Miskatonic Monday #321: Wicker Hollow

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: Wicker Hollow

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matthew Hepler

Setting: New Hampshire, Modern Day

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 1.69 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: It’s like The Wicker Man, but in New Hampshire and with students, not Edward Woodward

Plot Hook: Hiking horror fails to overcome a horror of weeks before

Plot Support: Staging advice, nine handouts, three maps, and two NPCs.

Production Values: Scruffy

Pros

# Dramatic set-up

# Fast playing one-shot

# Non-Mythos folklore horror

# Easy to add the Cthulhu Mythos

# Easy to transfer to other Call of Cthulhu times and settings

# Pyrophobia

# Thanatophobia

# Samhainophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit
# Layout is awkward to read and needs to be toned down

# No pre-generated Investigators

# Underwritten NPCs

# Obvious in its inspiration

Conclusion

# One-session one-shot survival horror

# All too obvious in its inspiration

Miskatonic Monday #320: God’s Tears

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.

—oOo—

Name: God’s Tears: A Modern Scenario Against an Imported Horror

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Keith Craig

Setting: Omaha, 2023

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 1.07 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Life is too short to drink bad wine.”

Plot Hook: A bad, but well intentioned gift has eye-opening consequences

Plot Support: Staging advice, two handouts, one map, four NPCs, one big cat, one Mythos tome, two Mythos spells, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# The Entwine Bone spell

# Dramatic set-up

# Fast playing one-shot

# Easy to transfer to other Call of Cthulhu times and settings

# Easy to transfer to other wine-growing regions

# Ommetaphobia

# Animotophobia

# Oenophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

Conclusion

# Straightforward, easy to run scenario

# Would make a decent scenario for The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome

Miskatonic Monday #296: Waves to Vistas Unknown

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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: Flash Cthulhu – Waves to Vistas Unknown

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: British Columbia, 2024

Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Eight page, 1.81 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Cocaine Bear as written by H.P. Lovecraft

Plot Hook: Group therapy and chance to reconnect

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, one handout, one NPC, and two Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Short slide beyond the veil

# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond

# Weird and woozy encounter with the bear from beyond

# Easy to adjust to other eras and locations

# Hylophobia

# Trypophobia

# Arkoudaphobia

Cons

# Too short

# Needs a slight edit

Conclusion

# Short, punchy, slightly tongue-in-cheek genre mashup

# Easily expanded, especially to bring out the roleplaying tensions between the characters

Magazine Madness 18: Senet Issue 4

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 4 was published in the Spring of 2021 and as is usual, opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. Perhaps the most notable of these are Tales From The Loop: The Board Game and The Thing. Both are based on well-known properties, the former the roleplaying game, Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was, in which Player Characters are teenagers living an alternate Sweden and the latter, the 1981 film directed by John Carpenter. Both of these games have an emotional heft to them. Tales From The Loop: The Board Game in that the players are teenagers with difficult family lives as well having to deal with the mysteries of the Loop and The Thing with the uncertainty that one of your fellow base members might be a mutating alien infection! Other games previewed include Dreamscape, a solo exploration of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands and HEL: The Last Saga, a dark fantasy co-operative board game in which the players create their own Viking saga. These are not quite full reviews, but they are given as much prominence as the reviews are later in the issue, and in each they entice the reader to investigate further.

‘Points’ provides a selection of readers’ letters, two of the letters making some interesting points about using board games as part of the teaching process, whilst in ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. In the previous issue, he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling, but here he he looks at how he uses the mechanics to bring the setting to life and have events going on in the background that can affect the lives of the Player Characters. There are some interesting ideas here that draw parallels with roleplaying worlds and much that will be familiar to Game Masters running their own campaigns. These connections continue to make the series a fascinating path and it will be interesting to follow in in future columns.

As with previous issues of Senet, the fourth issue of the magazine dedicates its centre section to a quartet of lengthy, immensely enjoyable articles. These begin with Owen Duffy’s ‘How The West Was Fun’ examines how the Western and the Wild West figures in board games. Perhaps the most well-known board game in the genre is the Spiel des Jahres-winning Colt Express, but as entertaining as banditry and shootouts is in games like BANG! and Flick ’em Up!, the genre offers more than just that. For example, Western Legends offers multiple means of achieving victory, including herding cattle and mining for gold as well as the banditry and the hunting for the perpetrators of such banditry. Along with recommendations for the best Western-themed board games, the article interviews several designers, most of them surprisingly European rather than American. This highlights how the Euro games that employ this theme are often inspired not so much by Hollywood as the bandes dessinées, such as those of the character, Lucky Luke.

Martin Wallace, best known as the designer of Age of Steam, Brass, and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, is the subject of the interview by Sara Elsam in ‘Lord of Creation’. The discussion focuses on his exploration of both history and technology—many of his designs involving trains and early industry, if not both—in games, before branching out to look at the fantasy games he has designed and the difficulties involved in making that switch. Written just before the release of Rocketmen and Wildlands: The Ancients, the interview is not quite as interesting as those in previous issues, but still worth reading. The artist interviewed by Dan Jolin in the issue is Dominik Mayer, whose work has been seen in cards for Magic: The Gathering, the cyberpunk game In Too Deep, and ISS Vanguard. His artwork is rich and deep and as with previous artists interviewed in Senet, it is given a fine showcase here.

Previous issues of Senet have explored various mechanics key to board game design and play, such as deck-building in ‘Decks in Effect’ from Senet Issue 2 and ‘Roll-and-Write’ from Senet Issue 3. The mechanic examined in this issue by Matt Thrower is tile placement in ‘On the Tiles’. Tracing a line back to medieval China with Dominoes, the mechanic is much older than those, and in modern terms is still predates those other mechanisms. Having appeared in Acquire and 1829—the later the first railway construction and stocks game which would spawn a large family of its own—before featuring at the heart of classics such as Settlers of Catan, Tikal (Tikal is in fact, this reviewer’s first modern Eurogame), and most famously of all, Carcassonne. In the case of the latter, and for most tile-laying games, there is usually a pleasing sense of organisation and having built something using the mechanic at the end of the play. In addition, there is also often a semi-co-operative aspect to play, the players building something together even if they are still competing for the points in doing so. It is a solid overview of the mechanic, but being an older one does feel as if the limits of what it can have already been reached and that sense comes across in the article.

As ever, the ‘Unboxing’ section of Senet Issue 4 covers only a relative handful of games, but there there is a range to them and they are all interesting titles. Leading the way are reviews of the big titles, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion and Pandemic Legacy 0, providing roleplaying and dungeoneering and legacy-style espionage respectively, whilst Dune Imperium offer strategic play and intrigue and Mysterium Park, confrontation-free deduction. None of the reviews are necessarily long, but they are to the point and they cover a decent range of titles in smart fashion. Three of games reviewed also appear in the self-explanatory ‘The Best of 2020’, so their reviews are a pleasing accompaniment and like any good list, this one is worth checking out because it does contain some classics even two years on.

Rounding out Senet Issue 4 is ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. In ‘How to Play’, Andy Bush of the podcast, Bush’s Board Game Thing, discusses ‘The tricky art of explaining rules’ and how to get around the problem of someone having to explain how a game is played for the first time. It is a challenging problem still today, in general not for the dedicated board game enthusiastic, but certainly for the more casual player, but there is good advice given here that is still useful. In ‘Shelf of Shame’, Ella Ampongan of Ella Loves Boardgames, in which takes her copy of Bärenpark off the shelf and plays it for the first time. Her verdict that it is better than Carcassonne, which is high praise indeed.

Physically, Senet Issue 4 is very professionally presented. Previous issues of the magazine have all looked sharp and attractive, and this issue is no exception, ensuring that the games it covers live up to the magazine's motto of “Board games are beautiful”.

Senet Issue 4 maintains the high standards set by the previous issues, another fine looking magazine with a good mix of reviews, interviews, and articles. In places the articles do feel shorter, with less depth to them, and so not quite as involving. Nevertheless, the quality of the magazine and its writing is excellent, maintaining its place as vehicle to show off and explore some of the best ideas, contributors, and games in the hobby.

Magazine Madness 15: Senet Issue 3

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 3 was published in the Winter of 2020 and opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles, such as Moonshine Empire, a game about moving bootleg alcohol around; Lawyer Up, a card game about courtroom drama; Gladius, a card game about spectators betting on gladiators in Ancient Rome; the Cyberpunk espionage board game, Into Too Deep; and quite a few more. Given as much prominence as a full review, what is interesting about these is previews is that each give ‘What they might be’, so Lawyer Up could be the next Watergate and Frostpunk: The Board Game could be the next This War of Mine. Many, if not all, of these titles have since been released and been subject to their own reviews and analysis, so these previews can be read with the benefit of hindsight to see whether their predictions were right. However, they are pleasingly detailed and enjoyable some two years on.

‘Points’ provides a selection of readers’ letters, including a poem dedicated to the city of Caracassonne in south-west France and the board game based on it. whilst in ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. Here he examines how the game has become a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling and how this enhances the play experience of some players. This is not often highlighted in board game design bar the obvious titles with clear roleplaying origins or influences, such as the critical juggernaut, Gloomhaven. This series continues to be a fascinating path and it will be interesting to follow in in future columns.

As with previous issues of Senet, the third issue of the magazine dedicates its centre section to a quartet of lengthy articles. In Senet Issue Two, the article ‘Decks in Effect’ examined the very short history of the deckbuilding mechanic, but the mechanic examined by Alexandra Sonechkina in Senet Issue 3 has a much longer history. The eponymous ‘Roll-and-Write’ article explores the history and development of the roll-and-write mechanic from Yahtzee in the 1950s to Rome & Roll in 2020, in particular at the seeming proliferation of titles since the nomination of Qwixx for the Spiel des Jahres in 2013. The article also tracks the history of the mechanic as implemented in various games via a timeline, but the article never comes to a particular conclusion beyond that the mechanic is yet to mature and very much remains under development. Thus this is more of an introduction to the mechanic waiting to see where it might go.

Owen Duffy’s ‘Game of Life’ has a more serious tone and subject matter. Prompted by the playthrough of Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr that drove his wife to tears—though in a good way rather than a bad way—Duffy’s article looks at games inspired by real life rather than fantasy of Science Fiction or trading of goods in the past, and games that are about more than just winning or losing. In part, this does go back to the earlier ‘For Love of the Game’, since in games such as Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr and Fog of Love where stories are told and lives roleplayed, but it also examines older games which were designed to teach morality or explore aspects of society. Thus, The Noble Game of the Swan, The Chequered Game of Life, and the more recent Tokaido are examples of the former, and Suffragetto, about raising awareness of votes for women, an example of the latter. Of these, The Chequered Game of Life is interesting in that its modern incarnation is Game of Life, a game now about getting on in capitalist, consumerist USA, more about making a good life than living a good life. (Game of Life is also one of the games I loved as a twelve-year-old would be games player.) This is a fascinating introduction to a different type of board game and showcases what the form can do to emotions and how they can make you feel.

The artist and designer interviewed in Senet issue 3 are Kyle Ferrin and Eric M. Lang respectively. Kyle Ferrin’s anthropomorphic, bold cartoon style best known from Root: A Game of Woodland Might And Right—and consequently, the roleplaying game from Magpie Games, Root: The Roleplaying Game—is given an excellent showcase here in ‘Animal Magic’, including a full centre spread. Attention is also paid to his work on Vast: The Mysterious Tower and its family of skeletal warriors and interesting hero. His artwork is delightfully cute and this is an enjoyable interview by editor Dan Jolin. He also interviews Eric M. Lang, the designer of Cthulhu: Death May Die, Blood Rage, and Rising Sun, in ‘Myth Maker’. The interview begins by describing him as a ‘rock star’ designer due to the impact of his games and their use of big, heavy metal themes, many of them being adaptations. Accompanied by some fantastic artwork from Lang’s than forthcoming Ankh, the interview explores his origins as a games player and then designer, how he compares collaborating with other designers to working with fellow musicians, before coming up-to-date with his approach to designing a game based on the works of an author as difficult as Lovecraft and how the Black Lives Matter movement affects the board game industry. This is a solid piece, continuing the strand of good interviews in the magazine.

The ‘Unboxing’ section of Senet Issue 3 includes solid reviews of titles such as Santa Monica, High Rise, Abandon All Artichokes, Herd Mentality, Isle of Cats, and more. It is invariably difficult to really keep up with the constant of board games being released, and of course, Senet Issue 3 does not even attempt to do so, instead reviewing a wide range of titles and types of board game. For example, Herd Mentality is a party game, whereas Undaunted: North Africa is a card driven war game and Oceans a rich Eurogame. In each case, the reviews are not too long, but they give just about the right amount of space for each title. Elsewhere, Matt Thrower, author of the Haynes Tabletop Gaming Manual, explores his love of playing games solo—even games not designed to do so, such as Pandemic and Target Arnhem—in ‘How I learned to stop worrying and love playing solo’. There are some titles mentioned here whose appeal reaches out into the wider gaming hobby, including Space Hulk and Wrath of Ashardalon, highlighting the crossover potential. Coming up to date, the author notes that there are more and more board games which include options for solo play, so there are pointers here for the board game player and roleplayer both to explore solo play through such titles. Lastly, Fiona and Amy Dickinson of The Game Shelf reveal just one of the games on their ‘Shelf of Shame’.

Physically, Senet Issue 3 is very nicely presented, all pristine and beautifully laid out. Whether drawing on board game graphics and images, or the magazine’s own illustrations, the issue’s graphics are very sharply handled, living up to the issue’s motto of  “Board games are beautiful” as much as its subject matter does. 

Senet Issue 3 maintains the high standards set by the previous issues, another fine looking magazine with a good mix of reviews, interviews, and articles. However, its articles are not all  quite as interesting as in previous issues, with ‘Roll-and-Write’ feeling shorter, if less conclusive. This does not stop the issue from being engaging and informative and still treating board games as a form that can engage and have something to say.