Narrative Discussion
The five upstart mob gangsters were called to the office of their leader known as "The Hammer." He told them in no uncertain terms that they all owed him a favor for him covering for their various misdeeds in the past and he was calling in that favor at this time. Basically a man named Sticky Jack had run some serious crimes right under The Hammer's nose and had not checked those crimes with him before they happened. Three robberies were committed in one night and he wanted the five characters to figure out what happened, who paid for it, and recover the items if possible.
The mobsters set out for Miskatonic University and promptly split up to investigate the crimes; one group looking for a robbed professor, one group looking for theft from the campus museum, and one checking the library to see what was stolen. The group who was looking for the professor gave that up quickly upon discovering they had no name and no information about who he or she was and so they decided to go to a speakeasy that they knew Sticky Jack frequented for information. While there, the group was reading newspapers and found articles detailing everything the thief stole as well as the professor's name and a general area where he lived. A single mobster checked the library on campus and pretended to be a psychologist hired to check on the staff and make sure no one was too upset about the matter. One librarian chatted her up and spoke at length about the robbery of a Greek scroll and how the thief entered in through a window. The staff member then told the mobster that it was strange that the thief ignored all the extremely rare books in the same area and went straight for the scroll. Concurrently, the group checking the museum found the case of the stolen artifact: a Native American dagger used for communing with the spirit realm. After finding out that the thief came directly for that artifact, the grou
p received a history lesson from one of the tour guides and left the museum and met up with the mobster who had checked the library. They collectively decided to check the speakeasy and ran into the two members there who were leaving to try the professor's house.
A series of unfortunate events happened at the professors house where one of the mobsters tried to use a shotgun to blow the lock on the front door while two others failed climbing the gutter and stripped it from the building. Luckily, the fifth criminal was able to convince a passerby that the noises they heard were from construction workers hired to install new equipment to protect the professor's home. Inside, the group discovered a partial translation of the Greek scroll detailing a strange ritual and the group decided to leave promptly to talk to a contact at the speakeasy. The contact, "Spider," told them how Sticky Jack had been bragging about the heist he was going to pull but he hadn't heard from him in weeks and referred them to Jack's friend "Greasy" Spoon, known for swindling students on campus.
Logistical Discussion
So, for my group of newbie RPG players, I decided to run Missed Dues, the adventure from the Keeper Screen Pack for them. This was their first foray into any roleplaying games and I think it went great overall honestly. The module is great for teaching investigators that Call of Cthulhu is basically a big game of Scooby Doo wherein sometimes it makes more sense to go to the police but it's all about solving mysteries together. The fact that the investigators are criminals in this case basically bakes that in.
It was also wonderful because all of them took notes together and were discussing plans of action and formulating plans for what may happen next. The only thing that didn't go well is that we are playing this on a Friday night after everyone is exhausted. Luckily, in the future, we will run this session earlier on Saturday afternoons.
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