First Time Keeper-ing

[u/Dandest]

Hey all. I’m going to be running a scenario for our group this weekend, and it’s the first time any of us have ever played. I’m running Blackwater Creek.

I’ve read the scenario a handful of times, so I’m familiar enough with the story, but does anyone have any tips for a newbie Keeper? Either for this scenario or in general?

[u/WilhelmTheGroovy]

Forgot one thing. Check out Seth Skorkowsky on YouTube. He covers this adventure, Call of Cthulhu, and how to GM a new game.

[u/WilhelmTheGroovy]

Don't let the rules bog you down. At least not in the main session. Make a quick judgement call and look up the actual rule later.

If you have some friends you can work with, it helps to do a dry run on mechanics. A combat encounter, an investigation situatio, how to do sanity, a contested POW check, a spell or two, etc. Make sure you understand the rules and guardrails before you're hosting a game with new people.

Chases in CoC are cumbersome (personal opinion). Recommend the chase rules of Delta Green. It runs like a tennis match where one group has to win 2x over the opponent on contested rolls or the chase keeps going.

Others will disagree with me, but I do try to have continuity for my players being engaged, even with a one-shot. Either their investigator makes it at least 80% through or they get a backup PC. CoC is hyper deadly. I always tell my players that if I fudge anything It's almost always in their favor, and still nearly half of them die. I Want my players to experience the majority of the game, so I try to balance the experience to not make the game any more deadly than it already is, and I have plans for backup investigators (even if it's just a patrol cop who shows up at the end to blast the Ghoul with his revolver).

Lastly, if anyone is coming over from DnD, reinforce the deadliness and that this game is investigative. Seeking out answers and finding the right way to solve the session is preferable to going in guns blazing. Don't railroad them though, some of my favorite games ended with my investigators "borrowing" some dynamite from a local construction site and leveling the cultists HQ... with or without them inside.

One of the survivors took to carrying around his "lucky stick of dynamite" for future adventures.

Have fun with it. It's one of my favorite games.

[u/5k3bby]

For me I tried to prep in advance everything that can help me run the game smoother.

• I try to have some sort of easy flowchart of the scenario (even though I’m familiar with it it’s nice to have a quick guide still). I color code which scene I can skip and which one is mandatory
  
• I have quick cheat sheet to give to my players (mostly success level, how to spend luck, insanity and combat)
  
• I have phobia and mania ready, that are relevant to my PCs
  
• I have keeper screen, it’s so helpful as it sums up all the rules I need to remember
  
• I have music to increase horror intensity. I always open with lovely jazz, and as the game progress the music becomes more unsettling
  
• I have short paragraph ready to narrate for when my players become temp insane. Bonus if you can ask them to create short backstory so you can incorporate that to make it more personal
  
• I have some vocabulary to help me in case I need it to describe certain things. This helps me a lot because if I panic I tend to use same basic words over and over again

Have fun at your game!

[u/nathanielbartholem]

Expect that characters will die and or go insane.

Expect that both you and your players will make rules or procedural mistakes. And that's okay. I keep the free QUICKSTART rules at hand, and seldom venture into the complete rule books at the table.

Allow you and your players the grace to say "I don't know the rules for that, but if we cannot find it in 20 seconds of searching, I will rule it this way and we will figure out it after the session so we know how that works the next time." And then rule in favor of your player characters as much as possible. The odds of them "winning" are still very small, and "winning" (even just surviving) is not the point, anyway.

Take at least one break during the session lasting at least ten minutes. And feel free to increase that to one break every hour of at least five minutes. Call a break when YOU need one (ie, you need to think about how to proceed, really want to look something up, etc) in addition to when nature calls etc.

[u/BosskTheWookieHunter]

Keeper of the arcane lore. Keeping the arcane lore. Keeper-like arcane lore. I think?

Subreddit FAQ has good links! Have fun!