Horror's Heart

This book got absolutely ripped by a net reviewer
http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/book...s/1568820682/1

"In order to advance the plot, investigators MUST pursue clues as they are presented in the book, IN THE ORDER they are presented, otherwise they end up at a location with no real idea what to look for; characters that are set to be presented at certain locations cannot be presented if investigators failed to locate a clue or character, or go to a place beforehand.

Example: My players pursued information given in handouts. On Day Four, because they shamefully have Free Will, they ended up in locations, coming into contact with characters that were not presented in the book until Day Six. Needless to say, this presented some problems. It takes a quick-witted Keeper to rewrite entire sections of a prewritten scenario on the spot. In many instances, the investigators had to backtrack and revisit previous locations because they had no idea what they were supposed to REALLY look for the first time around.

Here's a question: Do your investigators really have time to read through an entire Mythos tome during the course of the adventure? They'd better, or else a very needed piece of information will be missed that will ultimately spell their doom. If they're anything like my investigators, they take the book with and read it at a more leisurely time--like when gigantic tentancled monsters AREN'T chasing them."

I'm sure not everyone has the same experience with it (one of the things I liked about a published module that I picked up recently was the inclusion of Keeper's notes on what previous playing groups had done, and how the module had resolved for them). But I'm really leery of picking up anything that is so heavily dependent on ordering of events. My experience is that players will do unexpected things, and a module has to be flexible enough that not doing things in the scripted order doesn't equal automatic failure.

So, I guess it comes down to matter of whether the anonymous net reviewer quoted above is being more hard on the module, or whether you're being more forgiving of its weaknesses... :) Do you have any comment on the subject of them having to read a Mythos tome in the middle of an adventure to get a vital clue?

Del Rio

Any Keeper who runs a campaign as written and doesn't work around the flaws is missing the point of the job!

Marcus probably liked the campaign more than that reviewer because he didn't run it, I did, and I papered over the cracks.

Most criticisms are valid, but easily fixed by smart Gamemastering. The strengths of the campaign are the stuff I don't really have the time to create - setting, plot, atmosphere, character.

There is a proviso to this reply - I was just a player in this adventure and not the Keeper, therefore my opinions are slanted to the players point of view. I did read the adventure afterwards, but this still isn't the same as running it.

In my experience the timing of the adventure works fairly well, we lost the 'item' the cult was after, prior to the final scene and we never seemed too far ahead of the plot as we investigated the mystery, then again our Keeper might just have been able to think quickly on his feet. As for meeting NPCs or visiting locations 'out of sequence', again we didn't find this a problem. In fact we probably had the opposite happen with the whole 'NPCs coming to the aid of the party just the right moment' problem I wrote about coming about as a result. Of course if I was the Keeper and this sort of thing occurred, I would give my players some sort of red herring to lead them away from the location/NPC until they were 'required' back by the plot.

As a general comment and this may sound like a bit of a cop out, it seems that this reviewer isn't that keen on the whole 'plotted' type of adventure (or maybe that's just my impression), so could they have done a bit more prepping/changes prior to play? Again I say this without the reviewer ever stating what style of game they prefer or saying what the circumstances were surrounding the session(s).

As for the matter of 'being hard' on the adventure, I'd say that our reviews (this anonymous reviewer's and my own) are probably the polar extremes for the scenario. Personally I think he/she is being too harsh on the adventure, it is a typical CoC game set in a 'different' sort of city and this is reason enough, in my book anyway, to give it a go. Sure it needs work, but I think all 'brought' adventures need work to fit the styles of the players and any setting within a current campaign.

As a follow up you might like to read the Horror's Heart review on RPG.net. It gives another perspective on the adventure (again with the reviewer's thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses) - http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_3020.html

Cheers,

Marcus D. Bone
Editor - The Unbound Book (www.unboundbook.org)

I'm still curious as to whether the piece of information contained in the Mythos tome was necessary to the completion of the adventure. Was that one of the cracks that you papered over? :)

Del Rio

Spoilers - Can't answer the question without them

Okay I have consulted the book... it looks as if two 'tomes', as such, are mentioned in the adventure.

The first is a 'hymn' book, which is of little more than a trigger for the adventure. The characters probably lose this early on but near the end of the game find another copy. Of course, being in an ancient language and not actually including any vital information to the plot (apart for the normal - There are things in the World which are Evil) this book may never be read by the party.

The second tome is a copy of the Book of Ebon and this is found near the tail end of the adventure (although the section in which it is mentioned does say that 'Once the Characters return ...' which I guess means it could occur at any time). The text around this discovery does state that the characters can skim this book to get the information they require ( which is an item that takes on special importance at the end of the adventure).

Now in my opinion, the whole 'skimming' the book idea is a bit inane, but then again who in the world would have time to read the whole of the book of Ebon in any campaign barring MoN. Personally I think if I was running the scenario I would say the characters find a manuscript copied from this tome rather than the book itself, this would give the benefits/San loss and wouldn't take more than a couple of hours to read.

Hope that helps.

Marcus D. Bone
Editor - The Unbound Book (www.unboundbook.org)

Thanks for checking that. Seems to me that a lot of modules (not just CoC) are designed too linearly - I sometimes think that the designers must have very cooperative player groups, to proceed through these things in the order that they're supposed to. :) My groups are never like that. But that's ok, I'm used to just mining modules for game ideas and then running the scenario "my way".
Del Rio

I agree with you ... I guess the problem arises from the fact that it is impossible to write for all eventualities.

As you will read in my Beyond the Mountains of Madness review (which I hope will go up some time) each adventure/scenario has it's good and bad points and really it's up to the taste of the individual Keeper really.

I live in Montreal, and was one of two keepers for this scenario when we ran it. We didn't complete it, but for anybody that's wondering - the description of the city is dead on accurate and an excellent rendition of what my home town looked like in the '20s.

Okay, I ran this adventure about 2000 or so, so it's been a while. I had a core group of experienced CofC investigators (players and their characters) who were well suited to tackle this mini-campaign. To begin, I highlighted and had to annotate the hell out of the adventure to keep track of all the details. I also had to fix the several and often important plot holes--most in advance and some on the spot. Frankly, I forgot a few small but key bits of info. on the timeline so I had to embarrassingly say something like "I know what I said, but here is how it happened..." [grrr, that's my bad]

Anyhow, the advnture IS pretty linear and scripted at time but with a lot of advance planning I was able to allow the investigators some leeway and it flowed well. I thought the Loup Garou angle was a bit of a cliche on the whole and while it added to the investiagation, in the end it was not worht the trouble given how much else is going on and again, was pretty much a cliche.

Unfortunately, we had to rush the ending for time constraint reasons and it ended somehow anti-climatic, but successful. On the whole, I'd say this is a solid mini-campaign, not without its flaws and holes, and I think Chaosium would do well to have more of these "tweener" games.

So so adventure - requires heavy preparation. I recommend making a 'clue/action' tree (for the GM) prior to running.

I love the conclusion of the adventure also deserves mention, with a scene matching anything seen in 'The Masks of Nyarlathotep'. As it builds it delivers just the right amount of scripted action and Investigator choice that really sets Call of Cthulhu apart from all other Roleplaying games. It's a must for Horror lovers.

My biggest complaint however is the 'expectations' of the story. But enough of the nay-saying. Horror's Heart is, in general, a good campaign and conjures up some truly eerie moments. All in all Horror's Heart is a fairly action packed mini campaign, with enough combat and investigation to keep all types of player happy. From the first moments of the story the Investigators are being manipulated and if they don't tread carefully they can soon find themselves neck deep in danger.

Horror's Heart is a fairly action packed mini campaign, with enough combat and investigation to keep all types of player happy.

Be Warned! There are suggestive spoilers at the end of this review!

I have run this mini-campaign 2 separate times for different groups of players, both times with resounding success and popularity from my players.

The reviews of the module as presented here and on amazon.com are quite fair: as written the module is linear, has seemingly unrelated investigations and does not account for skillful players making unforeseen actions. At the same time it sculpts together beautiful horror and decision-making situations that distinguishes Call of Cthulhu from most other role-playing games.

The fact that the module uses weak plot devices is easily fixed with a thoughtful Keeper and a little improvisation. The campaign, as most, should be customized to your players and the characters they design and if it is used as a stand-alone adventure guidance should be given to the players so that they do not create completely ineffectual characters (unless, of course, that is the type of character they desire to play). Patching some of the holes in the module and rearranging/rewriting clues also serves to give the illusion that the game is non-linear, ultimately making it more satisfying to play.

For myself, I combated the linear progression in a simple way: real-world time-limits. After about 15-30 minutes of pre-game I announce the game has begun and click my stop-watch. At that point, things progress as follows.

- Strictly enforced 3 hour game session.
- 1 Time Out allowed per game at which point the clock stops. Resumes at end of Time-Out.
- Total of 6 game sessions, with a bonus 7th session for the climax.
- Depending on the group I will sometimes expand the sessions to 4 hours instead. Each session represents 24 hours of In-Character game time.

- The players focus on working as a team to get things done and teamwork is emphasized.
- Suspense increases. Success is more elating and failure more heartrending.
- Splitting up investigators takes more time. Groups tend to stick together even when it is not appropriate or in-character to do so.
- The Keeper can attempt to split-up the party as an obstacle to build suspense.

There are other pros and cons to this style, but for this module it has worked extremely well in my two runs.

I add another feature in this game as well. At character creation I have my players choose an animal that best represents their character. When investigations for the Loup-Garou family occur there is a chance of running into a trap of sorts. During this trap, should the characters succeed at enduring it and surviving they in turn become a Loup-Garou and suffer the same malady as this family. My players rarely expect this and enjoy it immensely as they now find themselves right in the middle of a set of multiple problems.

Ultimately this game provides the Keeper with an opportunity to choose what investigations are most important to them. When giving them a time-limit it is unlikely they can achieve everything and are placed into the undesirable position of choosing one of multiple undesirable actions. While others complain that this mini-campaign has too many unrelated investigations I find that it results chiefly in two much sought after situations: 1.) The players/characters get to choose which investigations they are most interested in, 2.) The players/characters are frequently placed into moral dilemmas with no easy answer and no escape.