Forums ■ Blogs » Toceur(euse)s

   Scénario(s)

Occam's Razor is a collection of modern scenarios by horror author and Call of Cthulhu stalwart Brian M. Sammons for Chaosium Inc's 7th edition Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. It has a dark tone, like most Stygian Fox titles, more akin to True Detective and American Horror Story and is written for Mature Gamers Only. The scenarios look into the dark heart of humanity and the mythos... but this book has a twist.One of the problems long term Keepers can face when running Call of Cthulhu is their players becoming too jaded or blasé regarding the Cthulhu mythos. "Oh, Deep Ones? Yeah, we've killed these before. Open fire."Rather than; "Oh my God! They're real! Run!"It's difficult to maintain that suspension of belief when you have been facing the same creatures year after year. This is where Occam's Razor comes in, being a collection of scenarios where initially they seem to be linked to the mythos but they have mundane causes and outcomes.I have run these type of scenarios for twenty years and every time they sucker players in and help them see how paranoid their characters have become and, more importantly, when it comes time to face the actual mythos again, many players believe the adventure will have a mundane cause. When interspersed with mythos adventures this leads to some serious panic when the players realise that this is real. Used sparingly, these adventures lull players into a false sense of security and make the next real mythos encounter all the more vivid.One of my players had his character just stand and watch as a colleague was eaten by a dark shadow in a toy store because the player refused to believe it was a mythos entity. This was a ten year veteran of the game.Of course, a separate sidebar is provided for each adventure if you wish to have actual mythos elements in your game.