The Mystery Manual

Trying to write OSR-style adventures in the Cthulhu setting. This means - open-ended gameplay, high degree of player freedom, amoral profit-motivated PCS, lateral-thinking problems that test player skill.

Mystery games tend to become railroads. There aren’t really “multiple ways” to solve a mystery. The PCs will find themselves channelled towards a particular solution. But I do want gameplay to involve a lot of talking to people, unravelling conspiracies and finding out more about the world.

How do we resolve this?

The Mystery Manual. A set of mysteries that “map out” a given part of the world. Situations rather than plots, but still requiring investigation to figure out. Ideally multiple factions, none of whom are “the good guys”. PCs can investigate these freely and in any order.

The obvious precedent is Masks Of Nyarlathotep. But simpler. More focus on characters and environments rather than pre-planned set-pieces. None of this business of PCs just standing around watching cults do their thing.

wots in ere then

Here is where I will put a master list of all the mysteries I’ve done so far. The plan is for these to come in sets of eight, each structured around a particular host city, which the PCs can return to between adventures.

Some organisation in the host city to essentially “give quests” but in a way that makes sense in the fiction. The list of mysteries for each city is not definitive. You can and should put a bunch of other adventures in the gaps between them. Plenty of CoC scenarios out there!

Game Rules + More Rules + Investigation + Setting Overview (draft)

Treasures + Spells (for becoming a wizard with)

NEW ORLEANS

Host Organisation - Belasco’s Rare Books + Sample PCs

• New Orleans - The Feast Of Fools

• Galveston - The Brass Oracle

LONDON

Host Organisation - The Phantasmological Society + Sample PCs

• London - Labyrinths Of London

• Lydney - Devils In The Green

• Blackpool - The Great What-Is-It

• Cambridge - The Star Of Goliath

• Polperro - The Eddystone Brides

• Birmingham - Into The Locust Pit

• Hebrides - The Painted Pirates

• Paris - The Emperor Of Crime

Will update these as I go. Currently thinking that after New Orleans I’ll do Calcutta.

Recurring information design question of how to write these in a way that scans easily and lets you get the whole structure of the story in one go. Not sure Call of Cthulhu ever totally cracked this one.