Modern Mythos with Jon and Seth Modern Mythos ep.20 - Patron Games & Pacing
Jon finally fulfilled his promise to run The Code for Seth!!! And we pulled in three patrons to play with Seth, Andy, Chris, and Nelson. It was a fantastic playthrough. The game was recorded, and it's exclusively available for patrons of the Modern Mythos podcast to enjoy. If you're interested in checking it out, it's a five-hour playthrough completely available in a single audio file, just join the Modern Mythos Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/modern_mythos. Jon is already planning more patron-exclusive games. If you're interested in playing, please consider joining the Patreon campaign.
Jon and Seth also discussed pacing in an investigative game. Here are some of the points that were covered:
- The hard part is getting your players to understand the methods of Investigative adventures, versus just kicking down the door and charging in, (a more common method of investigation in a fantasy realm).
- Players probably understand how fragile their characters are. Strictly D&D players are the hardest to teach that lesson to, as D&D is pretty much superheroes who can heal instantly.
- Don't buy that crap that a mystery HAS to be slow. That's a goofy myth that a lot of Call of Cthulhu players buy into. Sure, a mystery isn't going to go with the action and excitement of combat (until there is combat) but it doesn't need to be some drudgery moving at glacial pace.
- Some people think roleplaying conversations and interviews needs to be played out. Cool in theory, but 95% of the time is boring as hell in practice. So while you will be doing a lot of social interactions, you can sort of speed through them to get to the good parts. A 15 minute interview with an NPC shouldn't take 15 minutes, if there's only 1 minute that gives the key information to push the story forward. Only play out or summarize the important portions.
- Think about Investigative shows like CSI or Castle. Those are pretty fast-paced. People try to make it like some BBC Agatha Christie re-telling of Miss Marple, taking their time to the point the audience falls asleep. Don't do that. Channel CSI or Magnum PI."
- Call for Idea rolls if the game gets slow and PC's don't know what to do.
- We suggest Hard and Extreme Library Use is multiple clues, instead of a roll for every clue. Finding clues shouldn't be difficult, because what they do with the clues is the exciting part.
- Raymond Chandler's rule: When the investigation slows to a crawl, "Enter a guy with a gun." It's guaranteed to get the excitement going again.
We can't do this show alone. We want to thank our amazing editors Max Mahaffa and Edwin Nagy for their hard work and keen skills at making us sound awesome!
We also want to thank John Sumrow, for our badass logo. He's a very talented artist, so please follow him on Facebook, check out his official website, and please consider joining his Patreon account. Links in the show notes.
https://www.facebook.com/johnsumrow
https://www.patreon.com/JohnSumrow
And finally, we want to thank The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets for generously allowing us to use their song, Gluttony, as our intro and outro music. If you are a fan of Lovecraft's writing and the Call of Cthulhu RPG, then you need to check out The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Please check out their BandCamp site and their official band site. Links in the show notes.