Miskatonic Monday #308: The Game is Rigged

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Game is Rigged

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Ryan Graham Theobalds

Setting: Gulf of Mexico

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-seven page, 2.63 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The Thing, but on an oil rig

Plot Hook: Some diversions are just not worth the danger

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, four maps, eleven NPCs, one Mythos tome, and six Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Good

Pros

# Tightly plotted scenario

# Dramatic set-up

# Nice build up of tension

# Cinematic style

# Myxophobia

# Oleophobia

# Hoplophobia

Cons

# More maps of the oil rig would have been useful

# Tightly plotted
# Not every NPC has stats
# Could have been a shoggoth

Conclusion

# Tensely plotted, paranoid disaster versus Mythos film

# The Thing, but on another platform