the heck I
did that Boom. Here's our post.
We're doing a giveaway. We got 17 likes on it.
So what we're going to do is I'm going to go to a random number
generator. I'm going to plug in 17.
It's going to give me a number. I'm going to click on the likes.
I'm going to count from top to bottom and that person is going
to get Adm or I'll announce it and tell them to DM us and, and
we'll do that. So let's fucking do it.
So 17 random number generator 1217.
I tested this beforehand, seemed random enough.
We're using random.org and, and we're going to generate here we
go. It is #3 low number.
So we're going to click on the likes button and we're going to
go 1-2. Zach H Bommy Knocker Press is
going to win the book, so I will shoot a message.
Let me just well, this is not my normal thing.
So Zach H fuck, if I don't do that right now, I'm literally
going to forget to do it. So I'm going to bring up a
different page here. I'm going to go to Blue Sky.
I'm going to go to this page. Nope, not that one.
And I'm going to make a message, say at Zach Bommy, Bommy at
Bommy Zach HH you on? Shoot me Adm with your address
and we'll get the book shipped out.
Boom, we did it and then I'll let Gabriel know that and we'll
get we'll we'll get that out. The second thing we want to talk
about real quick before we start is the international players
review. This is a dope Zine putting out
by Golden achiever. This is issue 2.
You you can find it God, what's the itch?
Golden Dash achiever dot itch dot IO It is a magazine of game
for Game masters players and anyone who spends more time
drawing dungeons than doing homework.
It's a very old school Style magazine for all things TTRPG.
It's got a lot of great stuff in there.
There's a really cool advertisement listed right here.
Listen to the weekly Squirrel radio show.
Not just doing this because we're in the magazine, but also
because I really like Golden Cheaver stuff and and magazine
is really cool. This is issue 2 that's out right
now. It is, I believe a free it's $5
for you to snag that, but well worth it.
It's 28 pages of new monsters for your fantasy game, new
spells for your fantasy game, Tower of Evil, Hex Cross
scenario, foolish mortal, a full solo dice game, interviews,
comic, fantasy, short story and more.
So it's literally like just a plethora of random teach RPG
stuff from bits and bobs to to full adventures and and small
games. So.
Yeah, brick. It's a brickle.
Brack it's a brickle Brack kind of like like a like an old
school style, like knock ish kind of thing.
But I mean there was a bajillion scenes like these.
I've stacks from over here from from various things that have
puts about. So this looks really sick.
Snag that and and and play stuff with it and then make stuff for
stuff like this. Yeah, and, and I think that's
the that's that's it for the pre show stuff.
That's it for the pre show stuff.
So today, as I said, we're looking at Cthulhu Dark,
technically Cthulhu Dark 2 E and what I have in my hands is the
the leather edition of the game. Talking no one, Ryan's got the
the limited edition of the game. Yeah, and I didn't.
So it is a beautiful leather version.
It's got the dope logo on the front.
It's got this cool signed thingamajig.
I can't remember what this thing is called, but yeah, but it's
it's called something. It's a plate, some kind of
plate. I don't remember, but I did get
this on second hand market. I did not back this originally,
unfortunately. So I spent way more on this than
it was originally on the Kickstarter, but I do have it
and it's gorgeous. And then like, I don't know,
like less than a month later, they announced on the new
Kickstarter that they're doing that.
They're reprinting the original one for like 30 bucks.
So doesn't matter. I have this one and obviously I
was going to go for it anyway, but Cthulhu Dark, is there any?
Is there anything else we need to chat about before it happened
to the intro for Julhu? Yeah.
Getting really. Yeah, yeah, what he said.
That's what I said, that's what I said.
That's what crazy people in Lovecraft stories say.
There you go. So so so to intro the game a
little bit more. As I said, Cthulhu Dark is a
rules like tabletop role-playing game of bleak cosmic horror from
award-winning designer Graham Walmsley.
Graham won a gold any for their work on Trail of Cthulhu, which
included the survival horror supplement Cthulhu Apocalypse.
Cthulhu Dark was originally published as a two page game in
2010 on Grams website catchyourhair.com.
Hair is in the rabbit kind. And then in January 2012 on
drive through RPG I haunted the Internet to try to find the
original 2 page version. I don't believe it exists
anymore because the version on Graham's website takes you to a
four page version which is the same as the free quick start
version. And the two page free edition on
drive through RPG is $3 and has four pages in it.
So I don't know if anyone has the original 2 page version.
I would love to have that just to have it.
But what is free and available out there right now is the quick
start version. So if you want to throw a couple
bucks towards Graham on drive through, you can get the free
two page version for $3, but it is the same version as the
actual free 4 page version on their website.
So if you don't want to spend $3, just get the other version
that is exactly the same. That is a quick start.
Oh yeah. And and then I said I said that
that free two page version went to Drive through RPG January
2012. So the game came out in 2010,
which is crazy when you think about it.
It's 15 years ago even though 2010 to me feels like 2 years
ago graduated. In high school in 2010.
Child In 2011 Graham published Stealing Cthulhu, a Guy to
Lovecraft in storytelling for role-playing games and
previously in 2009 they published I believe it was their
first book, Play Unsafe, a book about how to tell stories and
play better. Cthulhu Dark 2E launched on
Kickstarter on May 29th, 2017 and was funded on June 23rd,
2017 with 1747 backers for 71,835 lbs.
Yeah, which in today's money is $97,125.00.
To make almost 100K in 2017 on tabletop role-playing game is
kind of nutty. Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting talking about their old projects and the one
we're about to currently talk about because it's definitely
like an amalgamation of those things.
Yeah. Oh, for sure, yeah.
Yeah. And they even say that in the
book. In addition to all of that,
there is also Cosmic Dark, a new project from Graham that is
currently funding on Kickstarter.
Cosmic Dark is a tabletop role-playing game of weird space
horror set in a universe in which life, technology and
reality become twisted and wrong.
Yeah, yeah. And if you are looking for
either Cthulhu Dark, which is incredibly hard to find in in
print, or Stealing Cthulhu, those are optional add-ons in
the Cosmic Dark Kickstarter. So I obviously got all three
very excited for that. Yeah.
And again, I mean, I, I would have, I would have got this
anyway. But yeah, the, if you wanted to
get a regular Cthulhu Dark original book on eBay, you were
spending like 150 to 175 bucks. So it's really cool that they're
doing another print of it. How much was getting the leather
edition second hand? More than that, more than that,
but but well, well worth it. It is.
It is a very nice print. I wish it was leatherette, but,
you know, people like leather. It is what it is.
So, yeah. So I think that's about it.
Why don't we hop into the game a little bit?
Because here's the thing, the game is very small and the book
is much longer. It is absolutely a rules like
game. Yeah, the you really could just
play with the four page quick start.
Actually, let's let's let's take a quick peek at the four page
quick start that you can realize.
I haven't read the the four page quick start.
I read the book so. Well, I mean, they're basically
the same thing. Yeah, so.
Let's get rid of this and we'll go to here.
So this is Cthulhu Dark. So this is very much like a
pamphlet style thing. If you actually zoom to page
level, you'll see it is quite narrow, definitely printed as a
pamphlet thing. And again, it is 1234 pages.
That is it. And that's really all you need
to run the game. You get your investigator
insanity, doing things, failing or rerolling, cooperating and
competing, suppressing knowledge, going insane, other
clarifications on an unanswered questions, and finally that's
it. That's the entire quick start.
It's 4 pages, but realistically if you if it wasn't, it's one
column on each. If it was 8 1/2 by 11, it would
only be two pages plus the cover because it would be two columns
on each page. You know what I mean?
To me this is a 2 page version just like cut in half.
Yeah, I can see that. But but that's that is that
rules light system for Lovecraftian horror, but Cthulhu
dark 2 E This is the cover for that.
So what you get with this cover that slaps unfucking believably
is this very eldritch tentaclely situation coming out with some
purples and oranges and and and some Reds.
There's this cloud, this dark cloud, roiling clouds across the
top with Cthulhu Dark written in the top right corner.
There's this situation over here in the corner, which definitely
looks like eyelashes going over a thing, kind of, you know what
I mean? Like gives me eyes a little bit.
Yeah, there's something orbital going on there.
Yeah, the the book, it's wonderful.
It's it's I love how clean it is.
It looks fantastic and like, there's no other words.
It's just the Cthulhu dark and just this vibey piece of art.
It's it's dope. Yeah.
Thoughts. I think it's great.
Yeah, I think it slaps. It's really great.
So Cthulhu dark. And then there is this, this
symbol here. I don't know if this is like a
Cthulhu symbol. I used to kind of have a little
bit of like love for Cthulhu, and then I kind of fell out of
the Eldridge Horror. I get, I get love for it.
I have a very good grasp of the Eldridge Horror stuff and I
don't recognize that mark, but also I don't know everything so.
You what? Yeah.
Sorry. Whoa.
I know I've been telling everyone this whole time.
I know everything. I've been lying actually.
Crazy. That's.
Crazy, but it is the same logo that is in gold like embossing
on the special edition cover book.
It is shape. Look at it.
It's very elder tree, so it's very dark.
Eye ish. It's almost an eye kind.
Of, but like kind of on an angle a little bit, Yeah, on an angle.
Yeah. The little dark Graham Wamsley
Walmsley Katherine Jenkins Helen Gould Cover art is George
Catronis for the hardback and Nathan Paletta for the leather,
which I assumed in is this this logo piece here and interior art
by Matteo Bocci, cartography by stentor Danielson and text
ornaments. Nathan Paletta It's it's it's
good. There is a little little book
part here. Cthulhu dark is a game based on
fiction and he resembles blah blah blah blah blah.
It lists who did what Katherine Jenkins did Arkham 1692 and the
door is beyond time. Helen Gould is the author of Jai
Wo 2017 and The Curse of the Zimba.
And grandma honestly wrote all the rest of the parts of the
book. And then we get to the contents
section, which is unfortunately for a book that is, I believe
because the content section is like 3-4.
The content section alone is longer than the original PDF of
the game. It's 5 pages. 6 pages of
contents. So it is 196, it's 200 plus
pages and unfortunately it is neither bookmarked nor nor
hyperlinked. I love how content like table of
contents, it is like you're talking about every paragraph on
like every page. I mean if you look at page 27,
there's three different entries here just for page 27 on here.
So basically every heading possible is in here in the table
of contents, not just like the sections, but once again, it is
neither hyperlinked nor bookmarked, which is
unfortunate. But you get the player section
you which gives you the rules and the rules in detail.
And then you get the director section, which is a massive
section from page 23 all the way down to page 63.
And then from page 63 on you get some settings and adventures.
London 1851 and then Screams of the children, Arkham 1692 and
the doors beyond time. Jai wo I feel like I'm saying
that wrong. 2017 and the curse of the Zimba.
And then you get Mumbai 2037 and consume.
So basically you get a setting set in a different time and an
adventure for each setting, which is fantastic.
And then in the back you get appendices which include
hacking, Cthulhu Dark, and design notes, and then a bunch
of handouts like all the handouts you need for it, which
are really cool. We'll get to them.
When we look at the back, a lot of them are handwritten and
they're actually handwritten. It's not just like a font like a
cursive font, which which is great.
It is funny that like they they went the extra mile for that.
Like it's good, but I do, I do always laugh when when I was
like they do like the handwriting font typed out stuff
for a game like the cursive font.
And just like this is actually kind of hard to read.
Yeah. But also you could just write it
and scan it. In this 2025, we have the
technology, you know. And then the letters in the back
are very are very legible. I will say for being in cursive
they they feel like letters. Not bad.
I'm going to change something on my lighting real quick because
it's annoying me. That's better.
So. So yeah, then we get to some of
the art pieces here. The art throughout is is dope.
I really love the style here. It definitely has a a kind of a
bit of a wood. Cut.
Kind of style, but gothic horror for sure.
Like the the black shading, it's all, it's all black shading
lines, pointillism. It looks really, really
fantastic all the way through. This is a picture of a people
looking at something. The the woman in the front
holding a flashlight. The maid behind her has a hand
over her mouth, kind of in shock, and then there's a grumpy
man in the back with a Lantern. A Lantern and a flashlight in
the same panel, by the way, you know.
Technology, you know, at what point did we have both there?
Has to have been a point where, I mean, obviously we are later
right now, yeah, so. So getting into the player
section. So here's the thing that's
interesting about this book. And this is a conversation that
Hunter and I kind of had at the before the show started.
And a lot of time we'll we'll talk a little bit sometimes and
then, but today I was like, you know what?
No, we need to save this for the show and and we're going to
we're going to talk about it a little bit as as I continue to
be annoyed by by my lighting. So here's a little the brief to
start the thing right. Do you ever feel that you're
losing control, even though you present a mask of calm to the
world? That one push can make you snap,
turning into a screaming and desperate creature.
Welcome to Cthulhu Dark. This book begins with the
Cthulhu Dark rules, which you can use to start playing
immediately. You'll then find more detail
about how the rules work and how to use them to best effect.
There is then a guide to writing horrific mysteries, then a guide
to playing them. Following that, you'll find 4
settings for Cthulhu Dark. London, 1851.
Arkham 1692. Shiwo 2017 in Mumbai 2037, each
of which has a mystery to play through.
Let's start our journey into horror.
So the way the book is laid out is you get the the rules just as
they are. Then you get the rules in
detail, which is a lot more explanation of the rules.
Then you get the section in guide to writing horrific
mysteries and then the guide to playing them and then settings
and mysteries for them. Now when we first started kind
of talk about this before we jump into all of this, you said
too much book. There's a lot of book in this
book. Like I think you told me I'd
appreciate it more after reading the design notes by the by the
by Graham. And you do what?
Oh, I was. Going to say and you're like,
but I don't fuck you, no. But I, I think I do actually
seeing that this like the amalgamation of several things.
And then like, I think you also briefly mentioned that like you
don't necessarily need to read every single word.
You know, there's listen, if you go through this book all the
way, you will fucking know how to write an adventure for
Cthulhu Dark and you will have no questions about it.
You know, yes. And maybe we should go through
before we talk about this a little bit more.
But like, I view this the, the layout of this, like the, the,
the structure of how it's put as.
And listen, I know, I know Blades in the Dark is kind of
our punching bag here on the show.
Yeah, well, it's such an easy target.
It is. And I think this, if Blades was
written like this, I might like Blades.
Because the problem is what this book does, I think incredibly
successfully is separate all the parts that you need.
So you can just go to the section that you need to run it
if you just want the rules. It's like 2 pages long and you
can just get the rules. If you want the rules with more
explanation, you can go to that section.
If you want how to write a mystery, you can go to this
section. The difference is in the Blades
book, all of those sections are stuffed all into the same part.
There is no way to separate it out.
I've asked over and over again, I know that Blades, there's a
new Blades backer kit out right now.
It's like it's like 150 more pages of Blades.
And I said what I really want to back, what I really want to back
is Blades with 150 pages less with all of that stuff separated
out into those sections. Because what I want is just a 20
page. Like, give me just the rules,
the fucking blades in the dark. That's all I want.
I understand rules. I don't need all of the
editorializing and explanation, everything when I'm just trying
to figure out the rules. And what this book does is give
you that. It gives you just the rules.
And if all you want is just the rules, you have that without all
the explanation. But if you do want to hop into a
little bit more explanation, just go to that completely
separate section. And kind of also to your point,
if Blades and Dark didn't repeat itself several times over and
over and over, it would be 150 pages less, yeah.
And there is some repeating in this, but it's because it's
specific. It's.
Egregious. But it's because it's just for
that section, right? You know what I mean?
Like there's stuff obviously in rules that's going to be
repeated in the rules in detail because it's the rules with just
more so like you're going to get it again.
And so I, I love the way this is laid out because this could just
be a Zine. This could be a tiny little
Zine. That's all you get.
But the fact that if you want, and you don't even need to read
the entire thing, we can look at a rule.
And then if you want to go to rules in detail, but you only
want to know why the insight role is the way it is, you can
just go to the insight role part.
But the fact that it's separated and you don't have to have all
of that extra detail and in depth kind of editorializing to
just get the rules is just amazing to me.
I, I, this is kind of the peak, you know, how we say like to
give a little bit of the rules before you character creation
And then like the rest of the stuff.
This is kind of the peak of that where instead of like, instead
of just getting the basic rules, it's learning the basics of
every rule before you get to the more in depth part of the rule
and everything too. And I really, really enjoy it.
So let's actually start going through this because I think the
way that the best way that we're going to go over this is to
really just go through the the rules, not in detail like the
regular fucking rules of the game, the rules light version of
the game. And then maybe touch on a couple
of parts in detail. Touch on a bit of the mystery,
touch on a little bit of the setting, maybe go over the
appendices a little bit and move on.
Because what we need and what we want from this is just the rules
of the game. And then we can discuss the
structure of the game afterwards.
So let's just go through the rules of the game, which start
on page 13 and end on page 14. That's that's it.
It's literally the quick start rules are pretty much just those
2 pages. So your investigator, do you
want to, do you want to? Why don't you make one while you
do this? Yeah, let's do it, OK.
So choose a name and occupation. Describe your investigator.
Take a green insight dye, all dice including your inside die
are 6 sided. Can I just say how many zenes
we've looked at? I think even just this year
where you'd like right off the bat have no idea what dice
you're using for the game. So it's really great for them to
immediately say hey you're just using 6 sided dice so choose a
name. What's your name bro?
Bob Odell. Bob Odell and what is your
current occupation? And in this game, and we'll get
to a little bit more, you're just a regular ass dude.
Right. So we, we haven't gotten to this
part point yet, but you have a, you have like a job that your
investigator does, but it's better to pick out a more
detailed job description than a less detailed 1.
So instead of physicists, like quantum physicists.
So you know what I'm going to do?
Quantum physicists. You're a quantum physicist named
Bob Odell. There you go.
So we talked about you're going to take a green inside dye.
So take a green inside dye. There you go.
There you go buddy. You got one.
I took it so mine is blue is. That OK I guess as long as it's
a different color than all the rest.
So insight. Your insight shows how far you
can see into the horror behind the universe.
So it starts at 1. So your insight is currently A1
OK. When you see something
disturbing, roll your insight die.
If you get higher than your insight, add 1 to your insight
and role play your fear. This is called an insight role.
No real reason to put that in parentheses.
There. That floated is what it is.
Is your insight real? Can you really see a deeper
truth or is it just insanity? Sometimes it is hard to tell.
I love that. I'd probably play that.
Differently based on what character I was playing too.
You know what I mean? Sometimes I would definitely be
like, no, my character doesn't see it deeper.
He genuinely is going insane. But maybe Babo to Odell the the
quantum physicist. His insight is actually a deeper
understanding. There you go.
Because he does have generally A deeper understanding of kind of
the world. Yeah, the inner workings of the
universe, yeah. Of our known universe.
Our known and like knowable universe.
Yeah, yeah. So so that's it and I love the
mechanic right there off the bat too.
You start at one and every time you have to roll, if you get
higher, it goes up, which obviously means the higher your
insight gets, the more difficult it is for it to go up because
the number to beat goes up each time, which is super clean.
I like that. Investigating.
When you investigate something, roll.
There's three things here that says one die if what you're
doing is within human capabilities and that is your
human die. OK, So as long as it's just a
regular ass human thing, climbing, jumping, swimming, you
know, you get a die automatically.
You also get one die if it's within your occupational
expertise. So if you're doing something
within the expertise of quantum physicist, which is a pretty
narrow window. Yeah, that's interesting, you
know. Yeah, and that's what you said,
Like it's better to have something more narrow because if
you're just like a Jack of all trades, right, a handyman, well,
that's fucking everything, you know.
But you get an occupation die and then you can also use your
insight die if you will risk your mind to succeed.
So you can it's kind of like a built in way to push A roll a
little bit by getting an extra die, but always risking that
increase to your insight into what's behind the deeper
universe. There's another mechanism for
pushing your role that'll come up here in world.
There is, there is, but I like how like the core mechanic is
already built into like yeah, pushing your mind and what you
see how deep behind the universe as just a base as the basement,
you can roll inside every time if you really wanted to.
Absolutely. And then just slowly fucking
lose your mind, Yeah. That's great.
So if you're inside die rolls higher than any other die, you
make an inside role as above. So if you're doing just an
insight role, like you don't have to do an insight role.
If you see something fucked, you do an insight role.
But if you're just doing something basic and you added
your inside die just to get that extra die and it happens to be
the highest role, you still then have to roll an inside die.
So you're always risking again. That's why I said it's kind of
like a built in push a little bit because because you're
always have the option to risk your mind.
So then your highest eye shows how much information you get on
a 1 you get the bare minimum, which means there's never like
none, right? You always get something they.
Like there's no, there's not like a real, like failure, like
it will always at least move forward the story a little bit.
Yeah, they talked in the design notes too, about like that was
an important part of game where like, you're never going to hit
a brick wall that would stop your investigation because of a
role. Like at the bare minimum, even
if you fail, you'll get what you need to move the story forward.
That was like a specific design choice, which is a great design.
It's a great design choice because when nothing happens,
it's fucking boring. Yes, yes, yeah.
So on a 1, you get the bare minimum.
If you need information to proceed, you get it, but that's
all. On a four, you get everything a
competent investigator would discover.
On A5, you discover everything a competent investigator would
discover, plus something more. For example, you might also
remember a related folktale, rumor, or scientific experiment.
And on a six you discover all of that, plus in some way you
glimpse beyond human knowledge. This probably means you see
something horrific and make an insight role, which is fucking
awesome that if you do as good as you possibly can, it's too
good. I love that, like the sweet spot
is fours and fives and that like what that I I tried to think and
try to think and try to think that there's another game and I
can't remember what it is where if you succeed, like too good at
magic, it's actually bad because you overcharge it or something.
I can't remember. It might be a little piece of
mouse Ritter. It might be a piece of something
else, But I love that mechanic where if you do too good, that's
actually too good. It really narrows the window in
which gives you and it also has another built in.
Nothing ever happens thing where at six you get everything, but
also that you know, it could be bad.
I I really enjoy that a lot. So there is an example here.
I'll summarize it. So basically it says you're
investigating your great uncle's manuscript.
On A1. All you get is an address.
On a four, you discover that your great uncle was researching
some people at that address. I don't know.
Five, you discover all of that and that he was researching that
they were plagued by dreams and visions, one of whom was at that
address. And then and you, you, you also
get a newspaper report of a Californian Theosophist colony
who recently donned robes of glorious fulfilment.
And on, on 6 you discover all of that and you glimpse beyond
human knowledge. So you actually have one of
those visions. That's a great example.
It's great, Yeah. Absolutely, truly and truly
terrifying, you know? Yeah.
And it shows you, I don't know, it's just, I mean, there's no
way to say it's a great example of like the the stages in which
you never nothing, not happens and you get either as much or
above and beyond what you need. So doing other things, which is
basically not investigating. It's rain, it's other stuff,
right? When you do something other than
investigating, you roll like normal.
If you roll insight, you do an insight check as normal.
And again, the highest eye shows how well you do 1 you barely
succeed. 4, you succeed competently.
You 5, you succeed well and make it something extra.
On a six, you succeed brilliantly, get something extra
and maybe more than you wanted. There's another example here
that's a great example. You're trying to escape a hotel.
On A1 you you crash onto an adjoining roof, jumping out of a
window, and you attract attention.
On a four, you lay in quietly. On A5 you lay in quietly and
escape the pursuers. On a six, you lay in quietly and
escape your pursuers. But as you glimpse back, you see
that they're twisted and inhuman.
Yeah, you see the the weird fish monsters that are pursuing you
after you slept in the hotel in a weird town?
Yeah, so I love that the mechanic obviously is it's the
same thing, but it lets you basically do investigation as a
thing, which is the core of the investigative horror game,
right. Or anything else using the same
mechanic, but obviously in like a slightly different way, which
is which is great. It's it's great when you don't
have to use multiple different systems or subsystems within a
game and that it all still flows really well.
Failing as someone thinks the story.
This is really interesting to me.
I there's a little bit of like it's not it's not it's it's
cooperative competitiveness, I guess in the game, which is
really interesting. It reminds me of another
mechanic. Remind me to remember that in a
second. So if someone thinks the story
would be more interesting if you fail, they describe how you
might fail, then roll a die called the failure die.
They can't do this if you're investigating and you must
succeed. Love that you know if they're.
Failures. Right and you can't like fuck
someone else it's you're all investigating together.
So be kind of fucked to do it anyway.
But you know some asshole would do that.
If their failure die rolls higher than your highest die,
you fail just as they described. If not, you succeed as before,
with your highest die showing how well you succeed.
Returning to the example, you're escaping from the hotel window.
This time someone thinks you should fail.
They both roll. The failure die rolls higher, so
you're caught. It's interesting because the
game is it's not about winning like it's very much in the
trophy dark sense. You probably all go insane and
die the in any way. So if someone's like Nah, bro,
like it's not that easy and I why I say it's not that easy.
I think we've talked about this game multiple times on the show.
There's a game called archipelago that I really
really, really love, right And it is a very much a narrative
game. There is a a rule in the game.
There's a mechanic in the game where basically the game is
played. It's like you're just describing
shit that that's happening and doing whatever.
And if you need to succeed at moving your story forward, you
can't. You can just be like, I climb
mountain, right? But someone, anyone can hop in
with a mechanic of the game that says, but it might not be that
easy. That's like a keyword phrase in
it. And then you have to go back and
describe more challenge in what you did.
And that reminds me of this a lot where you could just be
like, no, no, no, like you got away really easy.
I think it'd be more fun if maybe there was some more risk
involved and you can roll against the person to to do
that. It really reminds me of that.
It it it's not that easy bit from Archipelago, which I really
enjoy. We should do Archipelago
sometime on the show. We absolutely should.
We've talked about enough and I've actually read it before.
I need to reread it but I got it so.
We played it at one point on the show I did with the folks over
at Gilda Troll. Yeah, it's fun, really great.
So trying again, if you include your inside die in a roll and
you're not happy with the result, you may re roll all the
dice. All of them, including the
inside dice. If you didn't include your
inside die, you may add it and re roll.
So at any point you can do a re roll afterwards.
Look at the new result as before.
The highest die shows how well you do, and if your insight die
is higher than any other die, you must make an insight roll.
You may re roll as many times as you like.
This is I think is one of my only questions in the game.
You can just re roll over and over and over and over and over
again right? According to this So but if your
inside die does roll higher can you just be like Nope and I re
roll I re roll I re roll because couldn't you then just re roll
until you get a 5? Until you get the best yeah, I I
probably would put a limiter on this at my table.
Personally, I like the idea of like you can re roll and it's
kind of another push because obviously if you hit hit a six
on any of your die, it's going to be like it's that kind.
It it is like a negative consequence, right?
You go beyond what you need. You see beyond.
It's a success and a failure at the same.
Time, success and a failure. So like frankly I I would
probably put a stop on this after a few rerolls.
I'm not really sure off top how I would do that, but I'd
probably put a limiter on this in some way.
I think what I would probably do, and you know what we can do
is always jump down to the in detail part and read the trying
again part and see, see more. Should we do that now or when
we're done with the rules? Let's do it now.
I feel like it feels natural to do it now.
Before, let me say what I would do and then we'll see what they
do. I would personally have two
stoppers on it. Right?
If your highest die rolls a six, you can't re roll again.
Agree. Or if your insight die ever
rolls higher, you can't roll again.
Agreed. I think those are good.
I would, yeah. So let's jump down to the rules
in detail, which again, the regular rules are two pages.
The rules in detail are 123, 15161734567 are 7 pages.
So it's almost three times as long to give you the rules in
detail. So that's the failure die.
If you include your inside die in a roll, you may re roll.
If you didn't add your inside die, you may add it and re roll.
That's this whole section here. So it says you can re roll as
many times as you like, providing you include your
inside dive. This is dangerous.
It tempts you to roll repeatedly at the risk of your insight
increasing each time. Oh wait.
So there are two reasons your insight might increase because
your inside dive rolls high, forcing you to make an insight
roll, or because you roll A6 and glimpse something horrific.
So both of the things that I say would stop it.
If when you re roll, you roll a lower result, that lower result
stands. You can of course roll again.
If on your original role, someone rolled the failure die
against you, they do not reroll the failure die when you reroll.
Instead, you must match or exceed their original result to
win. Here's an optional role.
When you reroll, describe your investigator doing something
that enables them to try again. So I guess this is saying that
you can reroll as many times as you want, but if your insight
role is higher or inside die is higher, you would have to roll
the insight role every time. So you could re roll it five
times, and if your insight roll die is the highest 1/5 times,
you're rolling an insight roll five times.
Yeah, that makes sense. Well then, yeah, there's a
limiter in it of itself. Boom, I said the example.
I definitely would not if even if it didn't say this or I
definitely would not let someone add their inside die for a roll
and then if they go to re roll to take it out, I'd be like no
buddy, you're keeping that in there.
Well you can't. I don't think the rules say that
you can't. You can only re roll if your
inside die is part of it. Oh, right.
It does say that. You're right, right?
Yeah. For example, when you roll to
decipher an Indonesian folk tale, you get a three is your
highest die. You want to do better.
You describe your investigator spending the night in the
library, painstakingly comparing the folk tale to archaeological
research. You roll again, adding your
inside die to the roll. This time you get a six.
You found out everything, perhaps more than you wanted,
which you would then roll an inside roll because you got a
six. So that makes sense.
So that's the limiter self-imposed it kind of I'd like
when you can do whatever you want and kill yourself, like
blood magic or. Where you just be like, no Lee,
you can cast it as many times you want, but every time you do,
you hurt yourself. There's also one of my favorite
things in any video game ever was the the grasp of is it the
grasp of Malik? No, I think that's the different
version. There is a gun in Destiny where
you need it to, you kind of need it to, to, to be Oryx, but you
fire and you never need to like reload or anything.
But every time you fire, you're you're hitting yourself for like
points. So you can like just keep
shooting and shooting and shooting, but you're like
killing yourself every time you shoot it.
And I I just love that mechanic in any game.
Too bad that wasn't a better game.
So Destiny One was fired. Destiny 2 was just sorry, sorry.
Destiny 2 wasn't a better game. I genuinely think that destiny
if you literally just crop out the taken king like the the Oryx
expansion to the fucking game. That game in and of itself is
one of my favorite games of all time.
I think the lore is amazing, the gameplay was amazing, PvP at the
time was great. Anyway.
So cooperating and competing to cooperate.
Everyone who is cooperating rolls their dice.
You take the highest dice rolled by anyone as the result.
I like that that's I mean it's a lot of die to compete.
Everyone is competing who is competing rolls their dice.
The highest dice wins. I mean same shit right?
On a tie. Anyone who wants to re roll may
do so but they have to add their inside die.
Inside wins. Whoever has the highest inside
wins. If that doesn't resolve it,
everyone rerolls. So we can look at competing and
cooperating again a little bit later in the more detail because
like, why would you do that? And why wouldn't you do it every
time, you know? Yeah, fighting, I love this.
And Trophy Dark is the same thing.
If you try to defeat any supernatural creature by
fighting it, you will die. Perfect.
Because of course you fucking will.
Instead, roll the hide or escape if you fight something that is
not supernatural or if you fight a supernatural creature, but not
to defeat it, for example, to fight right past it.
Be clear about what you want from the fight, Then roll as
described under Doing other things.
So just roll as normal, right? And then again, in the section
below, we'll see of it. We do that a little bit.
Suppressing knowledge is a cool one.
I love this. So when your insight reaches 5,
you may now reduce it by suppressing knowledge of what
you have discovered, for example by burning books, defacing
carvings, or destroying yourself.
Each time you do this, roll your insight dive.
If you get less than your current insight, decrease your
insight by 1. You may continue reducing your
insight in this way when your insight drops below 5.
Love it. I, I think it's like, I also
think just like the the imagery of like your investigator that's
been like pouring through tones and journals finally snaps and
just starts fucking tearing them up and throwing them in the
fireplace. Just like get this horrifying
knowledge away from me. It's great.
I love it. It's fantastic.
I will say you you roll your insight die and I've is that
like an insight roll? Like are you roll?
Like if I get higher than A5 I'm I'm fucked, right?
It does not say that, so I would say no.
That's my question though. It doesn't say that this is an
insight roll, it just says roll your inside die.
It says roll your inside die. We'll look a little bit lower
because even when it does talk about, it does say roll your
inside die. It's not an insight roll.
That is a curiosity. So let's let's drop down to
suppressing knowledge and see what it says in the rules in
detail. And This is why I like that.
Yeah, there are both parts, so. Probably past where we just were
so past page 20. Yeah, if you try any
supernatural creature, if you fight.
Oh, it's on 21. Here we go.
Now when your insight reaches 5, you may now reduce it by
suppressing knowledge of what you have discovered.
I also love that, like in this section, it's not just saying
suppressing knowledge, it's the whole line.
So you can really find where you want.
That's the header. Here is every, the whole thing,
as I just said. So this often creates conflict
with other investigators who don't want you to burn books or
shoot witnesses. Shoot witnesses.
To start, it says to reduce your insight you must erase all trace
of the horrors you have found. It can provide a good ending to
the game. Everything descend.
Defend descends into chaos as some investigators try to
destroy everything while other investigators try to stop it.
When you suppress knowledge, do something that feels like a big
step for your investigator. Don't just hide A book, burn it.
Don't just ask witness to be quiet, shoot them.
Shoot them. You can't suppress knowledge in
the same way twice. If you burn one library book,
you can't just burn another book for another role.
Do something new. Try burning the library or the
librarian. It's funny because in design
notes the creator talks about like trying to write in like a
more like less informative and almost like funnier voice.
I don't remember exactly how they word it and kind of like
moving away from that, but this section's actually genuinely
pretty funny. You know, it's informative.
You totally get it. But also, like, I've read this
before now, but I still laugh every time I've read read this.
Yeah, just shoot them. Burn the library.
Burn the librarian. It's great.
So, so I don't think, I don't think that it is an insight
role. I don't think it ever goes up
because at that point the mechanic kind of switches over.
Yeah, because you can't just be like, oh, I roll it.
Oh, I roll it. Oh, I roll it.
You, you need to be describing this the entire time.
And people can be fighting against you to stop it.
So it's not like it's an easy thing to do when you try to
suppress knowledge. It literally says it could be a
campaign ending thing, a game ending thing because people are
trying to stop you. So I think that is the limit.
Or is the narrative. I just.
Love how chaotic and lovecraftian like cosmic Horry
that is. Or one of you just fucking goes
berserk and start just yeah, creating a chaotic environment
where they're just destroying the stuff you need for the
investigation. Everyone else is like whoa, whoa
whoa. Yeah, and then at that point you
could literally physically try to stop them.
And then you go into the doing other things, like fighting
roles where you're trying to see who, like contains him before
the torch gets tossed in and stuff.
It's great. So understanding the full
horror, there's two sections left in the rules and that's it.
When your insight reaches 6, you understand the full horror
behind the universe and leave everyday life behind.
To the outside world you appear insane.
This is a special moment everyone focuses.
I believe that's spelled wrong. FOCUSSES unless I'm on your
investigators last moments of lucidity.
Yeah, it is spelled wrong. Go out however you want.
Fight, scream, run, collapse, or go eerily silent afterwards.
Either make a new investigator or continue playing, but retire
your old investigator as soon as you can.
Her the Collins Dictionary. That is a accepted spelling of
focuses. Oh, interesting.
Yeah, I got that folk cussy. Final points.
Cthulhu Dark is a game about doomed investigators.
So don't play to win. Instead, enjoy losing.
Enjoy watching your investigators mind slowly break
the rules. Leave certain questions
unanswered. Who decides when to roll
insight? Who decides when It's
interesting to know how well you do something.
Who decides whether you might fail?
Decide the answers to these questions with your group.
Make reasonable assumptions. And that's the whole game.
And I love it. And I will say, I feel like we
have numerous times gone over like games that are precursors
to games that we enjoy and have been disappointed numerous.
Absolutely, I'm not disappointed in this.
I want to play this and you can see where Trophy Dark came from.
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is great.
I think it's really interesting. I do think this is like, you
know, the the crux is that your characters don't like level up
and get better. They just continuously get more
insane. So you need a group that has a
good understanding of that because as someone who's run
several funnel adventures, which is just like your character
getting murdered over and over again, even telling my players
that some of them reacted negatively, which seems dumb to
me. Yeah, so that's why.
You know your party. Yeah, I, I think that's a part
of the the thing with trophy, with trophy Dark as well, is it
says over and over and over again, like in the beginning,
like you're doomed, you're fucked, you will not survive
this. You like, it'd be really
difficult to be like, I didn't know I was going to die at the
end, bro. Like it's literally like the
whole of the game and it says it repeatedly, repeatedly,
repeatedly. I I think this is fantastic.
I really love this. I love how simple it is and how
much depth you get from an extremely simple mechanics.
Yeah, I will say I I do like this.
I do like what trophy Dark adds to it absolutely a little bit
more. But I, I want to play this real
bad as is. And it's it's it's it's
interesting. So we.
Is definitely, it takes some aspects from like a more like
almost traditional role-playing game and adds into this, but
it's still like, it's great, you know?
Yeah, I, I was thinking about this the other day because
something kept popping up and I think I might have said things
before, but I was like, what are my top five games?
And four of them come to my head like super easy.
And then I have to. And then the fifth one I'm like,
well, do I do like a solo game? Because 12 years would be in
there. But if it's like a game, I have
four games at the top of my head and then the fifth one there's
just like just like everything else.
And I can't think of it. But Trophy Dark is one of them.
But this is great. So this is Cthulhu Dark and
literally it's a 200 page book with two pages of rules and then
everything else. So let's talk about the
everything else because we already just talked about the
rules of the game and I love them.
And we've said this over and over again to us here on the
show. We are rules like fans.
We're getting older, we like less shuffling in our games.
You're saying the same age. I'm growing younger, actually.
I've got the Benjamin Button thing going on that.
Benjamin Button, Yeah. On the horrifying end where I go
into pre birth, it's terrible. The the the the beard and most
ash will suck in start popping back out of your.
Head like. If only.
But oh, did you read on why it's called Cthulhu Dark?
It made me giggle and I loved it.
Where was it? I think, I don't think it was in
there. I, I, I found a like the, I
think it was the announcement of Pell Graham Press.
Graham put out a blog post that was announcing the Kickstarter,
the original Kickstarter and and talked about it's kind of the
game design notes in the back in brief, just like 3 stories on
how the game was created. But Cthulhu Dark came about
because they made a a light version of a game.
So what do you call a game that's like a light version of
the game of a game? What if the game is called like
punch? What would you call it?
Punch light, right? But you can't call an ultra Tor
game light. So what do you call it?
That makes sense. So it's called Cthulhu Dark
because it's Cthulhu light, except you can't call it light.
You call it dark because it's a dark game.
And that made me a giggle inside and I enjoy it.
So yeah. So after the section we just
went over, which is literally just the quick start.
So you to play the game, it's literally free because this is
exactly what you get from the free quick start version.
You can play everything you need just from this.
But what you get from the rest of the book is really fantastic.
Not only in this. I genuinely feel that like this
the next after the rules and details section, all of the
writing and mystery section is great for any game ever,
especially investigation games. It is, I think, right up there
with the in in certain ways better even than the Wardens
manual, the new 1E Wardens manual, which I think the
Wardens manual is better than the game itself as far as
information to run a game. And I think it is, I think up
there too is all of the GM parts of Apocalypse World are really
fantastic. I think if you read this, if you
read the Wards Operation manual and you read the GM parts of
Apocalypse World, you will not ever find 3 pieces of
instruction on how to be a good game runner and and kind of a
game writer. Then then those three things.
This immediately goes right to the top of my list.
If you're running anything that requires an investigation
whatsoever, writing a mystery, writing any aspect of that, I
think this is fantastic. So the next section is the rules
in detail. We talked about this already.
You take, you go from 2 pages to 7 pages and really, really dig
deeply into not only more, not just not editorializing, but
more explanation of the rules, a little bit of why they're there.
But you get a lot of expansion on the rules.
Which again, I love that there's two separate parts here because
you could easily just put the rules of detail out as the rules
of the game and then feel like you need to parse a little bit.
Which, which we've said over and over again is a problem that a
lot of games have. And they write is they write
this is the game instead of separating it.
And I don't, I've never seen a game that does it like this.
And this is now the way I want to.
I want to, I want every fucking game to be I love it.
Or, or if you're going to write this, This is why you have
things like the, the quick start rule section in the back of
Merkboard, you know, where you can just have the rules.
You know, this does it kind of like as the start and then jumps
into a little bit more. So really love that.
So you we literally get 7 pages of everything we just talked
about with more, with more, with more why, with more how, with
more everything. And it's great because even for
the simple reason that twice while we were already looking at
the rules, we jumped down into that section to get some more
clarity. And we got clarity, which is
cool. So after that we get into some
more, another dope piece of art of this.
It's got a, it's literally got Lovecraft in the back.
But this eldritch business coming out of this, it
definitely is kind of a it's Cthulhu dark.
Well, they really Cthulhu dark so.
Yeah, and the door is beyond time and everything like that in
the back here OOP. I will say that nothing makes me
want bookmarks more in this book than what we just did.
Referencing the rules in detail versus the rules.
I'm like, that's exactly what I'm like.
Fuck, I wish I could just jump back and forth.
Yeah, my my Acrobat froze. So give me a second and.
Good. Don't worry.
I gotta, I gotta fucking get rid of Adobe.
I read somewhere that they're like auto auto putting everyone
into a higher pay tier with that's got AI bullshit in it,
and I'm not I'm not doing that. What sucks is though, that I
use, I really only use three parts of Adobe, which is
illustrator and Acrobat and and fuck, what's what's this one
called? The the audio one, Audition are
really the only three parts that I use and but it's almost
cheaper to get the entire suite than it is to just pay for those
3 individually and it sucks. I think I could find something
different than Audition, but Illustrator and Acrobat are it's
really hard to find something like better than them.
I mean, obviously with Illustrator I could switch over
to some some affinity stuff, which I do have affinity too,
but man, Acrobat is like the best PDF tool ever.
Yeah, my shit is completely close the program.
I'm shocked this hasn't happened before on the show actually.
That Acrobat kind of froze. Yeah, it's usually I don't, I
don't. Maybe you have more problems
with than I do, but I don't have any problem with it.
Most of the. Time.
I don't have it super often, but it does happen to me in Acrobat.
It definitely freezes. Perfect.
We're doing great. We got some technical
difficulties, you know. Oh, it's been a while since we
really had that. But we're back and let's
restore. No, it doesn't take us back to
where we were. And if it was hyperlinked, we
could, we could jump straight down.
But it's not. Which I mean, it's definitely
going to be a big knock. This is big enough and detailed
enough that it really needs it. It is.
Absolutely. Big enough and detailed enough
to need it so. OK, so we're going to we're
going to breeze kind of through really just like the headings of
like the whole next session because man, it is in depth.
So again, dope piece of art here.
There is one section I need to remember to try to find, but
we'll get there. So welcome.
This is a director section. Welcome director.
Your job is to guide the investigators through the horror
and help everyone have fun. You have two jobs.
You are a performer. You present something to horrify
and inspire the players and you are a facilitator.
You help the players who tell their stories as their
investigators experience unimaginable horror.
Imagine yourself as an artist who gives the players 1/2
finished canvas. You wash with dark colors, with
glowing patches of alien beauty. You give hints of lurking
horrors. Then you let them complete the
painting. Most importantly, your job is to
creep the players out. Aim not for full blown terror
before a lingering uneasiness. And do this for real.
Try for a horror that makes everyone, you and them,
genuinely uncomfortable. It isn't about evil monsters
with waving tentacles. It isn't about chanting
cultists. It's about things that creep us
out, that drive us mad, that make us lose control.
Love that. So we get a lot of sections
here. So cosmic horror mythos and
insights Cthulhu dark tell stories of cosmic horror.
The greater forces are the mythos, as in like the the the
Cthulhu mythos and everything. And you know, Lovecraft and all
scary. Eldritch scary things.
Yeah, mysteries and hubris. I do like that section though,
because like basically it just is talking the mysteries and
hubris talking about like this is a mystery game you're in your
and it's the hubris of your investigators that kind of lead
them down a tarot path. The hubris that they believe
that they're intelligent investigators that can tackle
these problems, when really these problems are beyond the
like kin of human understanding. Yeah, and that's great.
And that's kind of like the core of a lot of the Cthulhu stuff is
just like, yes, you like. And, and my favorite part of the
Cthulhu mythos when I read it was the the entire idea of like
cosmic indifference, right? That there are things that are
bigger and greater than us that do not give a fuck about us on
the universe as a whole doesn't give a shit that we exist.
Like we this is not a heliocentric universe.
This is not an extremely egocentric idea that somehow
someone out there with more power than us gives a fuck that
we are around any more than we give a shit about ants.
Like there's something I read before.
It's definitely an Internet bit and if people haven't read it
you should find it. But there's this whole section
that talks about Cthulhu basically in the concept of like
in a way that makes you really understand it.
Because for those that don't know, Cthulhu is just like the
could destroy the world, but it's just a priest of things
that are above and beyond even their power, right?
That they that's Hulu could bring about these elders beings,
right, and actually bring them back into our universe.
But the idea was like, what if you walked into your kitchen one
day and you saw a circle of ants and you could hear the ants
chanting and somehow they're chanting your name.
What would you do? Right, Because like, what you
could do is just stomp on them and just be like, they're
fucking they're ants, like who gives a fuck, right?
Like, but you go well this is interesting and weird.
Let me. Put my iPhone down and I play
brain rock content. There you go and ruin but no,
but like what if they they they chant you and you just go.
Let me hear what they have to say and you lean down and they
ask you for something and you go and one of us like I want you to
kill that guy who was like after my girl and you go dope and you
just kill that fucking guy. They're like, hey, look at this
God who literally like I just asked him to do shit, but but
me, I'm just like, this is interesting for now, right.
This is like these these things that should.
Not be able to reach me or somehow communicating with me.
And it's interesting. And then they might go like, all
right, kill this other group or whatever.
And just like now I'm getting kind of bored of this and you
just like pour a pitcher of water and be like, I fucking did
it right. Just wipe them out.
Yeah, like those enemy, like I have an enemy in our anthill.
It's like perfect, I'll just pour gasoline down your anthill.
So yeah. There you go.
And then wipes everybody out because eventually, eventually
you're gonna be like, fuck these ants, you know what I mean?
Like you're not gonna like pay attention, like you know what I
mean? You're gonna sweep them out.
You're gonna put down a trap, you're gonna do something to
wipe them all out. But for a brief period they
contacted you and you were in and you actually listened.
And then that was kind of like a thing that like I already
understood the Methos, but like it was really interesting to be
like you. They are nothing, right?
In the context of like the amount of power they have over
you. It's a fucking Ant.
But but just the ability, the fact that they could contact you
for a moment and made you interested for just a second is
the thing that I thought was really interesting.
And that's definitely not a unique thought for me.
That's something that's a meme I read on the Internet.
I don't know where it's from. So there's a section on the
themes and the threats, the hook and the final horror, the
setting and the power. There's a section here on
Lovecraft which honestly I think is probably the weakest part of
of this in my opinion. I'm going to read it.
Cthulhu Dark draws on the writings of HP Lovecraft,
together with earlier authors that inspired him and later
writers inspired by him. Lovecraft wrote his stories in
the 1920s and 30s. His standard settings in New
England is. the United States is New England in the United
States, especially the fictional city of Arkham.
Although a story sometimes venture elsewhere while.
The crafts university. Yeah, while Lovecraft has a
superb craft, was a superb crafter of horror, he had a
blinkered view of humanity. Today, his work often comes
across as racist. His protagonists were mostly
dull, interchangeable middle class men.
That is probably the weakest way that you could say that.
Lovecraft was a horrible garbage person who was extraordinarily
bigoted and racist. And if you read any of the
letters he wrote, you realize that he was absolutely fucking
terrible. So to kind of just be like it
often comes across that's not even being like he was.
Racist. That's such a that's such a
lukewarm take on this. Listen, Lovecraft was like a
misanthrope. He hated fucking everybody, and
he used bigotry against every single group of people, every
race, even like poor white people like of his, like of his
same race. He used every form of hate that
he possibly could to describe every single person, man, woman,
or child. He was an awful person, but like
his what? Why his horror works is because
it relies on his disdain for humanity as little tiny bugs
afloat in a sea that they cannot control, comprehend, or survive.
That's why love crafting horror works.
It's awful and he's awful, and also it works without all those
things, actually. But that's why he was the
progenitor of it. Yeah, it's fucking reading his
stuff. Reading his letters is actually
horrifying. Oh, oh, so I have one.
So we're going to go through part of this just so we can
really settle this in. This is HP Lovecraft to Jay
Vernon Shay, September 25th, 1933 As for this flabby talk of
Americanism, which opposes all racial discrimination, that is
simply God damn bullshit. The ideal is so flagrantly
unsound in its very essence that it would be a disgrace to any
national tradition professing it.
It is an ignorant, sentimental, impractical, and potentially
dangerous delusion that any sophisticated person can realize
that it belongs only to the insincere pseudoamericanism of
the spread eagle illiterate or the charlatanic word politician.
It is what superficial Americans proclaim with their lips while
actually lynching inwards and selling select real estate to a
restrictive basis to keep Jews. And a another word that I'm not
going to say out. That is a word that is against I
believe it's Italian Americans. In other words, it is not a part
of my Americanism which has any real existence.
It is merely part of the cheap American bluff, and indeed is
not nominally professed in that southern half of the country
which was once the most important half and which will
probably become so again. Ever since 1924, American
immigrant legislation has, under the very thinnest of veils,
discouraged the immigration of racial elements radically alien
to the original American people, and I do not believe this sound
policy will ever be rescinded. We had this much Hitlerism
before we ever heard of Handsome Adolf.
Yeah, so listen, Lovecraft would love our current administration,
man. He'd be all for it.
Big fan. So I do love all of this book.
I do think that that extremely lukewarm take could have been a
little bit, a little bit a little bit less lukewarm.
Regardless, when you play, try to move beyond this.
Tell stories about a wider range of people than Lovecraft did.
If you do, you'll discover you have more stories and more
interesting stories to tell. There's it goes off to lukewarm
because I think like for for you writing using Cthulhu in the
title and like writing in this realm, like I think you need to
out loud and strongly denounce it as evil at like that those
like viewpoints if you are entering the space at all.
And if you're like, hey, yeah, try, try to move beyond like the
hatred of this is like, no, if you are playing this game, you
are not allowed to be a racist, bigoted piece of shit, you know?
Yeah, I will say, I will say, and I will give a little bit of
like not the benefit of the doubt, you like write whatever
you want into your games and stuff.
Absolutely. But I will say this game
originally written, I think this part of it was like 2017, which
you should always be against a thing, right?
But it's definitely like the the indie TTRPG space has definitely
become much better about calling this stuff out after 2017, like
after 2019 and everything like that.
It was it was much, much more kind of like not just
susceptible, but kind of expected to to call it out a
little bit more. So to I will give you know, it
is what it is. We're moving on from that.
So there's a whole section in writing a mystery.
So what is it about where, where, when and where is it set?
Finding the Horror is a great section that I really, really
enjoyed. It's just from what you know
about your mystery so far. What is the thing that unsettles
you or scares you? That thing will become the
horror. You're represented as an alien
threat. Really great themes, the threat
and what is the final horror. I like that section too.
I love the idea of like, writing down your first idea and then
like continuously kind of rewriting it until you have this
final horror that fits. Yeah absolutely how does it
start prologue locations people like this there's 6 tips about
locations like there this gives you so much fucking detail about
every aspect of not only like specifically investigation, but
writing adventure writing in general it's crazy the. 6 tip,
locations is high value like stuff you should you should use
it for writing locations, you know, Yeah.
Broad locations are often better than narrow.
Spectacular. Little locations are better than
mundane ones. Locations often form natural
progressions. To get the investigators to a
particular location, use a clue to point them there.
These are just like the first line of like paragraphs.
Use locations to ensure that the most horrific events happen late
rather than early. And if the investigators don't
know that a location exists, they can't go there.
So ensure that they do it. It's it's, it's really great.
There's section on creeping horrors. 6 tips on a horror that
are really, really fantastic in general, horrors about things
that shouldn't exist. Try weird juxtapositions.
A man smiles as he is buried alive, a stone of its low home.
Try impossible. Just juxtapositions.
A creature that is sleeping but awake.
A darkness that glows you know the color out of space.
Horror is about unnatural life, horror is about disgust and
horror is about losing control. These are this is it's so good
section of building the horror travel, sleep and food.
The horror pushes back scenes of horror.
A whole section here now on rewriting the mystery.
So basically you write it and then a whole section on
rewriting it and the things that you should look at, what you've
done and the things you can add and change to it.
So the section for the director, section for the technician,
shortcuts, red herrings, distractions, some technical
issues. I love this page.
It's the whole box page about like common shortcuts.
But basically it's like shortcuts to the investigation
that the investigators could take.
Like how can they break your game?
It's a. Really cool section.
Yeah, there's an entire section here on how to nullify those
shortcuts to make sure that their narrative unfolds in in a
way that allows a horror to unfold.
Which, which is an interesting way to think about writing
adventures because we talk about like, we don't necessarily want
to railroad them, but actually you kind of do in an
investigative adventure. And there's a whole section
talk. About that later, yeah.
A whole section talk about the chaining.
Like a chain of advance, like the railway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because investigating is a
little bit different than like a regular adventure.
And it's definitely not OSR. It's definitely getting this is
a story game. Like when you read through the
director part, Graham was part of the Forge and then part of
story games like blogs and everything like that.
This is investigating is specifically about the
narrative, not about, you know, like, oh so AM.
I, I like, I don't like railroading and like, you know,
like dungeon crawling adventure games just because I don't think
it really makes a lot of sense. But like in a narrative
structure game, like you almost have to.
And with this, like you could, you could like railroad where
there's just a couple branches they can follow that kind of
lead to the next thing. So they can still take their own
path that they choose or follow the clues they want to follow.
But you are trying to lead them to a place, so they do need to
get there. Yeah, they need to get there.
And there might be parts that you don't want them to get to
before early. Yeah, early, yeah.
And there's their whole section on that, which is fantastic.
Right here. There's a railroad section, so
you imagine there's a chain of scenes.
That's right next it literally. Talks about it so the descent,
the monster, the tempter, so the host, the guide, the storyteller
like a finally section so and then on a whole section here.
So writing the mystery, rewriting the mystery a whole
section now on playing the mystery, which includes getting
ready to play, hosting the game, everything.
I mean again, like the amount of in depth information is crazy
and it's good for anything you're playing.
Even a whole section here on like how to explain the rules of
the game. Like it literally gives you like
3 different ways to explain how inside die work to characters
you know, like to to players. So and then a breakdown of like
rolling to investigate, rolling to rolling insight, how to
explain to your character is what 12345 and six mean, you
know. This is just like amusing for me
that I'm I'm I'm I'm thinking right now but this game almost
isn't Cthulhu Dark. It is a guide to writing like
cosmic horror adventures. Also the the system for Cthulhu
Dark is included in this, so you can use it, but it's almost like
ultraviolet grasslands, like it's actually about the
ultraviolet grasslands. There is a system in the book
that you can use to run it, but it's really about the guide to
running this you know well. Yeah, I mean that's I mean that
clearly is it's the rules plus of massive guide like that's and
that's what's different. Like if you just want to play
the game, get the four, get the get that little 4 page thing for
free. If you want all of the rest of
the amazing information to run it effectively, both as a player
and as AGM, that's why you get the fucking book.
And that's what, you know, the 1700 plus people decided that
they wanted to do, which is fantastic.
And that's, and I love that we've talked about this over and
over again. If you want people to play your
game, obviously, like we, we, we live in this very capitalistic
hellscape where I think a lot of people have now feel this need
to monetize the hobby and think that, you know, like there's
this, like you have to get paid for the work you do, right?
But if you're a new writer and you put out a game, you make it
a $58 PDF, you're going to get a lot fewer people playing it than
if you make it free, develop a community and then put out a
book, right? So before you Cairn Merk board,
like how many games out there, Mouse Rider that are completely
free, PFS that have had like hundreds of thousands of dollars
and like Kickstarters and things backing it because they make the
game available to people and then build up the tools around
it, the community around and things like that.
So the fact that this is a free game is fantastic and that again
1700 people were willing to pay to get all of this other
information is is interesting so.
I get, I get why I get why 1700 people backed, Yes, I mean,
that's a crazy number of backers, especially in whatever
year that was. What year was it again, 2017?
2017, yeah. Yeah, that's an insane, that's a
truly, truly insane amount of backers for 2017.
Yeah. I really is.
Yeah, whole section here. Now we're getting into like,
talk about Elder Things, ghouls, creeping horrors, King and
Yellow settings and themes for all of these.
Again, we're only in Page 57 of like 200, so this is playing the
adventure and then we're going to get into the settings.
We're not going to go over any of these by the fucking book.
So we've already talked about what the settings are.
There's some. Cool stuff in here, by the way.
Yeah, there's they're. Fantastic.
Yeah, really in depth settings and then eventually goes for
each of them. We talked about this before,
what the four settings are. That is London 1851, that is
Arkham 1692, that is Jaiwo 2017, and then Mumbai 2037.
And then after that we get to the appendices, which are page
177. Oh, I scroll to it.
Another beautiful piece of art. This person laying across these
like underground tracks in this very weird.
Like there's like fruit growing down in this case, like it's so
it's so it's so good. The art in this is fantastic.
The appendices is a couple of things here. 1 is hacking
Cthulhu Dark. So not only does it teach you
how to write a mystery, rewrite the mystery, play the mystery,
teach people how to play the game right, it also tells you
how to hack the game right. There's a bunch of rules here.
Keep it simple. Try the original rules first.
Forget reality. Use the rules to tell a story.
Don't add or subtract from roles as in like modifiers and stuff
because it the math is mathed well.
If you want a number that increases and decreases, make it
work like insight, never given advantage of that, a
corresponding disadvantage, and then play test your new rule and
that's it. And then there's a bunch of a
whole section here, design notes.
Basically, it's the history of the game, why they made it, how
they made it. Like what's going on.
I really love this. It reminded me, as I said, I
talked to 100 a little bit earlier.
It reminds me a little bit of mini BX from Lucas Rolm.
When is it Lucas? Yeah, it's Lucas Rolm wrote that
and and they're they have the a little bit of AGM section, a
little bit of like AYY of everything in the back of the
book, which is really, really fantastic.
And then here's all the handouts we talked about that again are
literally handwritten, which is which is great.
Letter from Lily, letter from Christopher Miles.
It's it's never a bad idea to just have people like just write
it and then cotton and then scan it in.
It's 2025. We have the technology and that
is that's the game. It's great.
It's dope. Let's review it so it's 200
pages, but the game is 2 pages. It's.
Not really. 200 pages. But it is.
And I'll argue that it's a book
because we've talked about this over and over again.
Like yeah, we, we, we do 5 metrics and only one of them is
actually the rules. The rest is everything else.
So yeah, I do think, I do think this deserves book.
What do you think? Oh, absolutely, totally for
that. In that way, yes, it does.
But like, if you're listening to this now and you skip to this
part to hear our wrap up, so you have to watch the whole episode.
It's you don't need all 200 pages.
A lot of them are incredibly useful and there's some useful
information. But yeah the the rules are like
5. Pages 2.
Pages 22. Pages 2.
So for those who don't know what we do here on the show, we do
quantify our terrible opinions with metrics.
There are five of them for books, 2 for zines.
For books we do art and layout. All these metrics can go up to
10 points, 5 being bang average, 10 being nothing beats it.
Art and layout is the art and layout of the book visually, the
quality and quantity of the art, and the the visual layout of it.
Usability is How usable is it at the table?
Does it have bookmarks? Does it have hyperlinks?
Are the sections well sectioned so you can get to the
information you need when you need it?
The rule set is obviously the rule set of the game.
If it is a unique rule set, do we like it?
If is it a hack of a rule set? Is it a good hack?
Originality is exactly that's it's originality.
Is it original in any of the ways we talked about our layout,
usability, rule set? Does it have unique and
different things to it than other games have?
And then value is bang for your buck.
It is how much game you get for the money you spend.
I did if you could jump into that page and bring up the, the
drive through RPGs of a couple of those because I I accept
these pages. So let's start with art and
layout. So pretty.
So the art is great. I love, I know we scroll through
a lot of it. There's a lot more full page
pieces, but almost all of the the art that we're going to find
are full page pieces and there are a ton of them in the game.
Again, we scrolled really quickly through them, but
there's a lot and they're all beautiful.
I think the cover is fantastic. I think the layout is great.
I like the font choice. I can't remember what it's
called something something Gothic, but it's just a very
nice sans serif font. It reminds me of the way Dye
Sugars does layout with a with their font choices and things.
Very straightforward, very readable, very legible.
You know, only well, apparently focuses with two s s is totally
fine, but I think it looks good. I, I, I didn't find myself, even
though it's a lot of writing, the way that they separate out
the, the headers and things like that.
I didn't find that it was too much.
I think the margins are a really nice size, which really helps
with the 8 1/2 by and I think I think it's good.
I think it's, I think I like it overall.
I think, I think, you know, it pretty, pretty standard for
regular layout, but I think the cover and the art throughout is,
is really fantastic. And I do like a little page
decorations that they put on everything.
So what are your? What are your?
What do you think about it? Yeah, I think this is definitely
incredibly serviceable. I definitely think it's like
above like what we would say is average the arts really good
where it is it when you get into later into the adventures that I
know I said I didn't read, but I actually did skim the the
cartography, the maps farm really cool.
Yeah, I would say this is like a, this is a solid something,
you know, it's it's it is. Yeah, it's definitely a solid
something. What are you thinking for that
something? I mean good.
Really good, you know. Yeah, I think it's either good
or really good, but we have to pick one of those.
I'm trying to think, you know, it's hard because we're talking
about a game from 2017, which I know isn't that long ago, but
like the way that people make tabletop games, yeah, has really
evolved. And so I don't want to be like
overly critical, like visually at least.
But I could have used a little bit more spot art, a little bit
more page decoration here and there, I think would have gone a
long way from me. So I'm thinking that this is
probably for me like a 6:00-ish. I would I could argue a 7 I
think but. See, I don't find the lack of I
think here, so I'm gonna go back to the game right through we're
gonna look at one page and I'll say why the why I think the
style of layer that they chose made me and why I think this is
good for other people so this. It is a standard page, right?
When we look at 8 1/2 by 11, We said this before.
The headers being as bold as they are and separated, I think
makes a huge difference. The paragraphs all being
separated like with a line makes a huge difference.
So it doesn't feel like, you know, it doesn't Bumble Bumble
feel like a brick? Oh no, no, no.
It's still visually like we're still talking about the visuals
of this. Right, I guess it's.
True, the the big margin, but also the even just the location
of the page number pretty high up and big in the page as you
scroll through the pages, it really fills that space.
And anywhere there where there really is a lot missing, there
is a little page declaration. So like I think what you're
saying is is totally viable, but I'm not missing necessarily.
I don't think like, for example, on a regular book, if this page
number was in the corner and you had all this white space at the
bottom, it would bother me. But the fact that that page
number is there really to me fills out that space really,
really well. I like the way the boxes are
used. I just, I as I scroll through
this, there was never really a page where I was just like,
damn, that feels like a whole, like a remember when we looked
at stuff where like 1/2 a page is missing?
There's definitely a little. Massive holes, you're right.
I would just say like the spotlight that you have, which
is like a triangle kind of symbol.
There's like a little like. Aldrich symbols, yeah.
There's a diamond symbol, a, a triangle, like kind of wave
symbol. And they're just like, they're a
little uninteresting, you know, And the sun symbol.
Yeah, I see where you're coming from a little bit.
I think it doesn't bother me as much as I think it.
I didn't notice as much as I think you're noticing it.
Yeah, well, see. Wrong, Ryan.
So. It's a possibility your your.
Opinion is wrong, yeah. I think I think so layout wise,
I think it would be a 5, right? So looking at the art, I think
the cover is fantastic and I think all of the individual like
full page art is really great. And there's a lot of pieces of
that. And plus you said like the maps
and things like that. I think I think because of how
much literally full page Arthur is and the art, I mean, again,
we didn't look at all of it. When we look at pieces like
this, like that's crazy, like that's fantastic.
This like Lion of Fire coming out of a church as people burn
around. I I think with the amount and
quality of the full page art to me, I think there's probably
bumps it up more towards really good to me.
I just know we've been trying to delineate more with like our
ratings and be more discerning. Yeah.
And I think as far as like layout goes, like it's a very
serviceable layout, but we've seen a lot of games that have a
lot of really good art and then like a even more like
serviceable layout that's still incredibly easy to understand
and like, and I guess that kind of spills into usability too.
I just don't feel like this one's 1/7.
All right, I'll go with the six on this.
So this is good. It's good.
Yeah, above average usability. This is going to take some
things on usability. As far as like the text being
usable, it is incredibly usable. It's divided up incredibly well.
There's like we were talking about kind of in the the layout
section. It's laid out in the way that's
really easy to read. And even when there's a lot of
words, which you all know how much I hate a lot of words, it's
incredibly like non cluttered on the page and easy to parse out.
The sections are divided up in a way that is also like incredibly
logical. And please, for the love of God,
some of you creators read this book and see how it's divided up
and be like, Oh yeah, that does make a lot of sense.
We're we're definitely I think Ryan and I are going to take the
hits are going to give the hits on this.
Is that like it's a fairly large book.
It does not have any bookmarks or hyperlinks.
And while like hyperlinking again, we're looking at through
like the lens of 2025. That's what you hear this right?
Yeah, bookmarks existed in PD FS way before that, though there
really isn't a reason why it shouldn't have bookmarks.
The hyperlinking thing I'm a little bit like more flexible on
for something at this time, but the bookmarks is like, that
should be in there. The table of contents is already
laid out and it's amazing. And it's like once again laid
out very usably where individual sections like you have multiple
like entries for a single page, which is great because that
stuff's there and you need it. But like, as I'm going through
the book, like bookmarks would be great.
Even while we were just doing this episode, we wanted to
reference the rules in depth while we were talking about the
rule. And we had to Scroll down and
manually find it. And frankly, a lot of people
read these things digitally now, especially when your product
right now is only available as APDF.
We'll say it does feel good reading the physical book.
Yeah, well, I'm sure. But The thing is, you can't.
If you want to get the fucking physical book right now, you got
to go pay a markup for a previous owned copy or wait for
the new one. Until, until yeah, until the new
one does release which is happening.
I will say the the only knock I have on usability on this is the
hyperlinks and bookmarks, which is a big knock.
But yes, every other part, like the, as you said before, the way
that this is separated out into the parts that you actually
need, to me is is such a highlight.
That's such a massive highlight to this book.
The one thing we complain about like so incredibly often with so
many other products like this. Is what it's missing.
Has addressed this with that issue.
Oh yes, that part yes, the hyperlinks is the thing that's
missing I so it needs to take a Bing for that.
But other than that, I mean, I'm pretty high on this, I think I
think because even the way that they separate out the section
and stuff like I'm pretty high on this.
So I think even without. What are you thinking for this?
I'm thinking I'm thinking that if it had hyperlinks and
bookmarks, that'd probably be as an easy aid at least.
I I would say with hyperlinks and bookmarks, it would maybe
even be a nine. Yeah, just because how
delineated sections are, you know?
Yeah, well, it's just again, the the concept of usability is how
easy is a book to use and the fact that you can read the rules
and then go read the rules more in depth so you understand them
better. And then have the whole section
on not only like how to write the adventure, but how to
rewrite it and and play it. It's it's there's so much
usability in this. So I'm probably what do you
think like an 8 even for this? I'm thinking A7 for this maybe?
So it's a lot of book to navigate.
It's a pretty big knot for me that I have to scroll through
this. Like really, genuinely, it is.
But you're saying it could be a nine and you're dropping it all
the way to a 7 because in 2017 there weren't.
Bookmarks would be a nine, yeah. I think that we went 6 for art
and layout when I was thinking 7, so we should go 8 for this
when you're thinking of seven. OK, that's fine.
And we'll split the difference on I.
Still think that, yeah. I mean, for me, I'm maybe
weighing the knocks heavier than you're weighing them.
You're still accounting for them and they exist.
So that's it's still fine. I still think it'd be a nine
with those things. I think I think I just think
that like how well that they do all the rest of of the usability
makes the that thing higher for me.
So I just. Also, I think I'm a little bit
internally frustrated because I started and stopped this several
times. Like I had to get up and go do
things, so I'd reopen it on my tablet or whatever and then I'd
have to be like, fuck, I can scroll to where I was.
As I go again, yeah yeah, it would be great if they did re
release this with some hyperlinks and bookmarks.
It is 125 now. Let.
Me do it, I'll do it. So rule set, it's small, it's
super light. I like it.
I like it a lot. Great, I love it.
I'm going to write the rule set incredibly high by the way, so.
What are you giving it? I mean, so listen, you're all
going to think I'm an insane person, and you're probably
right. I've seen Beyond the Veil of the
universe. But one of the games I've given
the highest rating to was 9 Lives of Valhalla, because it
picked one thing, and it did that one thing incredibly well.
This game has picked almost one thing.
It's 1:00-ish thing, and it does that thing incredibly well in a
way that guides the entire game. Your three die die roll, your
potential three die roll, because you could only roll one,
or you could roll 2 or you could roll 3.
And how easy they are to understand and how like, well,
reinforces and how that's the entire game.
And frankly, I think it perfectly works.
That being the entire game. I'm thinking 8 or 9 man.
Here's my thing, I think, I think, man, I'm irritated that
we gave we did trophy dark and trophy gold together and how did
we give A7 on art and style? I think that book is gorgeous, I
think. Yeah, that was probably a
mistake. Yeah, this probably should be an
8. And honestly, if we just did
dark, I think we even talked about it.
If we did dark by itself, to me the rule set's an easy 9.
Yes, absolutely. I what we give the rule set?
An 8. We did dark and gold together
though. Yeah, we did kind of mix the two
together and I honestly. We should go back.
And just do dark. You and I are free even if we
don't even do an episode. You and I are free.
Time should just just re release the score for that.
Well, art and style would go up by one.
Rule set would go up by 1, so it would be a 43.
I think trophy Dark is better than this.
I do, I think for a lot of reasons.
I think the way that trophy Dark does the the rings of of the
adventure going in. I think the expansion to the
character creation system because there isn't one in this.
Basically this is a case of if this was a Zine, right?
Which is not really, we're not going to use in score.
I would not. I would be like, yes, I think
this does the thing that it does really, really well.
But if we're going book on this, which I think it is, even though
it's only four pages, this is what's hard because we are doing
a book. But if it was just the four
pages, we would do AZ and it's difficult.
I can't give this a higher score than trophy Dark because I think
Trophy Dark takes this, add some stuff to it that I personally
think is a better game. But I do think that what this
wants to do, it does about as well as you can do so.
For me, I think the rings thing is like maybe your most valid
point from that in in my opinion, like for me like.
Yeah, well, and and the I think the character creation with like
the way that they do like the. I think it's really cool.
I don't necessarily think that you need it for this.
I mean, this game is. So it's a different, it's a
different. I'm saying it's a different
game. I don't think you need it for
this. I'm just saying that I think
that the way that they expanded on the game, using this as a
base to me is better. I can't.
I don't think I could get this better.
And I would give Trophy Dark a nine.
I would be. I would give trophy Dark a nine,
so yeah. I would give this an E an 8.
I think this is for I'm fine. I said 8 or 9.
I think 8's very valid. I think you've made some good
points about Trophy Dark, but I think as far as character
creation and stuff goes, like being able to just write down
your job and your name and that be your character, I think is
actually a strength of this. And it almost plays into like
the crater's like history of like like kind of vampires,
Masquerade LARP, you know, where like you don't like your, your
role-playing this character. You don't have like a lot of
life points you're tracking. It's all like a narrative thing,
you know? Yeah.
It's just, it's, I think it, I think again, this is a weird one
because if this was a Zine, if we were doing a Zine score,
because we do rate them differently.
Yeah. I think that your point about 9
lives Valhalla is stands very well that like this in as the
rule set, it only being 2 pages, it doesn't have any more or less
than you need for it. I think it's fantastic.
Yeah. It is everything that you need
with nothing that you don't. You're right.
You don't need HP. You don't need anything beyond
just your job and a name to play this.
And every kind of role you want to do is the same role, just
with different kind of outcomes. And then I even think of like
Zine scores that we've given stuff to.
And I just think it's difficult because we talk about this all
the time. Like how do you contextualize
this when we compare this to other games?
And why is something like Kingdoms 10?
To Kingdoms is so good though. It's.
The depth of the system. It's the depth of the system.
Like you can do something like 9 Lies of a Lala where it really
only has one rule, but there's a there's a lot more than just the
one rule. Like the core aspect is kind of
one rule, but there's a lot more to it than that.
It does more than just one rule, it just has like 1 core
mechanic. But to me it's like, I love a
simple game, but when does the simplicity, when does a game
that does depth simply become better than a simple game?
You know what I mean? Yeah, that's, I think that's a
really valid experience that we have reviewing these.
So it's a fine line that we walk.
Yeah, I think that's why this to me is an 8.
That's fine. I'm OK with that originality.
So here's where we're going to take a knock, because this is a
total like RIP of classic Lovecraft, you know, Which is
fine. Narratively, narratively,
narratively, mechanically, though mechanically though
mechanically though time, like no HP, we everything, everything
we just said basically gives this point to our originality.
You have no character creation, you basically have nothing.
It is super simple. It's super straightforward.
So I think narratively, obviously this isn't trying to
be original because it literally is Cthulhu, right?
It's literally like I want to play Cthulhu games the way I
want to play them. So originality on that zilch.
It's like, it's like I do a Star Wars game.
Like obviously it's not original.
You're just doing a Star Wars game.
But I think mechanically, especially at its time in 2017,
especially when you read through the history of the games, I know
some why they did what they did anything like that.
And and that at the time there wasn't really games like this at
times. You know, I think mechanically
there's a lot of originality in this and in absolutely talk
about the with the simplicity and stuff, I think takes it up.
So I think I'm a little bit high on the originality on this
because also like how many other games have we read like this,
like this mechanically even. I mean, now we play a lot of Ice
Bowl games, you know, But I think I'm, I think I'm kind of
high on this. Yeah, I think I'm kind of medium
high on this. I would say that mechanically
adds a lot to it. Narratively, obviously adds
nothing. So I'm kind of like a really
good. Yeah, but also, I mean, let's
also then look at the originality in.
Let's look at product structure, right?
Let's look at game structure, the rules, the rules in depth
and then literally one of the best.
Yeah, that. Was pretty good because.
We're looking at the whole book, not just the rules.
We're looking at the whole book, OK, You get a lot of book.
There's a lot of book in this book and the way that they do
this, I'm between A7 and an 8 and I'm good with each other.
When you say. I'm also between A7 and an 8.
I'm having a really hard time figuring out which one I'm more
at, so because I'm probably at A72, what's up I?
Probably had a 7. OK, let's do it.
Yeah, value. How much does this cost on drive
through RPG? Drive through RPDPG, the PDF is
$14.00, but it is on sale right now for $12.00.
And I don't know if it's one of those drive through sales where
it's like always, always on sale, but it's like just change
the price I guess. But yeah, I mean, I think even
full price $14.00 for a 200 the page PDF, that's a complete
game. And also four like the
adventures in here are not like the Sebbing adventures are
they're. Huge.
They're huge. They're actually, if we look at
the table of contents, because we can't look at the bookmarks
because there aren't any. Don't know if we said that yet.
All of London 1851 is page 63 to page 97.
So you're looking at over 30 pages of setting an adventure
and that's one of four. And also the other thing, look
at no. What were you gonna say?
The settings, like you can hold on to the setting past the
adventure that's in there and continue to run in that setting,
you know? So the other thing though, above
and beyond that, Cthulhu Dark 0, the Cthulhu Dark preview.
So what what that is, is when Cthulhu Dark was coming out on
Kickstarter, there was this like preview version you can get as a
Kickstarter back. So they threw that up there on
Kickstarter. Cthulhu Dark 0 gives you all of
the Cthulhu Dark stuff, but you also get preview version of
Cthulhu Dark Kickstarter, which is the rules and I think all of
London 1851 if I remember correctly.
And that's a what? So it's $20, which cost more
than the regular one, but you can get a soft cover print out
of that for $34 if you want. So you can at least get, you
know, part of the book for for free.
I think the price is jacked up on that because it was supposed
to be like a Kickstarter reward. So you would get a code for it.
So you could get it at cost or whatever.
But that is available if you physically want it.
Because as far as I know, Cthulhu Dark is not does not
have a print on demand version on drive through anymore.
Do you see that? What are you looking at the
Cthulhu Dark page? It does not have a print on
demand version. Right.
No, I am looking. No, it does not have a porn
demand. Sorry, sorry and.
That's why it's cost like a bajillion dollars, so $12.00 for
the book if you want everything that we just talked about.
But again, the the Core 2 page game free, free, free, free.
You can't. And then you can just do what
granted and just run every Cathulu game ever just with this
instead. So that's, I mean, we've said
this before, it's hard to not give a free game a high score.
Yeah, but I do think you're not getting the whole game if you
just use the free version. But the free version exists.
It's it's kind of like that. So I'm probably pretty high on
value on this. You need to I think even for
$12.00 to get this and then any other like Zulu like adventure
game or like horror mystery game you can run the easily you could
port this over. It would take almost no effort.
You could run monsters in the monster of the week in this and
not do all the Pbta stuff if you want.
Like, yeah. Obviously not to basically just
run. Every Pbta adventure just with
this instead. I would absolutely do that.
It would be more fun for. Me.
So I'm probably like a nine. I think I'm in a nine for this
also because once again, hard to not give a game that comes out
for free at 9:00 so. Yeah, pretty decent spread the
scores 38. Yeah, it's crazy because there
we we talk about this, what was the last game that we reviewed?
Oh my God, it was last week and I've already forgotten.
What fuck, What did we do last week?
We did violence. What did we do before that?
Print Weaver. Yes, print Weaver.
This literally got the same score as print Weaver 38.
We have. I think we've been more 38 than
anything. But how weird it is is the
spread difference because in the game they got a 38, which again,
as soon as you hit 40 on our show.
As if our show fucking matters at all to anyone.
You're really in the top like maybe 10%, maybe a little bit
less of all those games. So 38 is a pretty good score.
I would say our average score is probably around like a 353537.
We should review worst games. We we're very blunt and honest
and critical, but we're not mean.
So I would never review a bad game.
It's hard to review things that we don't like too because we do
have to read these and like it already is kind of hard
sometimes to read a game a week, which is why sometimes we miss
an episode of the week but reading one that we don't like.
We've never done games we don't like unless we felt the need to
do it and got too deep and like some of the precursor games that
we've read that we wanted to read because we've read hacks of
them, we shouldn't failed. But even then, it was never that
we didn't like the game. It was that we didn't like the
product. You know what I mean?
Like, I think Blade to the Dark is a great game.
I don't like the book. I think that white hack is a
really interesting game. I don't like the book.
You know I. Would love to read the earlier
version of white hack so I could better understand.
Because it's like an iterated on product that doesn't give you
the context. Right.
But in when you look at the spread of scores on this art and
Leo got a six value, got a nine and still got a 38.
So like does now before we finish, do we Does art and
layout really get a six? Are we good on 6 for art and
layout? I'm.
Fine with it. Little above average.
It's good. Yeah, I'm fine.
OK, so 38 for Cthulhu Dark. I think this is again, it's a
great it's a great game. I want to play it really bad.
I think the interesting thing is how much more product you get
then game in this book and I think it's worth it for $12.00.
I think the PDF just even if you didn't get the free part of the
game, just for everything else, you get all of the information
on playing, running, explaining everything about game is in my
opinion at this point crucial information to running and
playing any type of investigation game no matter
what. And as I said before, I think
the mix of the all of the GM stuff and principles and
everything from Apocalypse World, I think the Wom from
Mothership the Ward's Operation Manual.
And I think that this book are three, in my opinion, necessary
crucial parts of game design and game explanation and adventure
writing for anybody who wants to be a good adventure writer
designer in general. I think it's fantastic.
This this is in my top three best what like editorial line
game guides ever. Last thing I want to hop over to
real quick. I think we touched on it a
little bit, but I do want to look at the page is Cosmic Dark.
Cosmic Dark is the game that's currently funding.
We're not we're not. Listen again, we're not
sponsored by anyone. We just think this shit fucks
and we thought this was a good idea to do Cathela Dark because
now we can talk about Cosmic Dark.
Cosmic Dark is currently on Kickstarter right now.
It is Graham's new project. It is Tibidal Bro playing him.
A weird space horror from the award-winning author of Cthulhu
Dark. It's got 24 days to go, already
has 940 backers and close to and close to $70,000.
So it's already pushing. That's 50,000 lbs.
So with over 30 weeks to go, this looks fantastic.
There's a great trailer click on that really cool stuff here.
Just want to go through the beginning of it a little bit.
The cover also reminds me by much Cthulhu dark.
It's very much just like the logo with some really cool vibe
stuff and like the background going over the logo a bit.
And I I really like the the setup here.
It also says there is no character creation.
You just start playing straight away making characters as you
go. And in the campaign, it says the
Cosmic Dark campaign takes you from your home planet to the
edge of the Galaxy where an astronomical object called the
Glitch dominates the sky like a golden wound in space.
Across 6 scenarios, you'll discover the secrets of Extrexa,
the amoral corporation you work for.
You'll journey to the heart of the Glitch where time, space,
and reality become warped and wrong.
So it looks fantastic. If you liked anything we talked
about Cthulhu Dark, you should definitely back Cosmic Dark.
And if you want Cthulhu Dark, back this so you can add Cthulhu
Dark as an add on. I think it's only like 30 bucks
or something like that. Totally worth it.
So that is going to be us. We've, I think we decided what
we're going to do next week. We're not going to tell you just
in case we don't do it, then we're not liars.
Thank you everyone that watched. Yeah, go back that stuff.
We'll make sure the link to the Kickstarter are below and we'll
see you all next week. Bye.