Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
System: Arkham Horror RPG
Tools: Mythic 2E GME, Call of Cthulhu Solo Investigator’s Handbook
- Player thoughts and meta commentary are in Arial.
- The action occurring in the game world is in Times.
- Rules and tools are in Courier.
Character Creation
After my first foray into solo roleplaying with D&D 5e, I wanted to stretch my wings and try something different. Over the years I’ve collected a ton of TTRPGs, probably more than I’ll ever get the chance to play and definitely more than I’ll ever be able to convince a group of friends to learn. That was part of my interest in trying out solo roleplaying; it’s a way to test out these different systems and learn their rules without scheduling a game night.
So for my second outing, I’m playing a newer TTRPG that I’ve never played before: Arkham Horror RPG. It’s based on Fantasy Flight Games’ Arkham Horror Living Card Game and Board Game, which are in turn based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos. I’m a huge fan of the LCG so I’m excited to see how the RPG feels compared with that more structured game.
Local or Visitor: 3 “Local”
Income: 1 “Poor”
Personality Trait: 6 “Outgoing”
Archetype: 1 “Adventurer”
I’m starting out with a randomized character again. I roll up the background of a Poor Local, with the personality trait “Outgoing,” which gives me a small boon in some social interactions.
Outgoing
Positive: When your character performs a complex action to interact with someone, they may spend 1 insight to perform that action using Presence (no matter what skill would normally be called for).
Negative: When triggered, until the end of the current scene, all of your character’s allies perform complex actions to interact with others with disadvantage.
For an Archetype – AH’s version of “Class” – I roll a one and get the first alphabetically on the list, Adventurer.
Unlike D&D, where broad attributes govern more specific skills, AH simply has a list of ten skills: Agility, Athletics, Wits, Presence, Intuition, Knowledge, Resolve, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat and Lore. And unlike the d20 “roll-over” system, where you roll one d20 and try to beat a target number, AH has a Dice Pool system (the “Dynamic Pool System”), where you roll a handful of D6s and try to achieve a certain number of successes in that pool. A success depends on your skill level in a given skill, from 6+ (you need to roll a 6 or better to succeed) to 2+ (where any roll of a 2 or greater is a success).
At character creation everything starts at 6+, and I get to choose three skills to bump up to 5+, and a single skill to improve to 4+. It’s time to put these background details together and figure out what kind of character – or “investigator” - I’ll be playing.
After playing a criminal in my last game, I’d like to be on the right side of the law in this one. I’m thinking this adventurer is maybe some kind of game hunter, a homesteader on the outskirts of Arkham. She sells venison and rabbit to the grocery, deals with local wolves and coyotes, and lives a lifestyle that today we might call “off the grid.”
Age: 51
So, a middle-aged woman of the land with some good stories and survival skills. I’ll bump her Agility, Athletics and Ranged Combat up to 5+, and her Wits to 4+ to lean into that “Outgoing” personality trait I rolled.
There are a few more things I get to pick out to round out character creation. First, I choose a “Tier 1 Knack” – basically a special skill – from the archetype list. I’ll choose “Scrappy,” because I think it fits with this woman out in the woods on her own.
Scrappy: Once per turn, when your character performs a reaction to avoid a melee attack, they may reroll the result.
Next, I get to pick out $50 worth of gear. As much as I love tossing a stick of dynamite in Arkham Horror LCG, I think rather than min-maxing her equipment I’m going to stick with what she’d have for her profession: a hunting rifle, a hatchet, and a pocket knife.
Third, I set her “Insight” limit to 1. Insight in AH is a metacurrency like “Inspiration” in D&D, which you can spend to reroll a result or get out of a bind.
Finally, I get to choose one of three options: an additional $100 worth of gear, 5 experience points (which are spent on improving skills or buying additional knacks), or an increased insight limit of 2. I’m going to go with the increased insight, since I’m not planning on running a long campaign and I might need all the luck I can get.
And that’s it! I’ve got my investigator for this play: Dorothy Taylor, 51-year-old hunter, trapper, and tall-tale-teller.
Plot Hook and First Scene: The Mysterious Dr. Singa
I’m mostly going to be using Mythic 2e as my oracle/guide for this game, like I did for D&D, but for a starting point I’m going to roll in the Call of Cthulhu Solo Investigator’s Handbook for a suitable plot hook.
Rumors Table: 75 “A coworker tells you, ‘You know that guy who died a few years back? I could have sworn I saw him in the street today!’”
Characters Involved Occupations Table: 71 “Parapsychologist”
Oh boy. Somebody who studied the supernatural, mysteriously recruiting from the dead? Now we're cooking.
Dorothy walks into Schoeffner’s General Store in Arkham, a pair of rabbits over her shoulder, and making her way to the deli counter. The butcher pays her for the rabbits, and as she turns to go, he calls after her:
“Dorothy! You remember that quack who died a few years ago?”
Dorothy racks her brain. She tends not to get involved in the petty rumors of what's happening in the “city,” but the doctor made enough of an impression that even she heard about him.
Mythic Name Table: 55 “Misdeed” + 34 “Gah”
“Dr. Singa, was it?” she tries. “What was it he said about magic?”
“‘Magic has been cloven from the practice of medicine,’” he quotes, “‘and we will not defeat disease until they are reunited.’”
“If I remember right,” says Dorothy, “the only thing he ‘clove’ was people’s cash from their wallets.”
The butcher laughs. “There’s one born every minute,” he says, and shrugs. “But it must have been more than snake oil and flash paper he was working with, because his house didn’t burn down on its own.”
“Why’s he on your mind?”
“Well, I was walking down Water Street on my way in this morning, and I’d have sworn I saw him walking over the bridge. It wasn’t just his face; he was also wearing that damn tweed he had on all the time, and puffing on that same chipped pipe.”
Dorothy raises an eyebrow. “Do you think he faked it?”
“That’d be some faking,” he says, “considering the police identified the body.” He buries his cleaver in a hock, punctuating the conversation. “Anyway, it’s just the damnedest thing. I’d have chased him down if I wasn’t running late… and if I wasn’t worried about people thinking I’d gone crazy. But if it is him, somehow, I think there are plenty of ‘former patients’ of his who’d like to know. They might even make it worth someone’s while, if they could prove it.”
Alright, I think that’s enough to suss out the first scene. Dorothy is going to try and find out if Dr. Singa is really back, and what exactly happened at his house a few years back if he is. I think she has a few options for where to go next: she can wander around Water Street and see if he pops up again; she can go to the police or newspaper and find out more about his “death”; she can go to his old office and see if there are any clues there; or she can go to where his house burned down and look for leads.
This is where I get a little nervous about running a mystery/investigation game solo with oracles; how do I solve a mystery that’s being generated as I go along? But I’ll stick with my gut and follow the rolls and hopefully that part of my brain that loves puzzles and stories will be able to stitch it together into something that makes sense.
First I’ll populate the Mythic Adventure Lists with some elements.
Threads: Find Singa; Learn what Singa was doing
Characters: Singa; Police; Newspaper; Singa’s Office; Singa’s House
Now, I’ll actually start this scene. I think Dorothy trusts her own intuition and skills more than anything she can find in police reports or newspaper articles, so she’s going to head straight to the remains of Singa’s house.
Dorothy strolls down Peabody Ave from Rivertown to French Hill, where grand old Victorian houses rise hand-in-hand with the elevation. The manors still drip wealth and grandeur, even if some of them could use a little more upkeep. And then, there’s the spot where Dr. Singa’s house stood – a gap like a pulled tooth staring out of the stately line of houses on the street.
Most of the soot was washed away with the snow melt after two New England winters, and the ravaged skeleton of the upper floors is totally gone. But the remaining half-walls of the first floor still look out at the street, like the seedling of a house that could grow into two or three stories if just given time and attention. In fact, actual seedling and weeds crawl up the facade, where the small strip of ground between the street and the house had gone untended for years.
Might as well try to get inside and see what’s left in this ruin after two years. I think breaking through the door would be an Athletics check. I’m going to spend 2 dice from my pool of 6.
Complex Action (2 dice): Athletics
4️⃣6️⃣ vs 5+ = 1 success
Current Dice Pool: 4
Dorothy braces herself on the steps and drives her shoulder into the door. The fire-weakened wood splinters and cracks, littering the doorway with kindling. She steps into the ruined house and begins to look around.
Mythic Scavenging Results Table: 22 “Damaged” + 57 “Misfortune”
It seems as though anything that wasn’t destroyed by the fire has been destroyed by exposure to the elements - or maybe other visitors. The furniture is mouldering, in some spots even mossy. The floor is slick and black, and Dorothy can’t guess whether that’s due to the fire, decay, or something else. In one corner is a pile of charred sticks and tin cans, where a vagrant must have had a meal here before moving on. But even those cans are rusty; nobody has been here in a long time.
As she steps into the room, the floor groans and creaks like a grumpy hound roused from his slumber. Then, she steps on a particularly weak spot, and the boards give way underneath her.
Here’s a fun element of AH’s Dynamic Pool System: reactions! Your dice pool represents your health and your actions, and if you have dice in your pool and need to react to something, you can spend them on that too (the pool refreshes at the start of a round in combat and the start of a new scene in narrative scenes like this). You can only use 1 dice to react, so I’m going to try and avoid getting hurt in this fall with my Agility of 5+.
Reaction (1 dice): Agility
Reaction: 3️⃣ vs 5+ = 0 successes
Current Dice Pool: 3
With a yelp, Dorothy disappears into the darkness underneath the floor. She lands hard on the floor, just barely keeping her head from the ground by slamming her palms into the cold, damp dirt.
I think it’s only fair that I take damage here, so Dorothy takes 1 damage, reducing her Dice Pool to 5. If I have any dice left at the end of this narrative scene I can use them to try and heal; otherwise the damage will take a solid night’s sleep.
Dice Pool Limit: 6 -> 5
Like a spotlight, the light from the cracked floor illuminates Dorothy’s prone figure. She steadies her breath and rolls onto her back, then sits up and peers into the darkness. Her eyes slowly adjust. She’s in some sort of cellar, with a ceiling that’s only about 6 feet high.
Mythic Objects Table: 60 “Mechanical” + 29 “Equipment”
In one corner of the room, her eyes focus on a strange mechanical device. It’s unlike anything she’s ever seen before; the shape of a small bed – or more accurately a coffin -–covered in diodes, switches, buttons and meters. Fascinated, she walks over to it for a closer look.
Mythic Sounds Table: 42 “Growl” + 59 “Multiple”
As she reaches for the closest panel of diodes, she hears something behind her: a growl. Then another. Without any sudden moves, she looks over her shoulder.
I thought that sounds table would give me some sort of sound the machine makes when she turns it on, but this is a better twist: there’s something in this basement with Dorothy. Multiple somethings. But are they some Lovecraftian horror, or is it just some wild animal? Maybe this machine is just some weird new kind of steam radiator.
Mythic Fate Question: Are the growls coming from something supernatural?
Odds: 50/50
Current Chaos Factor: 5
Result: 73 over 50 = No
Glistening pairs of eyes wink in the darkness as two wild dogs pad towards Dorothy, drool dripping from their jaws. On the bright side, that means there must be some way in and out of this place other than the hole she created in the floor. On the down side, they look very, very hungry.
Alright, combat! Love trying a new system, even if I’ll probably get some things wrong. My understanding of combat is that the investigators (so just Dorothy) and ally NPCs take a turn, and then the enemy creatures and NPCs take a turn. Dice pools refresh at the start of the turn, so at the start of combat my pool goes back up to my current limit of 5. The “Wild Dog” in AH rulebook only have a pool of 2, so that’s what they’ll start with.
There are two types of actions in combat, simple and complex. Simple actions cost one dice apiece, don’t need to be rolled, and cover a huge range of actions that would be “free actions” in a lot of other games - moving, taking out a weapon, opening a door, going prone, and so on. Complex actions would be more like your classic attack rolls, and investigators can choose to spend any number of dice from their pool on them. So you can really bump up your chances of success by spending more dice, but they more you spend, the fewer complex actions you can take on your turn, and the fewer dice you have left over for reactions during the enemies’ turn. Fun!
Okay, so Dorothy is starting with 5 dice in her pool, and she’s across the basement from Fido and Rex. Even though I gave her a rifle at character creation, if I’m keeping it one hundred, I don’t think she’d have carried it with her to deliver food into town. Ditto the hatchet. But that does leave her a pocketknife, which is better than nothing.
Investigators Round 1
Dorothy current dice pool: 5
At the speed of cold molasses, Dorothy reaches into the pocket of her field coat and takes out her pocketknife.
Simple action (1 dice): Take out weapon
Current dice pool: 4
Her eyes scan the room again, now fully adjusted to the dim light, looking for the bulkhead or stairs that will let her out of here.
Mythic Fate Question: Are the dogs between Dorothy and the exit?
Odds: 50/50
Current Chaos Factor: 5
Result: 37 under 50 = Yes
She spots the exit: old wooden steps, leading to the first floor of the house. Just on the other side of the dogs.
Not wanting to let the dogs corner her, Dorothy lunges forward. If she was hoping to scare them, however, she’s out of luck; the sight of lively prey only seems to increase their appetites.
Simple action (1 dice): Move 10 feet
Current dice pool: 3
She stabs out with the little pocketknife. It’s better suited for cutting the twine on packages and whittling spoons, but she doesn’t mean to kill the dogs; just get past them.
I’m just going to spend one dice on this action, since I want the other two left in the chamber to react to the dogs’ attacks. Dorothy’s Melee Combat skill is only 6+ so the odds aren’t good.
Complex action (1 dice): Melee Combat (Pocketknife)
3️⃣ vs 6+ = 0 successes
Current dice pool: 2
Fido rears back from the jab and snarls.
Alright, time to step into the game master’s shoes.
Enemies Round 1
Fido current dice pool: 2
Rex current dice pool: 2
The wild dogs in the rulebook may only have a dice pool of 2, but they have a couple of cool abilities that give them a little more bite than bark. Namely I think that “Multiple” on the sounds table is going to screw me over, because they have the “Pack Tactics” knack:
Pack Tactics: When this NPC attacks an opponent that is engaged with one or more of this NPC’s allies, they add 1 die to their hand of dice before rolling.
“Engaged” means “within 5 feet,” so because Dorothy moved up between the dogs, they both get to use Pack Tactics when attacking her.
Fido barks and snaps at Dorothy’s leg with frothing jaws.
Complex action (2 dice + 1 dice): Melee Combat (Bite)
5️⃣4️⃣5️⃣ vs 4+ = 3 Successes
Current dice pool: 0
Big yikes.
Okay, so the three successes mean that the Bite succeeds, but Dorothy gets to spend a dice to react. If she fails this block, she’s going to take damage – and she might get an injury, too.
Reaction (1 dice): Melee Combat (Block)
6️⃣ vs 6+ = Success
Current dice pool: 1
Phew!
Dorothy yanks her leg back, leaving Fido snapping at the air.
From her other side, Rex leaps at her arm with gaping jaws!
Complex action (2 dice + 1 dice): Melee Combat (Bite)
6️⃣2️⃣2️⃣ vs 4+ = 1 Success
Current dice pool: 0
That’s one success – no chance of an injury – but still a beefy slice of damage. So, I’m going to use Dorothy’s last dice to try and block again.
Reaction (1 dice): Melee Combat (Block)
6️⃣ vs 6+ = Success
Current dice pool: 0
Hot hands on Dorothy!
Dorothy brings her arm down as Rex jumps up, surprising him and knocking him aside with a yelp.
Investigators Round 2
Dorothy current dice pool: 5
Now, the question is: fight, or run? If I could take out one of these dogs, that would strike out the pack tactics and make the other one much less of a threat. But Dorothy’s Melee Combat of 6+ frankly stinks, and the odds of getting a success – especially if I want to hold onto some dice for reactions – are not good.
So instead, I think I’m going to use the Disengage action to try and get around them and to the stairs. How many dice to spend? Movement is 10 ft per dice, and I want to have enough left to get up the stairs - let’s call that 20 feet away. Closing the door behind me is also a simple action… so that gives me two dice to disengage.
Complex action (2 dice + 1 dice): Agility (Disengage)
3️⃣5️⃣ vs 5+ = 1 Success
Current dice pool: 3
Yes!
Simple action (1 dice): Move 10 feet
Simple action (1 dice): Move 10 feet
Current dice pool: 1
Pushing Rex aside, Dorothy dashes through the opening and up the stairs, offering up a silent prayer that they’re in better shape than the floorboards. At the top of the stairs…
Wait a second… is there a door here? A lot of the first floor was still standing, but it was still totally ravaged, and the inside could have been even more gutted that he outside.
Mythic Fate Question: Is the door gone?
Odds: Likely
Current Chaos Factor: 5
Result: 44 under 65 = Yes + Random Event
Now this is interesting. First of all, there’s no door here to slam in the face of the dogs. Second – and this is cool, because this didn’t happen a single time in my D&D solo play – if the result of a Fate Question is double digits, and that digit is under the current Chaos Factor, it triggers a random event.
Mythic Random Event Focus Table: 03 “Remote Event”
Mythic Event Meaning Table / Actions: 06 “Arrive” + 33 “Fear”
Okay, so to interpret these: I think somebody else saw Dr. Singa, and they were so frightened they went to the police. Which is why when Dorothy comes upstairs she’s met by an officer of the Arkham Police.
Simple action (1 dice): Move 10 feet
Current dice pool: 0
Mythic Character Appearance Table: 43 “Innocent” + 76 “Rustic”
Mythic Character Descriptors Table: 66 “Intrusive” + 33 “Commanding”
At the top of the stairs she almost bowls over a wide-eyed police officer, who is in the midst of stepping quite gingerly around the hole she made in the floor. He’s half Dorothy’s age, if that, and has an electric torch in one hand and his gun in the other. He looks like he’s fresh out of the academy, fresh off the farm, or both.
“Stop right there!” he shouts.
“Help!” Dorothy shouts at the same time.
The dogs bound up the stairs, snarling, and the officer quickly aims his gun skyward and fires. The gunshot echoes through the streets of French Hill and the dogs barks turn into yelps as they immediately change direction. They leap out of the collapsing rear of the building, where they disappear into the neighboring alleys to look for an easier meal.
The officer’s gun dips back down, but not all the way; it stops when its aimed in Dorothy’s direction.
“Stop right there,” he repeats.
“I’m stopped,” says Dorothy, raising her hands. She loosens her vice grip on the pocketknife she forgot she was holding, and it clatters to the ground.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Dorothy Taylor,” she says. She steps towards him with a smile to shake his hand. “Are you new in Arkham? I work with Schoeffner’s and Hibb’s, everybody knows—”
“Not everybody,” he cuts her off. “Not me. Stay where you are, and keep those up, ma’am.”
Ma’am? She thinks. The sack on this kid.
“Do you have any more weapons?”
“I wouldn’t call that apple-nicker a weapon—”
“Answer. The. Question.”
She sets her mouth into a thin pink line, bites her tongue, and says, simply, “No.”
“Okay,” he says, and lowers the gun a bit. “Don’t move, though.”
“Sure, officer,” says Dorothy. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He tucks the gun back in his holster and continues his ginger steps across the floor, as if he’s just remembered that the building is collapsing. He aims his torch down the hole in the floor. “What are you doing here, Dorothy Taylor?”
“Just looking,” she says. “Like I said, I work with the folks at Schoeffner’s and Hibb’s, bringing them things they need. I thought this place might not have been fully prodded over, see?”
“You’re aware this is private property?” he asks.
“I was under the impression it was abandoned,” she says. “Dr. Singa isn’t around to press charges, is he?”
He focuses on her again, narrowing his eyes. “What do you know about it?” he asks.
Okay, I want to get another roll in here: I want Dorothy to put this officer at ease and convince him they’re on the same side. That would be a “Presence” roll. I’m a little unclear in the rules about whether this is still a structured scene, or it has turned into a narrative scene. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. If it’s structured, it’s my turn again, and I get my dice back; if a new narrative scene started, I got my dice back at the start of that, too.
Current Dice Pool: 5
My Presence skill is a lowly +6, so I’m going to go all in and spend all 5 of my dice. I’m hoping for at least one 6; otherwise I think I’m getting hauled down to the station.
Complex action (5 dice): Presence
3️⃣2️⃣1️⃣4️⃣1️⃣ vs 6+ = 0 Successes
Current dice pool: 0
“Nothing,” says Dorothy. “Just that he died a few years ago.”
“Under mysterious circumstances,” says the officer.
“Um,” says Dorothy.
“I think we’d better continue this conversation at the station,” he says.
And that’s a scene!
Alright, time to update my lists. I think for threads I can add another instance of “Learn what Singa was doing.” And maybe another one because of that biffed Presence roll: “Clear Dorothy’s Name.” For characters, I’ll add additional instances of Police and Singa’s House, as well as the “Mysterious Device.”
Threads: Find Singa; Learn what Singa was doing; Learn what Singa was doing; Clear Dorothy’s name
Characters: Singa; Police; Newspaper; Singa’s Office; Singa’s House; Police; Singa’s House; Mysterious Device
And for the Chaos Factor, I think it’s pretty clear what direction things went there. Other than breaking down the door, I don’t think a single thing went Dorothy’s way, and now the police think she’s involved. Things are spiraling out of control.
Current chaos factor: 5 -> 6
Continue Dorothy's Story: Part 2
Comments
Post a Comment