My Life As A Gamer: Setting Up "Call Of Cthulhu" As A Proper Campaign Is EASY

"I bet you couldn't set up Call of Cthulhu like you do Advanced Dungeons & Dragons."

The Set-Up

This is trivial to set up.

There are two phases to the set-up. Taking a look at the various Mythos-themed boardgames out there reveals that there are conflicts among the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know out there. The Referee selects as many such powers or factions as he feels comfortable allowing and he hands these out to a cohort of players. For these players the primary duty is running that Thing as a faction with it as the Patron.

This is the obvious wargame side of the campaign, where the factions (each of which have their own Win and Loss Conditions) plot against each other first and decide what to do about those pesky kids (the investigators) second. Each of these players should also be prepared to be called upon to run a session when requested, as directed by the Referee.

This level of the campaign plays more like a Play-By-(E)Mail campaign because a lot of the moves are strategic in nature. (For you Real Time Strategy players, this is the "macro" level of play.) It's the level that hews most closely to Kriegspiel and Braunstein due to the gameplay loop being almost identical in operation and function to how the wargames of old operated.

Their interactions are going to make things happen, which will attract undue attention, and that's where the second level of play arises.

Investigators are the individual characters that look into the reports of Strange Happenings and similar things. To make things easier on the Referee, the Things responsible for this playable scenario get to participate in its playing in a fashion determined by the Referee. This can be participation at the table, or it can be briefing the Referee on specifics of how his faction operates in this incident.

Investigators arrive. Clues pursued. Encounters happen. Sanity Checks made. Things eat some Investigators, and some escape more-or-less intact; maybe they even win (as they will also have Win and Loss Conditions). As the big picture unfolds, the stakes rise and more obvious Unrealities manifest that makes dealing with them by Investigators harder until it is too much and either someone wins or everyone loses.

And in Call of Cthulhu, that can mean the cosmic powers in the campaign too. Cthulhu and Dagon are god-like to Mulder and Scully, but Azathoth is godlike compared to them- and such events are unwanted even by them.

(Aside: Wouldn't that be a trip? The Great Old Ones are trying to wake up in time to stop something even worse from doing so and putting an end to them.)

The Loop

Each week, the Referee gets Orders from the Faction players. He plots them on the campaign map (to track space) and the calendar (to track time); full 1:1 Timekeeping is in effect. Where moves result in contention, the Referee decides if the outcome is uncertain or not; if so, the result is noted and reported to the relevant players. If not, this is up for decision as the playable scenario for the week.

Players playing Investigators decide (if there is more than one) which scenario to pursue; this can result in multiple groups AND THAT IS FINE. One of the Faction players who is not involved in a given scenario may be tapped to run that session in lieu of the Referee should that happen.

The sessions go down, the results reported, and this then filters up to the Results report from the Referee to the Faction players. Sessions Reports may be posted for public reading or (if turned into a video) seen or heard by the public at-large.

The campaign continues until someone wins or everyone loses- just like any other wargame campaign. Individual Investigators come and (often) go (mad), but they remain a persistent thorn in the side of the Things contending until the campaign is over, and maybe they actually force a major shift in the Things' campaign operations. Hey, someone did take out Cthulhu with a boat once; it could happen.

The Horrible Truth

"This is nonsense."

No, this is already tactily admitted, or Cthulhutech wouldn't exist. I'm just stripping away the pleasant disguise and make it too obvious to ignore. Your SAN loss is not my problem.