Miskatonic University Podcast

This is a recording of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu panel held at GenCon 2016 on August 12.         We want to hear from you! By email: feedback@mu-podcast.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/2/communities/116018663909122117898 By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Become a Patron! (please): mu-podcast.com/patron  ]]>

This is a recording of the ‘What’s happening at Chaosium’ panel held at GenCon 2016 on August 11.         We want to hear from you! By email: feedback@mu-podcast.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/2/communities/116018663909122117898 By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Become a Patron! (please): mu-podcast.com/patron  ]]>

In this week’s episode, the whole gang is on tap to cover the last of the characteristics. LUCK be a lady? Don’t mind if I EDU! Is there and APP for that? This episode was recorded on July 25th, 2016. We want to hear from you! By email: feedback@mu-podcast.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/2/communities/116018663909122117898 By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Become a Patron! (please): mu-podcast.com/patron Campus Crier Necronomicon 2017 has been announced! Dates: August 17-20. Legendary TV has been working on an anthology series based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, including “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Dunwich Horror”, and others. Stranger Things – the Netflix series everyone is talking about, is a thing! Keepers Jon and Murph approve. Keeper Jon says: “Stephen Spielberg meets H. P. Lovecraft (though many say “meets Stephen King”) Best Lovecraftian story on television… ever.” Mansions of Madness – 2nd Edition – is out from Fantasy Flight Games. Now the game is run by an app, there is no “Keeper” player, and it is a fully co-op game. Blah… Where’s the fun without a Keeper? Viewscream 2nd ed. From Rafael Chandler has been delivered. Jon’s Lost Expedition has been released to backers in PDF format! Puppetland – the proto-indie game by John Scott Tynes of that combines Mr. Rogers with House of 1000 Corpses – is now publicly available in PDF form. Hardcover is printing. Lovecraft Film Festival is slated to get underway in Providence this Aug. 19 to 21. Check out these musings from the desk of the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council regarding the HPL statue in Providence… More information >> Card Catalog From Graham: Pulp Magazines Project, described as an open database of Pulp Magazines devoted to those that carried only fictional works. Feedback: Bill from Niagara Falls, Ontario calls to talk about splitting parties (send NPCs to do the boring bits). Canageek of the Suppressed Transmissions G+ group (which, again, we love) asks about gaming in the 1960s and Renaissance eras, among other things. Golden Goblin Spotlight The Heroes of Red Hook Kickstarter has concluded! Eight stretch goals were unlocked. Congratulations to all involved! Topics The owls are not what they APPear. Without further EDU…. Are you feeling LUCKy, punk? Discuss on the Campus Forum]]>

In this episode, the whole crew is back to discuss why you should DEX the halls, why POW corrupts and why SIZ matters. We can’t wait to stop making puns about characteristics. This episode was recorded on July 11th, 2016. Campus Crier The Campus Crier is brought to you by our sponsor: Golden Goblin Press! The Section 46 Field Manual from Cubicle 7 is now available to backers of the Cold War Cthulhu Kickstarter. It’ll be available for general sale “in a few weeks.” This is basically a player’s manual for the espionage plus Mythos setting, which takes place in the madcap 1970s during a lot of upheaval in the global intelligence community. Section 46 is the fictional department within the British SIS used as cover for fighting the Mythos. Officially, it is a department for coordinating intelligence with other allied governments. Czech out the Section 46 post on YSDC Or just go to the Cold War Cthulhu Kickstarter page You put politics in my Mythos! Check out Chaosium’s Cthulhu for President RPG. We are so curious. Part 4 of A Time To Harvest comes out this week (7/15) Cassilda’s Song was named as finalist for the World Fantasy Awards Golden Goblin Spotlight: We are happy to share that the Heroes of Red Hook KS has reached its funding goal with a couple weeks to spare. Oscar posted an update that details what the stretch goals will entail, and the order they’ll be found in. Listener Feedback We have a voicemail left by what sounds like it could be “Vitterman?” “Ritterven?” “Slenderman?” “Hey, this is *Blah Blah* calling from a classroom way out west. Just wanted to say the Oscar interview was awesome and your guys’s recommendation when the Kickstarter went live is the reason I jumped in and I’m glad I did after listening to the interview so – Go Pods!” And another voicemail from Keeper George, with a question on how we would handle a situation in a published scenario. A scenario says to split the party. One will be more active than the other. Advice? Topics SIZ Advice from Keeper Jon: Don’t run, you’ll only die winded. In 7E it matters more than ever: affects Hit Points and Damage Bonus, plus Build and Movement Rate. POW Watch out for eyes appearing on your hands. DEX It’s the One Stat to Rule Them All. ]]>

For Episode 104, we have guest Oscar Rios!  We take this opportunity to discuss his new Kickstarter project, Heroes of Red Hook, and some things that are yet to be announced. This episode was recorded on June 27th, 2016. Campus Crier The Campus Crier is brought to you by our sponsor: Golden Goblin Press! Did Google Earth Accidentally Photograph The Kraken Or Even Cthulhu? Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom coming to Blu-ray Lynne Hardy to write new Call of Cthulhu campaign ‘Children of Fear’ Miss your copy of The Derelict? Chaosium didn’t participate in Free RPG day to create a collectable or scarce scenario only available to a small subset of our fans (we did it to show our support for bricks & mortar game stores all over the world!). But we appreciate that some people went to a FLGS on the day, only to find all the copies of Sandy Petersen’s ‘The Derelict’ had been snapped up. And many of you simply aren’t in an area with a participating local game store. So, if you really want a copy of Sandy and Mike’s ‘The Derelict’, this is what we can do: Everyone here in the Cult of Chaos got a free PDF download of ‘The Derelict’ on July 1st. If you also want the physical version, it is now available via Lulu.com at cost price – $2.99 + postage. Weird Detective – This is a five issue limited series. It is published by Dark Horse Comics; it’s written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Guiu Vilanova. I have the first issue, and it is freaking amazing. It is very well steeped in the Cthulhu Mythos! I want to talk more about it, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Trust me when I say that it doesn’t just lightly brush up against the Cthulhu Mythos… no, this series fully embraces it in a most fantastic way. It is Call of Cthulhu the role-playing game meets Law & Order. Chthonian Highways –  This role-playing game is currently free to download from Drive-Thru RPG. I just downloaded this, and I’ve begun reading it. This is also freaking awesome! This game is Mad Max: The Road Warrior meets Call of Cthulhu! The players are all part of a road warrior gang with a small fleet of souped-up and armored-up cars as you brave the wastelands between pockets of civilizations in a post-apocalyptic world. The mechanics seem easy to learn and fun to play. I am already planning on starting a game of Chthonian Highways with some of my co-worker gamers. The company, Ironspine, is calling this an alpha playtest, so go download this free game… learn it… run it… and give ’em some feedback. I anticipate them getting a lot of positive responses. MUP News- As the weekly thing kinda blew up on the launch pad, I think that bi-weekly is the best way to continue on with 105 forward.   Topics  The Heroes of Red Hook Kickstarter. In the talk about the origins of the Heroes of Red Hook, Oscar mentions the GGP party at NecronomiCon 2015. This was also mentioned in episode 88. We mention the Tales of the Caribbean project from GGP. Oscar briefly goes over a couple of upcoming projects, the next Call of Cthulhu campaign, and the next fiction anthology.   Discuss on the Campus Forums.]]>

This week, Keepers Dan, Jon and Chad INTerrogate and INTerpret our INTuitions about a certain INTeresting characteristic. Plus, like a wrecking ball through a tenement wall, we’re also continuing our look at lesser used skills and what they can bring to the game. This episode was recorded on June 13th, 2016. Campus Crier The Campus Crier is brought to you by our sponsor: Golden Goblin Press! Check out this trailer for Cyanide’s official Call of Cthulhu video game! Anouncing the successful end to the Kickstarter for Age of Cthulhu 9: The Lost Expedition – Funded at more than $15,000, which means lots of stretch goals were met. (Incidentally, Jon mentions a doppelganger plot in one of his scenarios that makes us ponder the timey-wimey mysteries of Jimmy Fallon and Nicholas Cage.) Feedback Jason King in Milwaukee sends an uplifting note about MU’s role in bringing him back to the gaming table. Messages like this give us feels. Topics  Character Creation: Intelligence This week, we’re covering the Intelligence characteristic – what it means, its various roles in the game and what happens when you fail an INT check.  Forgotten Skills: Operate Heavy Machinery Moving ahead with our series on lesser-used skills in Call of Cthulhu, we talk about the infamous Operate Heavy Machinery skill. Is it too broad? Does it come up in the game? And a call to listeners: do you have any horrific industrial accident stories to share? Let’s add to the folklore of pain and dismemberment, shall we? Along the way, we mention this 1982 article from Sandy Peterson that mentions the Operate Heavy Machinery skill and how it shows a bias toward academic-minded players in Call of Cthulhu. (The rest of the article is a great read, too.)   Discuss on the Campus Forums.]]>

Episode 102 has Keepers Chad and Murf (AKA Frick and Frack) continuing our conversation about the Statistic Rolls in Call of Cthulhu Player Character generation. This time they hit on Constitution, and then they go into the not-very-often used Swim skill. This episode was recorded on June 6th, 2016. Campus Crier The Campus Crier is brought to you by our sponsor: Golden Goblin Press! Fred Lubnow has released the next Kickstarter of his Journal of Lovecraftian Science vol. 2 Call of Cthulhu won Best RPG at the 2016 UK Games Expo!     Topics  Character Creation: Constitution This week, we’re covering the Constitution characteristic – what it means, its various roles in the game and what happens when you fail a CON check.  Forgotten Skills: Swim Moving ahead with our series on lesser-used skills in Call of Cthulhu, we talk about Swim. During the chat, there was an unexpected third chair, in that Max called up Chad on Skype, and so they brought him into the show. Discuss on the Campus Forum          ]]>

Friend of the show and MUP Sponsor, Oscar Rios and Golden Goblin Press have released the companies first Kickstarter for a fiction anthology. Previously, the fiction books released were as support products to game books that the company has released. This time though, it’s all about the stories. And this is looking like quite the collection. Containing an expected 17-18 stories this is expected to be roughly twice the size of the prior two anthologies they put out, Tales of Cthulhu Invictus and Dread Shadows in Paradise. Both of which are also available as add-on items in this campaign. Like the other GGP anthologies, this is edited by Brian Sammons, no stranger to Mythos fans or listeners to this podcast. Anyone who knows Oscar knows that this is a passion project for him. He, like many fans of Lovecraft, deal with the conflicting drives of the amazing story content, and the man’s deplorable and misguided racist views. That’s why this book is here, to represent characters doing their part against the Mythos who are not the average white male protagonist. This is “a collection of jazz era cosmic horror short stories featuring immigrant, minority, female, LGBT, and other outsider protagonists.”, and it’s long overdue.        ]]>

This week, Keepers Dan, Murf and Chad test their Might on the Bend Bars/Lift Gates chart to see if they have to muscle to pull off this episode. We also begin our look at lesser used skills and what they can bring to the game, starting with Accounting. We also have a fun time when Dan shares his one complaint about 7e and apparently blows Chad and Murf’s minds. This episode was recorded on May 30th, 2016. Campus Crier The Campus Crier is brought to you by our sponsor: Golden Goblin Press! Convicts Have Broken Loose at Cthulhu Reborn! Convicts & Cthulhu, the Australia as a penal colony source book has just been released for download via RPGNow. This is a huge 96 page volume that gives Keepers all they need to bring their players to a setting not addressed in Call of Cthulhu before! Bundle of Holding had a Pulp Adventure bundle. Apologies for the delay in the episode, resulting in this bundle already being finished. Cover artist for the upcoming Golden Goblin title, Heroes of Red Hook, Ian MacLean, mentioned that the image we had of the cover was a little off on the color spectrum. He sent in a more accurate version of what he created for the book.             Topics  Character Creation: Strength This week, we’re covering the Strength characteristic – what it means, its various roles in the game and what happens when you fail a STR check.  Forgotten Skills: Accounting Moving ahead with our series on lesser-used skills in Call of Cthulhu, we talk about how to apply Accounting In the conversation, Chad brings up the long running radio show, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. A program about the adventures of “the man with the action-packed expense account, America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar” Discuss on the Campus Forum]]>